Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

B Y THE END of the day, Noelle was exhausted, but she was still enervated by her encounter with him. Rocco ready. She was never going to see him again. He didn’t need a Christmas tree, and the bed-and-breakfast was full. So, there was no reason that she would ever encounter him again.

Not ever.

Looking at him had been like being struck by lightning.

She had never experienced anything like it.

Of course, she had never experienced a day quite like today, and that was what she should be focusing on. The triumphant, rampant success of her grand opening day.

She hummed as she walked up the steps and into Holiday House.

The staff was already gone for the day, and it was quiet and cozy inside. She peered into the library, half expecting to see one of the guests in there reading or playing checkers. But there was no one there.

She frowned.

She was suddenly feeling exceptionally tired, though, so while she would normally linger to try and see if the guests needed anything, she was feeling like she needed to lie down more than she needed anything else at the moment. So she decided to head straight to bed.

Her little bedroom was in the attic, with a bathroom added, and a kitchen area. So that there were times when she could be contained just to herself even when she had a house full of guests.

That was when she had taken over as innkeeper. When her parents had decided to spend more time away from Holiday House.

Before her dad had died.

That made her chest feel sore. She was already achy, and grumpy, and she didn’t want a sore chest on top of it, so she redirected her thoughts. Instead, she went over to her record player, and gingerly selected a Christmas album that her grandmother had left to her. She placed it onto the table, and put the needle on the cherished, antique item. The Andrews Sisters’ voices filtered into the room, and she saw to her bedtime routine. She brushed her teeth, washed her face and put on a long cotton nightgown.

In moments like this she could still imagine that she lived in a simpler time. One where both her parents were still with her. Maybe one where her grandma was still here, even. Or perhaps, back in midcentury. When times had been hard, certainly, but Holiday House had been a sanctuary, and no one had been coming to knock it over.

Wyoming would have felt so isolated then. So separate from everything going on in the world. Sometimes, she thought it was a miracle that everything was so connected nowadays. But not now. Right now, she wished that she could cut her little house off from the rest of the world, from the march of time.

She wished. She really did.

She lay down in bed with the record still playing, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up, it was with a start. Her alarm hadn’t gone off.

She turned and looked at it, and saw that it was blinking there in the darkness. It was still early, thankfully. At least, judging by how dim the light was coming through the window. She got up, and threw the curtains open. Outside there was nothing but white. A whole blanket of it. She was going to have to get up and plow the road.

Because it had been a whole blizzard. Unexpected this early in the year.

“Fiddlesticks,” she said.

But then, she thought it was awfully funny that she had just been thinking last night about how nice it would be if she could take Holiday House and separate from the rest of the world right now.

But not right now. Not while she had guests, and employees that needed to get up here so that there could be breakfast and clean rooms, and myriad other things.

She charged out of bed and down the stairs, shoving her feet into her boots in the cloakroom, and grabbing a long coat. Then she shuffled out to the machine shed. She pulled the doors open, and went inside.

The old snowplow was parked, ever ready to fulfill its sacred duty. Clearing the roads so that guests would be able to get in and out. So that her employees would be able to get in and out.

She sighed and got into the driver’s seat. And turned the key, always left in the ignition, because why not?

But nothing happened.

That had never happened before. Usually, the machine roared to life, and she was off.

But not this time.

She growled, and tried to turn the key again.

Nothing.

“Start,” she commanded, but still, nothing happened. She tried and tried, but the machine was dead.

Great. That meant she was going to have to wait until the city got around to plowing the road up here.

Well, that was a disaster. That could take ages. She wasn’t on the general map for plowing.

She huffed, and slid out of the snowplow, trudging back through the snow and up the front porch, back into the house.

She was struck yet again by how quiet it was. And then by the fact that her head felt heavy.

She could not be getting sick. Not on top of everything else. It was the damn season.

She groused into the kitchen, where she decided she better make some coffee. She opted to do it on the stovetop, rather than in the Mr. Coffee, trying to make it feel... Festive, maybe. She could always hunt through the freezer to see if there was anything easy to bake.

She found sugar cookies. Not exactly the boon she was hoping for.

But she set about getting those in, so that there were some pleasant smells that could fill the kitchen when the guests got up.

She was still wearing the oversized boots, and her nightgown, when she heard the first sound of footsteps on the stairs.

She was going to have to apologize. Because normally there would have been a whole breakfast. But it was only her.

And she had spent too long wrestling with a snowplow.

She walked into the entry room and stopped at the foot of the stairs. She could see a large, masculine hand on the railing, and she knew. The moment she saw those blunt fingers, she knew. Ridiculous, because the only other time she’d seen him he was wearing gloves.

But then he came into view, and there was no question. Rocco Moretti had somehow spent the night in this house last night.

“Good morning.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a guest in this establishment.”

“It was booked,” she said.

“Yes. It was. But I decided that I wanted to stay here, so I did.”

“How?”

“I made arrangements.”

She knew a sudden feeling of trepidation. She was snowed in with this man. Alone.

She was an innkeeper and she’d never thought too terribly much about guests and her safety or anything like that. She probably should have. But she’d grown up here and it had been an entirely safe situation one hundred percent of the time so she’d never worried.

Right now the whole room felt smaller. The whole house, the whole mountain. She looked at him and she shivered and it wasn’t quite like fear. It was something she’d never really experienced before. A tension that filled her lungs and her limbs and made her feel like she might leap completely out of her skin.

“What arrangements exactly did you make?”

“I asked the girl who works at registration to give me the contact info for the guests who had booked rooms for the night.”

“She can’t do that. There’s privacy and—”

“And they were entirely happy to take my alternative offer. Particularly when I told them that there was a plumbing issue at the bed-and-breakfast.”

“And why did you tell them that?”

“Because I wanted to say here. I may have gone overboard.”

“In what sense?”

“Well. I didn’t have to buy out every room. But I did.”

“I... I don’t understand...”

“I offered the guests a refund, and then offered them free accommodation at my resorts in Jackson.”

“Jackson!”

“Yes. They were happy to take the offer. The rooms are much more expensive than yours.”

“How were you able to offer my guests a refund?”

“Well, I didn’t give them a refund. I gave them money from my bank account. So the truth is, you will be paid twice. By them, and by me. I think you will find that to be satisfactory.”

“I... Are you telling me that you’re the only one here?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s... That’s psychotic, you realize that, right?”

“What is psychotic about it? What I wanted was to be in control of this interaction.”

“Why?”

“Because. Do you honestly not know who I am?”

“You said your name was Rocco.”

“Yes. I’m Rocco Moretti. From Rockmore Incorporated. I am offering to buy this place.”

Her stomach bottomed out. This was the man? Her personal nemesis. The man who was trying to ruin her life, her whole existence. It was probably why he’d stopped her in her tracks when she’d seen him on the street in town. Because she had sensed his innate evil.

“You’re even worse than a serial killer,” she spat. “You’re a property developer .”

“I am that. A property developer, that is.”

“Why are you... Why are you doing this?”

“Your mother told me that she was having no luck with you. I said that I would come speak to you. Also, I was informed that I needed to involve myself, as this was a very wise investment.”

“It’s not going to be an investment. Because I’m not going to agree to it.”

“Really? You’re not going to allow your mother to have this very generous offer of money?”

Rage filled her. Old rage from all the arguments she’d had with her mother about this very topic. She’d held herself back with her mom because she loved her mom. Relationships could be complicated without love being lost. But it was so, so difficult and it had made everything feel hard and anxious and she hated it.

And it was his fault .

“It’s my dad’s legacy,” she said. “His family. Holiday House is our namesake. It means more than money.”

“Not to your mother. Not at this point.”

How dare he? With his whole handsome face, how dare he? She didn’t even reduce her mother’s actions to anything that mercenary. He didn’t know them. He didn’t know how grief had changed her mother and made it so she couldn’t stand to be here. He didn’t understand at all.

And maybe she didn’t either, but at least she had context for her mom. He was just acting like she was a greedy monster. Or maybe she was projecting that because she was desperately trying to not think of her mom that way.

She gritted her teeth and faced him down, and ignored the quickening of her heartbeat—it was just anger anyway. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. She’s trying to make a new way of life and that’s been a source of tension with us, but you don’t know her.”

“I don’t need to know your mother, or you, to know that eventually you’ll come around. People always do. You can continue to struggle here or you can take a payout and go off to live a very happy life.”

“No.”

“The truth is, Miss Holiday, if you don’t agree to this, all the sales fall through, not just yours. You will impact the well-being of your neighbors. Because I cannot build around—” he waved his hand “—this. And many other properties wish to sell. Can you imagine the goodwill that you will extinguish in this town if you ruin this deal for everyone?”

She sputtered, “That’s manipulative.”

He grinned. “I am quite manipulative. Or so it’s been said.” He lifted his hand from the railing on the banister, and rubbed his fingers together, as if touching it offended him.

“This place doesn’t need a big modern resort,” she said.

“Many would disagree with you.”

“Well, those people don’t have a sense of history.”

“History. What do you think you’re going to tell me about history. You’re an American. Your version of history on this continent is so new compared to my sense of history. I’m an Italian.”

“Congrats on your frescoes, I guess. But you downplaying what this means to me is not going to change my mind.”

“All right then, if not that, then what about this. I will offer you a very generous compensation package. And, if you do not want to leave here, I will offer you a job. Managing the hotel. Provided that I think you can handle it.”

“I don’t want to work for you. I work for myself. In my family-owned business. If you can’t understand why that’s different...”

“I understand.” He walked all the way down the steps, and turned around the room, looking around them. “This is... Quaint. But you must admit, the appetite for such a place has never been lower than it is now.”

Suddenly, she was seized by the urge to sneeze. She couldn’t fight it. She inhaled, and then rocked forward hard, covering her face as best she could.

When she looked up, he had drawn back, his hands touching the collar of his suit jacket. The man was in a suit at six in the morning.

“Are you well?”

“I’m feeling a bit under the weather,” she said.

“That is unfortunate.”

“Well. The chores will not wait for anyone. I need to figure out how to fix my snowplow.”

“If you worked for me, the chores would wait. You would have sick leave.”

“Well, I wouldn’t today, Mr. Moretti.”

“You think not?”

“Yeah. I think not.”

“I’m not sure exactly what game you’re playing.”

“Well, remind me again what game you’re playing,” she said. “Because I’m curious. What exactly was your name again?”

“I came up here to convince you that this place is not where you want to be.”

“Ironic,” she said. “Because now you’re stuck here.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can see that you’re the kind of man who is used to getting his way. The kind of man who thinks he’s in control of everything. But I regret to inform you, Mr. Moretti, that you don’t control the weather.”