Hearse and Buggy

by Laura Bradford

  “Like me?” she echoed.

  “Yeah.” His gaze locked on hers. “Like you.”

  “Claire?” The moment broken, she turned toward the sound of her aunt’s voice. “Benjamin Miller is here to see you.”

  Jakob’s dimples disappeared along with the sparkle that had lit his eyes in such mesmerizing fashion just seconds earlier. In their place was a sense of resignation, maybe even defeat. She looked back toward her aunt as Benjamin stepped into her view, his black hat and pants almost stern against the warmth of the foyer.

  “Miss Weatherly. I have come to thank—” Then, just as quickly as the words started, they stopped, Benjamin’s lips clamping shut as the identity of Claire’s companion registered in his mind. “Jakob.”

  “Benjamin.”

  Claire looked to Diane for help, but, once again, her aunt was gone.

  “I did not mean to interrupt.”

  She stepped forward in an effort to ease the tension. “No, no. You didn’t interrupt anything. We were just talking.” The quick intake of air behind her made her second-guess her words, but it was too late. “I mean, we—”

  Jakob moved around her to assume a stance more suitable to his profession. “I just came to tell Claire that she was right about Nellie Snow. And, as a result, your sister and your family can rest easy knowing there will be no more fires and no more property damage.”

  “I have heard. Eli told me. That is why I am here, too. To say thank you to Miss Weatherly. And, I suppose to you, too, Jakob.”

  Claire gasped.

  Jakob nodded, then held out his hand, shaking Benjamin’s firmly when it was offered in return. “And I want you to know how sorry I am to hear about Elizabeth. I had no idea.”

  “You could not have known.”

  “I could have if I’d been told.” Then, without waiting for an answer, Jakob gave a single clap of his hands and moved toward the door, his focus settling somewhere just over Claire’s head. “Well, I best leave you two alone. Enjoy your evening. And thanks again, Claire, for all your hard work. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.”

  And then he was gone, his back disappearing into the darkness just beyond the porch. She’d hurt him, that was obvious. But she hadn’t meant to downplay his presence in front of Benjamin. She really hadn’t. She just didn’t want Benjamin or Jakob to get the wrong impression.

  “My star worked, yes?”

  Benjamin’s voice broke through her woolgathering long enough to leave her feeling more than a little confused.

  “Star?”

  “The one I found. You said you wished for the problems at the shop to end. And they did.”

  She couldn’t help but smile at the wonder she saw on his face as he looked at her. “I guess you’re right.”

  “Maybe your star will work, too. Maybe you will live a simple life.”

  Chapter 30

  She was sitting on her window seat looking out across the darkened fields and hills of Heavenly when she heard a soft tapping at the door. The sound, coupled with the late-night hour, surprised her out of her thoughts.

  “Come in,” she whispered.

  Diane padded into the room in her fuzzy white slippers and pushed the door shut in her wake. “I saw some light coming from under your door and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  It was a simple inquiry that required a simple answer, yet simple seemed to be escaping her at that moment. In fact, the simple, basic day-to-day rituals that had been such a comfort to her after moving to Heavenly had faded into the background in a life that had suddenly become complicated again.

  Instead of enveloping herself in her present life at the inn, she’d begun to think ahead—to an apartment she’d yet to rent or even a house she’d yet to buy. Suddenly the simple joy that came from wandering downstairs to hunt through Diane’s vast book collection for the next great read she could devour wasn’t enough. In its place was worry about the rent payment she didn’t have and the make-believe room she really didn’t have to paint and decorate.

  Instead of enjoying the friends she’d made in Esther and Ruth, and Jakob and Benjamin, she found herself worrying about their lives and their relationships.

  Instead of taking time to learn who she was and what she wanted in life, she found herself right where she’d been when she’d first met Paul—so wrapped up in trying to read Jakob’s reactions and Benjamin’s thoughts that she wasn’t fully aware of what her own feelings were saying.

  And all of it had changed so subtly, she hadn’t seen it coming.

  Yet there it was.

  There she was.

  So she tried her best to explain it all to her aunt, to describe how she felt about the changes she hadn’t seen coming and her worry over how to stop them and reverse course back to the first few weeks in Heavenly. When everything had been so new, she didn’t have time to worry about much of anything.

  “But don’t you see?” Diane said when she was done. “Don’t you see that by thinking ahead to renting or buying your own place, you’ve accepted this town as your home?”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way …

  “And don’t you see that by wanting to help your friends, you’ve come to care about them as if they’re your family?”

  Without waiting for a reply, Diane relinquished her place on the edge of Claire’s bed and set about the task of fluffing pillows and readying sheets for the sleep Claire would have to succumb to sooner or later. “I don’t see how wanting to put down permanent roots and caring about the people around you can be a bad thing.”

  “I know you’re right, I really do, but … Well, I guess I’m afraid of losing myself before I’ve even had a chance to truly figure out who I am and what I like.” She hoped she didn’t sound like an idiot, but she’d finally found a way to verbalize the knot of fear that was starting to reattach itself to her soul the way it had when she first left Paul.

  Diane finished her professional aunt duties and, grabbing Claire’s hairbrush from the vanity, made her way over to the window seat.

  “I think you’re shortchanging yourself more than you realize. You know what you need in a relationship because your heart finally spoke up and demanded to be heard. It took you a while, but you finally listened. Your heart has had its say, and it’s not going to fade quietly away only to be ignored all over again. Just listen to what it says, and you can’t go wrong.”

  She encased her aunt’s free hand with her own as it stroked the side of her cheek the way she’d treasured so much as a child. “But what happens if I can’t hear what it’s saying?”

  “You will when you’re ready. Just like you were when you left New York, when you made the decision to open the store, and when you took what you knew about Nellie to Jakob.”

  Disengaging her hand from Diane’s, she looked out into the darkness once again. “I think I hurt Jakob this evening, and I feel awful about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I downplayed his presence when Benjamin stopped by.” Her heart ached as she recalled her words and his reaction to them as if it was happening again at that very moment.

  “Why?”

  Ah, the million-dollar question. “I’m not sure.”

  “Is it because you want Benjamin to see you as available?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “Maybe.”

  “But you know it doesn’t matter whether he does or doesn’t, right?”

  She turned from the window to meet her aunt’s worried eyes. “I’m trying to know that.”

  “And Jakob? Do you have any feelings for him at all?”

  There was no denying the tingle she felt every time his skin brushed hers, no ignoring the way a simple touch of his hand warmed her entire body …

  “I’m not sure,” she repeated. “Maybe.”

  “Then maybe you need to get to know him better. Learn more about each other.” It sounded so simple when Diane said it. But that’s because it was through Diane’s eyes, not hers. She
was living it; Diane was watching it. “Jakob Fisher is a good man.”

  Diane gathered Claire’s hair in her hands and brushed it from top to bottom, the repetitive motion comforting in its simplicity. “And a person would have to be blind not to see that he’s a bit smitten with you, dear.”

  She pressed her forehead against the glass, the sensation of the brush as it moved through her hair making her long for safer topics …

  “Jakob thinks Nellie could be behind Walter’s death now, too. But instead of jealousy—as her motive was with Ruth—it would probably have been blinding rage that made her snap and kill her husband.

  “And I guess it makes a ton of sense if you think about it. She was so sure he was going to come back for her after he skipped town. But instead of coming back, he sends a love letter to another woman … a woman nearly half her age.”

  Diane stood silently behind her, the woman’s reflection in the window offering a sense of strength and courage that had been lacking in the room prior to her arrival. It was as if everything in life would work itself out one way or the other as long as Diane Weatherly was on duty.

  “But Walter was strangled wasn’t he?”

  Claire closed her eyes against the image of Nellie squeezing the life from her husband with her own bare hands. It was hard to imagine on some levels but certainly not out of the question for someone who had been publically humiliated in so many ways. “Yes he was.”

  “But how could Nellie have strangled someone nearly twice her size?”

  It was the same question that had surfaced when she’d heard of Nellie’s potential role in Walter’s murder, so she gave the same answer she’d been given. “She had more than a few reasons to be blinded by rage.”

  “Agreed.” Diane set the brush back down on the vanity, then leaned forward to plant a kiss on the top of Claire’s head. “But Jakob is missing one undisputable fact.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nellie couldn’t have strangled that no good husband of hers to death even if she tried.”

  She left the window seat and followed her aunt to the door, the late-night hour and the busyness of the day finally taking its toll. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because Nellie Snow’s hands are so riddled with arthritis she can’t even open a bottle of water by herself.”

  Chapter 31

  She was almost finished with her bagel and coffee when Arnie burst through the door with a stack of papers in one hand and a camera in the other.

  “Hey, mind if I tag along to the shop with you this morning? I want to get a few pictures of the town and maybe a few of Esther, too.”

  “Sure, you can tag along.” She lifted the blue and yellow mug to her lips and drained the last remaining drops of the lukewarm liquid. “But you know as well as I do that Esther won’t allow her picture to be taken by you or anyone else.”

  Arnie’s scrawny shoulders hitched upward. “Yeah, I know. But maybe … if she thinks I’m taking a picture of something else—like maybe one of those hand-painted milk buckets or something—I can snap one of her without her even knowing.”

  “No.”

  Securing the camera around his neck, he reached for the bread basket beside the refrigerator and peeled back its floral cloth cover. “Hey. Where are the muffins?”

  She pointed to a larger basket not more than six inches from where she sat. “Diane made a larger batch this time, so they’re in that one.”

  “Cool.”

  “So what’s with the papers? Is that your thesis?”

  He tossed the stack of pages onto the breakfast bar and snatched four muffins from the basket. “It’s the first draft. Finished it last night while your boyfriend and his nemesis were sizing each other up in the parlor just below my room.”

  She felt her anger rising but shook it off the best she could. Correcting a man like Arnie wasn’t worth it. He wouldn’t listen anyway. Instead, she mustered up the closest thing to an apology she could find out of loyalty to her aunt’s role as innkeeper. “I hope we didn’t disturb you too badly.”

  “Nahh. That’s what headphones are for, you know?”

  Reaching in front of her, he plucked her knife from her napkin and buttered his muffins across every side he could find. When he was done, he stuck the knife in his mouth and licked it clean. “So you think Esther will give in to her feelings and come to your aunt’s bonfire with me tonight?”

  She wanted to laugh, she really did, but she couldn’t. Because for the first time since she’d met him, she actually felt a little sorry for Arnie. He was living in a dream world where Esther was concerned, just as she was living in one over Benjamin.

  Esther was no more going to walk away from the Amish for Arnie than Benjamin would walk away for Claire. It simply wasn’t going to happen for either one of them.

  Fortunately for her, though, she wasn’t even sure whether she liked Benjamin as anything more than a friend who just so happened to make her feel like someone special. Arnie, on the other hand, not only liked Esther but actually believed she liked him, too.

  Claire, however, knew differently.

  “Hey, you were wrong about your whole deflection theory with Eli and the problems at his sister’s shop.” She slid off her stool and carried her empty mug and plate to the sink, where she proceeded to put both in the industrial-sized dishwasher. “He had nothing to do with any of it.”

  “And you know this because …” Arnie prompted as he crammed the first muffin into his mouth.

  Returning to the breakfast bar, she ran a damp paper towel across the surface of the counter while he moved on to his second and third muffin. “I know this because the person behind everything confessed.”

  “Humph. Well I’ll be darned. I guess the thought of covering his tracks never even occurred to that buffoon at all then, huh?”

  “Eli Miller isn’t a buffoon. He’s actually a pretty nice guy.” And she meant it. Any misgivings she’d harbored about the young man’s temper in the beginning had faded in favor of his more enviable qualities. “I don’t believe he had anything whatsoever to do with Walter Snow’s murder. I really don’t.”

  “Suit yourself.” Arnie wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his mouth and then reached into his pocket to pull out his vibrating phone. “Aw, darn. You go on ahead without me. I gotta take this. It’s that Amish midwife lady that Diane tried to hook me up with when I first got here.”

  “But I thought the first draft was done.”

  “That’s before I knew she was going to call. I’ve only been waiting for three-plus weeks.” He flipped open his phone and held it to his ear as he headed into the hallway and toward the stairs, his voice lingering long after his presence. “Does it take you this long to respond when someone goes into labor? Because if it does, you might want to consider another career path …”

  Grabbing her purse and Diane’s keys, Claire took off in the opposite direction, eternally grateful to Diane’s friend for freeing her from having to spend another moment with the insufferable Arnie Streen. After all, less than four hours of sleep was enough of a liability for the day all on its own.

  She made quick work of the parking lot before turning east and heading toward town, her mind already thinking ahead to everything she wanted to accomplish. Martha had new items for the store, as did Esther, and all would need to be priced and displayed before closing. Beyond that, she needed to track down Jakob and apologize for her behavior. If he accepted it without issue, she’d invite him to the bonfire she suspected her aunt of finagling as a way to bring Jakob and Claire together.

  And maybe it would be fun.

  By the time she reached the shop, she found herself hoping he would accept both her apology and her invitation. The laid-back setting promised to provide the kind of low-pressure fun she needed. And if she could convince Esther and Eli to come, too, the whole thing would be even better.

  “Claire! Claire!” Esther was across the room and blocking her path before she’d barely cle
ared the door. “Did you hear the news?”

  “You mean about Nellie and the stuff at Ruth’s?”

  Esther nodded emphatically.

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “Maybe this means she is one who—who murdered Mr. Snow.”

  Recalling her aunt’s words from the night before, she rested a friendly hand on Esther’s arm. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up about that just yet.”

  Esther’s shoulders sagged. “But I want to hope.”

  “I know.” She sidestepped her friend and headed toward the counter and the promise of new handcrafted items from Esther’s mother. “So? What did she make this week?”

  “Mamm did not feel well today. She said she will come Monday.”

  She tried not to show her disappointment, but it was hard. One of her favorite parts of the job was seeing all of the beautiful things the Amish made. “Then I’ll look forward to Monday.”

  “I have things.” Esther escaped into the stockroom only to return moments later with a large brown paper sack. “I hope you like these.”

  Claire took the sack from Esther’s hands and plopped it on the counter. She reached inside and pulled out four hunter-green and cranberry checkered cloth napkins with a matching table runner. “Oh, Esther, these are lovely.”

  The young woman reddened at the praise, but Claire could tell she was pleased. A compliment was a compliment no matter who you were. “I am glad you are happy.”

  Scooping up the newest additions to her ever-growing inventory, Claire wound her way around the various displays she’d set up around the shop. When she reached the section where she tended to keep things like tablecloths and other items for the kitchen and dining room, she glanced back at Esther. “I was thinking about what you said last night. About Nellie Snow searching both the stockroom and this room looking for something. I wonder if maybe she was looking for the money her husband stole.”

  “But she could not find what he did not leave.”

  She turned back to the napkins and table runner, arranging them in a way that best showcased the exquisite work that had gone into making them. Esther was, without a doubt, on par to be as crafty and creative as her mother.