Nail Polish and Nails

When the great-aunt she never knew leaves her a falling-down inn, Lyssa Pruitt throws her whole heart at saving it — fresh hospitality degree, no plan, and one stubborn deadline. Tate Dempsey has cared for that inn for thirteen years and resents the dreamy stranger it went to instead. But the woman who left it behind knew exactly what she was doing.

Lyssa Pruitt never met her great-aunt June. So when June's will leaves her the Fox Hollow Inn — a rambling Kentucky landmark that's been quietly falling down for thirty years — Lyssa shows up with a brand-new hospitality degree, a head full of grand-hotel ideas, and no earthly notion of how to keep the porch from falling off.

She has until October to open the doors, and nowhere near enough money to do it. Worse, the only man in the county who can mend a hundred-year-old building the right way would just as soon she packed up and went home.

Tate has looked after the inn for thirteen years. He patched its roof and replaced its porch boards and knows every crooked stair by heart. June was the only family he ever had, and he always figured the place would come to him. Instead it went to a stranger in city clothes who'll quit by first frost. He's sure of it.

He stays sure right up until he watches her dig in and refuse to give up on a building everyone else gave up on years ago. The way June once refused to give up on him.

But June left Lyssa more than an inn. There's a sealed envelope with her name on it, and June meant for her to open it last.