Once upstairs, I slipped into the shower and turned the hot water up to near boiling. However, I was finding it harder and harder to burn away my guilt. Instead, I was just creating a rather terrible case of dry skin on my back. Still, the heat and the steady beat of the water against my shoulders eased my muscles and instead of burning anger tightening every joint in my body, I was left with dull sorrow.

Once out of the shower, a single glance at the clock hanging on my wall was enough to pull me back together. I had an hour before check in and guests never adhered to that schedule. I practiced my breathing while I blow-drying my hair. By the time I was dressed and ready to greet guests, I had a fancy, fake smile ready upon my face.

"Are you okay?" Jordan stood at the foot of the steps, waiting beside our guest book, welcome sign, and Gina's beloved portrait. Before I could answer, he continued. "Of course, you're not okay." He shook his head, pulling his eyes from mine. "I guess, I just want to know if you'd like to talk..."

"You're interested in talking now?" I looked to the door, peering through the ornate glass which left the outside mottled and fuzzy.

"Lyn, how about we both put our swords down and leave the battlefield for a minute? I think we should start talking about a truce here. I have a feeling you might not be feeling completely..."

"They're here." I widened my smile, which I imagined looked a tad terrifying in its emptiness. "If you'll excuse me, I should go greet our guests."

"Yeah, okay," he replied with a sigh.

Jordan didn't bother trying to bring up the conversation again. He dutifully played bellhop and handled our guests' luggage. He followed me into the kitchen afterward, but we both made our dinners in silence, though I could feel the press of his worried gaze upon my back the entire time.

Once we both inhaled our dinners, we immediately went to work on baking cookies and prepping the hot cocoa station. At some point, Jordan left to get the fire started and to locate the movie for that night. Thankfully, I didn't have to do much chitchat with the guests when their focus was riveted to the television. Jordan kept to my side the entire night, but knew better than to provoke me in front of our guests. Even in the kitchen's solitude, we let the elephant in the room grow ever larger.

Then, with the movie over and most of the couples tired from a day of travel, the downstairs emptied and our oblivious guests tucked themselves into bed for a restful night's sleep.

"I think it's probably safe to talk now." Jordan looked up towards the top floor as if he could see our guests' movements from there. "I know I've been a bit of an ass lately and I'm still working through that, but if you aren't feeling sold on this deal, then..."

"Goodnight Jordan," I said after one last check of the sitting room to make sure we had cleaned everything up.

"Wait, Lyn."

But, I didn't wait. I headed upstairs before he could see how torn I was. Sure, all I wanted since the night I went to visit him at his apartment was to tell him how scared I was at the prospect of keeping the inn. I still wanted to beg for his help, to fall on my knees and surrender my problems before him because the weight had become more than I could bear. However, what was done was done. It was clear Mr. Myers and his company had big plans for the inn. Plans that they were so excited for they couldn't even wait an extra week or two to start the work. How could he help me? And how could I face him now that I knew they were going to destroy everything Gina had worked so hard to build?

By the time I reached my room, I had enough self-loathing boiling through me I wasn't sure I'd last the night without exploding. I needed to find something to take my mind off things. Initially, I looked at my laptop bag, where my computer had sat untouched for several days. What did my coworkers think of me? Would Mary be disappointed in me? How was my boss handling my absence? Would I'd even have a job once this was all said and done? Part of me didn't care.

I couldn't bring myself to pull out my computer. It was frankly too much work. I had enough energy in me to change into my pajamas and then curl up in bed. However, I knew without a doubt that sleep wouldn't come until I quieted my mind. I needed some sort of distraction.

My next thought was to retrieve my phone from my desk and download some mindless app to whittle away the hours. However, when I grabbed it, I found my screen illuminated with several alerts notifying me of Devon's many attempts to call and the voice messages he left behind. I shut the phone off completely and tossed it into the desk drawer.

That left Georgina's journal.

I was reaching its end and, now that I had passed her meeting me, I felt like I should be in the clear. I could vanish into her silly tales of unique guests and her delightful forays into home repair. It seemed like a safe bet, and I felt some sense of relief when I cuddled up beneath the covers and began reading the next entry about her adventures after meeting my parents. And you would think that I, their daughter, would be the first person to recall that my parents were, in fact, dead. However, my grandmother thought it best to teach me how to block out the painful parts of my past so they didn't drag behind me as I headed towards my future.

Unfortunately, Gina still had that particular bump left in the road.

March 11, 1995

Today I found out my nephew and his wife have died.

Jack is gone. He wasn't even that much older than his father when he died, and it isn't any less painful because of it.

Maddie is with Norma. Of course she is. It only makes sense that they gave her to Norma.

I won't get to see Maddie again. My trip to meet her for the first time was also my last time.

Will she even know me?

Will anyone ever really know me?

I don't know what else to write.

Her writing continued on that way for years. Sporadic, disconnected, short. Sometimes it felt like her words were only there out of some sense of obligation and with each passing month, she became more and more aware that there was no longer any person in her life to be obligated to. Who would ever read her story now?

From what I could tell, she slipped into a deep depression that echoed in her work. She stopped doing the Christmas competition. She didn't hold any fun activities for her guests to enjoy. She no longer cooked the breakfasts herself. In fact, for a time she simply stopped breakfast entirely, wiping away the inn's designation as a BnB.

It hurt her profits, and she struggled to keep going. Bookings were thinning out and the once understanding town council was getting concerned about how the upkeep of the Hound and Sparrow was reflecting on the town. However, there was one solitary bright spot in those years—her Thanksgiving dinners.

She still felt an obligation to them. She still needed to feed those who could not feed themselves. To be the family that they didn't have. It took a few years, but after her wounds began to heal, she saw that flicker of light shining in the eyes of those who walked away from her table full of more than just good food. She saw the appreciation, the hope, the will to carry on inside of them. She realized the roof over her head and the food on her plate were a blessing she had been taking for granted.

In 2000, she started doing the Christmas competition again, hoping to bring life back to the old manor home. The following year, she strengthened her resolve by founding the caroler's guild.

The entries regained some weight and her outlook, though still darkened by the loss of her entire family, was hopeful. She revitalized the inn with fresh coats of paint and new furnishings. She couldn't handle some of the bigger projects like she used to, but she did what she could and people noticed. Her bookings returned to a healthy level and she no longer had to face the real possibility of foreclosure.

As hard as it was to relive my parents' death, it was something I had come to terms with and, seeing how Gina persisted, it lightened my heart.

Then, however, came the day Jordan entered Georgina's life.

December 19, 2007

Well, today was an interesting day. I'm not sure I could have ever predicted that Jordan Wells would come to my house and beg for a job.

I knew he was a handy young man. His father does contract work all over town, and I knew his kids must have picked up on those skills. And I am certainly in need of those particular skills.

Of course, a couple of problems crossed my mind.

The boy dropped out of school about a year or two ago and had gotten himself mixed up in drug dealing. I don't know what he got hooked on himself and I didn't ask. Lord knows the things I got into in LA... But the fact is, I need someone whose head will be in the game and who won't be bringing any unsavory types around the inn to conduct any sort of "business" transactions. The boy swears he's clean. That he's not dealing anymore, and he's not messing with anything illegal. I've made similar claims myself a few times in my younger years and I know how that ended... However, he seemed to genuinely mean it and so long as he wants to be better, then I want to help him be better. He certainly won't improve if I just toss him back out onto the street! I'm not even sure the town will let him stay much longer if he doesn't prove himself to be a fine, upstanding citizen.

Then, there was the whole problem of money. Somehow I'd have to pay him. Now he's willing to take next to nothing in regards to pay so long as he could have room and board. I do have that old guest house by the shed that is just collecting dust. However, it is an extra mouth to feed and I've got to cover the cost of materials.

Now, there's the chance the improvements he makes for me will also help draw in more customers and that in return could cover his expenses, but there's a hefty upfront cost that I have to worry about. Where was I going to find that kind of money?

That's when I thought of Maddie's money.

It's still Maddie's mind you. Norma can't stop me from naming the girl in my will. So I'm just going to reinvest it. If I use the money to hire Jordan and make some major changes around this place, why I bet I can get this inn to be worth far more than either the inn or the mutual fund would have been on their own! I'll leave her a treasure, a jewel, a sparkling gem in the shadow of Mt. Hereford! And then she'll know that every bit of this place was for her. Every little touch of paint, every brick in the fireplace, every creak in the floorboards. For good and for bad, all of it was for her.

I hope she can appreciate it. I hope she can understand why I had to take the money out of the fund to hire Jordan and make this place shine. I can't put it into words, but I just know there will be something worth more than money here if I can get this place to be all that I've ever hoped it would be.

I just wish I could be there when she finally gets to see it.

"No," I muttered, my vision losing its clarity as the tears welled up. "No, that can't be true."

Jordan. The inn. Both of them were the product of Gina's guilt for her brother's death, of her hope for my father, and of her love for me. All of it accumulated to the day she invested everything she had, everything she had hoped for, in Jordan and the inn's future.

"No!" Tears streamed and my nails dug into the paper. "No!"

I slammed the book shut and threw it against the wall. All of my family's pain and heartbreak came back to me. It always came back to me. From the day my great aunt left town, the supports holding up my family's house weakened. Each loss battered the walls and tore up the shingles. Each fight knocked down a door and shattered a window. Yet, my aunt still saw hope of rebuilding what the generations before me had left to crumble. She patched the holes and mended the tears. I only needed to live inside it and reclaim our family home.

But, I didn't do that. Instead, I sent a wrecking ball to knock it down. To destroy the last bit of my family that was left.

And it really was all I had left. My grandmother worked so hard to help me put the past behind me. I didn't even know what my past was. I didn't know about our traditions, our lineage, or our culture. My history was like looking through a foggy glass and only now, with the help of my aunt's diary, was I able to wipe away the moisture and see a vague impression of everything I had been missing. Without this journal, without this house, I was a Creeke by name alone.

"Lyn..."

"Jordan." My words were stifled sobs, my voice cracking with emotion.

"Lyn, can I come in? One of the guests called me up on the intercom, said they heard crying and a loud thump. They were worried someone might have hurt themselves..."

I took a few deep breaths to calm my trembling lips. "I didn't hurt myself."

"I know you didn't... But I also know it was you that was crying. Please let me in, Lyn. Please, let's put everything behind us and just... just let me in, please."

I got up off the bed and I walked over to the door, but I never managed to turn the handle.

"I can't, Jordan. I can't talk about this. I just don't know what to say. I can't... If I try, I just start to..." A fresh wave of tears bubbled up, and I bit back the cry in my throat.

"How about we just talk, then?"

"What do you mean?" I said with a sniffle.

"Did I ever tell you about the time a family of squirrels made a nest in the fireplace during the summer?"

"N-no..."

"Well, we kept hearing chirping and we could not figure out where it was coming from until one day I heard it loud and clear in the dining room. Well, me thinking I should just go ahead and investigate myself, opened up the flue and a baby squirrel drops onto my face."

"A baby squirrel?" I allowed a small laugh to escape me. "That must have been adorable." I leaned against the door, sliding down until I was sitting cross-legged with my back against it. "How did her parents feel about that?"

"Oh, they weren't fans. I freaked out and banged my head against the lintel and kind of blacked out for a few seconds. When I came to, there's an adult squirrel standing on my chest looking pissed..."

And so that's how we continued for the rest of the night. Me not saying much and Jordan telling me every ridiculous story he could think of. I knew once he stopped talking, the pain would come back to the surface as hot and fresh as it had been when he first arrived, but he at least kept it at bay long enough for me to curl up in front of the door and fall asleep.