Chapter Sixteen #2
He mentally squashed his nagging conscience.
So he had eighteen days to write forty thousand words if he wanted to meet his deadline.
Concerning, but doable. Especially now that he’d figured out how to use voice to text to dictate most scenes, and his wrist didn’t ache every time he typed.
Besides, his conversation with Jovi and Walker at Trailside three days ago still pinged around in his head.
She hadn’t been nearly as impressed with Walker’s revelation as he’d hoped.
Her skeptical reaction had really thrown him.
Especially the part about how Walker might have an agenda, given his jealousy over Mac’s woodworking prowess and his relative’s job loss.
The tension between the Wright and Phillips families over Mac’s choice to marry Lois instead of Carol seemed ridiculous, yet it wasn’t uncommon for old wounds to resurface and ignite into full-blown feuds.
He had witnessed firsthand how something as trivial as a family heirloom could tear relatives apart.
But reminiscing about past conflicts back home did nothing to help him in this current predicament. Did Mac and Lois have any secrets hidden away here that could prove Walker wrong?
Woodworking was clearly Mac’s passion, judging by the lathe and collection of hand tools.
The beautiful bowls on the shelves caught Burke’s eye, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something more hiding in this workshop.
He examined a few half-finished projects abandoned on a table near the window.
Was there still unfinished business simmering between the two families?
Mac had passed away in his sleep nearly five years ago, so it made sense that things were still kind of how he’d left them.
Or how Burke imagined he’d left them. Guilt pinched his insides.
He should have come back to visit more often.
If his mother had maintained a more meaningful relationship with her older sister, would he even be dealing with this right now?
Stop.
He raked his hand through his hair. Lamenting past mistakes did nothing to help make progress.
Warmth from the space heater made the shed quite toasty.
He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over a metal stool.
Denise and Charlie had done a passable job of boxing things up and stacking them in a haphazard tower in the middle of the floor.
Someone had scrawled generic terms on the outside, hinting at the contents.
Burke sighed. He still had boxes of his own in the cabin to unpack. He wasn’t the least bit interested in pawing through his late aunt and uncle’s possessions. But what if information he needed to resolve the feud and make space for a relationship with Jovi was somewhere in this shed?
Snow crunched under tires as a vehicle pulled into the driveway.
Uh-oh. Was it five fifteen already? How had he lost track of time?
He walked to the shed’s entrance and peered out.
A car had pulled into the narrow driveway in front of the cabin.
Its headlights sliced through the darkness and illuminated the fat wet snowflakes falling from the evening sky.
He let out a resigned sigh. So much for having a clear driveway.
This looked like the kind of snow that could pile up.
A car door slammed, then Darby Jane ran toward him, clutching her backpack. He waved in the general direction of the driver.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“Hi, pumpkin.” He pulled her in for a hug, smiling at the snowflakes clinging to her hair. “How was your day?”
“Good, except I had to come home early because Olive has to go to her piano lesson now.”
“Ah.” He straightened. “Makes sense.”
“Oh, what is that?” Darby Jane dropped her backpack on the floor and squeezed past him.
Ugh. He’d meant to throw a blanket over that thing before she came home. Too late now.
“I think it’s a dollhouse.”
She stood in front of Mac’s workbench, her eyes fixed on the intricately carved two-story house sitting beside some tools. “But where are the dolls?”
“Maybe the person who was supposed to receive the dollhouse has her own dolls.”
Darby Jane stared up at him, her brow furrowed. “Who is this for?”
“I don’t know.” Burke shrugged. “Uncle Mac passed before he could tell us, I guess.”
“That’s sad.” She tugged at one end of the wooden structure. It didn’t budge.
“It’s heavy, sweetie.”
“Then, how can I see inside?”
“Just peek in the window or open that little door on the end there.” He glanced around then nudged a step stool closer to the workbench. “Here, climb up so you can get a better look.”
She scrambled up the two steps, then leaned in. “Wow, can we take this to the cabin, please?”
“No, we shouldn’t. I’ll have to ask around town and see if anybody knows if it was for someone special. It’s quite fancy.”
“But there’s stuff in here. Maybe the papers say who it’s for.”
His stomach tightened. “Papers?”
She pointed. “They’re in there, but I can’t reach.”
Straining, he leaned around the other end of the dollhouse and peeked inside. Sure enough, a stack of large note cards sat wedged next to a miniature staircase. He pulled them out, gently blew off some dust, then scanned a note paper-clipped to the first card.
His lungs compressed. “The note says this dollhouse is for the Wright girls to enjoy and share with their families someday, and the cards are recipes.”
“Cool. Can we make something?”
“Not right now. These are for candy.”
Darby Jane clapped her hands. “I love candy. Do we have any?”
He forced a smile, then ruffled her hair. “Come on. Let’s go inside. We have some leftover lasagna and chocolate chip cookies. No candy, though.”
“That’s okay. Cookies are good.”
Holding the recipes for safekeeping, he unplugged the heater, turned off the lights, then locked the door and followed Darby Jane back to the cabin.
His mind raced, only half listening as she told him all about her playdate and how they’d decorated suncatchers or something and played dress-up.
Maybe that explained the excessive amount of makeup she still had on her cheeks.
Inside, they took off their boots and hung up their jackets. “Please wash your face and hands, and get ready for supper.”
As Darby Jane skipped into the bathroom, humming a song, he paused and flipped through the stack of ten recipes.
Peanut butter, molasses, honey and root beer were the most common ingredients featured on the cards.
Nothing with caramel, though. The slanty cursive looked like his aunt Lois’s handwriting.
At the top of each card the words ‘Evergreen Candy Company’ had been printed in dark green letters.
A small logo featuring three evergreen trees filled the lower left corner of each recipe card.
Tucked between the last two cards, he found a photo of Lois and Carol, smiling and standing side by side wearing nice dresses.
Burke flipped the photo over. He squinted.
New Year’s Eve, 1960 was written in faded ink.
He set the recipes aside and pulled his laptop closer.
His head spun. An idea for a new scene in his novel bubbled up.
He couldn’t think too hard about what this meant.
Otherwise he’d talk himself out of it. But his deadline loomed, and he’d learned to trust his gut when a new idea started brewing.
Burke hesitated. Had he just discovered the evidence needed to support part of Walker’s story?
Were these recipes the originals that Carol and Lois used when they’d been in the candy business together?
But why were they stashed in a dollhouse Mac had built and labeled for Isabel, Jovi and their families?
He started typing again, his imagination crafting a new scene faster than he could enter the words into his computer.
Darby Jane needed supper soon, so he didn’t have much time before he had to stop and reheat the leftovers.
As he added another paragraph and the story unfolded, adrenaline surged through his veins.
Finally. He’d captured the story’s elusive essence. Readers were going to love this.
Thoughts of Jovi’s skeptical expression as she’d listened to Walker over breakfast at the diner flitted through his head. Burke paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He’d tell her about what he’d found. Soon. But first he had to get these words down.
* * *
Grammie was not the jealous type.
Jovi hadn’t been able to move past her conversation with Walker and Burke.
The implication that Grammie and Lois might’ve behaved badly because they both loved Mac was so unsettling.
Inside the cabin’s primary bedroom closet, she lifted the lid from a cardboard box that used to hold fruit.
The faint smell of moth balls and old paper greeted her.
She sorted through a stack of patterns for doll clothes, an unopened counted cross-stitch kit, and some neatly folded fabric remnants.
A large photo album sat at the bottom of the box.
“Bingo.” Jovi pulled it out, and the sunlight filtering through the bedroom window hit the faded gray cover.
The corners were frayed, and the edges rubbed smooth from years of handling.
As she gently opened the album, the spine crackled.
The black ink captions written in Grammie’s flowery cursive scrawl had faded some, but the pictures were still visible in muted colors and sepia tones.
Her fingers brushed against the clear, slick page protectors as she slowly turned each page, the plastic slightly cold against her skin.