Back to McGuffey's. Liz Flaherty
drew a deep breath. The lead was back in her chest. She thought of the heirloom quilts that had covered the beds and the Blue Onion and Blue Willow dishes she’d collected one by one at garage sales, and she nearly wept. They hadn’t been family treasures—her mother and grandmothers would have eaten glass before they’d have sewn or kept old dishes—but she’d enjoyed them. They’d kept her warm and made her poky little house into a place of welcome and comfort.
She remembered the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the den. She’d filled them with well-read paperbacks, not worth much in the used-book trade, but priceless to her. Her knuckles turned white where she gripped her cup in both hands. But then she remembered the contents of the safe-deposit box, the laptop on the seat of the car and the fact that no one had been hurt.
Even Dirty Sally had been visiting the Siamese next door at the time of the fire. Sally had never had kittens, but she was totally captivated by the neighbor’s litters. Kate knew exactly how she felt.
“It’s all right,” she said. She took a deep breath. And another. “Yes, it is.” Or it will be. I’ve made a life without babies or Ben McGuffey—I can make one without my house. Or handmade quilts or dishes that are blurry blue and beautiful.
“You can have the lot cleared as soon as it cools down.” Joann’s voice was brisk, bringing Kate out of the tunnel grief was taking her into. “The fire marshal and my adjuster have promised to release their reports ASAP. This, by the way, is unheard-of—normally they don’t do it until I’ve called at least five or six times, begging and weeping and threatening to do dire things to them. Are you dating anyone interesting?”
“No. Not even anyone boring.”
“Too bad, I was looking for some good gossip to spread around the tavern at lunch.” Joann’s eyes widened when Marce set a huge slice of coffee cake in front of her. “Oh, Marce, you shouldn’t have.”
“It’s your reward for taking care of Kate,” said Marce airily. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you two, I’m off to make the beds.”
Kate watched the woman leave the kitchen. “How much money will I get?” She turned her attention back to Joann.
“Lessee....” The agent put on her glasses and clicked computer keys, pausing to frown, ask questions and shake her head at Kate’s answers.
Several computer screens later, Joann gave her a number. “That’s ballpark. We don’t know how much your contents will be yet, so it will probably be more. Plus we’ll put you up here for thirty days—longer if you need it. Your car wasn’t damaged, was it?”
“No, it’s in Penny’s driveway. Dan always says it won’t run when I’ve been drinking.”
Joann smiled fondly. “Dan Elsbury is a nice man, isn’t he?”
“He is,” said Kate. “Of course, he’s also a cop. He knows Penny wouldn’t like it if he arrested me. Especially at their house.”
“So.” Joann shuffled the papers into a folder and turned off her laptop. She closed it and slipped it back into her briefcase. “Any ideas? You’re not going to rebuild, are you?”
“Probably not.” Kate’s street had gone from being beginner-home-cozy to a row of buildings that mostly contained small businesses with second-story office or living space. The single-family dwellings and duplexes that were left didn’t seem to belong anymore. While it still wasn’t a bad place to live, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life there, either. At least, she didn’t think she did.
The back door opened and Penny came in, wearing a ragged sweater over jeans and a T-shirt with a slogan proclaiming it had been stolen from the Fionnegan Police Department. “You’re all right?” She took Joann’s cup from her hand and sipped, looking at Kate over its rim.
Joann took back the mug. “She’s fine. Get your own cup and see if Marce has any more of that coffee cake. For me, not you. You’re still trying to lose baby weight.”
Penny gave her a baleful look. “Michael is ten.” She brought the coffee carafe and the cake and sat at the island with the other two women.
Marce came back into the kitchen. “Doesn’t take long to make beds when you only have two guests. It also helps that one of them is gone half the time and the other one made her own bed,” she grumbled. “Now I’ll have to eat some of this coffee cake so it won’t go to waste.”
“I can take some with me,” Penny offered generously. “I’d be in good with the boys. Might even be able to get them to start cleaning their room. They wouldn’t finish, but starting would be real progress.”
“No, that’s okay.” Marce got herself a cup and plate and came to sit down. She cut the remaining cake into four pieces and passed them around. “See? No problem.”
“How busy is the inn, Marce?” asked Kate.
The older woman sipped her coffee. “In mud season, it’s often slow. It’s not always full in summer, either, though trail cyclists are changing that. We have some nearly every weekend. In the fall and winter, you don’t have time to blow your nose, so don’t even think of getting a cold. I’ve never gotten rich, by any means, but like the old saying goes, it’s a living. In the off-season, it’s a party place. Teas and showers. Meetings now and then. The dining room and the two parlors run into each other and you can accommodate up to fifty if they don’t all want to sit down at the same time, not nearly so many if they do.”
“How many guest rooms?” asked Joann.
“Two suites—the one Kate’s in and the two-bedroom one over the garage, which also has a kitchenette—and three rooms. They all have private baths, phones, wireless internet and television. I fought Frank tooth and nail over television, saying the kind of clientele we’d attract wanted peace and quiet. He said they wanted to choose their own kind of peace, and he was right.” Marce’s eyes misted over. “It seems I’m looking for Frank every time I turn a corner. The truth is he’s not there, and I need to stop looking. Maybe a couple of months away would help me with that.”
The women helped her load the dishwasher before saying their goodbyes and leaving the big Victorian. Joann returned to her office and Kate walked as far as Penny’s house with her before heading out on her own.
At loose ends for the first time in longer than she could remember, she wasn’t sure where to go. It wasn’t as though Fionnegan, Vermont, presented many choices. There were two stoplights downtown and a caution light on Worship Street at the intersection with a church on every corner. There weren’t any strip malls or chain restaurants yet, nor was there much physical space for growth, the town being nestled into the Green Mountains the way it was. So people still shopped and ate downtown, and sat on the park benches the chamber of commerce placed in front of every business. Fionnegan was a good place to live, to raise children, to find, as Frank Comer had said, one’s own kind of peace.
Before she knew it, she found herself walking along the path that meandered through dips and shallow valleys toward the more difficult trails that climbed Wish Mountain. Kate felt unaccustomed restlessness. What did she want to do? Did she want, for the first time in her thirty-seven years, to move away from the Northeast Kingdom to a place that offered longer summers, less mud and—and what? Something different. She could move to Tennessee, near the log home on Dale Hollow Lake where her parents were so happy, or the Nashville suburb to be near her sister.
But she realized neither of those places would be home. The wanderlust that had made her family relocate and had put motor homes in their driveways had skipped her completely. Whatever she decided to do, it needed to be here.
“Coming up behind!” The shout came just before something—or someone—knocked her right off her feet, pushing her not so neatly into the mud on the edge of the trail that led down to Tierney’s Creek.
“I’m sorry,” said a familiar voice. “I know better, but I think I flunked looking where I was going in running