Chapter 14
Julie stepped into the General Store. It smelled the way it always did. Pine cleaner mingled with ground coffee, and the sweet scent of whatever home baking was on the counter.
It was the type of store that always had something interesting to see.
Power tools were arranged in precise rows beside party balloons and holiday decorations.
An entire shelving unit was dedicated to pens, paper, and other essential stationery.
But it was the local, organic grocery items that made the store extra special.
Julie pulled a wire basket from the stack near the entrance and moved toward the shelves. After the freezing temperature outside, she was grateful for the warmth from the pot-belly stove that made her fingers tingle.
She wasn’t planning to linger. All she wanted was a rotisserie chicken, something green, and maybe a packet of pasta. It would give her the kind of dinner that required minimal thought and could be ready in seconds.
Investigating the fire had consumed every useful hour of Julie’s day. Her notes were scattered across the cottage kitchen table, and her spreadsheet was filled with fragments that didn’t connect. It was only when her stomach grumbled that she realized she’d completely forgotten to have lunch.
She was studying the shelves stacked with rice and pasta when someone stopped beside her.
“Julie Harrison.” Mabel Terry had the gift of making her name sound like both a greeting and an opening statement. “I thought that was you coming through the door.”
“Hi, Mabel.” Julie managed a genuine smile despite her tiredness. “How are you doing?”
“Everything is wonderful.” Mabel adjusted the reading glasses perched at the end of her nose and didn’t move away.
She wore a fleece vest the color of ripe cranberries and was holding a pricing gun.
“I was just thinking of you, as a matter of fact. What happened this morning at Finley Point is terrible.”
“It certainly was.” Julie lifted a bag of egg noodles from the shelf, she examined the back with the focused attention of someone deeply concerned about cooking times.
“A fire like that doesn’t start by itself.” Mabel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I said as much to Allen when we heard the news. I said, Allen, someone lit that fire. There’s no other explanation.”
“Hopefully, the fire investigator has an idea of how it started.” Julie set the noodles in her basket and moved toward the produce section.
Mabel walked with her. “You were there this morning, weren’t you? Allan drove past and said your truck was parked near the site.”
“I was driving that way when I saw the smoke.” Julie hoped Mabel took her little white lie at face value.
The truth was that Maria, one of the women in her baking class, had been walking on the track around Flathead Lake when Julie had seen her.
Maria’s son was a local firefighter. He was at the fire, and Maria had told Julie the bare facts of what she knew.
As soon as she’d heard the news, Julie had hurried back to her cottage and driven out to Finley Point.
Mabel nodded thoughtfully, as if Julie’s reason for being at the fire was entirely plausible.
“The whole situation is worrying, isn’t it?
First the machinery, and now this.” She looked over her shoulder and moved closer.
“People are talking about whether the resort will even go ahead. Whether it should go ahead, given what’s been happening. ”
Julie chose a bag of salad and placed it in the basket. She’d spent years interviewing people who did exactly what Mabel was doing. They’d drop an insinuation like a hook, and then pause, hoping the other person filled in the blanks.
“I’m sure Cole and Noah are committed to seeing the project through,” she said pleasantly.
Mabel studied her with the patient interest of someone who was used to waiting out noncommittal answers. “It does make you wonder, though. All this trouble. If someone in the community is that opposed to the development—”
“Julie!”
The voice came from the end of the aisle. Rachel Benson was bearing down on her with the purposeful stride of someone running five minutes late for something that mattered.
“There you are.” Rachel arrived slightly out of breath with her dark coat buttoned to her chin. She gave Mabel a warm, distracted smile. “Hi, Mabel. It’s lovely to see you.” Then she turned back to Julie. “We’re going to be late.”
Julie blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“The meeting.” Rachel said it as though the word should carry its own explanation. “Susan wanted us to be there by six-thirty so we could enjoy dinner together before we start.”
Mabel looked at each of them with barely concealed interest. “A meeting?”
“For the bake sale.” Rachel touched Julie’s arm and steered her toward the checkout. “We’re organizing a fundraising event for the Welcome Center. We talked about it in class last week.” A slight pause. “You were missed, by the way.”
Julie wasn’t at the last class. She’d been at the construction site that day, sitting in Cole’s temporary office with a layout of the surrounding properties spread across a borrowed desk, cross-referencing county records until her eyes ached.
The cooking class hadn’t entered her mind until it was already over.
“I didn’t realize—” she began.
“You’re coming now, though.” It wasn’t quite a question. Rachel released her arm and added, “Susan’s brought profiteroles and Beth baked an apple cake.”
Mabel was still watching them with the attentive air of someone taking notes in an invisible ledger.
“I just need to pay for this,” Julie said, lifting her basket in a way that was hopefully decisive.
As they walked past the rotisserie chickens, Julie picked one up.
While Rachel placed a small bag of dried apricots on the checkout, Julie set down her groceries.
“Tell me more about the bake sale,” she said quietly to Rachel.
Mabel was scanning the price of the apricots, and close enough to hear them.
Rachel took some money out of her wallet.
“Mabel mentioned at the last community meeting that the Welcome Center needs a new commercial oven. The fundraiser was Susan’s idea.
She wants to run a bake sale with a demonstration afternoon so people can see us cook.
” She paused thoughtfully. “And sell things, obviously.”
It was a great idea and much more fulfilling than a week of following paper trails through county offices. “How much planning have you already done?”
Rachel picked up her bag of apricots. “Beth has designed a poster. Laurel’s been researching permits for selling food at community events, and Maria is writing up a list of everything we’d need to bake in the Welcome Center’s kitchen.
We just need someone who can organize the promotional side of things. ”
Julie paid for her groceries and took the paper bag from the counter. Mabel watched her walk toward the front door. By the morning, everyone would know that Julie had been in the general store and what she’d said.
Outside, the cold air made her breath catch. “Is there really a meeting?”
Rachel grinned. “Did you think I was rescuing you?”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
Rachel’s smile widened. “It was a little of both, but I meant it. We need someone with your marketing experience. Susan’s wonderful at organizing people, and Beth, Laurel, and Maria can bake anything. But nobody knows how to make other people care about something the way you do.”
The compliment landed with an unexpected weight. Julie thought about why she was in Sapphire Bay and what was missing in her life.
If she went to the meeting, the vandalism and the fire at Finley Point would still be there tomorrow, waiting for her attention.
Besides, there was also an apple cake at stake. And five women who thought that she belonged with them at their meeting.
“Did Susan really make profiteroles?” Julie asked.
“With chocolate frosting and fresh cream,” Rachel replied. I”’ve been thinking about them ever since we made them in class.”
Julie placed the groceries on the back seat of the truck. A couple of months ago, these women had been strangers. Now, without noticing when it had happened, they’d become friends.
And she wasn’t about to let that slip away.