The Sawmill Book Club

Chapter One

“D

esperate times,” Libby O’Dell muttered, but she couldn’t remember the rest of the saying.

“What was that?” Amanda asked as she folded clothes and boxed them up for Libby to put into her SUV for the trip the next day.

Call for desperate measures. Victoria O’Dell’s voice popped into Libby’s mind so loudly that she jerked her head around to see if her grandmother had been resurrected and was standing right there beside her. Not once in all the years that Victoria had been gone had Libby heard her voice, so why was she hearing it now?

“You look like you just saw a ghost,” Amanda said.

“I didn’t see one, but I heard one. I said, ‘Desperate times,’ and Victoria, my grandmother, popped into my head to finish the saying,” Libby answered.

“My granny does that pretty often,” Amanda said. “I’ll be washing dishes or folding clothes, and she’ll say that I need to do the job a different way. She was always bossy. Is this the first time you’ve heard Victoria’s voice?”

Libby sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, it is. We didn’t have the best relationship, but she did raise me and teach me the antique business. As hard as I ran away from that, I can’t believe that I’m leaving tomorrow to interview for a job right back in the same thing. Guess your past will catch up to you.”

Amanda sat down beside Libby and gave her a sideways hug. “Hey, girlfriend, you don’t have to take this job if it doesn’t feel right. You can always come back to Austin and live with me for a couple of months while you look for something here.”

“Yoo-hoo! Y’all girls about to get all packed up?” Dolly’s high, thin voice floated across the small apartment’s living room and into the bedroom.

“We’re back here,” Amanda called.

“Looks like you’re going to have to store some stuff,” Dolly said as she made her way through the maze of belongings.

“Yep, maybe a few boxes,” Libby said with a nod. “But Amanda has offered to loan me some space in her garage until I can get settled. Then, when I have an address, she will ship them to me.”

“I couldn’t help much, so I made y’all some sandwiches and brought over some chocolate pie. It’s all on the table. Why don’t you take a few minutes to rest and have some supper?” Dolly led the way out of the bedroom.

Libby felt like a giant when she stood up, but that wasn’t anything new. She had always been the tallest kid in class, towering above most of the boys at her high school graduation in Jefferson, Texas. Amanda barely came up to her shoulder, and Dolly was even shorter. She’d met Amanda when she moved into the dorm at the University of Texas in Austin. They had been roommates for two years and had become best friends. Just thinking about moving away from Amanda and striking out on her own put a lump in Libby’s throat.

“I haven’t eaten yet, either,” Dolly said as she moved a box marked FOR LIBBY to the floor. “So we can have a last supper together.”

“You can take that one home and burn it,” Libby said to Amanda.

“What, this box? Why would she do that?” Dolly asked.

“Because I don’t want it,” Libby answered as she eased down into one of the mismatched chairs around an old yellow chrome table.

“I can’t trash something that might be important to you someday. I’ll just ship it to you when you have an address, and you can burn it yourself,” Amanda said.

“Ugh, fine,” Libby groaned, but she didn’t intend to ever open the thing. It was the only item she had been given when her grandmother passed away. Everything else—the business, Victorian Antiques in Jefferson, and the house, with all its contents—had been sold to pay Victoria’s gambling debts. So, no, that box probably had leftover stubs and hot tips that would never pay off. She had no qualms about burning it.

“Well, that’s settled. Let’s finish our sandwiches,” Amanda said. “I can’t wait to get into that chocolate pie.”

“Where’s my manners?” Libby placed a hand on Dolly’s bony shoulder. “Thank you, Dolly, for bringing us food. I was going to suggest that we grab a taco when we get done, but BLTs are so much better.”

Dolly smiled so big that the wrinkles on her octogenarian face deepened. “I don’t know about that. I sure do love me some tacos, but this is what I had in my apartment to work with. Now, let’s talk about this interview. Ever since you got laid off three months ago, you’ve been saying how you want to get out of the city. ’Course, you’ll have to drive a long way just to get a pizza, but maybe Madam Fate is working a miracle of some kind.”

“I’ll miss you both,” Libby said around the lump in her throat. “Am I doing something totally insane? I don’t even know if I’ll get the job or if I want it. Should I change my mind?”

Dolly laid her veined hand on Libby’s. “I feel like this is right for you. You do need a change and an adventure, darlin’ girl. The man who owns the antique store is an old soul. I knew when I was shopping at that store that you’d like him. Did he send off any bad juju when you talked to him on the phone?”

Libby shook her head. “No, he seemed nice enough—and was really interested in hiring me because I have both bookkeeping and antique experience,” she replied. “I said that I would never set foot in another antique store or have to smell lemon-scented furniture polish again. I feel like I’m going back on my word to myself, and that I’m disappointing the little kids at the women’s shelter.”

Amanda shook her head so hard that her long blonde hair flopped around her face. “You only said that when you found out that your grandmother had gambled away your college funds. I hate to see you move away, but we can FaceTime every day, and it’s only a five-hour drive. We can visit each other on long weekends. You need this, Libby, so stop second-guessing yourself. Dolly’s been there and talked with the owner. She wouldn’t let you go if she didn’t feel like you should give it a chance. Besides, didn’t your grandmother always say that you were too backward to do anything risky?”

Victoria’s voice butted into the emotional conversation: Stick-in-the-mud were the words I used.

“Don’t worry about your work at the women’s shelter,” Dolly said. “I went down there today and volunteered to take your time slot. The little kids all flocked around me like I was their grandma.”

“Oh, Dolly!” Tears pricked Libby’s eyes. “That is so sweet of you. Those kids need positive attention so much.”

“You are welcome, but honey, I’m doing it as much for me as I am for them,” Dolly said. “I love little kids, and being around them keeps a person young—at heart, if not in the body.”

Libby forced a smile. “If it doesn’t feel right, I can always come back here, even though I’m sick of the city, or ...” She paused. “I might just use up my savings and do some impromptu traveling. I can always work as a waitress for a few weeks and then move on to something else.”

I’ll show you I’m not a stick-in-the-mud, she thought as a picture of her grandmother’s face flashed through her mind.

You won’t make it at this job any more than you did the last one, Victoria’s voice taunted Libby the next day as she drove north toward the little community of Sawmill, Texas, not far from the Oklahoma border.

Libby stomped on the brake and came to a screeching halt right beside a road sign that said she was entering Powderly, Texas—population: 935. She stared across the console for several seconds, even though Victoria wasn’t floating above the passenger’s seat.

“What did you say to me?” she asked but did not expect an answer, since Victoria had been dead for more than a decade. “I was laid off because the company sold out to a bigger corporation.”

If you had finished your education, you might have had a better job in a better place.

Maybe it was leaving that cursed box behind that had raised her grandmother’s spirit up out of the grave to haunt her. Victoria’s best friend had given Libby the box when she drove to Jefferson for the simple but weird memorial, and there had always been an eerie aura around the thing. She had taken it to her apartment in Austin; shoved it back into a dark corner of her closet; and for the most part, forgotten about it. Until Amanda had helped her pack almost everything she could get into her SUV and head northeast for a job interview.

“I’m not so sure I want to talk to you after all these years, and I may not even take the job if it’s offered to me,” she grumbled.

Maybe the box had brought about the reverse of Gremlins: Victoria had left whatever gambling hall was in the afterlife to fuss at Libby in daylight.

People didn’t converse with the dead—not even those who were prone to talk to themselves, like Libby did all the time. She shook thoughts of her grandmother from her head, pulled back out onto the two-lane road, and concentrated on her driving as she passed through town. An old man coming out of a diner waved at her. On the other side of the road, a young woman with two little kids in tow threw up a hand and smiled. Libby acknowledged them both with a nod. A little farther down the road, she noticed a convenience store, and then a church with one of those old wooden signs. The paint was peeling off it, but its message caught her eye: STOP! SALVATION INSIDE.

Libby instinctively moved her foot from the gas pedal to the brake when she read the first word. Tires screeched. Horns blasted.

This place isn’t going to be my salvation, she thought. People leaning on their horns—or even two people waving at her—didn’t erase all the fears that had burrowed down deep in her soul; the trust issues and the fear of commitment were merely a few. Just a few more miles, and she would have a job interview—nothing more nor less, in spite of what Victoria had whispered in her ear.

Did she really want to live in a town so small that it didn’t even have a post office?

Her grandmother had always warned her that she would grow up to be a stick-in-the mud. As a child, Libby hadn’t been sure what that meant, but the tone in Victoria’s voice all those years ago and the expression on her grandmother’s face definitely suggested that sticking in mud was something that would send a person straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect any money. Just pick up your horns and sunscreen on the way down.

Libby shook the memory loose and tried to erase that box she had left behind with Amanda from her mind. Before daylight that morning, she had thrown her last tote bag in the passenger’s seat and driven out of Austin. That was definitely a risk, so Victoria could crawl back into whatever gambling place she had been playing blackjack in since her passing and keep her opinions to herself.

She shot another blast of stink eye across the console. “If I get this job, I’ll find a spot for you in a dark corner. I don’t need or want your advice.”

“Turn right onto Farm Road 906 and continue for three miles,” Matilda, the mechanical voice on her GPS, said.

Libby slowed down and made the turn. There were very few houses, not a single vehicle on the road, and no one to wave at her. She felt like she had fallen off the face of the earth, so she turned on the radio to be sure there was civilization in the area. A few minutes later, Matilda told her to turn left onto Sawmill Road in one mile. Libby tapped the brakes, but then she started thinking about the song “Wait in the Truck.” Lainey Wilson had taken home all kinds of awards for that song, and it was on Libby’s playlist. The lyrics talked about a whole different situation from Libby’s experience of waiting in the vehicle, but every time she heard it, the memories surfaced from those years ago when she was a little girl.

Libby had spent a lot of time waiting in an old station wagon while her grandmother hit the poker tables at the casino. She was told to keep the doors locked, not roll down the windows any farther than a one-inch crack, read her books, and enjoy the food in the brown bag that Victoria had packed for her.

Why drive seven hours for an interview for a job that you aren’t sure you want when there are dozens of positions open in Austin? the aggravating voice in her head asked. This was definitely not Victoria’s gravelly smoker’s voice, but the one that often popped up when she had doubts about something.

“I need a change of scenery,” she answered. “And it won’t be a forever job. It’s just a little layover until I can figure things out. Besides, I haven’t gotten the job yet, so I don’t have to worry about the why or where of things until I do. And I’m tired of big-city traffic and the constant rush.”

“Reroute, reroute, reroute,” Matilda repeated over and over again when Libby breezed right past a narrow gravel road.

“I hear you!” Libby said and slapped the steering wheel of her ten-year-old SUV, then whipped an illegal U-turn in the middle of the two-lane road.

She focused on the signs and Matilda’s voice until she saw a small sign at the corner of a side road that said ONE MILE TO SAWMILL ANTIQUES.

“Turn right,” Matilda said.

“You could say Good job once in a while,” Libby grumbled as she made the turn.

She hadn’t driven down a gravel road in so long that she had forgotten about the dust that boiled up all around her. Was she silly to drive more than three hundred miles from Austin to interview for this job? Answers didn’t suddenly appear; no airplane wrote letters in the clear blue sky. The gray cloud of dust surrounding her on three sides filtered through the air conditioner vents and made her sneeze. He had said that Sawmill was basically a community, not a town, but who in their right mind would live this far out in the boonies? Or better yet, who would drive all the way out here to buy antiques?

“No one with a lick of common sense!” she said, raising her voice and answering her own question. “Benny said that it was a full-time position with benefits and even a free apartment if I wanted to live in an old service station.”

Though she had never met the man in person—and didn’t even know what he looked like—her elderly neighbor, Dolly, had assured her many times that he could be trusted. Her words came back to Libby as she slowed down so she wouldn’t miss the turn again.

“You’ve wanted out of the city life for a while,” Dolly had reminded her in the pep talk she had given Libby more than once. “You got nothing to lose. Your rent is up. You’ve been looking for work since you got laid off, and the job doesn’t have to be a forever thing. Try it for a few months, and if you don’t like it, move on. You are young and smart. You can find a job anywhere. At the very least, you’ll be out of the city. I knew that going on that road trip with my girlfriends to look at antiques was a good idea, and now look at what our adventure produced.”

Adventure was the word that Libby couldn’t shake from her mind. In retrospect, she might be driving for hours to show her grandmother that she wasn’t a stick-in-the-mud. The next sign she saw told her that she was traveling on a dead-end road. That was the gospel truth, she decided with a nod. Angels walking on a barbed wire fence and singing her favorite song couldn’t make her work in an antique store for the rest of her life—especially not in this godforsaken place. At best, this was simply a stopover until she figured out exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She had lived her entire life in three ruts—the first one in Jefferson, Texas, until she finished high school; two years in college, where all she did was study; and then at a boring job in a little cubicle for eight hours a day because she thought it was secure.

“I am a stick-in-the-mud,” she whispered. “No wonder I can’t hold on to a relationship. I’m as boring as yesterday’s news.”

Knee-high weeds and scattered waist-high saplings had sprung up around defunct oil wells on either side of the narrow-rutted road. The gray cloud of dust still followed behind her—blotting out the past and chasing her toward a hopeless future.

When she had left Jefferson, Texas, for college, Libby had promised herself that she would never work in an antique store again or allow a bottle of lemon-oil furniture polish in her house. Imagining the smell of the spray her grandmother had made her use to dust the antiques gagged her so badly that she cracked the window for a breath of fresh air. She would rather have a little gray dust on the shoulder of her dark blue shirt, she thought, than a green cast around her mouth.

Even after her grandmother’s friend June had called her to say that Victoria had dropped dead of a heart attack in one of the casinos she frequented, Libby had not changed her mind, nor had she ever regretted the way she had felt at her passing. Some folks got all emotional over the death of a loved one—but then, maybe they’d been close to the one who had passed on. Libby had figured out years ago that she and Victoria were more like roommates. Had she inherited her grandmother’s business, which she had not, she would have sold it—lock, stock, and barrel—to the highest bidder.

She slowed down more for a curve, and then right ahead of her was an enormous warehouse with SAWMILL ANTIQUES written in red block lettering on a sign hanging on a false front that extended upward at least fifteen feet from the store’s true roof. Two elderly women wearing bibbed overalls and floppy straw hats worked in a flourishing vegetable garden between a couple of white frame houses to her left. They both looked up and waved and then went back to hoeing weeds. Is this the entirety of the Sawmill community? Libby wondered.

From the looks of the dirty windows on the old service station on the other side of the road, the business had been closed for years. Surely this wasn’t the apartment Benny had offered her—rent free and utilities paid—as a bonus. She parked in front of the store and removed her sunglasses. The faded sign in the window said that, at one time, Sawmill Antiques had been the Sawmill Git and Go.

Was the name Git and Go an omen telling her that she should git back in her truck and go away as fast as she could? Perhaps she shouldn’t even turn off the engine—just make a U-turn and head back to Paris. She’d passed several cheap no-tell motels where she could hole up for a day or two until she figured out whether she wanted to go east or west. Either one would prove that she was out for an adventure—even if it took every last dime of her savings.

Don’t run from a challenge, Victoria scolded her.

“You have reached your destination,” Matilda said.

“Which one do I listen to?” Libby asked herself out loud. “‘Git and Go’ or ‘reached your destination’?”

She opted for the latter, even if only for an hour or so. She shut off the SUV’s engine, took a deep breath, and put her hand on the door handle. The style of the single gas pump to her left proved that the station had been built before she was born. The hose was gone, and the bottom half, which she imagined had been bright red, had faded to a strange shade of pink. Bright afternoon sunrays bounced off a silver travel trailer parked right close to the place. A huge gravel parking lot sat between the defunct service station and the antique shop. Libby couldn’t imagine ever seeing vehicles filling the space, not with millennials throwing out everything that belonged to their ancestors. More than that, she wasn’t sure she wanted to live in such a desolate community.

Practically everything you own is in the back of this car. Even though you are thirty, you are acting like a classic millennial, aren’t you? I knew the day would come when the world would turn upside down, and it has. Victoria’s voice sounded angry.

Before she could argue with her grandmother, a big yellow, three-legged dog ambled off the service station porch. Libby opened the door, hoping the whole time that his wagging tail was a sign he was friendly and didn’t intend to blame her for whatever had taken one of his front legs off. She held out her hand, and the dog shoved his head against it to be petted.

“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” a deep masculine voice said, getting louder as it drew nearer and taking her attention away from the dog. “Elvis has been here ever since I have, and he’s never even let the two ladies across the street pet him.”

She turned toward the voice and the tall man walking in her direction.

He stuck out his hand when he was only a couple of feet away from her. “I’m Benny Taylor. You must be Libby. You are a little early.”

She shook with him, dropped his hand, and took a step back. “Yes, I am, and it’s nice to meet you in person. So, the dog’s name is Elvis, and he doesn’t like most people? Where did he get his name?”

With a name like Benny, she had expected him to be an older man and had drawn a mental picture of him wearing bibbed overalls and maybe having only a rim of gray hair around an otherwise bald head. She had not expected Benny Taylor to be Mr. Tall, Blond, and Handsome, all wrapped up in a bright smile. Good-looking guys like the one standing in front of her, wearing snug-fitting blue jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his ripped abdomen, usually managed gyms or maybe quarterbacked for a pro football team. They did not own and operate a dusty old antique store.

He motioned toward the porch. “His name is Elvis because he can sniff out drugs as fast as Elvis Presley could get a woman to swoon over him. He doesn’t like most folks—but evidently, you are an okay person. Let’s get out of the sun and have a bottle of water before we go out to the shop for the interview.”

She followed him up the wooden steps. A gentle breeze set the leaves in motion on a huge pecan tree that shaded the porch and stood between the trailer and the old store. The beat-up yellow chrome table with four mismatched chairs that filled the space between the door leading inside and the end of the porch reminded her of the one she’d left behind in her apartment. A thick layer of road dust covered all the chairs. She pulled a tissue from her purse and dusted one off before she sat down.

Elvis had followed her to the steps but then deserted her and went to sniff all the tires on her vehicle. When he’d finished, he hiked a hind leg and watered the front wheel on the driver’s side. She stared, mesmerized, watching the dog balance himself on one front leg and one back one.

“Water, sweet tea, or apple juice?” Benny asked. “There’s beer in the refrigerator in the store. I’ll be glad to get you one if you would rather have it.”

“Water is fine. Is this the apartment you said I could have?” She tried to keep a neutral expression, but disappointment filled her heart.

Benny opened an antique Coke machine that sat on the other side of the door. He pulled out two bottles of water and handed one to her before he sat down.

“Yes, it is, but don’t judge the book by the cover.” He chuckled. “The apartment in the back is small and simple, but it’s not as bad as what you are probably thinking. Did you have a good trip?”

She twisted the top off the bottle and took a drink. If the apartment wasn’t that bad, then why wasn’t he living in it instead of in a fancy trailer?

“I don’t know that I’d call it a ‘good trip,’ but I can say it was a long one. I allowed a little extra time for traffic. That’s why I’m a few minutes early.” She didn’t say that she had almost kept going when she missed Matilda’s instructions. She was more than a little superstitious, and for a split second, that simple thing had seemed like a sign to her.

“I know what you mean by a long trip. I drove up here pretty often from Houston, but that last journey seemed to take forever. Probably because in the previous ones, I was coming to see Grandpa. The last one was to handle his funeral and his final wishes. It didn’t seem nearly as bad when I was moving here, though. At that point, I felt like I’d been set free from prison.” He took a sip of his water and went on. “You are seeing all of Sawmill right here. Even though I knew the place and wanted to be here, I still suffered from culture shock at first, so if you take the job, you can expect it to take a while to feel at home. It wasn’t long, though, until wild horses couldn’t have driven me back to the city.”

“I’m sorry about your grandpa,” Libby said. “Who are those ladies? Do they work at your store?”

Benny took another long drink of his water. “Thank you. It’s been two years, and I still miss him. Those women are Opal and Minilee, and they are kind of like my surrogate grandmothers. They work at the store when they feel like it. Mostly dusting and cleaning, but no regular hours. They did bookkeeping there when my grandpa was alive.”

Libby wished she could say that she missed her grandmother. When it came to Victoria O’Dell, the raw emotional edges hadn’t softened much with the passing of time.

“I’m told that good memories help ease the pain,” she told him, repeating the words her grandmother’s friends had told her when she drove back to Jefferson for the memorial.

“I’ve heard the same thing, but I’m not sure I believe it,” Benny said and then changed the subject. “So, when we talked on the phone a couple of days ago, you mentioned that you grew up in an antique store?”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Over in Jefferson, a small town that’s known for its bed-and-breakfast places and its many antique stores.”

“Then you have some idea of small-town living. The résumé that you emailed me says that you have computer-slash-bookkeeping experience—and what with growing up in an antique shop, you are basically what I’m looking for.” He hesitated and frowned. “Tell me a little about the shop where you were raised.”

“That’s right,” she answered. “My grandmother owned Victorian Antiques in Jefferson. She raised me from the time I was born. That’s a story for another day, but I literally grew up in the shop. Last time I was there, my baby bed was still in the corner of the office.”

“My grandfather and I visited the stores in that area several times,” Benny said. “I worked here at Sawmill Antiques in the summer while I was in high school and college. I don’t remember the names of the places, but I might have been in your shop. How did you even hear about the job opening here?”

“My neighbor Dolly suggested I apply. She loved your store when she visited here last weekend. When she saw the Help Wanted sign on your door”—Libby shrugged—“she knew I was looking for a job, so she convinced me to call.”

“With your bookkeeping experience, you could probably work anywhere. Why would you apply for a job here?” he asked.

“I’m tired of Austin, and ...” She paused and took another drink. It had been ten years since she had applied for a job, and Amanda had put in a good word for her at the agency back then, so that hadn’t been much of an interview. Everything she had researched said to be forthright and honest but not talk too much, especially about personal things. “And I have experience in both areas—bookkeeping and antiques.”

“Tell me more about your grandmother. Did she inherit the shop or just start it up?”

Was this a personal or professional question? If he wanted to research her story later and see if there really was a Victorian Antiques in Jefferson a few years ago, her answer could back her up.

“My grandmother, who was really Victoria, inherited the building from her folks. They had run a grocery store in it for years before they passed away. She loved antiques, so she bought out all the antique stock in a place in town that was going out of business and started her own. She taught me well, and it’s like riding a bicycle: I may wobble a little at first, but I know my antiques.”

“Then why didn’t you keep the store when she passed away?”

“Victoria never met an antique she didn’t like—or a blackjack table she didn’t love,” Libby replied, reminding herself to keep her answer short. “When she died, she owed more money than her house and business was worth. The banks foreclosed, and the loan sharks had to eat a big loss. I wouldn’t have kept the store, anyway, or the house where I grew up.”

Benny nodded a couple of times as if he understood, but he was just being nice. No one could feel what another person’s past had been. “I’m sorry—your grandmother was Victoria, right? What made you leave your last job?”

“The insurance company was bought out by a huge corporation that wanted certified accountants to do the job I had been doing. I was not certified, so I was laid off. Like I said, I’m tired of the big-city life, and I’d like to try something other than just working with numbers all day, in a cubicle where I seldom talk to anyone,” she answered and then shrugged. “My grandmother was always Victoria to me. She declared that she was too young to be a grandmother, so I was taught to call her by her name.”

That was as close to the truth as she could get without delving into the fact that she still hadn’t gotten over her grandmother’s betrayal—and probably never would. The insurance money from Libby’s father’s death was supposed to have been put aside for her college education fund ... but when Victoria had died, it was all gone.

“Then you came to the right place.” He reached down and scratched Elvis’s ears for a minute when the dog got tired of sniffing the new vehicle before he stood up. “Let’s walk out to the store. I’d like you to see it and the office. We open at seven in the morning and close at seven in the evening on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That’s thirty-six hours of work a week.”

She was smart enough to know that such a small company was under no obligation to offer even a basic benefit package. If he had pulled a bait and switch, had offered her a place to live and insurance on the phone and was now reneging, she might be tempted to baptize him with what was left of the water in her bottle.

“Elvis and I are usually scouring the country for more stock from Monday morning till sometime on Thursday.” He pointed at a moving van parked beside the building. “How much you work on those days is up to you. I would like you to at least put in a couple of hours a day doing the bookwork. I’ll pay you what you were making at the insurance company, and time and a half for anything over forty hours,” Benny said. “Like I told you on the phone, you are welcome to the apartment at the back of the service station. The Sawmill Book Club meets twice a month in the front part of the building. But Grandpa set up the little efficiency apartment in what used to be the storeroom, for times when he was too tired to travel back and forth to Paris. That would save you from having to commute.” He used a key to open the door for her.

“Why doesn’t Elvis like those ladies who were working in the garden?” Before she stepped through the door, she drew in as much fresh air as she could get into her lungs and held it there as long as possible so she wouldn’t have to smell lemon furniture polish mixed with dust and a little mice urine. Benny flipped on the lights, and she breathed in the fresh scent of cinnamon.

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Are you making snickerdoodles in here?”

“I don’t like the scent of that lemon polish, so I buy a special formula with no scent for dusting the furniture, and dish soap works fine for the glass pieces,” he explained. “I use scent cubes in half a dozen warmers—that’s what you are smelling. I started melting them this morning. The aroma sticks around all weekend. Cinnamon is my favorite, but sometimes I use gingerbread or vanilla. Do you like it?”

“I love it,” she answered and tried to take in the whole place in one quick scan.

“To answer your question, I think maybe one of Opal or Minilee’s visitors smokes a little pot. He’s a former drug dog and has been trained to lay down wherever he gets a whiff of the stuff. He lays in one of their yards when I go over to visit them. It’s kind of like he’s telling me that there’s drugs over there.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, ma’am. I love them, but Elvis is trained, so I can’t ignore the signs. Now, on to the history of this place,” he said. “Years ago, this was a sawmill.” He led the way through the huge warehouse with high ceilings. “My grandpa and his brother built it, and it was a big business for a while. They put in the little gas station and convenience store to help the folks out who had to drive from a distance to work here. Those two small houses across the road were where they lived until they got married and moved down to Paris. Then they gave the houses to the day and night supervisors as a bonus. Later in his life, Grandpa got interested in antiques, and the lumber business was on the downhill slide, so the rest is history. Tell me, what would you change about this place?”

The question came so abruptly that it startled Libby. She wondered if her answer would be the yea or nay as to whether she got the job. She’d been unsure about taking it, even if Benny offered to hire her, but when she’d walked into the store, something had changed. Call it fate or God or even the universe, but something was tugging at her heartstrings. She wanted to work here for some strange reason—and more than that, she wanted to live in the community. At least for a little while.

Closure, her grandmother’s voice whispered. You could find what you’ve been looking for right here in this godforsaken place if you just open your eyes.

She ignored the voice in her head and ran her hand across a maple four-poster bed a lot like the one that had been in her bedroom as a teenager. She had loved that bed, and then one day, she came home from school to find an old iron bed sitting in the place where her pretty one had been. Her grandmother had sold her entire bedroom outfit to a dealer and replaced everything with discards from the store. That night, Victoria took the money she had made from the sale and went to the casino.

At least she was happy the next day since she had won a couple thousand dollars, Libby thought.

“Well?” Benny asked.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking about your question,” Libby answered with a tiny white lie. “I like the way it’s set up like a furniture store, with living room stuff in one area, bedroom in another, and so on—but I would put shelves along the walls to display small items for each particular room. Vases in the living room; old cookware, rolling pins, and that kind of thing in the kitchen. But it’s your business, and with all the little stuff scattered on the tops of buffets and end tables, folks will tend to wander through the whole place.”

“I like your idea,” Benny said with a nod. “It’s something to consider for the future.”

You passed that test, but why didn’t you ever mention that notion to me? Her grandmother’s tone reminded Libby of the times when she had fussed at her for some small infraction—mostly on the days following nights she had lost money at the poker table.

Why on earth had Victoria waited until now to pop in with all kinds of advice? If the woman was in heaven, she could pull up a gold brick or two from the streets to cash in for poker money so she’d never be broke again. And if Libby needed closure—and she wasn’t sure that she did—it certainly wouldn’t come from Victoria O’Dell or this place.

Libby took a deep breath and let it out slowly to clear all the thoughts from her head. “What did you do before you took over this business?”

“I was a lawyer in a big firm in Houston,” Benny answered. “I woke up one morning, called in sick—which was not a lie, because I was certainly sick of my job. I spent the whole day wandering until I realized that I was just going from one antique store to another. I had put this place up for sale when my grandpa died and hadn’t had a single offer in a whole year. As I meandered, memories came back of all the good times I’d had with my grandpa right here in this tiny community. It was like the universe was telling me that I belonged in Sawmill, not working eighty hours a week at a job I had come to hate. I resigned the next day, bought the trailer, and Elvis and I moved up here. He’s happier than he was in the city, and so am I. That was a year ago, and my dad still thinks I made a big mistake. Don’t get me started on what my mother thinks.”

“Regrets?” She reached the back of the store, circled around, and walked up the other side.

“Not a single one,” he answered. “The restrooms are on your left. There’s a janitor’s closet next to them, and then the office. We can finish visiting there if you’ve seen enough of the store, but first, tell me what you think of that secretary to your right. I just bought it at an estate sale in Mena, Arkansas, last week.”

Libby ran her hand across the wood. “Burled oak. Curved glass is original, and makes it even more valuable.” She bent to get a better view of the hardware. “This isn’t replacement. You can tell by the way it has worn down the wood.” She straightened up and opened the drop-down door to see the cubicles inside. “I’d say it was manufactured at the beginning of the 1900s, sometime in that first ten years. Was that a test?”

“Yep, and you passed. The bill of sale is tacked to the back—it was bought in 1907 and shipped to Jacob Coppenhaver.” He opened the door into a small office.

The room was an unsightly mess, with stacks of paper all over the desk, dust thick enough to write your name covering every one of the filing cabinets lining the back wall, and an overflowing trash can—a far cry from the rest of the well-organized store.

Benny gathered up an armload of papers from one of the two chairs and set them on the other end of his desk. Then he circled around to sit in a worn leather office chair. “Have a seat. I have drawn up a contract that is good for six months. It simply states your wages and says that if at the end of the allotted time you want to stay, we will negotiate a new contract. I don’t want you to sign it just yet, but look it over carefully, and give me an answer this afternoon.”

“No need. I want the job, and I’m glad to live in the old service station,” Libby said as she slid into the freshly emptied chair. “So why don’t I just read over it and sign now?”

“Because there’s one more little test. Remember those two ladies who were working out in their garden? Minilee and Opal?”

Libby nodded.

“They are in their eighties, and they grew up around this area. They will be your neighbors, and they like to meddle,” he said.

“What does that have to do with me?” she asked.

“Did you hear that last part?”

“About meddling?”

He bobbed his head.

“Remember me telling you about my neighbor who told me about this job? She’s eighty-four. She still drives, works part-time as a secretary in her church, and she and a couple of her friends go on at least one road trip a month. I lived beside her for ten years. I’ve learned all about the fine art of handling meddlers,” she told him.

“We’re going to Opal’s house for dinner today so they can meet you,” he blurted out. “I want you to get to know them before you sign the contract, because, for the most part, that’s who you’ll have around through the week while I’m out on the road.”

“That sounds great.” Libby picked up the folder and stood. “I expect you mean the noon meal and not the evening one. It’s almost twelve o’clock. If Opal and Minilee are like Dolly, my former neighbor, they don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Benny pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “You are so right. Opal’s house is the second one down from here, and I’ll be willing to bet that the table is already set and the sweet tea poured. Do you always accept invitations to a meal with strangers?”

“No, but I’ve got a feeling this is another test, and I need—no, I want—this job. I saw those ladies when I drove up, and neither of them looked like serial killers.” She smiled. “And I am starving. I ate a breakfast biscuit in the car on the way, but I haven’t had anything since then.”

“You really drove all this way with intentions of taking the job?” Benny asked.

“Not in the least,” Libby replied as they walked out of the building. “I came here to make my neighbor happy. Her psychic told her that if she did a good thing for someone, then she would be lucky all week. That’s how she put things together for me and your store after her trip. I don’t want to be the cause of her getting hit by lightning, not winning the lottery by one number, or some other horrible thing. But after I arrived, I got this gut feeling that I should stick around and work for you.”

“Then I’m glad for your gut,” Benny said with a grin.

“I might as well get to know the neighbors now if I’m going to live here. You do realize that I’m increasing the population thirty-three and a third percent just by moving to Sawmill, don’t you? I should get a free meal for that alone.” She was amazed that she could joke about something so serious—but then, she was determined to show Victoria that she could be adventurous and take risks.

“With that kind of negotiating power, you’ll be running for mayor in the fall,” Benny teased.

“Or for school board, at the very least,” Libby shot back.

“Those are high expectations since we don’t have a school and are just barely considered a community.” Benny winked at her. “But you might get elected to be president of the Sawmill Book Club if you agree to join.”

“Of course I’ll join if I’m asked. I love to read.” She was amazed at how easy talking to Benny was and how much she had already changed her mind about living in a place so small that even calling it a community would be stretching the definition.

Elvis ran ahead of them and flopped down in the shade of a tree with flowers of every color spilling out over the edges of a truck tire that encircled the trunk. Libby studied it as they passed the first house and the garden, and stopped to walk around it when they were close enough.

“I don’t see a cut in the tire. How did it get there?” she asked. “Using it for a flower bed is a good idea, but ...”

“Opal planted the tree the first year she and her husband, Ernest, moved into the house,” Benny said with half a chuckle. “I asked the same question when I was just a little boy. Ernest was the gas station’s day supervisor at that time. Minilee’s husband, Floyd, was the night manager at the sawmill. That’s got nothing to do with your question—but anyway, Opal told me that she planted a little sapling, and she was afraid Ernest would mow it down, so she put the tire around it for protection. That would have been over fifty years ago, long before either of us were born. Now it produces a crop of pecans every few years.”

Just like Victoria planted the knowledge of antiques in me, and even though it’s lain dormant for years, it’s still there and growing, Libby thought.

Then Victoria’s voice was back in her head: Too bad I didn’t plant a seed of adventure in you. I tried, but you were too serious all the time.

“I take chances,” Libby muttered.

“What was that?” Benny asked.

“Just me arguing with the voices in my head,” Libby answered.

“I do that a lot when I’m out on the road by myself,” Benny said. “Who was in your head?”

“My grandmother. She’s been gone for more than a decade and hasn’t come back to haunt me until the last couple of days.”

“Why do you think she’s popping into your head now?”

“I have no idea.” That was the second little white lie of the day. Victoria was back to gloat, like she had when she had won big at the casino. Was there a limit on how many lies Libby could tell in one day without them all adding up to one humongous black one?

“I hear from my grandpa pretty often. His spirit is probably immortal,” Benny said with a smile.

“Not your dad or mom?” she asked.

“Nope. Dad and I don’t see eye to eye on very many things, and he thinks I should follow in his footsteps instead of Grandpa’s. Mother—well, that’s another story. She left when I was a little boy.”

“I wouldn’t have believed such a thing was possible, but my grandmother would have proven me wrong today,” Libby agreed. “Her spirit was probably off somewhere in a casino, and she forgot all about me for a few years.”

He liked Libby’s confidence and was glad that she wanted the job, especially because he wouldn’t have to train her in either the business of antiques or bookkeeping. The latter was what he really hated. Computer work reminded him of those eighty-hour workweeks. Days and days of being cooped up in an office with no windows, hoping that someday he would have a place with a view. Yes, sir, he would be glad to turn all that over to Libby.

Are you sure you aren’t drawn to those pretty blue eyes and the fact that she’s easy to talk to? His grandfather’s voice sounded like it did when he teased Benny.

When Grandpa Walter fussed at him, he usually talked back, but today he kept his silence and just shook his head. Sure, he’d always been a sucker for blue eyes, but that had nothing to do with hiring someone. Neither did her long brunette hair, or her chiseled cheekbones, or the fact that she was close to six feet tall and he’d always liked tall women. At six feet, four inches, he had to bend double just to kiss a short woman.

If things didn’t work out with Libby in the next six months, he could always put out feelers for another person to help him. When she talked about growing up in an antique shop, her eyes held a haunted look. Something seemed not quite settled in her life. But he was not a knight in shining armor who rode in on a white horse to rescue the damsel in distress. He just needed someone to work for him, not a woman to fall in love with.

“Hey!” Opal stepped out on the porch and waved. “Dinner is ready and on the table. We thought y’all might be comin’ around about now. Come on in, get washed up, and let’s get acquainted while we eat.”

Benny had spent most of his summers with his grandfather. His father was often traveling out of the country with his oil business, and his mother had lived in England for years with one of her many husbands. Opal and Minilee always had a full cookie jar, cold sweet tea, and stories to tell him, most of the time while they sat outside on one front porch or the other. He had felt more at home in their small company houses than in the big, fancy house where his grandpa had lived in Paris some twenty miles south. Back when Benny was first out of law school, he’d pointed out to his grandpa that a block of C-4 couldn’t get him to move away from the Paris, Texas, estate. His grandfather had laughed at the joke and replied that he was right. Other than the few nights a month he spent in the service station apartment, his grandpa loved his home. His memories of his precious wife and son were in the big house, and the only way he was leaving it was feetfirst in a body bag.

Besides all that, Naomi and Claude, the two overseers at the estate, would miss him if he didn’t go home every night. Benny figured that his grandfather felt a little guilty when he stayed at Sawmill even a few nights a month.

“You can both wash up in the kitchen sink,” Opal said as she stood to the side to let them enter the house.

“Feel like you are a kid again?” Benny whispered.

“Yep, and I like it,” Libby answered.