Chapter 6
Sunday morning, Grace stood at her kitchen window with her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, watching low clouds drag across the mountains across the lake.
Her cottage at the end of Pine Street where it dead ended into Lake Stillwater smelled like cinnamon pancakes and rain that hadn’t fallen yet.
The lake outside was the color of tarnished silver.
Liam had loved the water and insisted on living near it.
Even though this house had been out of their budget, he’d scraped together enough money to make the down payment to live on the lake.
Every morning and every evening, he’d gone out to the screened in porch that faced the lake to stare at the water and, as he put it, find his peace.
The maples all around the cottage had finally pushed out their first real leaves of spring, and their green was so new and bright it looked fluorescent against the gray sky.
Her calves were registering complaints today after spending all day on her feet yesterday. The arches of her feet also filed a grievance, and the small of her back had submitted a formal protest to her body’s management.
She made herself a cup of tea, went out to the back porch, and sat, looking at the lake and forgetting to drink her tea.
Lily had finished her pancakes but was still at the kitchen table conducting a tea party of her own for two stuffed seals, a stuffed pony, their cat Marshmallow, and Lord Baxter the basil, who Grace had, against her better judgment, allowed onto the table in the interest of breakfast peace.
“Mommy,” Lily called through the open kitchen door.
“Yes, Baby.”
“Marshmallow doesn’t like tea.”
“That seems like a personal failing on Marshmallow’s part.”
“What’s a personal failing?”
“Something wrong with you that’s nobody else’s fault.”
Lily considered this. “Marshmallow doesn’t have any teeth.”
“She’s quite an elderly kitty, darling.”
“Can she chew pancakes?”
“I imagine she can, but she shouldn’t. I don’t think pancakes are good for cats.”
She heard a knock on the front door and then Charlotte calling hello through the house. Charlotte was the kind of friend who just walked in as if she lived here. The knock was a courtesy.
“I’m on the sun porch,” Grace called back.
Charlotte came through the door with two paper cups and an eager expression that usually accompanied gossip with particularly juicy details.
“I brought you Rose’s coffee,” she said.
“You don’t drink Rose’s coffee. You only drink your own.”
“Yes, but you like Rose’s coffee. And I brought it for you.”
“Why?”
Charlotte set the cups on the beat up coffee table in front of the porch sofa and took off her jacket.
She had her hair in a French twist that Grace had never seen her wear before, and she was wearing lipstick.
Charlotte rarely put on lipstick and never on Sundays, which were her day off when her craft store was closed.
“You look fancy,” Grace commented.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I didn’t know we were on a subject.”
“I heard Reno Steele was at your bakery yesterday for three and a half hours. And the two of you made goo-goo eyes at each other.”
Grace sighed. “How does the entire town of Cobbler Cove know what was happening inside my shop yesterday? And neither of us made goo-goo eyes at anyone.” Although there was that moment when she walked past him in the tight aisle and had to stop with her whole left side practically rubbing against his front .
. . and the moment after she touched his arm when they stared at each other a heartbeat too long.
“Mary,” Charlotte declared triumphantly.
“Mary what?” Grace echoed, confused.
“That’s how the whole town knows. Mary told her sister, who told the woman who does her hair, who told Suzanne What’s-her-name from the Pinochle Posse. And you know once the pinochle crew gets a hold of something, the whole town knows about it in under and hour.”
“And you felt compelled to come over to ambush me to . . .” Grace paused. “. . . what? Interrogate me until I cough up all the good gossip?”
“I came over to bring you the worst coffee in three counties as an offering and merely to ask one or two questions in a friendly tone of voice.”
“That’s what I said,” Grace retorted.
“Yes, but I said it so much more nicely.” Charlotte grinned irrepressibly.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And that’s why you love me and are going to tell me everything.”
Grace sighed. “What else is everyone saying?”
“Did he really watch Lily for two hours while you delivered the McAllister cake?”
“Yes.”
“How did that go? Does he have any experience with small kids?”
“I didn’t ask him. As for how it went, she drew him a hawk and a nest with baby hawks in it. And he said he found chatting with Lily delightful.”
Charlotte took a sip of the strong coffee. Made a face. Set it down. “Did he ask you out?”
“No!”
“Did he flirt with you?”
Grace answered a shade less certainly, “No.” Then, “I don’t know. It’s not like I have any experience with men flirting with me. Liam and I were way past flirting by about sixth grade and no boy in high school looked twice at me because I was Liam’s girl.”
Charlotte tsked. “I forget sometimes how you skipped the whole dating thing and went straight to true love ever after. Tell me this. Did Reno look at you?”
“Like, in a certain way?” Grace frowned. “How is a flirting look different from a regular look?”
Charlotte responded with, “You tell me how he looks at you, and I’ll tell you if he’s flirting,”
Grace chose her words carefully because the full truth required her to admit she’d been keeping track of how he looked at her. “He looks at me like he’s deciding whether or not to say something he’s thinking.”
Charlotte sat very still, which was the loudest thing she ever did.
Grace took a sip of her own coffee, relishing the dark roast’s bitter punch. “I’m not looking for romance.”
“You’re still allowed to notice that a man noticing you.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t Mm me. We’re not the Steele brothers.”
Grace laughed in spite of herself. Even gregarious Reno mm’ed now and then.
“I love you, Grace. I’ve loved you since we were in kindergarten. I’m not trying to push you at any man.”
“I know.”
“But I will note . . . and the noting is the most I will do . . . that you work from dawn till dark then come home to this isolated cabin every day.”
“I’m not alone. And in case you haven’t noticed, Lily has a pretty big personality and is a full-time job in her own right.”
“Yes, but working, raising a child, sleeping, and eating, are all you do. Most folks would say that’s not much of a life.”
Grace didn’t know how to answer that, and thankfully, Charlotte let it sit. Thunder rumbled low in the distance, but the rain still held off.
Charlotte opened her mouth to speak but Grace cut her off gently. “Whatever you’re about to say next, I’ve given myself the whole speech in my head already.”
“Then I won’t make a speech out of it.”
“Thank you.”
Charlotte looked at her intently. “Lily’s four. She’s going to start asking questions about why you’re alone.”
“She’s been asking.”
“Good.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “You say that because you don’t have to answer them.”
Charlotte reached across the sofa to take Grace’s hand. “Honey, I say that because she’s going to grow up either watching her mother live or watching her mother work. And the difference matters.”
Grace looked at her, stricken.
“I’m done now,” Charlotte said kindly.
Grace felt tears start to well up in her eyes and jumped to her feet, grabbing her empty teacup and Charlotte’s barely touched coffee, and carrying them inside to the sink. She poured out the coffee and rinsed the cup and managed to collect herself without shedding any tears.
Charlotte followed her into the kitchen after about a minute. It was one of the nice things about having fellow widows for friends. They understood the need for a moment to collect one’s composure in a way that most other people didn’t.
Charlotte left the way she always did — on a punch line and a big, warm hug. Grace stood on the covered front stoop and watched her drive away. The sky finally decided to open up, and the rain came. Softly at first, then more heavily.
She went inside and found Lily on the couch with all of her seals, eight at the moment, lined up like a tiny, judgmental jury.
“Mommy, is Mr. Reno going to visit us here?”
“I don’t know, Sweetheart. Maybe someday.”
“I think he likes me,” her daughter announced.
“I know he does.”
“I like him. He listens.”
Grace sat down on the arm of the couch and looked at her daughter, who was studying her back seriously. “What do you mean, Baby?”
“When I talk, he listens.”
“Most adults listen.”
“They say they are, but they’re not. He really does it.”
Out of the mouths of babes. Lily was not wrong. He did really listen. Which she found both wonderful and a bit scary. Sometimes she got the impression he was hearing more than she actually said . . . and more than she intended to reveal.
She ran her fingers lightly through Lily’s silky curls.
“Mommy, can we have pancakes again tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s a school day.”
“So? We eat breakfast every day.”
“Good point. When did you get so smart, Baby Girl?”
Lily beamed. “So . . . pancakes tomorrow?”
Grace laughed. “You’re four and already argue circles around me. What am I going to do when you’re fourteen? Fine. We can have pancakes tomorrow.”
“Yippee!”
Grace’s phone rang while Lily was still jumping up and down on the couch, celebrating the pancake win. “Hello?”
“Grace, hi. It’s Tessa.”
“Hi, Tessa.”
“I’m calling because Dillon got a call from Clint Wheeler a few minutes ago. Apparently, you filed a report with him about some things happening around your shop?”
“I did. Reno made me.”
“Reno’s also sitting at our kitchen table looking at his hat. He hasn’t said anything for ten minutes, and Dillon’s getting concerned.”
Outside her kitchen window, the rain was falling hard, and the surface of the lake danced as drops splashed into it. Grace asked reluctantly, “What did the sheriff say?”
“He stopped by the bakery last night. Found Reno sitting out front in his truck and asked if he had a key to the store and knew how to access your new security camera’s footage. He did, and they went inside and pulled the surveillance video.”
Grace heard a male voice speaking in the background and Tessa said, “Reno wants to apologize for not calling you before he let the sheriff into your shop, but he knew how tired you were yesterday and he knew you would say yes, anyway.”
“Tell him I appreciate that and he’s right. I would’ve told them to go in.” She added, “What did they see on the video footage?”
“Clint wants to talk to you about it in person.”
“Tessa. What did they see?”
There was a small pause on the other end. “I think Clint should walk you through it.”
Grace’s free hand went to the counter and she gripped it tightly. A chill of dread swept through her, and her gaze went to Lily playing innocently in the living room.
Tessa was speaking again. “. . . isn’t bad, Sweetheart. Wheeler just thinks you should see it for yourself. He’s at the station now. He called me to ask you to come by this afternoon precisely because he didn’t want to alarm you. And Grace?”
“Yes.”
“Reno would like to come along. He hasn’t asked but I can tell he’s really worried about you, so I’m asking on his behalf.”
“Tell him yes. And Tessa? Thank you.”
She put the phone in her pocket and headed for the living room to get her car keys. Outside the front window, a navy car came down the road and circled around the teardrop at the end of it. It didn’t pull into any of the three driveways that snaked away from it.
It wasn’t a van. Just a car. And the driver didn’t slow down.
Grace watched it go as the sudden spike of adrenaline drained slowly from her bloodstream. She’d never been afraid when Liam was alive. He was a Navy SEAL for goodness’ sake. He could handle anything or anyone who came their way. Lately, it seemed as if she was afraid all the time.
With one last, nervous glance outside, she told Lily they were going for a drive in the rain.