I answered with the phone tucked between my shoulder and ear. “Hey.”
“Victoria, honey,” she said, and I could hear wind rushing over the receiver. She was outside. “There’s a whole crew in your driveway.”
My hand froze over the register.
The customer looked at me.
I forced the last item across the scanner. Beep.
“What kind of crew?” I asked.
“Event crew. Big van says Lakeside Lux Events. They’ve got tables, a white tent, some kind of flower arch. Looks like a wedding, except nobody’s wearing uncomfortable shoes yet.”
My heart gave one hard thud.
“Tell them to stop,” I said. “Tell them they don’t have permission to be there.”
The customer quietly slid his card into the reader without making eye contact. Small-town people know when drama is family-shaped.
I heard Colleen call out, muffled but clear, “Excuse me, folks, the owner says you need to stop unloading.”
There was a pause. Voices in the background. A woman’s voice, professional and confused.
Colleen came back. “The lady in charge says she has a contract. Says Eden Sutton booked the venue and paid a deposit.”
I closed my eyes.
Venue.
My grandfather’s cabin had become a venue.
“Tell her I’m on my way.”
I handed the customer his receipt and apologized. He shook his head, kind-eyed.
“Family emergency?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
My manager, Rob, waved me off before I finished explaining. “Go. I’ll call Maddie to cover.”
The drive back to the lake felt endless. Every slow truck in the county seemed to appear in front of me. My palms were damp on the steering wheel. I kept seeing Pop’s cabin in my mind: the porch he built with cedar boards from a salvage yard, the birch trees he planted along the water, the dock where he taught me to tie a cleat hitch. Then I imagined strangers dragging rental tables across the grass, Eden laughing with champagne in her hand as if she had won.
When I turned onto the gravel drive, I actually said, “No,” out loud.
The cabin looked like a wedding magazine had been dropped onto it from a great height.
A white tent stood half-raised near the lake. String lights were looped between the birch trees Pop had planted. Round tables leaned on their sides in the grass. Two men carried a floral arch toward the dock while another unloaded boxes of linen from a truck. A woman in a black blazer stood near the driveway with a clipboard, directing traffic like she had done this a thousand times.
Colleen was on my porch with her arms folded.
She gave me a look that said, I didn’t touch anybody, but I thought about it.
I got out of my car and walked straight toward the woman with the clipboard.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Victoria Sutton. This is my property.”
She turned with a polite customer-service smile that faltered when she saw my face.
“Oh. You must be Eden’s sister.”
“I am. And I never approved this.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry?”
“This setup. The party. The tent. Any of it. I never spoke with your company, and Eden does not have permission to use this property.”
The woman glanced down at her clipboard, then back at me.