Forever and For Always

by Sophie Love

  “Oh yes, yes! That would be wonderful.”

  Boris put his empty wine glass on the sideboard and Emily tried not to wince about the fact he hadn’t used a coaster. She would have to get used to this, to people being in her home, treating it in ways she personally never would.

  She leaned down and picked up Boris’s heavy bag, then he followed her out of the room as she led the way. Serena had also collected a guest, a woman whom Gus had introduced as Carmel, and was struggling with what looked like an equally heavy suitcase. Emily and Serena exchanged a smile as they headed along the corridor, muscles straining, to the staircase.

  “Oh my,” Boris said as Emily led him into the second room on the third floor, the one that she and Daniel had watched the storm through. “What a delightful room.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. She loved the room too, and couldn’t quite believe that the small shell of a room had been transformed in just one day. It now had a dark wooden king-sized bed covered in the racing horse green bed set and matching throw. The furniture comprised of a wardrobe—one of Rico’s antique ones made of solid walnut—bedside tables with gorgeous matching lamps on them, and a dresser with a vanity mirror on it. The rest of the smaller third-floor rooms were decorated similarly.

  Boris went over to the large window and looked out at the pink clouds that spotted the streaky orange sky. “You never get tired of a Sunset Harbor sunset,” he said wistfully.

  He was right, and Emily couldn’t help but let his words repeat over and over in her mind. She could see the love he held for Sunset Harbor in his eyes as he gazed out the window adoringly and recognized that same emotion within herself. It was something she felt strongly and often, that Sunset Harbor wasn’t a place that one could grow tired of, that it had beauty and wisdom to impart on her, and lessons to teach her. More than anything in the world, Emily wanted her B&B to succeed so that she could stay here. She never wanted to become someone who wistfully longed for the Sunset Harbor sunset.

  After Boris was settled in, Emily went back downstairs to continue the process of checking in the guests. Serena was right about taking their time to check them all in. No one seemed in any kind of hurry to settle down for the evening, and they wandered freely from the porch to the living room. But it ended up being for the best, and Emily and Serena grew more and more fatigued from carrying the heavy bags upstairs. It took a whole hour to get them all checked in, but finally their bags were stored away in their bedrooms and each of them had a key in their pocket.

  Everyone was full of compliments, from the luxurious bedding to the beautiful antique furniture, and Emily was relieved that she’d managed to get the B&B up to standard, that no one had discovered the secret that the B&B was still in the process of being renovated that very morning, and that no one had thus far complained or demanded a refund.

  The party gathered in the living room once again to go through the agenda for the weekend and enjoy an evening soiree.

  Emily rejoined Serena, who was standing at the doorway looking in.

  “As soon as they’re in bed,” Emily said, “we should get some rest too. It’s going to be a really early start.”

  “I have a feeling they won’t be sleeping for quite some time,” Serena said.

  She nodded her head to where Boris was settling himself down by the piano.

  “Gus warned me they liked to sing,” Emily said.

  “Well, brace yourself,” Serena replied. “Because here we go.”

  Boris struck some chords on the piano and within a matter of seconds the whole room erupted into song, with all the guests joining in merrily, swaying from side to side and linking arms as they sang a jaunty song about St. Matthew’s.

  “Maybe I should have had a port after all,” Emily said to Serena.

  *

  The party was still in full swing at ten. By eleven, they weren’t even showing signs of slowing down. At around eleven thirty, some of the group began drifting upstairs and the living room started to empty out. But it was close to midnight by the time Serena and Emily were finally able to clock off.

  “Don’t worry about the mess,” Emily said when she saw Serena start collecting glasses. “Vanessa is coming tomorrow morning to tidy. She said she was going mad sitting at home all day with Katy and wanted to earn a few extra bucks.” Emily produced the living room key from her pocket and waved it in the air. “This is a little trick that Cynthia taught me.” She shepherded Serena out of the room and into the corridor and then turned and locked the door behind them. “See? Now there’s no chance the guests will accidentally wander into the messy living room. All they’ll see in the morning is the sparklingly clean dining room.”

  “Sneaky,” Serena replied.

  They began to climb the stairs for bed.

  “Will you be okay in the office?” Emily asked Serena again. “You could always take my bed and I could go to the carriage house.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Serena exclaimed. “You are not leaving me here with that lot!”

  Emily watched the younger woman climb the steps up to the newly renovated third floor, marveling again at how quickly it had come together. It was going to take her a while to get her head around the fact that the third floor was no longer filled with her father’s dusty belongings. After so many months, the seemingly insurmountable task of sorting through his things was nearing completion.

  Emily paused beside her own bedroom door. It was so strange to her now that the room had a little sign saying “Staff Only” on it, that the door was to remain locked with a key. The house felt less like a home to her now, and as much as she was enjoying the experience of hosting the B&B, she also missed the sense of belonging she had found after first restoring the house.

  Emily shut and locked her bedroom door, plunging herself into darkness. She took a deep breath, letting the franticness of the day seep away from her. This morning she had woken up with one hell of a renovation job on her hands while this evening she was going to bed with a B&B filled with guests.

  She dressed quietly for bed, looking out the window over the garden at the carriage house where Daniel was sleeping. She’d barely had a chance to speak to him today, other than directing him to toast more bagels and carry bits of furniture upstairs. And last night she had cut their date short because of her B&B news. Then she’d rejected him tonight, saying it felt inappropriate to have him stay over. She realized she would have to find a way to fit Daniel into her busy schedule somehow because if she didn’t, the emotional distance that already sometimes existed between them could easily turn into a gulf.

  Exhausted, Emily finally climbed into bed. But no sooner had she lain her head down on her pillow than she was shaken to full alertness again by a shrill sound coming from above her. It was the sound of screaming.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Emily leapt out of bed and pulled her dressing gown around her as she ran out onto the landing. The lights on the third floor were already on. She rushed up the stairs to find a small group of people gathered in the hallway.

  “What’s happening?” Emily asked, moving toward them.

  In the center of the group stood Sally, wearing nothing but a pink silky nightdress, with her hair in rollers. She looked at Emily as she nudged her way through the crowd.

  “Oh, it’s awful, just awful!” Sally cried.

  She grabbed Emily’s hand and led her into the small room. Emily immediately gagged; the room smelled disgusting.

  “What is that?” she cried, covering her hand with her mouth.

  “In there,” Sally said, pointing toward the en suite.

  Emily strode toward it and shoved the door open. The floor was soaking wet. She gasped as she realized one of the newly installed toilets had completely backed up and was flooding the room.

  “OH NO!” Emily cried.

  Her natural instinct was to panic, but she knew that wouldn’t do anyone any good. She had to be a manager, a hostess, and that meant composing herself. She set her face
and went back out into the bedroom. Sally was sitting on the bed, her hands folded in her lap.

  “I’ll call the plumber out right away,” she said. “In the meantime, I’d like you to use my room tonight.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Sally replied.

  “Please,” Emily said. “I insist. I can sleep in one of the spare rooms. I’ll be fine.”

  She led Sally out into the corridor.

  “It’s just a problem with the plumbing,” she assured the other guests. “Nothing to worry about.”

  They slowly went back to their own rooms.

  Emily took Sally down to the second floor and whisked her into the master bedroom.

  “Here, I’ll get Serena to make the bed fresh for you,” Emily said.

  She rushed back out to find Serena. Satisfied that her guest was taken care of, Emily went downstairs and searched for the number of Barry the plumber. It was well past midnight but he answered quickly.

  “I have an emergency,” Emily said. “A backed up toilet. Can you help?”

  “Of course,” Barry replied. “I installed them in the first place. I’m so sorry. I’ll fix it free of charge.”

  Emily hung up and took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe her luck. On any other night she would have been able to put Sally up in a different bedroom, but for the toilet to back up on the one night all the guest bedrooms were occupied was just fate playing games with her!

  Sitting in the dark living room, Emily shivered in her thin nightgown and tried to work out where she would sleep tonight. There was always the couch, but this room had been left in complete disarray. So much for locking the door and letting Vanessa deal with the mess tomorrow. Then there was the option of calling on Daniel, but Emily didn’t want to turn up at his house in the middle of the night like some damsel in distress. Plus it wouldn’t be fair to Serena. What if some other disaster befell the place during the night?

  Emily heard the sound of tires on gravel and rushed to the front door to see Barry parking up his van. He got out and hurried toward her.

  “I’m so sorry, Emily, I don’t know what could have happened,” he stammered as she showed him inside.

  “That doesn’t matter now,” Emily said. “Please just say you can get it fixed.”

  “Of course,” Barry said. “Of course.”

  She showed him into the bedroom on the third floor, where Serena was desperately trying to soak up the water with old linen. In just the half hour it had taken for her to get Barry around the flood had gotten worse, and the stench was unbearable.

  “Oh dear,” Barry said, shaking his head. “I see what the problem is.”

  He pulled open his toolbox, took out a wrench, and got to work. Emily flinched at every noise he made, knowing full well it would be disturbing the guests.

  Serena came over and rubbed her arm. “Are you freaking out?”

  Emily nodded. “What if they all demand a refund?”

  “They won’t,” Serena assured her. “It’s just a toilet. The way that woman was screaming made it sound like she’d been visited by a ghost or something!”

  Despite her tiredness and anguish, Emily couldn’t help but smile. She was so glad that Serena had been around to help her out and make everything seem far less dramatic than it actually was. Because really, if the guests did up and leave and demand a refund, well, that would be the end of everything. Emily had more or less already spent the money!

  “Serena, please head back to bed,” Emily said. “I’ll oversee this. You’ve done more than enough.”

  Serena nodded and went back to the study to sleep.

  Finally, at 1 a.m., the toilet was fixed. Emily led Barry back through the B&B silently, making sure that no one was disturbed any more than they needed to be.

  Then, with no real choice, she unlocked the door to the messy living room and created a makeshift bed for herself on the couch.

  *

  After what felt like no more than a minute after laying her head on the cushion, her alarm was suddenly screaming at her to wake up again. Her eyes pinged open, disorientated by the fact that there was only a very dim light coming into the room, and her first thought was that her alarm had malfunctioned again. But when she grabbed it and read the time, she saw that it was indeed 5:30 and that she had to get up.

  Getting up this morning was almost as difficult as it had been all those months ago when the house had been derelict and icy. She felt weary down to the very bone. Four hours of sleep was not enough for anyone to function on, let alone when it had been on a lumpy couch and after a long day of DIY and hostessing, and dressing herself was more difficult than she’d anticipated. Her hands were clumsy as she tried to button her pants. Then she put her top on the wrong way around. She stumbled about the living room, trying not to make too much noise.

  Finally ready, she headed out into the hallway and went to the front door, just in time to see Vanessa’s car driving up toward her. Jason’s wife stepped out and waved brightly. Emily wondered how the mother of a small infant could look so much more awake than she did.

  Emily kissed her friend on the cheek. “How are you so chirpy at this time of the morning?”

  “Oh please, this is a lie-in for me,” Vanessa said. “If you and Daniel ever have kids, I’m telling you, share feeding duties.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Emily replied. She tried to smile but felt a tug in her chest at the possibility of never being able to have kids with Daniel because they were constantly going from one disaster with the B&B to the next, either just scraping by financially or finally tanking and having to give everything up. She couldn’t help but wonder whether they’d ever have the sort of stability needed to bring a child into the world.

  Emily showed Vanessa into the living room.

  “Oh my,” Vanessa said. “It looks like a bomb went off in here. I thought you said on the phone that it was just twenty elderly folk coming.”

  “They turned out to be rowdier than I was expecting,” Emily said, glancing around at the empty wine glasses strewn all over the place.

  “Lucky I’m here!” Vanessa said.

  Emily thanked her, then left her to get to work tidying up the room. As she stepped into the corridor, she noticed Daniel just coming in through the main door with two eggs in his hands.

  “Gifts from Lola and Lolly,” he said, holding them up. Then he planted a kiss on Emily’s cheek. “And that’s a gift from me.”

  She smiled at him. “Good morning,” she said as they walked together to the kitchen. “Did you sleep well last night?”

  “Better than you by the looks of things,” he replied.

  “Hey,” Emily said. “You’re supposed to tell me I look delightful.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “You know I think you look delightful. I mean that you look tired as well as delightful. Did they keep you up late? The lights were all still on when I got home.”

  They reached the kitchen and, as Emily went over to the coffee machine to brew a fresh batch, she couldn’t help but feel suspicious about what Daniel had said.

  “Yes, they were up until after midnight. How come you were out late?” She tried to make the question sound innocent enough but could hear the edge of worry in her own tone.

  “I went for a bike ride on the cliffs,” Daniel said.

  “Until after midnight?”

  “Yup.”

  Emily kept her focus on preparing the coffee machine, but her mind was ticking overtime at the thought of Daniel needing to be on the move, always on the move, never settled. If she’d had an evening to herself, she would have relaxed at home and enjoyed the splendor of the home she’d created. But Daniel had used it as an opportunity to get out and about, to explore. Nothing exhilarated him more than being on the move. For not the first time, Emily worried about whether their relationship would ever take root.

  Emily finished putting on the coffee. “I’d better get the curtains open,” she said, immediately leaving the room to get a bit of spac
e.

  “I’ll help,” Daniel said brightly.

  She didn’t say a word as he followed her around, opening up the curtains in the downstairs rooms so the place would be bright and inviting when the guests awoke for breakfast.

  “So how did it go last night, then?” Daniel asked as they went back into the kitchen for coffee. “You never told me.”

  “It was good,” she said, sounding a tad irritable. “They all seemed happy enough. They drank wine, they sang songs. That’s the long and short of it.”

  “Oh,” Daniel said as he handed her a mug of coffee. “Okay.”

  “Sorry, I’ve barely slept,” Emily said, trying to shrug off her mood. “One of the toilets broke so I had Barry out doing emergency repairs and then I had to put one of the guests in my room so I slept on the couch.”

  It was true that she was too tired for conversation, but she was also getting caught up in her anxiety about her relationship with Daniel. She reasoned it was the stress of the last few days making her grumpy and exacerbating her anxiety. She practically fell into a chair and huddled over her coffee.

  Just then, Serena bounded into the room looking as fresh faced as ever. She beamed as she helped herself to a cup of coffee.

  “So, I stayed up late looking at all the artwork you have stored in the office,” she said. “You should really think about displaying some of it. There’s one of a lighthouse at night. It’s very atmospheric.”

  Those damn lighthouse portraits, Emily thought to herself. She hadn’t wanted to throw any of them out since they clearly held some kind of significance to her father and might possibly hold some clues into his disappearance, so she’d stored them all in his office. But the last thing she wanted to think about now was her father eloping with the artist.

  “Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, you’re an artist. If you think it would look better in here with some art, by all means go ahead.”

  “Cool,” Serena said, beaming, clearly not picking up on the sharpness in Emily’s tone. “I’ll hang it in the dining room.”