Chapter Four
Maureen lugged the top suitcase from the trunk, while Holly ran inside the Larch Valley B and B to announce their arrival. Maureen took the opportunity to grab a few breaths of fresh air. Any second now, chaos would erupt again…
Moving into Cathleen and Dylan’s B and B even temporarily seemed a terrible imposition. Unfortunately, Maureen didn’t have much choice. Since that first meeting with Jake two weeks ago, it felt as if fate had been pushing her to relocate to her hometown of Whitefish.
The madness had begun when a reorganization at work had provided the perfect opportunity for her to leave the law firm. Then, short days after putting their home on the market, her Realtor in Missoula had found her a buyer.
Holly had been surprisingly sanguine about leaving school so close to year-end. Her marks were good enough that her teachers weren’t concerned…and so down went that obstacle.
Now Maureen was more unfettered than she’d been since Holly was born—and scared to death about it.
What was she going to do with her time? Certainly Holly didn’t want Maureen to spend it with her.
On the drive up, Holly had barely spoken.
Their relationship was getting worse with every passing day, it seemed.
At the sound of the screen door opening, Maureen braced herself.
“Mo! You made it!” Cathleen burst through the door and came barreling toward her. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt and brown boots, her dark hair a tumble of waves framing her wonderfully expressive face. “This is going to be such fun!”
Maureen gave her sister a tight hug and a peck on the cheek. She sure hoped Cathleen was right and she hadn’t just made a huge mistake. “Thanks for making room for us.”
“Don’t be silly. The bed-and-breakfast is huge. We have lots of room. Here’s Dylan. He was working on the books, so don’t mind if he’s grumpy.”
“You’re the one who gets crotchety doing the books, darlin’. Not me.” Dylan stepped off the porch, toward the car. “Hey, Maureen. Let me get those for you.” He took a suitcase in each hand, then glanced back at his wife. “Which rooms?”
“Teddy Bear for Holly,” she said. “Which would you like, Maureen?”
“The Mission room. If it’s free.” Located at the front of the second story, the suite had a big bay window with a glorious view of the mountain range to the east.
“All the rooms are empty this week,” Cathleen said. “It’s still a little early in the season.”
“Well, hopefully we’ll be out of here before summer,” Maureen said. She felt bad about taking up two rooms as it was, especially as Cathleen and Dylan refused to accept payment for this stay.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you, understand, but the cutest town house just went on the market.
Kelly and I have asked Beth Gibson to arrange a showing later this week.
You remember Beth? She was a school trustee when Mom was the principal.
She’s a Realtor now and was recently elected to town council.
” She followed this flurry of information by pulling Maureen forward.
“Come inside and let’s have a coffee. Poppy’s been baking. ”
Poppy was always baking. Poppy was their grandmother on the paternal side of the family, but none of them had known about her until she’d arrived on Cathleen’s doorstep last summer.
The redheaded seventy-year-old had claimed she was a cookbook author who needed a place to stay and work on her latest project.
Not once had any of the Shannon girls suspected that this woman was in fact the mother of their vagabond father, who’d deserted their family shortly after Kelly’s birth. The truth had come out last Christmas.
Frankly, Maureen wasn’t impressed with the subterfuge.
But her sisters had taken to their new grandmother unreservedly, to the extent that the elder woman was now an integral part of their lives.
Cathleen had made Poppy manager of the B and B and she often babysat Kelly’s stepchildren, Billy and Amanda, on afternoons Kelly had to work and Mick was at the paper.
Poppy was pulling a tray of butter tarts from the oven just as Maureen stepped into the kitchen. Holly was at the large oak table, a glass of milk already in front of her. Poppy glanced up from the hot tray with a welcoming smile.
“It’s so good to see you, Maureen. My, but you’re thin.”
“And it looks like you have just the remedy.” Maureen returned Poppy’s hug tentatively. Scents of vanilla and toasted pecans emanated from the small baked pastries. “Cath, how do you keep your figure with this woman’s cooking to tempt you all the time?”
“Oh, we believe in lots of vigorous physical activity around here.” Dylan came up from behind with the suitcases. He winked at Cathleen, whose suddenly pink cheeks told the whole story.
Maureen laughed, then helped herself to a mug. She poured it half full of coffee, half of milk, added sugar then stuck it in the microwave for forty seconds.
“Can I ride Strawberry every day now that we live here?” Holly asked her aunt.
“You bet, kiddo. She’ll love the extra attention.”
Three beeps from the microwave announced that Maureen’s coffee with milk was hot.
She cupped the mug in her hands, then stood to one side as Holly chatted happily with Poppy and Cathleen.
It was great to see her daughter so animated.
To see that she could be happy. When the right people were around.
By appearance Holly seemed younger than her age. She hadn’t had her adolescent growth spurt yet and was shorter and less developed than many of her peers. Her preferred manner of dress—unisex jeans and T-shirts, and her short hairstyle—added to her youthful look.
Maureen remembered how difficult the pre and early teen years could be. She wanted to help Holly through them. But first she had to figure out how to connect with her daughter again. It seemed so easy for Poppy and Cathleen.
The problem had to be her.
The first sip of coffee went down like sulfuric acid. The pit of Maureen’s stomach felt like a witch’s cauldron today. Had she made the right decision to invest in Jake’s business? To move back to Whitefish? Maureen liked order and routine and her life had none of either right now.
“I’ve put out plates and forks because the tarts are still so warm,” Poppy said, serving Holly first.
Maureen noticed that Holly didn’t slide away when Poppy put an arm around her shoulders. “You’ll be starting at the Whitefish Middle School, will you?”
Holly nodded. “I guess.”
“Are you nervous?” Poppy asked.
“A little. But I know a couple of kids in my grade. We went to a science camp together last summer. That helps.”
“So tell me more about this town house you found,” Maureen asked, sitting next to Cathleen.
“You’ll love it. It’s in an older neighborhood but has been recently remodeled with a chic contemporary Montana design. It’s a nice size, too. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms.”
“Two bathrooms! How does that sound Holly?”
Her daughter shrugged. “Why can’t we just stay here?”
“You’re more than welcome,” Cathleen spoke carefully, glancing from her niece to Maureen then back again. “But it’ll be nice to be settled in your own house eventually.”
Holly just shrugged again.
Could her daughter make it any more obvious that she didn’t want to live with her? The pain curdled in Maureen’s stomach. She had to change the subject. “Say, I saw Max Strongman in Whitefish when I met Jake. He sure was looking smug.”
“He’s got his approvals to move forward on his real estate project. Isn’t it sickening?” Cathleen said.
“I can’t understand why James let him off the hook on the Beckett homicide,” Maureen said.
“Me either,” Dylan said. “When he was first arrested he made it sound like his dad was in on the plan. Once he lawyered up all that changed. James has always been under his father’s thumb. I’ve never heard him voice an opinion he didn’t get from dear old dad.”
“What exactly happened that night?” Holly asked. “You were there, weren’t you, Uncle Dylan?”
Dylan glanced at Maureen, who gave a slight nod. Holly was fascinated by true crime and mystery stories. Maureen remembered Kelly going through a similar stage at this age—only in Kelly’s case the stage had never ended.
“I was there all right,” Dylan said. “Joe Beckett was a senior executive of a forest company that wanted to strip-log a huge swath of land on the Thunder Bar M. I knew he and my stepfather were meeting on a certain night to pen the deal, so I arranged to stage a protest with about fifty like-minded individuals. Our protest was peaceful, then just after sunset some firecrackers went off and during that time a gun was fired. Joe Beckett ended up dead and for a long time I was blamed.”
“But there was no evidence of Dylan’s guilt,” Cathleen said, taking up the story. “And eventually we were able to prove James Strongman had fired the gun.”
Dylan nodded. “According to James he hadn’t meant to kill Joe, just maim him in order to discredit the protestors. But who knows? I think he meant to frame me and get me out of the way so I couldn’t fight Max’s plans to break up the ranch and use the land for development.”
“Do they know who set off the firecrackers that night?” Holly asked. “It couldn’t have been a coincidence. The explosion from the firecrackers, then the shooting of the gun right at the same time.”
Dylan looked impressed. “Most likely two people were involved. But James still claims he was the only one.”
“I think you’re right too, Holly,” Cathleen said. “And I’m convinced one of them was Max. If only we could prove it.”
*
The Teddy Bear bedroom was a little young for a twelve-year-old but Holly didn’t mind.
The teddy bears—they were piled on the bed and more were lined on four shelves of a built-in bookcase—were cute, each one dressed in a unique outfit meant to showcase a certain vocation or hobby.
There was a gardener teddy bear, wearing boots and holding a trowel, and a doctor teddy bear with a lab coat and stethoscope.