The Women of Bayberry Cove. Cynthia Thomason

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      Vicki swiped her finger through a layer of dust on the single kitchen counter. “Are you really going to sleep here tonight?”

      Louise snapped plastic gloves onto her hands and dipped a cleaning rag into a solution of vinegar and water. “Absolutely. Two nights in a motel is enough for me. I’m looking forward to all the…” she paused, glanced around the room at the work that still needed to be done, and gave Vicki a rueful smile “…comforts of home. Have I mentioned how grateful I am to you two for your help?”

      Jamie Malone, intent on turning an old oak bureau into a utilitarian work of art, shrugged off the comment. “Forget about it. What are friends for?”

      “Besides, you’ve mentioned it about a hundred times,” Vicki said. “With the three of us working, we actually might have this place in order by this afternoon. It’s going to be lovely,” she added. “The curtains and linens and pillows you bought are adorable and will add a lot of charm to this room.”

      Louise stared at her dearest friend. Vicki loved pottery and flowers and chintz, so Louise allowed her to use words like adorable and charm. Louise’s viewpoint was that a person needed towels. So what if they had a little lacy trim on the hem? So what if a plate had a cluster of cherries painted in the center? It would still hold a microwave dinner. “That’s the look I’m going for,” she said with a grin.

      When she finished unpacking dishes, Vicki picked up a candle that had been sitting on the table, and examined it closely. “I didn’t know you were into these things. Did you buy this at the Bayberry Cove Candle Company?”

      “Hardly, since I’ve never heard of the place. The truth is, I didn’t buy it at all. It was outside my door this morning when I got here.”

      “It’s a beautiful shade of blue,” Vicki said. “Did you read the tag taped to the side?”

      “Tag? No. I didn’t know there was a tag.”

      “It says, ‘Look to the sky and look to sea for this tranquil shade of blue. Light it tonight and it will bring comfort to your home and you.’”

      Louise walked over to the table and took the candle from Vicki. “Very touching,” she said, “if not exactly poet laureate material.”

      “If you didn’t buy it,” Vicki said, “I wonder where it came from.”

      Jamie turned off the power to his electric sander and set the tool on top of the bureau. “I’d guess that Suzie McCorkle left it,” he said. “She’s interested in that kind of stuff. Candles, crystals, things like that. It’s probably her way of wishing you domestic harmony.”

      Louise pictured the mousy woman with the shoulder-length gray hair neatly pinned back from her forehead with two barrettes. A New Age lady? Well, why not? Louise looked at the mattress and box springs and the “nearly new” plaid sofa she had bought from Suzie’s shop the day before, and another explanation came to mind. “Maybe she’s just thanking me for buying a few things.”

      Jamie ran his hand over the surface of the dresser and picked up the sander again. “Maybe. She would do something like that—quietly leave a candle without expecting recognition. She’s a nice woman.”

      The origin of the candle solved, Louise returned to her struggle with the first of three windows that looked over Main Street. After scrubbing for ten minutes with the vinegar solution and following up with industrial strength glass cleaner, she was finally able to see the sun dappling the sidewalks in the square across the street. She yanked another batch of paper towels from a roll and feverishly wiped the stubborn glass with a circular motion. “Just have to eliminate a few more streaks,” she huffed, “and then a bird with a bad case of cataracts might actually knock himself silly trying to fly into this place.”

      “For the love of Saint Pat, Louise,” Jamie said above the steady whirr of his sander, “you’d better quit now before you rub a hole in the glass.”

      “Jamie’s right, Lulu. You’re taking out your frustration on the window.”

      Louise laid her forehead against the nearly clean pane and sighed. “You’re right. I still can’t believe I didn’t notice the name Fletcher on that lease. Four days ago, if I’d had a client who’d done something as stupid as sign a document without reading it carefully, I’d have seriously considered not representing him.”

      Jamie looked at Vicki and was unsuccessful at hiding a grin. “And what difference does it really make now? You have a place to stay at a reasonable rent—the only place available, as I see it. Why do you care who owns the building?”

      “But they’re so smug,” she said. “Wesley practically crowed when he told me that his family owns this building.”

      “They own Buttercup Cottage, too,” Vicki pointed out. “And that didn’t bother you when you thought you could rent it.”

      “That was yesterday, before I knew them.” She gestured out the window, where people in the square were now visible through the sparkling glass. “And that old guy over there…Mason Fletcher. Now that I think about it, he was smug, too. And I can just imagine Haywood. He’s probably more smug than the rest of them.”

      Jamie hunched a shoulder in a sign of agreement. “Smug, clever…there’s a fine line between the two if you ask me. You have to be clever first in order to justify being smug. And as for your signing the lease, my advice is to forget about it. You’re on vacation from lawyering, so you might as well relax and enjoy yourself.” He walked to the middle window and with his fist cleared a three-inch circle through the grime so he could see the street below. “Bayberry Cove is a really nice little town.”

      Louise let out a long breath and followed his gaze. It was Sunday morning, and families had gathered on the square. Fathers pushed children on swings and women chatted on benches.

      “Yes, it is,” she admitted. “And you’re right. I’m going to relax just as soon as I get this place clean. And right after you tell me how old man Fletcher got all his money.”

      Jamie went back to the bureau, picked up a piece of sandpaper and began smoothing the edges by hand. “That’s an interesting story,” he said, his words a soothing accompaniment to the rasp of the paper. “Mason was in his early twenties when he took a small inheritance his father left him and traveled from Bayberry Cove to Arizona. He invested in a silver mine out there with some other fellas, and as luck would have it, they uncovered a rich vein that gave them each a good stake for their futures.”

      Louise dipped her rag again and attacked the middle window. “So he came back to North Carolina and bought Bayberry Cove?”

      Jamie chuckled. “Not all at once. He made his real fortune in patents. Sold one to Henry Ford that revolutionized the assembly line process. And then, bit by bit, he started buying up property around here and dabbling in various ventures. He built Buttercup Cottage in 1935 for the love of his life, the woman he married.”

      Louise stared down at the old man under the oak tree. She wasn’t surprised to learn a romantic soul lurked behind his knowing blue eyes. Smugness aside, Mason Fletcher had a soft spot. “Who was she?”

      “An Arizona gal. He married her out there and took her away from all that soaring rock and desert and brought her to the sea. They say she loved being on Currituck Sound, and Buttercup Cottage was his gift to her on their second anniversary.” He stopped СКАЧАТЬ