The Christmas Inn Read Free Page B

Claus, a role she’d flat-out refused, much to her mother’s
chagrin. The problem with Eleanor’s party schemes was that they always seemed to
involve an unattached male—usually the temporarily single son of one of her
mother’s bridge-playing friends—with whom she’d be forced to socialize. “I’m
well aware of our mother’s ability to be a drama queen.”
    “Not fair, Marnie. Mom has always had your best interests at
heart.”
    Right. Good old Mom, not to mention good
old Dad and my four good old brothers.
    How she’d like to snap her fingers and have Scott disappear.
But Scott’s Velcro tendencies were legendary once he decided to become involved
in something. He beat a tattoo on the door, making her clap her hands to her
ears.
    If, just once, her family could see her for what she was rather
than what she wasn’t, her life would be so much easier. Reluctantly she turned
the lock, opened the door and forced a smile. “What brought you here so early
this morning?”
    “I heard that you were selling your half of the business.”
    “Who told you?”
    “Dad heard about it through some friend at the Elks Club—a
friend of a friend of a woman named Gina something or other. Is it true?”
    “I’m not going to change my mind.”
    Dressed in his uniform of an immaculately tailored dark suit,
silk tie chosen to match the tiny thread of magenta woven into the suit fabric,
Scott gave her a persuasive smile—the one he usually saved for his marketing
clients—as he stepped past her into the tiny office.
    “Hello, Shane, it’s great to see you, and I hear that
congratulations are in order.” Scott was about to plunk himself down in the lawn
chair, took a closer look and reconsidered.
    As Shane launched into the story about how he met his new love,
and soon-to-be new partner, Marnie leaned back against the wall and enjoyed the
look on Scott’s face. Her brother had problems with any conversation he didn’t
control. Scott wasn’t mean. He was constantly thinking ahead to the next step in
his plans, and thus he didn’t have much patience for small talk. Not
surprisingly, it didn’t take him long to interrupt Shane and ask a couple of
pointed questions concerning the contract.
    “Shane, you don’t have to answer,” she said hurriedly, wanting
to block Scott’s interrogation of her friend.
    Shane closed his mouth and sank his neck into his turtleneck.
“That’s right, I don’t,” he confirmed, his eyebrows rising to meet his
hairline.
    “Shane, would you excuse my sister and me for a couple of
minutes?”
    With an expression of resignation Shane rose from the chair.
“I’ll be in the salon going over the renovation plans,” he said, giving Marnie
his “chin up, kid” smile as he walked past her out the door.
    “You have yet to sign, and he’s already going over plans?”
Scott asked, disbelief evident in his tone.
    “They’re old blueprints Shane and I had considered a couple of
years ago. He and Gina are going to revisit them and see if they’re feasible for
the expansion they want to make.”
    “This Gina person is certainly moving fast.”
    “That’s their business, not mine. What’s the family’s problem
with me selling to Shane?”
    Scott scooped up the agreement Marnie had carelessly left lying
on the desk and took his time reading it before he answered. “We want to be sure
you’re being paid fair market value for the business and this building. And that
Shane hasn’t slipped in a noncompetition clause that would stop you from working
as a hairdresser once you leave here,” he muttered. “What’s this?” he asked,
pointing at the page.
    “What?” she asked, refusing to glance at the page.
    “You can’t work in Boston as a hairdresser?”
    “We agreed it was only fair. My client list and the goodwill
I’ve built up in the city are part of what he’s buying beyond the physical
assets,” she said, exasperated with Scott’s attitude.
    “Marnie, I’m your brother, and