Can she make room for love?
When wedding planner Carrie Archer inherits the crumbling Avalon Inn where she spent her childhood summers, she knows she’ll do whatever it takes to make it home. With no money for renovations, that means finding investors if she ever hopes to turn the Avalon into a dream wedding venue.
But Carrie has been left more than the inn—she’s also inherited its occupants, including three senior citizens, a single-father chef with childcare issues, a panicky receptionist, and one very gorgeous gardener.
So when her cousin Ruth declares her intention to get married at the Avalon on Christmas Eve, Carrie finds herself juggling decorating with dance nights, budgeting with bridge games...and sabotage with seduction.
For Simon and Holly
It’s a money pit, Carrie. You don’t have to do this. You can’t do this.
Carrie stared out of the car window at the familiar, crumbling form of the Avalon Inn, her father’s words still echoing in her head. Five years, and it barely seemed to have changed at all. The roof tiles still sat wonky, the terrace seemed to be sinking into the grass, and moss had crept so far up the building it appeared to have taken over the stonework.
In other words, it still looked like home.
The place she’d spent endless childhood summers, reading by firelight or adventuring through overgrown gardens. The scene of her first kiss. Fourteen years old, dressed in Grandma Nancy’s second-best silk gown, dancing on the terrace with one of the local boys. He’d sung along to the music, his breath warm against her ear as they’d hidden in the darkness, peering through the window at the women dancing, their long dresses swirling. Cigar smoke and music had filled the air, and Carrie had known in that moment that the Avalon Inn was where she truly belonged.
Even now, so many years later, she knew this place, deep in her bones. Just through the front door stood the ornate, curving main staircase, the site of her cousin Ruth’s many fictional weddings. And somewhere, shoved in the bottom of a cupboard, she’d probably find a dressing-up box holding the endless parade of second-hand bridesmaid’s dresses Ruth had dressed Carrie in for the occasions. The unicorn tapestry would still be hanging over the reception desk, and the old Welsh dresser must still dominate the dining room.
All so, so familiar.
She