Page 4 of No Charm Done

“You what?”

Luna lifted her head. “It was an honest mistake⁠—”

“An honest mistake?” Delilah strode to the desk and snatched the reservation book. As she flipped through it, her eyes grew wider with each page. “Luna. What is this? ‘Wedding thingy. Honeymoon. Rooms. Dinner, 40ish. Weekend, May.’ Are you broken, Luna? Has your brain literally broken?”

“Del, come on,” Scarlett tried. “We all struggled with this job⁠—”

“Not like this!” Delilah slammed the book closed. “This is the fourth disaster in as many weeks.”

“I said I was sorry . . .”

“Do you know how hard Mama worked to build the Stargazer’s good name? How many years Scarlett and I spent maintaining it?” She turned sharply toward the back office. “I’m telling Mama. This has to stop.”

“Delilah, c’mon, don’t do that,” Scarlett said reasonably. “You know that snitches get stiches.”

But Delilah was already marching to the back office, footsteps decisive against the hardwood floor. “You’re both going to need stiches if we don’t get this inn under control.” She didn’t even knock on Mama’s office door, just pushed it open and disappeared inside.

Scarlett sighed. “That could’ve gone better.”

Luna sank back onto her stool. “I never wanted this job.”

“None of us wanted—well, no, I lied. Delilah lives for this shit. Hey, let me see the book. Is it really as bad as she says?”

“I mean, define bad.”

Scarlett’s eyebrows did a little dance as she flipped through the pages. “Oh, dude . . . These notes are just . . . I mean: ‘Woman wants quiet. Like autumn leaves, she will fall. Into October.’ What? Or this one: ‘Someone called about, a weekend thing in a month, I said sure, we’re good.’ Luna, these aren’t reservations . . . wait, these are haikus. Have you been sitting were writing poetry all day? Mama is going to absolutely⁠—”

Mama’s voice echoed from her office. “Girls! Get in here!”

“Told ya.” Scarlett clapped her baby sister on the back. “This oughta be good.”

* * *

Mama’s office door stood slightly ajar, and through the gap Luna could see Delilah’s rigid posture in one of the chairs facing the desk. Even from behind, her sister radiated fury like a space heater set to “incinerate.”

A framed photograph sat on Mama’s desk: Mama in the center with Papa’s arm around her shoulders, three little girls arranged around them, everyone laughing at one of his terrible jokes, probably something about a witch who walked into a bar.

“Well?” Mama settled back in her chair, her face suggesting she already knew what they were going to say. “What have you done to my inn?”

Luna just stared down at her lap.

“It’s, um, manageable,” Scarlett said carefully. “Luna’s creative note-taking has created some . . . issues⁠—”

“Issues?!” repeated Delilah. “Created some issues?!”

“—but I think we can smooth it over without too much drama.”

Luna held her breath, waiting for the explosion. Surely Mama—much like her mini-me, Delilah—would be outraged by the chaos, the disruption, the sheer unprofessionalism of it all.

Instead, she simply nodded. “Well done. Crisis management is one of the most important skills in the hospitality business.”

“Wait . . . what?” Luna blinked in confusion.

“I said, well done.”

“But what about the mess I made? Aren’t you furious?”

“Yeah, Mama,” Delilah interjected pointedly, “aren’t you?”