Eleven Reservations Turned My Workshop Calendar Into An Audit

I put my order book beside Verena's ledger.

For years, my calendar had held drying times, delivery trips, and notes such as soften grip for small hands. Now it also showed when strangers had slept beside my tools.

Mara asked a bookkeeper named Celia Ward to check the records. She limited the review to this property. We weren't looking for every bad thing Verena might have done.

We needed to know what had happened in our home.

Celia met us at Mara's office with a pencil and a ruled pad.

“Eleven reservations,” she said. “Each paid in full at $2,400. Seven completed. Four canceled or still scheduled when access stopped.”

“Does the first group include Nora?” I asked.

“She's in the four. Her stay never began.”

The seven completed bookings brought in $16,800. The four unused bookings accounted for another $9,600 that needed to go back.

Celia matched every receipt to a bank deposit. Then we matched the booking dates to access forms.

Three had Paige's owner acknowledgments for family afternoons. None had my approval for workshop use. The other eight had no approved schedule at all.

“She sold the access first,” Paige said. “Then treated my signature like permission for everything.”

I moved my coffee away from the papers.

“And told the guests I was gone.”

The arrival sheets made that plain. Even on weekends when I was working upstairs at home, they directed guests through the shore door and told them the maker was traveling.

Several visits had been short. Two had been overnight stays. I remembered finding towels and accepting Verena's explanation that she had washed wedding linens.

One guest review mentioned a warm cabinet for drying wet gloves.

My drying cabinet wasn't made for that. A repair technician found its control had been damaged by moisture.

We gathered estimates instead of choosing numbers that felt fair in anger.

A new bench top cost $1,650. The cabinet repair was $920. Ruined wood and unfinished paddle stock came to $1,380. Cleaning wax and oil from the floor cost $400.

Total shop damage: $4,350.

Celia asked for the wood invoices and the photographs I took when each stack arrived. We could trace the spoiled pieces to boards that had been sound before the visits. I marked the usable stock separately. Some pieces could still become short grips, and I didn't charge for those.

Paige helped me count while I read the measurements.

“This one?” she asked, holding a narrow strip.

“Keep it. The grain's good above that stain.”

We made two piles. It took most of the morning. By lunch, the claim on the paper matched what was actually lost on the floor.

“You can't bill her for every bad afternoon,” Celia said.

“I don't want to.”

I wanted a bench where the plane didn't catch a hidden ridge of candle wax.

Mara explained that the rental income didn't become mine just because Verena had earned it through a breach. We would ask for proven loss and enforce the lease's fee clause. The guests had their own refund claims.

That mattered. I wasn't trying to become a better-dressed version of her.

Paige sent the records to the insurer through her lawyer. She also answered the county's questions after Nora's complaint about the advertised lodging reached the proper office.

An inspector came on a bright August morning. We let him see the shop and showed him where the sleeping mats had been advertised.

“No paying guests here now?” he asked.

“None,” Paige said. “And no future bookings.”

He took photographs and gave her a list of documents to supply. The notice that followed named Verena's business as the lodging operator and proposed a $1,500 penalty for the unapproved use.

Paige still had work to do as owner. She provided the order, the withdrawn agency notice, and a written plan limiting the property to its allowed use. She spent evenings doing it beside me.

“I used to say I was staying out of it,” she said one night.

“You were leaving me alone in it.”

She nodded.

That answer didn't erase what she had done. It let us keep talking.

At Mara's request, Verena's lawyer sent proof of the four full refunds. Nora confirmed hers by email. She included a photograph of her staff at a public beach, smiling despite the spoiled start.

I was glad she had found some lake water that didn't come with our trouble.

Then Verena asked for a private meeting with Paige.

Paige said any property proposal could go through the lawyers.

An envelope arrived instead.

Inside was an offer of $10,000 if I surrendered the lease and released my claims. A second page was for Paige alone.

It was titled Owner's Declaration.

It said no rent had ever been paid and that I occupied the cabin only as a family guest.

Verena had marked the signature line with a small paper flag.