"Our granddaughter lives in Juniper Falls."

"You're joking? What's her name?"

"Alexis Radcliffe."

"We know her! Her and her husband go to our church!"

The two couples laughed over their coincidental tie to each other as I brought out another tray of cookies and a fresh pot of hot cocoa.

"We know you're not from here," said Mr. Ramirez, who, with his wife, had checked in earlier that day and was now seated with our other guests before the lounge's crackling fire. "I'm curious, though, where are you from? You must've been far away, seeing as Gina never knew where to find you."

It took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me rather than Mr. and Mrs. Elliot from Juniper Falls.

"Oh, um, I'm actually not too far from here. I'm from Whitmere."

"The city?" Mrs. Ramirez gasped as a thin hand reached up to touch her painted lips. "You've been this close the whole time and Georgina never knew."

I gave them a shy smile and a shrug while I topped off their cups.

"You know I can see a bit of Gina in you," replied the husband, pointing his finger at me as he made his assertion. "It's in the lips."

"Really? I think you can see it in her eyebrows," said his wife with an air of feminine wisdom. "She has the kind of eyebrows that never need plucking, just like Georgina's."

"How do you know she never plucked them?" Mr. Ramirez threw up his hands, though a playful smile twisted his lips. "She could have been plucking them to look a certain way, and maybe Ms. Creeke just does it the same way."

"Please call me Lyn." There's a bit of laughter in my voice, but neither of them were listening.

"She didn't pluck them," groaned Mrs. Ramirez. "Nor does this young woman. You can tell."

"You can't tell," said her husband with exasperation pulling at his words.

"You can tell," added Mrs. Elliot in a sweet voice.

Mr. Elliot, however, threw up his hands in surrender. "I'm not getting involved in this. I know nothing about eyebrows."

"So you knew my great aunt well, then?" I decided it was best to defuse the situation before there was a lover's spat over eyebrow maintenance.

"Oh, we are regulars." Mrs. Ramirez settled back into the sofa and rested against her husband's outstretched arm, as if there had been no disagreement between them.

"Yeah," continued her husband, "we usually come every couple of months. It's nice we can enjoy the discounted weekdays during our retirement. Especially during the holidays."

"We are a bit sad to miss out on the Christmas display this year though," sighed Mrs. Ramirez. "It's usually up by now."

"I have seen that almost the entire town is lit up," muttered Mrs. Elliot. "Something about a competition, right?"

"Yeah." Mr. Ramirez straightened up, taking on the air of a teacher before a pair of wide-eyed students. "The residents and the businesses each compete to have the best display. Gina's were always a real gem amongst them and often won first place."

"Not that we blame you, dear," added his wife with a wave of her hand. "No one expects you to take on something like that when it's been suddenly thrown on you. It's just that we miss it."

I sighed and looked at the floor. What I really heard was that they missed her. Not that they were wrong to mourn her loss, but the repeated comparison to her, added with her many amazing feats I discovered in her journal, was making me feel inadequate.

"Well, don't you worry," said a warm voice that had swooped in to my rescue. "We have until the twentieth to get the decorations up and Lyn here has found Gina's notes for this year, so don't think we've tossed in the towel yet."

"Oh, Jordan." Mrs. Ramirez's smile widened, and she batted her eyes at the young caretaker. "I'm thrilled to hear it."

"I guess we'll have to come back up later," added her husband. "Just for the day to see Gina's last display."

"We're not taking any more reservations right now," said Jordan, stepping up beside me, "but..."

"If we have an opening in the next couple of weeks, I don't think it will be a problem." My interruption earned me a curious look from Jordan, but no one else seemed to notice.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Mrs. Ramirez clapped her hands as if I just gave her an early Christmas present. "We'll have to look over your schedule in the morning, then."

"Sure thing, Mrs. Ramirez." I took a breath and looked over the room to make sure all the cups were full and the fireplace stocked with enough wood to keep them going for a while. "Now I'm going to leave you all to get back to your conversation. If you need anything, just call either myself or Jordan on the intercom."

"I'm sure we'll be fine, dear," said Mr. Elliot with a warm smile. "You two have a good night."

I blushed at his words. I knew he meant both of us should each, individually, have a good night, but still the phrasing they could also hear it as associating the two of us as a single unit. The fact I even made that jump myself, instead of just taking it as it was, darkened my cheeks further. I quickly bowed out to a chorus of salutations before my own wayward thoughts could give my feelings away.

"You know," said Jordan as we slipped into the kitchen and I busied myself with cleaning the various dishes I'd accumulated throughout the day, "you actually play hostess really well. Have you noticed that?"

"Despite popular belief, I am a decent human being and can take care of people."

"I don't doubt that you're a decent human being." He sauntered over to where I stood before the sink and then leaned back onto the nearby island so that he stood watching me from over my shoulder. "In fact, the more I get to know you, I think you might be more than just a decent human being." My cheeks flushed, but at least I knew he couldn't see it. "Even more so after you defended me against your appraiser."

I stopped midway through scrubbing out a coffee cup, my body hunched and rigid, as if suddenly caught snatching the last cookie out of the jar.

"You heard that?"

"I had come in to get a snack and heard you welcoming someone at the door, so I may have lingered around a bit to hear who it was."

I turned off the faucet and placed the mug onto the drying rack. My shoulders slumped and my head shook. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I was, in fact, kind of a jerk to him."

"Well, you were kind of a jerk because I was being kind of a jerk to you." I sighed and turned around, bracing my hands on the edge of the sink and resting against the countertop.

"We were both jerks," he said with a crooked smile.

"The holidays bring out the best in people."

"I think it has so far." He popped off of the kitchen island and stepped forward so that only a foot or two of space remained between us. "Don't you?"

"Well..." I cleared my throat and looked at the floor.

At that point, I didn't even know what Jordan wanted from me. He kept testing the limits of how close he could get and I kept letting him step ever closer. It was a game I hadn't played in a very long time. In fact, it was a game I tried to avoid, period. I tended towards relationships that were only in it for quick gratification, with a mutual understanding that it would go nowhere. That usually ended disastrously because half of the time someone would unwittingly develop feelings. So, I eventually stopped trying altogether. But, perhaps, being stuck in this random and unusual setting, I failed to put up my guards like I should.

It was all so unsettling. I felt like I was out in the middle of the ocean, treading water without a life raft in sight. Yet, whenever I surrendered and let myself slip beneath the waves, I found Jordan there, waiting to take my weary body in his arms and breathe life back into me. But how could I ever learn to breathe beneath the water on my own?

"Well," I said again, my voice firmer, "we'd bring a bit more holiday spirit to people if we had those lights up, so why don't I get you that journal?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I pushed away from the counter and headed for the door, back out into the foyer. When I opened it, I heard the two couples still laughing in the spacious lounge on the other side of the hall.

"Are you ready to part with it? I've put these lights up so many times before that it won't take me long to do."

"I just need a little break from it and besides, like I said, the design is only half finished, so it's better to start work on it now."

We reached the landing on the second floor and headed to my room. As I put my hand on the doorknob, though, I hesitated. Biting my lip, I looked over at Jordan from the corner of my eye.

"I have one request, though."

"Sure," he said with an amused grin.

"Just... just only read the notes, okay? I just... it's only that..."

"It's okay." A hand touched my shoulder, his fingers gripping it slightly as his voice pulled my eyes to his. "I won't read anything more than the notes. I promise." His head bent to the side, a warm, almost loving, smile dancing on his lips. Then, his hand left and fell back to his side. My shoulder suddenly felt very cold.

"Okay." My answer was a mumbled exhalation before I turned back around and opened the door. I scurried inside while he stayed at the threshold, looking over my room.

"Finally off the floor, huh?"

"No," I muttered, retrieving the journal from the desk drawer. "I just cleaned up real quick before Marshall came in." I stepped over and held out the journal, but only found a pitying frown waiting for me.

"When will you get over this fear of lying in her bed?"

"Look," I said, scratching the back of my neck, "I've been wearing the same pair of jeans, two shirts, and one sweater for an uncomfortably long time. I'm going to have to go out shopping for some more clothes now that my stay has been extended. I'll try getting some brand new sheets too and hopefully that will do it."

"Okay." A light laugh followed his reply, and my chest tightened at the sound.

He took the journal and spent a moment feeling the weight of it in his hand. He then looked at me with such intensity that he left me stiff with fear and expectation, like a deer trapped in headlights. His soft smile created subtle dimples in his bristly cheeks, and I felt my heart beating harder within my chest. I needed him to leave and free me from his grip just as much as needed him to stay right where he was forever.

"Good night," I finally mumbled.

"Good night, Lyn." He headed out the door, closing it behind him as he did. With him gone, I bobbed back up above the water and, for some reason, my lungs still ached for air.