What The Heart Finds

One

Lena cursed the New
Jersey traffic with a fierce savagery that would have made her
hot-tempered truck driver father blush. She skidded to a stop at a
too-short yellow light and threw her head back against the headrest.
It seemed like she had been on the road forever already. Her phone
beeped on the passenger seat with an almost constant stream of texts
she was anxious about not answering. EM Corporation never rested,
even when EM himself sent her out on a job in some backwoods town in
rural Pennsylvania called Stars Landing.

She checked her
reflection in the mirror, her unpredictable hazel eyes looking more
brown than green in the bright sun. She reached up, smoothing her
white-blonde hair back into its neat bun.

The light turned and she
hit the accelerator harder than necessary, always impatient. She just
wanted to get there. Get there and get this ridiculous task over with
so she could get back to work. Back to EM Corporation and show
Elliott Michaels himself that she was capable of handling more than
fetching his coffee and answering his mail. After two years as his
personal assistant, she was more than ready to move up in the
company.

So the sooner she could
get to this Stars Landing place, the better.

It was such a weird
assignment.

Elliott had called her
into his office with a clipped “Lena” growled through the
intercom. When she walked in, he hadn’t even looked up at her,
simply thrown a folder across the desk at her. She’d arched an
eyebrow, but opened the folder, pulling out a pamphlet for an inn
called simply Stars Landing Inn.

“I need you to go
there,” Elliott said, finally looking up at her with his
piercing blue eyes.

Lena felt her brows
furrowing, irritated. She bowed slightly forward and said in the
driest voice she could muster, “You wish is my command,
master.”

Elliott chuckled,
standing up and pouring two cups of coffee. He passed one across the
desk at her, black. After two years, he still didn’t realize
she took it with cream and one sugar. “It’s an inn I
stayed at in Hannah’s home town,” he said, a rare smile
gracing his severe face as he mentioned his force-to-be-reckoned-with
eight week pregnant wife. “The owner died a few months back and
the relatives decided to put it on the market.”

“And you’re
thinking of buying it,” Lena half-asked, half-declared as she
looked at the map of Pennsylvania on the back of the pamphlet.

“Yeah, I know,”
Elliott said, taking a long swig of his coffee. “it’s not
our usual kind of investment. It will never be very profitable, but
it has sentimental value.”

Sentimental value? It was
almost hard to believe the intimidating man in front of her even knew
what such a thing was. “So what, exactly, do you need me to do
there?” Lena asked, reaching for her pocket-sized notebook and
mini pen she kept in her back pocket. She went through a notebook
about every three days.

“That’s the
thing,” Elliott said, running a hand down the scruff on his
face. “I need you to go and stay there for a while. Jot down
your impressions as a guest. What you like. What should be improved
on. The general condition of the structure. Local attractions. That
kind of thing. And then I need you to see what you can find out about
the books. Do they keep their head above water or are they always in
the red? What the employees make. Anything you can find out.”

“And how do you
suggest I go about finding out that information?”

Elliott looked up at her,
one eyebrow raised, a faint trace of a smile lifting the side of his
lips. “I am sure you can find some ways.”

“Right,” Lena
nodded, wondering what part of her resume suggested she had some kind
of experience in corporate espionage. “So you don’t want
anyone to know why I am there.”

“It’s
extremely important that no one finds out,” he said, looking
down at a picture on his desk. A picture of Hannah. “The woman
who manages the inn is a close personal friend of my wife. I don’t
want Hannah finding out. It’s a… surprise,” he
said the word with a sheepish smile.

“Right,” she
said again. It was a word she used a lot with him. Right. Not “okay”
or “yes sir”… just… right. “So when
do you want me to leave?”

“Tomorrow,”
Elliott said, making her look up quickly.

“I have a lot on my
plate that I need to delegate…”

“And you will have
to figure out how to do so by the end of the day. Give it all to Tad.
He can figure it out. As far as they are concerned, you are being
forced to take your vacation time… your two years worth.”

“Two weeks?”
she hissed. “You expect me to be away from here for two weeks?”

“I expect you,”
he enunciated clearly. “to get the job done to my satisfaction.
I want email reports on everything you find.”

“Right,” she
said, the word sounding surly. “I will see you in two weeks,”
she said, walking into her office, closing the door, and pacing the
floor.

She didn’t want to
leave. She had so many balls in the air and she was sure no one else
would be capable of juggling them correctly. And everything had to go
right. Her future at the company depended on it. But, she reasoned
with herself, maybe doing this job and impressing EM himself would
lead to her finally getting the promotion she desperately deserved.

She went home that night
to her apartment, small and economical since she was never home much
anyway. All her furniture was expensive. A cream sofa she had saved
up half of her salary for for months, a dining room set that cost
more than her first car, a huge four-poster bed with an impossibly
soft mattress and Egyptian cotton sheets, designer pots and pans in
the kitchen.

It was all in her plan. A
cheap apartment so she could buy pricey things to fill it. For when
she got a promotion. For the lavish apartment she would get herself
one day. Something as far away from the matchbook of a bedroom she
had grown up in, in the shoe box house her parents could barely keep
out of foreclosure in a god-awful part of town where she wasn’t
ever allowed out in the yard without supervision. Because the next
door neighbors cooked meth. Because the people across the street kept
fighting dogs in their yard. Because there were eight registered sex
offenders within a five-block radius.

Lena shook her head,
pulling her suitcase out of the top shelf in the closet and carefully
rolling her clothes up to fit in and avoid wrinkles. Designer slacks,
cheap silk tank tops, sturdy mid-level heels. It was just the
beginning of April, the weather mercurial and she had to pack her
lightweight summer clothes and warmer fall wardrobe, not knowing if
this Stars Landing place had the same weather as the city or if it
was cooler… or warmer.

Finished, she placed the
bag next to the front door with her purse, laptop, keys, and the
small rosemary houseplant she had managed to keep alive for the
better part of two years.

A part of her wanted to
call it quits once she finally crossed the border into Pennsylvania.
Get a nice hotel room somewhere and rest before she finished the last
leg of the journey. But the map on the GPS informed her it was only a
couple more hours and she turned the volume on the radio up, trying
to drown out her phone that had taken up ringing every ten minutes or
so.

She should get there by
nightfall.

--

She had never been the
type to romanticize small towns. Yes, they seemed to have their
appeal… neighbors that knew you and would keep an eye on your
house when you went on vacation, low crime rates, small class sizes.
But she could never reconcile the idea that someone would always know
her business. Every time she had a man over her house, every time she
let her lawn grow too high. It all just seemed too intrusive.

She pulled past a blue
sign with fancy silver writing welcoming her to Stars Landing and a
few minutes later drove into something that must have passed for a
town. There were stores on either side, small mom and pop type stores
with dark windows. Lena checked the clock, noting it was just after
six in the evening and laughed. Apparently there was no last minute
runs to the grocery store at night when you ran out of milk.

Stars Landing Inn was
located toward the end of Main Street, pushed back from the street,
the lights still on.

Lena parked her car on
the street right out front, taking out a notebook and quickly
scribbling that parking lots should be added. No one liked parking on
the street in an unknown area. No matter how quaint and safe it might
seem.

Grabbing her suitcase and
overnight bag, she looked up at the building. It was a grand old
Victorian with two levels, both of which had wrap-around porches. The
white paint was chipping as was the awful green color of the
shutters. There were window boxes below each window, small red plants
barely visible above the rim. The porch boards wobbled ominously
beneath her feet. It seemed as though basic repairs had been
neglected for a long while.

She opened the front
door, a bell chiming as she walked through.

Lena straightened, taking
a breath. Time to put her game face on.

Two

She needed to carefully
tuck away her own personal tastes in style and décor. While
she generally preferred plain lines and simplistic, modern
decorating, she knew that there were still many people who enjoyed
the almost erratic Victorian style. And that when someone booked a
room at an inn, they were almost expecting that old-world charm.

Directly in front of her
when she entered was a wooden staircase. To her left was a sitting
room with a large fireplace. The walls were papered in a blue and
yellow striped pattern, with bookshelves overflowing with old looking
tomes, and an assortment of framed paintings of families in Victorian
clothing. The chaise lounges and captain’s chairs were a pale
blue, the color faded, the material worn and ragged on the arms.

To the right was a small
reception area with a desk that left a small gap at one end for
employees to move in and out of. Behind the desk was a charming
assortment of cubby holes, mail and random belongings peeking out
from them. To the side of the cubbies was a rack of keys attached to
wooden chips with room numbers burned into them. The desk itself was
cluttered. An old computer was on one end and across the surface,
scattered piles of paperwork, fliers, and pens. No one was attending
it.

Lena moved over to the
desk, going up on her tiptoes to peek behind.

“Hold on. I’ll
be right there,” a voice called from somewhere toward the back
of the building.

Lena straightened,
reaching for her wallet and driver’s license.

A woman barreled into the
hallway a moment later, a flurry of anxious energy, carrying a stack
of newspapers in one arm and a huge mug of coffee in the other. She
was tall and thin… boyish even, wearing black skinny jeans and
a tight red long-sleeved t-shirt. “Oh,” she said, her
brows furrowing slightly as if she was surprised. “I’m
sorry. I was expecting someone else. No matter,” she said,
ducking behind the desk and throwing the newspapers on the computer
chair. “Welcome to the Stars Hollow Inn. My name is Emily. How
can I help you?”

She had one of those
hospitality smiles plastered on her face, obviously fake but
strangely eager. Emily had a sharp, almost cat-like face with a
small, straight nose, small lips, and piercing sky-blue eyes. Her
deep auburn hair was pulled into a neat ponytail which only brought
more attention to her striking face. There was a slight spattering of
freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Yes,” Lena said,
handing the woman her license. “I need a room.”

“Well you’ve
come to the right place,” Emily said, taking the license and
typing quickly into the computer, barely looking at the screen.
Efficient. “How long will you be staying with us?”

Lena smiled, a weak,
unconvincing smile. “Somewhere between a week or two,”
she supplied, reaching for her money. Cash. Because her credit card
was a company credit card. “I’m on vacation. I’m
not sure how much there is to see here yet.”

Emily nodded, typing
still. “Well we have several pamphlets for you to look over
with walking trails, tips on local attractions. All of that. But,
honestly, you’re better off just walking around the town. There
are always fliers up for some kind of event or another.” Emily
looked up, smiling her fake smile still. Charming though it wasn’t
real. “Well to make things easier, we will just have you pay at
check-out then.”