Starting Over On Blackberry Lane. Sheila Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ what I hear, they aren’t always very fast at getting work done, either,” Griffin said. “Anyway, he’ll get the living room finished eventually,” she added, obviously trying to be encouraging.

      Stef did not feel encouraged. “Eventually? Maybe. Right now, it’s looking more like never.” Stef shook her head. “I thought we were so perfectly compatible when we first got married, but I didn’t know about...this.” She sighed. “I do love the guy. What I don’t love is the way he keeps starting projects and never finishing them. It’s making me nuts. I just want to find someone to finish this so we can be done with it, but Brad keeps insisting he’ll get to it.”

      Cass, who was ringing up some swan-shaped cream puffs for Muriel Sterling-Wittman, greeted them. “Still nowhere near done, huh?”

      “He’ll never be done.”

      Muriel took her purchase and smiled the all-knowing Mona Lisa smile she was famous for. “When we’re in the middle of something challenging, it always seems like it’ll last forever, but trust me, even the hard times come to a close.”

      “Thanks,” Stef murmured, feeling like the queen of the wicked witches. Here Muriel Sterling had been widowed twice—talk about hard times—and she never complained. Stef’s chaotic reno project, which had been feeling like a mountain, shrank to a molehill. Muriel gave her a reassuring pat on the arm and Stef sighed as the older woman left the shop. “I’m a bitch.”

      “No, you’re not,” Cass assured her. “I’d feel the same way if I was in your house. I feel the same way in my leaky house, only I don’t have a husband to blame.”

      Another woman with no husband. Now Stef really felt guilty for complaining. Sometimes Brad did not bring out the best in her.

      Oh, yeah. Blame it all on Brad. She needed therapy. “Give me two gingerbread boys and a large caramel latte,” she said to Cass. “I’m going to smother my sorrows in sugar.”

      “Good idea.” Cass looked at Griffin. “Are you going to walk on the wild side today and have a gingerbread boy?”

      “I’ll just have a cup of gingerbread tea. Beth’s been stuffing me full of goodies the last three days.”

      Cass smiled. “Next to me, she’s the best baker in town. Well, except for Janice Lind. I’m sure she’ll win the Raise the Roof bake-off again this year.”

      “That was before you moved here,” Stef told Griffin. “It was really fun, kind of like a county fair, but without the cows and pigs. At the end they auction everything off. They also have a silent auction. Last year I won a dinner for two at Der Spaniard and a huge basket of Sweet Dreams chocolates. You should come. I bet you’d get some great food pictures.”

      Griffin nodded thoughtfully. “I might have to.”

      As if on cue, Maddy Donaldson, one of the town’s busiest volunteers, came into the shop, selling tickets to the event. “It’s for a good cause,” she reminded them.

      “What does it raise money for?” Griffin asked.

      “The proceeds go to maintaining our historical buildings in town. It’s a big part of what keeps Icicle Falls beautiful, and the tickets are only ten dollars, a real bargain.”

      “I’m all for that,” Stef said, digging her wallet out of her purse. “I’ll take four,” she told Maddy, then said to Griffin, “You can come with us.”

      “I can pay for my own,” Griffin insisted.

      “I know, but I want to.” Griffin no longer had Steve to share expenses. Her budget had to have shrunk considerably.

      “I’ll take one, too,” Cass said. “Give me a minute to get my money from the back room.”

      “I’ve got it,” Stef said. “We can all go together.” Was she being bossy or what? But it would be fun to have her two favorite Icicles with her.

      “That’s sweet of you,” Cass said.

      In light of the many times Cass hadn’t let them pay for their treats, that was the least she could do.

      “Raise the Roof is going to be great this year,” Maddy said as she took their money. “We have so many wonderful things for the silent auction. The art gallery is donating a painting by Gray Wolf Dawson. And Sweet Dreams has come through again.”

      “I’m interested in that,” Stef told her. “Now, if you could raffle off a temporary husband...”

      “Funny you should say that. We have a new business in town—Honey Do—and he’s going to be offering a whole day of work.”

      “It’ll take more than a day to clean up my mess,” Stef grumbled.

      “You can always hire him for however long it takes after that.”

      “I hear he does roofs,” Cass said, “so I’ll be all over that.”

      “I’m sure he does. It’s Dan Masters’s dad. He’s just moved here from Mexico. I talked to him on the phone yesterday and he’s really nice. I hear he’s gorgeous.”

      “He is,” Cass said. “I met him when Charley and Dan got married.”

      “If that’s the case, there’s bound to be a bidding frenzy,” Maddy said with a smile.

      “I suspect there’ll be a bidding frenzy anyway,” Cass told her. “We’ve got two of us right here who’ll bid on a handyman.”

      Maddy hung around for a while to chat, then went on her way, and Stef and Griffin settled at one of the bakery’s bistro tables with their drinks and the gingerbread boys. Cass took a moment to join them.

      “I sure would like to win that handyman for a day,” Stef said. She could already see her new great room with its polished hardwood floors. All that space! Of course, what she needed would take more than a day. Maybe she’d hire him for...life. “If I could get the guy to finish some of Brad’s other projects, I wouldn’t have to murder my husband.”

      “You have to stop saying stuff like that in front of us,” Cass teased her. “If anything happens to Brad, we’ll get called into court to testify.”

      Stef sighed. “I know. It’s just that he makes me so mad sometimes. Why can’t he finish anything?”

      “He’s a visionary,” Cass suggested. “Lots of great ideas.”

      “Well, maybe he needs to envision sleeping on the couch for a while.” The weekend was around the corner and had he saved any time to work on the house? No. Friday night he was sitting in for someone at Ed Fish’s weekly poker game, Saturday was T-ball for Petey, followed by a birthday party they’d all be going to, and Sunday he’d committed them to staying after church for a potluck. Generous of him to volunteer her to bring a casserole and dessert.

      “That’ll never happen,” Griffin said. “You’re too soft. He wouldn’t be on that couch longer than a couple of hours.”

      “I’m done with being soft,” Stef said. “I should’ve come down on him with the first unfinished project. I’m СКАЧАТЬ