North Country Man. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ stop that, pikku,” Emmie scolded on her way to the kitchen. “You’ll be frightening off our guests.”

      “No worry here,” Claire said. “I can assure you that I have no plans for marriage. Besides, it’s already May. There’s no way I’ll meet and marry my groom before the turn of the year. I don’t move that fast.” Was she protesting too much?

      Cassia tossed her curls. “I almost envy you for getting the bridal suite. Almost.” She flashed a playful grin. “Personally, I’m not ready to settle down. I’ve got to take a good sampling of all the available prospects first. Woof!”

      Claire shared Cassia’s laughter, appreciating the other woman’s enthusiasm for the opposite sex even though Claire’s reluctance was a matter of straightening out priorities, not picking and choosing. Her opportunities in that area had been limited. She’d decided early that dating within the company was too complicated. And since her life was the company…

      Priority one, Claire thought. Change that.

      It was a sad state of affairs when one’s love life was so barren Valentina’s prophecy had zero chance of working.

      After chatting about their planned daytime activities and the Whitakers’ open invitation to board game night, the Bickermanns left the table escorted by Toivo, who was giving them directions to the Gull Rock lighthouse.

      Claire looked across the table at Cassia as the girl settled back, realizing for the first time that the redhead sat in a wheelchair. “There must be more to the Valentina legend?” she said, returning to the subject now that they were alone.

      With a deft touch on the electric controls of her chair, Cassia wheeled herself closer. “Valentina Whitaker was supposed to be married in the spring of 1914, in the rose garden of Bay House. But her bridegroom never showed up for the wedding. Valentina waited in her bedroom—your bedroom—watching from the balcony as the guests came and went. She waited and watched all day and into the night. There was no word until midnight, when one of the men Ogden Whitaker had sent out searching returned with the news that Valentina’s fiancé had eloped with another woman.”

      “Oh.” A quicksilver chill spilled along Claire’s spine.

      “Yep. The story says that Valentina went schizo.” Cassia’s eyes widened. “She carried on like a lunatic, cursing her fiancé and his new bride to eternal misery, swearing that never again would an unmarried woman suffer in Bay House the way she had. Ogden and his wife tried to restrain her, but she ran outside in her wedding dress and threw herself off the cliff.” The redhead dramatically flung back her head, her hands sweeping wide. “Since then, Valentina’s room has become a Whitaker family legend!”

      “Hmm. It’s a stunning tale.” Claire couldn’t hide her skepticism.

      “It’s true. All true. Emmie has shown me the old photos of Valentina. There’s even one of her groom—her intended groom.”

      “But the curse itself? It must be apocryphal.”

      “I don’t know what that means, but it sure is some wild, wacky stuff!” Cassia paused, then leaned forward to continue in a whisper. “Emmie doesn’t like to talk about it, even though the legend has lasted all these years. Everyone around knows that any single woman who sleeps the night in Valentina’s room will marry soon after. It supposedly happened to lots of the Whitaker relations over the years, before Bay House was opened to the public. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Since then, Emmie usually refuses to book the room. But every once in a while, if the other rooms are full, or if Toivo gets left in charge…” Cassia shrugged.

      “I’m not going to worry about it.”

      “Don’t you want to get married?”

      Claire laughed off the question. Given her present quandary, she wasn’t ready to commit to so much as an answer. “Not as the result of a curse!”

      “Well, y’know, lots of women wouldn’t call it a curse. Shari’s been campaigning to stay overnight in Valentina’s room for months. There was even a woman from Grosse Pointe who wanted to pay Emmie a thousand bucks for the opportunity!”

      “Did she allow it?”

      “Nope. Emmie said it wasn’t right, that grooms couldn’t be bought.” Cassia hunched her shoulders. “I think it was because the lady from downstate was about fifty and as crazed as a rabid pit bull. She might have been the one to put a stop to the legend! Didn’t matter that the Whitakers needed the money for a new furnace. Emmie’s stubborn that way.”

      And Toivo, Claire thought, is mischievous that way. She set aside her cup and saucer, deciding to change the subject. “You said you rent a room, Cassia. I thought Bay House is strictly a bed-and-breakfast. How long have you been here?” Was it too intrusive to ask if she had a lease?

      “Not too long,” Cassia said. “I was totally dying to live on my own, away from my parents.” She rolled her eyes, looking like a typical young adult impatient to assert her independence. “Bay House was the best I could do. For now. Emmie’s bossy, but not as bad as my mother, that’s for sure.”

      “Are there other long-term tenants?”

      “Just Bill Maki. He has an attic room. And there’s Roxy, the Whitakers’ niece, but she lives in the garage apartment. No worries there. You couldn’t pay Roxy to come near Valentina’s room.”

      As the two women talked, they moved toward the large but crowded front hall, Cassia’s chair catching momentarily on the fringed edge of a Persian rug. “Where do Emmie and Toivo sleep?” Claire asked when Cassia waved her off from helping. She was trying to gauge the number of bedrooms.

      “On the first floor, near me.” Cassia pointed as she spoke. Her face was bright with interest and friendliness. “There’s the front parlor—that’s open to all the guests. Then the office, with Emmie’s and Toivo’s rooms behind it. Then me, then the garden room that opens to the back yard, and on the other side is the kitchen, the pantry and the back stairs.”

      “How many bedrooms up?”

      “Five altogether. The green, the yellow, the red and the blue.”

      A veritable rainbow. “Plus the bridal suite.”

      “Yeah, the white room, I guess you’d say.” Cassia giggled.

      “There’s no way I’m getting married when I don’t even have a boyfriend,” Claire murmured, momentarily unaware she’d spoken out loud. When she realized she had, she looked sheepishly at Cassia, who only smiled.

      “Join the club, sister.” They laughed.

      “I have to go,” Claire remembered. “I lost my purse…”

      “How’d that happen?”

      Claire shuddered. “I nearly hit a deer on the drive to Alouette. Just past that place—the Buck Stop? It was awful.”

      Cassia shrugged. “Heck, that happens all the time. The woods up here are thick with deer. You have to keep your eyes open, driving at night.”

      “I was kind of, um…distracted. My car ran off the road.”

      “But how’d СКАЧАТЬ