Pet Friendly

by Sue Pethick

  Todd heard scuffling and a few words too quiet for him to make out. A few seconds later, the door swung open.

  Emma’s face was dry, but her eyes were puffy and her nose red. She’d kicked off her shoes and the front of her jacket was covered in dog fur. Archie stood beside her, looking up anxiously.

  “Sorry,” Todd said. “I just came by to see how Archie’s doing.”

  “Thanks,” she said. Her chin began to quiver.

  Todd reached out. “Emma, what’s wrong?”

  She swiped angrily at a wayward tear that ran down her cheek.

  “Nothing.”

  He gave her a knowing smile.

  “You know, you used to tell me that nothing made you cry. Guess I should have believed you.”

  Emma spluttered, laughter bubbling up in spite of her tears.

  Todd looked around. “Mind if I come in?”

  She shook her head and stepped away from the door. Todd took a minute to dust off his clothes and remove his dirty boots. When he stepped inside, he found Emma and Archie on the couch, the little dog’s head resting comfortingly on her lap. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Emma said nothing as she wiped away a tear and began stroking Archie’s head. In Todd’s experience, people didn’t change much as they got older, and Emma had been a stubborn kid. She would talk to him or she wouldn’t; trying to pry it out of her would be a waste of time.

  After a few minutes of hesitant silence, she sighed.

  “I’m going to lose this place.”

  He nodded and said nothing. After what Jake had told him, the news didn’t come as a big surprise.

  “It’s been slowly going under ever since Gran died. I’ve done everything I could think of to bring in more business, but we’re still bleeding money. I thought a loan might buy me some more time, but the bank just called . . .”

  “I take it they turned you down.”

  “Not just that. They called in my other loan, too. I’ve got ’til the end of the month to pay it off.” Emma smiled ruefully. “Sucks to be me, huh?”

  Her lips began to tremble. She put her head down and great gulping sobs wracked her body.

  “Oh, Emma. I’m so sorry.”

  This would be a bad situation for anyone, Todd thought, but it had to be especially difficult for her. Emma’s Gran had been the one steady thing in her life; losing something they’d loved and worked on together had to be devastating.

  Unless he missed his guess, the Spirit Inn was all she had in the world, too. By the time Emma sold it and settled up with the bank, she might not have enough to start over. With no family and a bad credit history, she’d have a hard time getting back on her feet.

  His first impulse was to give her the money and let her pay him back when she could. Todd could afford to be generous, after all, and it would be a simple solution to her problem. But the more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea. Emma’s problems weren’t the result of a single catastrophic event. According to Jake, the Spirit Inn had been struggling ever since her grandmother died. If Emma didn’t change the way she was running the place, it wouldn’t matter that Todd had paid her loans off. Sooner or later, she’d find herself in the exact same position. If he was truly going to help her, he’d have to do more than just offer her money.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what did you need the loans for?” he said.

  Emma sniffed and sat back.

  “Originally, I’d planned to use it all for upgrades like putting in a coffee bar, but we’re behind on some of the maintenance around here and Jake just told me the roof needs to be repaired, so I guess most of it would have gone to that.”

  “Don’t you have a rainy-day fund?” he said. “A place like this shouldn’t have to borrow to cover its maintenance costs.”

  She frowned slightly but said nothing. Taking her silence as encouragement, Todd continued.

  “Maybe instead of upgrading the inn, you should try to make it less expensive to run,” he said. “The Victorian stuff is nice, but families aren’t going to want to bring their kids here, and you said yourself that you don’t like the haunted theme. Why risk scaring away potential customers when you could easily change the theme to something less expensive to maintain?”

  Emma’s face began to cloud over. She lifted Archie from her lap and set him aside.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  Todd was surprised. He’d thought he was helping. Now it seemed as if he’d upset her.

  “No, I suppose it isn’t,” he said. “But you seem to have gotten yourself into a bind and I thought you could use some advice.”

  “From you?”

  He felt his lips tighten. Todd and his partners had spent the last five years building their company from nothing into a billion-dollar enterprise. He wasn’t used to having people question his business savvy. But of course, Emma didn’t know that, and this wasn’t the time to tell her, either.

  “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you,” he said. “I’ll admit I don’t have a lot of experience with hotels, but I do know something about how a business should be run. If you don’t like the way things are going, you’ve got to be open to change.”

  Emma got to her feet. Archie scrambled down and stood beside her.

  “I am open to change,” she said. “That’s why I bought into the whole Victorian haunted-house thing in the first place. I told you, I can’t compete with the chains up here. The Spirit Inn has to be a destination. Someplace people are willing to go out of their way for. Besides,” she added, “it’s too late to change anything now.”

  “But you’re not happy the way things are. Why stay in a relationship that you know isn’t working?”

  He paused, frowning. Why did I say that?

  “Look, I know you’re just trying to help,” Emma said, “but I think I have a little more business experience than you do, and I’d really rather work this out on my own.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Forget I said anything.”

  He stood and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER 16

  When the door closed, Emma burst into a fresh flood of tears. Why did everyone think they could do her job better than she could? Her assistant manager, her banker, and now Todd had all felt free to weigh in on what she should be doing to save the inn. Did it never occur to them that she had a brain of her own?

  Clifton and Mr. Grader she could understand; at least they knew something about her situation, but Todd had a lot of nerve. The guy was practically homeless and yet he’d sat there spouting advice as if she was the one who was barely getting by. What was it about her that made everyone think she was inept?

  Archie trotted after her as she walked into the bathroom. No, Emma thought as she blew her nose, that wasn’t fair. The fact was, she did need help; it was herself she was mad at. Todd might not be a businessman, but he meant well and all he’d really done was remind her of some things she already knew but was choosing to ignore. The Victorian theme was costing her a lot, and calling the Spirit Inn a haunted hotel was probably keeping away at least as many customers as it attracted. But what else could she do? Even if she’d had another theme in mind— which she didn’t—changing things would take time, and without the ghost hunters’ business to keep her going, she wouldn’t have enough income to hold out. Emma was stuck with things the way they were, whether she liked it or not.

  A soft whimper brought her back from the gloom. She looked down and saw Archie turn and run out. Curious, Emma followed him back to the living room and watched as the little dog hopped onto his pillow bed and dove under the blanket she’d given him that morning. Seconds later, he poked his nose out and quickly ducked back under, then did it twice more. He was playing hide-and-seek, Emma realized. Even with all that had happened, she couldn’t help smiling at Archie’s attempt to cheer her up.

  “I see you, you little ghost,” she said.


  Emma snatched the blanket away and scooped him up into her arms. Archie wriggled happily and began licking away the salty tracks on her cheeks, making her laugh in spite of herself.

  “I wouldn’t have to worry about losing customers,” she said, “if all the ghosts around here were as sweet as you are.”

  She shook out the blanket and saw the places where Archie had gotten pizza sauce on it.

  “Uh-oh,” Emma said. “We’d better stick this in the hamper.”

  Archie followed her into the bathroom and watched forlornly as Emma tossed his blanket in with the rest of her dirty linens.

  “Don’t worry. Housekeeping will have it back by tonight. In the meantime,” she said, opening a cabinet, “how about a nice towel?”

  Emma took out a fresh pink bath towel and laid it on Archie’s bed. The little dog sniffed it disdainfully and pushed it aside.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she said. “But it’s the best I can do.”

  With the temporary distraction over, Emma’s smile began to fade. She didn’t have a lot of time, she thought. If the bank wanted its money by the end of the month, she’d have to scramble to find another lender. Chances were, she could find someone, but the interest rate she’d be paying would leave her even deeper in the hole.

  Still, this wasn’t the time to be worrying about it. There was nothing she could do until tomorrow, and the ghost hunters were expecting a good time until then. She washed her face, brushed the fur off her jacket, and headed out the door.

  Back at the inn, the ghost hunters were all atwitter. Several more encounters had been reported, including the unexplained “disappearance” of her dishwasher’s sandwich. Emma was tempted to nip that one in the bud but told herself that it was no more fanciful than any of the other sightings the SSSPA was exulting over. After all, it was what they’d all come for. Where was the harm? Once the conventioneers were gone, there’d be plenty of time for her to have a word with the staff about the dangers of spreading rumors.

  The Van Vandevanders had to be over the moon about the increased sightings, she thought. As Lars was in charge of that year’s confab, the fact that it was turning out to be one of their most successful was not lost on anyone—especially his rival, Dr. Richards. While the rest of the group exchanged stories of the encounters thus far, the man roamed through the inn wearing a black look.

  Adam looked up and smiled as Emma passed the front desk.

  “Professor Van Vandevander was just looking for you.”

  “Oh?” Emma glanced around the lobby. “What did he want?”

  “I’m not sure, but he said he’d be in the Spirit Room.”

  As she headed down to see what Lars wanted, Emma kept an eye out for Todd. He and Jake had been working on the fence for some time now and she wondered how it was going. She hoped their disagreement hadn’t changed his mind about staying. How would she break it to Viv that she’d been responsible for chasing the “delicious young man” away?

  She found the Van Vandevanders in the hall outside the Spirit Room, in consultation with three other members of their group, one of them Dr. Richards. As she approached, Richards was shaking his head vigorously. From the looks on the others’ faces, his was the lone voice of opposition to some well-laid plan. What was going on?

  “Ah, there she is,” Lars crowed when he spied her.

  Dr. Richards turned and glared.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Nonsense,” Lars said. “Dick was just concluding his remarks.”

  He looked around at the others.

  “The steering committee was just discussing the addition of a séance to tonight’s program, and we need your buy-in to proceed.”

  Emma was taken aback.

  “A séance?”

  “A meeting in which a medium attempts to communicate with the departed,” Viv said.

  “Yes, I know what a séance is,” she said. “I’m just not sure—”

  “Precisely my point,” Richards said brusquely. “We can’t be sure. Which is why I believe that, under the present circumstances, any attempt at necromancy would be ill advised.”

  Viv arched an eyebrow.

  “Providing the spirits with a link to the living hardly qualifies as a black art.”

  “Really?” he sneered. “What would you call it?”

  Emma held up her hands. “Wait a minute. What are we talking about here? Are you saying that séances are dangerous?”

  “Of course not,” Viv scoffed.

  “Dr. Richards is merely suggesting an abundance of caution,” Lars added as the others nodded their agreement.

  Richards seemed unconvinced.

  “Is that true?” Emma asked him.

  He shrugged unhappily as the rest of the committee pursed their lips.

  “Perhaps,” he mused. “Where the spirits are concerned, nothing is absolute.”

  She looked at the others.

  “When would you be holding this séance?”

  “Tonight,” Lars said. “As a supplement to my lecture on the unexplained phenomena of the Pacific Northwest.”

  Emma considered that. From her point of view, the problem wasn’t that a séance might endanger anyone. The issue for her was whether or not the séance would necessitate the use of another room. The only one available was the Spirit Room, and after her talk with Jake about the damaged roof, she felt uneasy about putting anyone in there.

  “Are you asking for my permission?”

  “Not for the séance,” he said. “Not technically, anyway. What we need is your permission to move the venue from the Energy Room to the Spirit Room. Viv feels the vibrations here are more advantageous for a summoning.”

  It was exactly what Emma did not want to do, yet she felt unable to say no. Without some clear indication of structural damage, there was no reason to think that the ceiling in the Spirit Room was unsound. Then again, if she allowed the séance to be conducted in there and anything went wrong, she’d be in trouble.

  Suddenly, Emma felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Séances? Necromancy? Unexplained phenomena? None of it made any sense to her. Even worse, she realized that she didn’t want it to make any sense. It was hard enough trying to run an inn, but the added layer of mystery and speculation involved in running a haunted one was a burden she felt increasingly unable to deal with. Maybe Todd was right; she wasn’t happy with the way things were. But what else could she do?

  The steering committee members were looking at her expectantly; she had to make a decision. She hated being pressured like this. Gran had always warned her not to make snap decisions.

  “Let me think about it,” she said. “Maybe we could have it in another room instead.”

  Lars looked at the others, who simply shook their heads. Viv shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “Perhaps another venue would work as well. But do consider it, please.”

  “I will,” Emma said. “I just need to make sure it’s safe first, that’s all.”

  The confrontation had left Emma feeling exhausted. In addition to everything else on her plate, she’d have to talk to Jake and ask him what he thought the actual risks might be. Whatever happened, she hoped she wouldn’t be sorry.

  But sorry was exactly what Emma was as she walked away. Sorry that she hadn’t listened to Todd, sorry that she’d been so rude to him when all he’d done was point out what she already knew, and sorry that he might leave before she could tell him she’d been wrong to criticize his advice. She’d just have to apologize and hope he understood.

  Jake was emerging from his toolshed when Emma stepped around the side yard.

  “Come to see your new fence?” he said.

  “Is it finished already?”

  “It sure is. That assistant you got me knows more than he lets on. Come on,” Jake said. “I’ll show you.”

  As Emma followed him down toward the cottage, she saw the rebuilt fence. The new lumber would need a coat
of paint to match the rest, but other than that, it looked as good as new.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “That Todd’s a good worker,” Jake said. “If he’s still here when your loan comes through, I wouldn’t mind having him help me with the roof.”

  Emma felt a pang. There wasn’t going to be any loan, not right away, at least, and maybe not ever. She’d have to tell Jake sooner or later, but she didn’t want to spoil his good mood just yet.

  “I doubt Todd will be staying here that long,” she said. “But when the time comes, we’ll make sure you get a good assistant.”

  He considered that a moment.

  “Maybe he would stay, if you asked him to.” Jake looked at the tools in his hand. “I may not be an educated man, but I know love when I see it.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right about that, but if he’s not too proud to take it, I’m pretty sure he could use a job.”

  “Well, it’s your decision, not mine.”

  Emma looked back toward the inn. Suddenly, asking Jake about the Spirit Room seemed like the wrong thing to do. He was right; she was the one who was supposed to make the decisions around here. Why was she always so unsure of herself?

  If the Van Vandevanders wanted to hold a séance, that was fine, but they’d have to do it where Emma told them to. She couldn’t keep making bad decisions because she was afraid of losing their business.

  “I’d better go in. Are you coming up?”

  “In a minute,” Jake said. “I’m going to take a look at your front door first.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “I don’t know, but it seems like every time I turn my back it’s open again.”

  “Okay, but be careful you don’t let Archie out,” she said. “I don’t think Todd would forgive me if he ran away again.”

  Emma trudged back up to the inn, pondering Jake’s comment about knowing love when he saw it. In a somewhat simpler way, it was the same thing Viv had told her about seeing sparks when Todd looked at her.