Chapter 7: The Inn

By noon the video had two million views.

By evening it had a hashtag.

Strangers who'd never set foot in South Carolina called me a gold-digger in four languages.

I read every single comment.

Bree came over on her lunch break and took my phone away.

"You're done," she said, and put it in the freezer.

"That's not how phones work."

"It's how I work."

By Thursday the reviews had started.

Ashe House had a four-point-eight on every site for ten years.

Now there were one-star reviews from people who'd never booked a room.

"Owner married a homewrecker."

"Supporting cheaters, avoid."

"The pink paint is ugly."

"That one's fair," Ronan said, reading over my shoulder at the front desk. "My grandmother picked it in 1974 to annoy the neighbors."

But two couples canceled for the weekend.

Then a bachelorette party.

Then a family reunion that had booked six rooms for June.

I watched Ronan take that call at the desk.

He said, "Of course, I understand," very politely, and hung up, and stood there with his hand flat on the phone.

"How bad?" I asked.

"We'll be fine."

"How bad, Ronan."

He looked at the reservation book.

"Bad enough that I'd like to stop talking about it."

That night I couldn't sleep.

At four in the morning I went across the courtyard into the inn's big kitchen in my sleep shirt and a pair of his old clogs I'd found by the door.

The inn served breakfast from seven to ten.

Grits, eggs, biscuits from a freezer bag. Ronan cooked dinner for the restaurant. Breakfast was nobody's.

I turned on the ovens.

I made benne cookies, brown-butter dark at the edges.

I made peach hand pies with the burnt-honey glaze, with the last of the frozen peaches I found in the walk-in.

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