echristian-epub-ee8a4ba5-94c3-4982-ae55-299db4e26c11

by Unknown

  Emma lifted a brow. “Tearoom.”

  “Parking lot. If we play it right, the town will give us ninety thousand for this place. That’s top price; we’d be a fool to refuse it.”

  Reality seeped into her thoughts. Sam was right—as he always was, which annoyed her. Why did she continue to fight the one man who offered a logically sound solution to her dilemma—keep the house and face childhood memories day after day or return to Seattle? And he had upped the stakes when he’d mentioned his mother. She had witnessed Edwina Gold getting out of Sam’s car Sunday. She was an old, feeble woman now. Emma might not care for the curmudgeon, but she couldn’t stand the thought of Sam’s mother not receiving the best of care in her waning years.

  Yet she couldn’t accept his terms. Admittedly in the beginning she wasn’t willing to sell simply because she needed to spite him. The dinosaur of a house was a contractor’s nightmare. Serenity was filled with memories she wanted to leave behind, but in the past twenty-four hours her feelings had begun to change. Maybe it was the memories; maybe it was the growing awareness that she couldn’t blame everything on her childhood. Whatever, she believed the tearoom might be a sound investment.

  Sam’s gaze strayed to the stove as he loosened his tie. “It’s getting hot in here.” Sweat popped out on his forehead. “What are you burning in there? Plutonium?”

  Emma got up and opened the window wider. “I’m having trouble regulating the temperature.”

  “It’s not that hard. The vents are—”

  “I know where the vents are. I lived here, remember? Seattle residences have central heat and air.” Goodness, she didn’t know people still heated with wood. She yanked the window even higher. Due to the stove eating voracious amounts of wood, she was almost out and had no idea where to buy more. Apparently Lully had wood fairies.

  Sam rolled up the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. “I didn’t come here to argue. We have a legitimate difference of opinion.” He leaned back on the sofa, pitching a hard throw pillow aside for more comfort. “Convince me your plan is better.”

  Emma collected her thoughts. This was a start. “For one thing, the house is the only thing left of my family.”

  Not in her wildest moments could she think of moving back to Serenity. Her life was in Seattle, in her work at The Cottage, but she could fly back and forth monthly. If nothing else, giving Janice a new start would make the decision worthwhile. Dare she trust Sam with her wildest dreams?

  His features softened. “I can appreciate that.”

  “I don’t want to be selfish and uncaring. Your mother—well, if you were telling me the truth about her—”

  “I have never lied to you, Emma. Now, or in the past.”

  Sighing, she sat back. Biting her lower lip, she chose her next words carefully. “Can I offer a compromise?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll agree to have a realtor look at the house and give a fair market value. That will give us some idea where to start if—and I stress if—we agree selling is the best option. If I turn the house into a tearoom, your share of the money should more than adequately take care of your mother.”

  “And if it doesn’t turn enough profit?”

  “I’ve been successful with my Seattle business.” Yet the challenge did concern her. Would she be stretching herself too thin with two businesses? What if she held out and refused to sell, the tearoom flopped, and Sam’s mother— She sighed. “We’ll pray that the venture will be successful.”

  She turned to the stove, considering its complications. It had to be ninety-plus in the room if it was a single degree. She pushed at the vent slots and jammed them completely closed. When she peered into the glass-fronted door, she saw the flames die down. She decided to push the vent open partway, but it stuck.

  She jumped when Sam’s large hand closed over hers. For a moment she concentrated on the warmth of it, the calloused palm against her skin. Her heart pounded so loudly he could surely hear it.

  Shoving the vent a quarter ways open, he released her hand and she felt bereft. His closeness unnerved her. Together like this after so many years felt so strangely familiar and so good. The years peeled away and suddenly she was fourteen again and deliciously, hopelessly in love with Sam Gold.

  “Leaving the vent one quarter open allows air to feed the flames. Completely closed chokes off the air supply and the flames die down.” His breath was warm against her cheek. “You always make things more difficult than they have to be, Emma.”

  The undertone in his voice was more pronounced than the gentle admonishment.

  Early the next morning, Emma wandered into the bookstore. Elizabeth Suitor, the elderly proprietor, glanced up when the bell over the door tinkled. Emma stood for a moment, perusing the sunny interior. The scent of candles mingled with the aroma of fresh coffee; comfortable chairs and settees in muted prints formed conversational clusters before the two front windows.

  Emma slowly pulled off her gloves and let her woolen scarf fall away.

  “Welcome to Elizabeth’s Corner, Miss Mansi.”

  Emma was surprised when the clerk called her by name, but then she supposed everyone in town knew she was back. “Please call me Emma. And thank you for the plant you sent; it’s thriving.”

  “I didn’t know Lully that well, but she always stopped to look in the windows when I had them decorated for holidays. And she’d sometimes bring Gismo in for a treat. But generally she ordered books by phone, and Ray picked them up for her.”

  “Ray? The man who worked for her?”

  “He’s a good soul, rather shy. You didn’t notice him at the funeral?”

  “No.” But then Emma’s mind had been preoccupied.

  “Lully liked to read about anything. Seems everything caught her interest. Are you looking for something in particular?”

  Emma scanned the shelves of best-sellers. “I enjoy mysteries.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Oh yes. A good mystery is hard to put down. Right over here.”

  Elizabeth led the way to the back of the store to a large rack of novels. “Please let me know if I can help.”

  “Thank you.”

  Elizabeth returned to the register while Emma continued to browse. After fifteen minutes or so she returned with two titles. Setting the books on the counter, she opened her purse and brought out a red checkbook.

  “Twenty-one-fifty-four,” Elizabeth said.

  Emma started to write a check, then changed her mind, handing Elizabeth her MasterCard.

  “Will you be staying in town long?” Elizabeth asked as they waited for the charge to go through.

  “A while,” Emma said, clearing her throat.

  Elizabeth shut the register and sighed. “Goodness, all this work—been trying to find someone to come in a couple days a week, but nobody seems interested.”

  “Oh?”

  “Say. You wouldn’t be interested in part-time work, would you?”

  “No, I have a business in Seattle.” She smiled.

  “Oh. Well, I thought you might be staying around a few weeks what with settling Lully’s affairs and all. I was thinking of a few hours a day—not much. Just enough to fill time—help me out a bit.”

  The “filling time” part caught Emma’s interest. Apparently she wasn’t going to return to Seattle soon, not if she had to go through the process of pretending to consider putting the house on the market. Sam said the city would pay ninety thousand—how could he know that? Unless he had a good idea of what property sold for in this town—which logically he would. The realtor would probably come in with a much lower price, especially if they wanted to move the estate quickly.

  She could always hold out for two hundred thousand and watch the bidders faint and die away. She didn’t like deceiving Sam, but common sense and experience told her that using the ploy was the only way she was going to get the tearoom. And she would make the business a success so Sam wouldn’t have to worry about his mother’s care. Personally, she thought she�
��d overcome a touchy situation with a brilliant plan.

  Sam might think differently.

  “Well, actually, it has been a little quiet at the mansion.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Having nothing to do driving you up the wall?”

  “I’m not used to having a lot of time on my hands, and there’s only so much I can stand to do at the house at this time.” She winced at the thought of endless clutter and boxes. Then there was Lully’s jewelry business …

  The older lady’s eyes brightened. “I can offer a few hours a week. Mostly dusting and rearranging shelves. As you can see, it’s a very small store and we don’t sell everything. No magazines and the only paperbacks are the ones on the best-seller list. Mostly hardbacks old and new, and some collectors’ volumes.”

  Emma nodded, her gaze traveling the cozy interior of the store. “You’ve created a very inviting atmosphere.”

  “You would be flexible on the hours you could work?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Because I open at nine and close at six, unless someone comes in at the last minute. Then I stay open as long as needed.” Elizabeth smiled. “I’m alone and have no one to consider except myself, so the hours are never a problem for me.”

  “Me neither,” Emma admitted. “I have no one but myself to look after. And Gismo.”

  “Ah, yes. Little Gismo. Intuitive little soul. Well, then,” Elizabeth said, ripping off the receipt after Emma’s purchase had cleared with the credit-card company, “why don’t you come by on Monday and I’ll put you to work a few hours. The plants all need watering and a little extra care.”

  Emma signed the credit-card receipt, recalling the various plants she’s spotted. “That’s fine. I own a greenhouse in Seattle. I’m a horticulturist.”

  “How nice. It’s not too soon to begin thinking about Christmas; maybe I’ll do a little extra this year. What do you think about having a nice live green display in the front window?”

  Emma studied the space. “Maybe white poinsettias and a green tree?”

  Elizabeth handed Emma the shopping bag with the name Elizabeth’s Corner in black script printed on a slant. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something. Around ten then?”

  “Ten will be fine. Thank you.”

  “Down Gismo. Don’t be so greedy,” Emma scolded as she scraped the Alpo can clean while trying to avoid the dog’s lapping tongue.

  The little dog gobbled the meaty chunks as if he hadn’t eaten in days, and then scooted the bowl around in a circle, licking it clean.

  Though she’d been appalled at first to have responsibility for the dog, she found she rather enjoyed having Gismo greet her whenever she returned to the house. She’d never been as fond of animals as Lully was. When they were young, every stray dog or cat that ended up at the Mansi house turned into Lully’s newest pet. Emma was surprised that Gismo had been Lully’s only companion.

  Emma dumped the empty dog-food can in the trash. What had Lully done with her money? It seemed she’d had a sizable income from the jewelry she sold, though Emma couldn’t determine the amount, since she couldn’t get into the computer files and couldn’t find a ledger of any kind. New jewelry orders arrived in the mail each day, but without more information Emma didn’t attempt to fill orders. Jewelry supplies came in, and she set the boxes on Lully’s workbench as if life went on, which for Lully it didn’t. As youngsters, they’d learned to stretch a dollar, so it was likely that even with buying a computer and the books that were stacked around and the colorful clothes, Lully had not spent everything she made. Lully must have saved her money, but the bequests in the will had been small.

  Other than the house, there was nothing of value.

  Gismo trotted to the trash and nosed around. Emma nudged him away with her foot. “Go play.”

  Gismo looked up, wagging his tail as if to say, “Only checking.” He missed Lully. At night he would go through the house, peeking into corners, peering into rooms. Once she’d found him in the middle of Lully’s bed, his chin on his paws, looking so pitiful she almost cried. She’d picked him up and held him, fighting her own tears. How could an animal be expected to understand that his “person” was gone, when Emma didn’t understand it herself?

  The morning stretched before her. There were things to do: clean closets and drawers, pack Lully’s personal belongings, and choose what should go to a local charity. She shook her head. Not today. When those items were done Lully would truly be gone.

  When the church bell tolled, Emma glanced at the clock. The familiar sound brought a rush of memories. They’d never gone to Sunday school or church. “We can worship the Lord right here,” Lully would say when Emma asked why they couldn’t go to services. Then she’d pull out the old Bible that had been their mother’s, and Lully would read Scripture and talk about its meaning until they heard the noon bell.

  It wasn’t until she was a teenager that Emma learned that Lully would have loved to join her neighbors, dressed in their Sunday best, greeting one another in front of the church before going in to sit together, pray together, and sing together. But Lully couldn’t bear the stares, the silent questions and the gossip. So she stayed home and tried to instill God’s teachings into a questioning younger sister. Emma wasn’t sure her sister’s attempts had been successful. She didn’t know who God was anymore. He certainly wasn’t the kind of “personal” God that Lully had written about in her letters in recent years. God didn’t talk to her, as he seemed to do to Lully. Emma drew a long, deep breath of decision. Well, maybe it was time to see if he talked to others in Serenity.

  The church bell finished tolling as she left the kitchen and went upstairs. A few minutes later she was downstairs again, wearing the only suit she’d brought, the dark blue one that she’d worn to Lully’s service.

  “You watch the house,” she told Gismo, then locked the front door behind her.

  Cool morning air filled her lungs. The heater in the car felt good as she drove to the church that sat at the end of Aspen Street. She could imagine that a church had sat there since the town was accidentally founded. A bright sun shone on the picturesque setting. Like many old towns, a Gothic-style courthouse sat in the middle of the town square. Aspen Street ran in one direction, with the church at one end. Noble Street ran in the opposite direction, toward the newer residential section of town. In the older section, smaller Victorian-style houses dotted the curbs, some built at the end of World War II when veterans were returning home to build lives for themselves and establish families. Centered on the square were the shops—The Bread Shop, Willis’s Grocery, Elizabeth’s Corner, and Brisco’s Café. Lott’s Restaurant was newer and located at the far end of Noble Street. Ford’s Insurance Agency, now owned by a third-generation Ford, was on one corner, Howard’s Pharmacy that Bruce Gold had owned, on the other. The name had never made sense to Emma, but she supposed a man named Howard owned the establishment before Sam’s father bought it. Miller’s Dry Cleaning was next door to Howard’s, and Rockies Realty. A Piggly Wiggly grocery was a block off the square, new to Emma. She’d overheard someone say it had been there ten years.

  Then there was Floralee Harris’s Cut & Curl, where Floralee’s daughter worked as a manicurist and answered the phone. Emma smiled, remembering the time Floralee had fried her hair with one of her “sale” permanents. Emma’s hair looked like an electrified Brillo pad. She had cried for hours until Lully took pity on her. She’d cut Emma’s hair in a boyish style that Emma wasn’t sure was an improvement, especially when the kids at school stopped in midstep and gaped at the drastic change. She absently ran her hand through her thick, shining locks. She hadn’t had a permanent since.

  She parked beside the church and, drawing a deep breath for courage, got out, walked up the steps, and slipped into a back pew. At the front, an older man waved a hand in the air, directing a hymn: “‘Joyful, joyful …’”

  She picked up a hymnal and joined in. Two couples in the back pews turned to look and blinked when sh
e began to sing. Apparently a new voice drew attention.

  When the hymn ended, Emma sat down, aware that news of her return was quietly spreading. Why had she come this morning? Maybe to feel a little closer to Lully, though as far as she knew, her sister hadn’t stepped foot inside the church.

  Still, there was something here that drew her. Not curiosity, yet she felt a need to understand exactly what people found in church. Lully had searched for God yet never looked here. It was the central location people generally went to seek him, wasn’t it? Why was that? A wood-and-stucco building with four walls and a choir loft? Did God only exist here? Somehow Emma felt he lived in one’s heart.

  She soon became aware of a man sitting at the end of the pew studying her. He discreetly sneaked periodic looks her way as they stood to sing again and when they sat to listen to announcements. She didn’t recognize him, but then, she wouldn’t. She’d heard Serenity was fortunate, it seemed, in that several new families had moved in. They chose to work in Durango but live in a small-town atmosphere like Serenity.

  The minister was the same man who had performed Lully’s service. His message was simple and tied to Scripture, so Emma prepared to listen and perhaps gain something. His words comforted her at the cemetery, and something deep inside her needed comforting today.

  This morning the message went straight to her heart. Selecting a text from l Corinthians 13, the pastor reminded the congregation that of all the commands God had given, love was the key to real peace and contentment. There had been little love in Emma’s life; yet as she let the words linger in her mind she realized that perhaps she pushed love aside far too many times. How many opportunities to love had God placed in her path the past few years that she conveniently sidestepped to continue in self-pity? She didn’t want to think of herself as self-pitying—she wasn’t shallow or lacking in compassion. She had friends like Janice and Sue whom she loved, yet a troubling part of her wanted to blame someone for the last fifteen years. Love could suffocate in a hostile environment.