“It’s nothing,” he said.
“It looks like you’re in good shape here. Hey, do you have help lined up for the summer? Jackson’s working with his dad and going to college in the fall...”
Since meeting Helen, he’d been thinking more seriously about getting some extra help. “I’m going to get on that,” he said. “I’ll check with Tom and ask if his daughter Brenda is interested, since Tom is my regular handyman when Connie can’t help.”
“What are you reading?” Maggie asked, picking up Helen’s book.
“Someone left it here,” he said.
They had a bookcase in the store—the books were free. People dropped off books they’d read on the trail and picked up a new one to take on the next leg. Hikers lightened their load at every stop. That Helen hadn’t left it on that particular bookcase was a minor detail.
“Oh, look at this! Hey, I think this might be Leigh’s aunt. The author. And she signed the book! She must have come through here or something. Or someone left a signed book behind. ‘With love, Helen.’ That’s interesting.”
He grabbed it out of her hand. “Hmm. I hadn’t noticed that.” Love? Then where is she? Oh, I’m way too old for this!
Maggie kissed his cheek. “I’m going over to the house to use the bathroom, then I’ll be off. Listen, I’m going to Denver tomorrow and won’t be back till Thursday late afternoon so if you need anything, give Cal or Connie a call, will you? Don’t be doing too much. Let’s get you a nice, strong teenager to help out around here. How about that?”
“I said I’ll get right on it.”
“Yes, you did.”
* * *
When Maggie got home, she poked her head in Cal’s office. He was on his computer and Elizabeth was playing with her toy kitchen set nearby, having a very interesting conversation with herself in a completely foreign language. “Elizabeth,” she said sweetly. “I’m home.”
“Mama,” she said, scrabbling up to her feet and running to Maggie.
“Have you been playing kitchen?”
Elizabeth babbled something that had a very serious tone and was completely unintelligible. Maggie said, “Really?” as though she understood every word. “And have you been good for Daddy?”
She acknowledged another stream of babble. Then Maggie asked for and received kisses and a hug.
“Cal, have you spent any time with Sully lately?”
“Last week Elizabeth and I helped in the garden and did a little raking and composting around the house.”
“Did you notice anything weird?”
“Like what?”
“He’s using hand lotion. A lot of it.”
“Maybe he has dry skin,” Cal said.
“It’s scented! And he keeps craning his neck—I think he’s looking down the road for someone. Someone who didn’t come. And he’s reading a woman’s book—a mystery written and signed by a woman. Sully has read about three books since I was born.”
“Is that Leigh Culver’s aunt? She’s visiting, I take it.”
“Have they met?” she asked. “Leigh’s aunt and Sully?”
Cal shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep his calendar.”
“His house is spotless. He has vacuum cleaner tracks. And the bathroom is so clean it winked at me.”
Cal grinned at her. “Sounds like Sully might be trying to impress someone.”
“With soft hands?” she asked, outraged. “The thought is kind of gross. He’s seventy-two!”
“He’s not dead yet,” Cal pointed out.
“And speaking of gross,” she said, sniffing the air. “Pew. Elizabeth, you could use a change, right now!”
And Elizabeth said, “Wight now!” as clear as a bell.
“That figures,” Cal said. “Her first words after Mama and Dada are Right now! She is definitely your daughter!”
* * *
On Tuesday, Helen parked her car near the house, left her duffel on the front seat and walked over to the store. It was not yet noon. She found Frank sitting in the front corner of the store near the wood burning stove, but the stove wasn’t burning—the May air was warm and it was sunny. “How are you today, Frank?” she asked.
“I’m getting by but the arthritis might kill me before long,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Bad, is it?”
“Terrible. You don’t have it, do you?”
Actually, she did have a little osteoarthritis in her neck, but she said, “Luckily, no.”
In the back she found Enid cleaning up the kitchen. “Hi, Enid. How was your morning?”
“Very busy, Helen. I’m just cleaning up. How are you?”
“Excellent. I thought I’d grab a sandwich and then park on Sully’s porch to get a little work done.”
“Get what you want before I leave. I even have a little chicken and vegetable soup on the stove. I could give you a cup if you feel like it. I feed it to Frank like medicine and always leave a little for Sully. You ask me, it’s keeping those old boys alive.”
“I’d love a cup,” Helen said. “And how’s the family?”
“They’re perfect,” Enid said, then she began an update on each of the children and grandchildren as she dished up the soup. Enid put the soup and a spoon and napkin on the bar and Helen obediently sat there. The back of the store was divided—on the left side was the cash register and a few food items, on the right side was a bar with only three stools and behind the bar their supply of liquor. Helen smiled as she took note that a bottle of Frangelico was now sitting on the shelf.
Behind the cash register and counter was a small, compact kitchen, and behind the liquor shelves, a bathroom. The storeroom and post office was through a door behind the kitchen.
Enid and Frank had grown sons and a passel of grandchildren and two young great-grandchildren. “They’re Frank’s by his first wife but they’ve made me their own. I never had my own children. But I have enough nieces and nephews to make up for it,” Enid explained.
Helen learned that Enid and Frank had married late in life after Frank was widowed. While Enid extolled the virtues of every child in their families, Helen sampled the soup, which was excellent. Scurrying around and talking nonstop was Enid, finishing her day.
Then Sully came in the back door. “Well, hello, madam,” he said, two grocery bags in his arms. “We missed you yesterday.”
“I had business chores,” she said. “Phone calls, finances, scheduling discussions, that sort of thing. And I cooked for Leigh last night so I could hear what’s going on in her world.”
“If you’re here to take over, I’m off, then,” Enid said to Sully. “Frank has a date with the gastroenterologist.”
“I imagine he looks forward to that,” Sully said. “I’ll see you on Thursday? I have enough muffins and cookies, right?”
“You’re stocked, Sully. How do you like that soup, Helen?”
“It’s wonderful. You should package it.”
“I’ll think about that,” she said with a laugh. “For my spare time.”
By the time Helen had finished her soup, Enid and Frank had gone. And Sully was back. “I’m going to make myself a turkey sandwich. Can I make you one?”
“Can you manage a half? Enid’s soup filled up the other half.”
“I can do that. Tell me what business chores are like. If you want to, of course.”
“It’s not interesting,” she told him while he was in the kitchen, slapping together sandwiches. “I have people I work with who are long distance. I have an agent, an editor, a public relations manager. Every word I write is edited, suggestions are made, we discuss revisions. The PR department is always looking for promotional opportunities, sometimes a trip, sometimes a phone interview or the like. They also receive requests for workshops, speeches, that sort of thing, and we go over our respective calendars and decide what is and is not practical. We plan and schedule a lot of social media promotion.” To his quizzical look, she said, “Facebook and that sort of thing. And there’s reader mail and reader groups. There’s quite a lot of business to this business. I don’t just sit down and dream away at the laptop and collect money. That’s the best part for me, but it turns out not the most time-consuming. The business part is boring.” He brought her a sandwich and put it in front of her. “But I’m a businesswoman. Just as you’re a businessman.”
“I’m a property owner. I guess it’s a business,” he said.
“You guess?” she asked, laughing. “You own and manage a recreation facility in one of the most beautiful places on earth.”
“Do you think we should have each other’s phone numbers?” he asked.
“I’ll be happy to share mine but I had the impression you’re not the kind of man to chat on the phone.”
“I’m probably not,” he said. “But I wondered where you were all day yesterday—on account of we never talked about where you’d be spending the day. My daughter turned up, as she’s prone to do when she’s not in Denver, and I craned my neck looking for your car coming down the road so many times she asked me if I had a cramp in my neck.”
Helen laughed. “I think what you’re looking for is communication.”
“I don’t mean to pry,” he said.
“I have very few secrets actually. I had several phone calls scheduled and I wanted to have dinner with Leigh so I could probe her about her new relationship with Rob. And she’s not talking much, but she’s dreamy as all hell. I think the girl might be falling in love. At last! I’ve been waiting forever for that girl to fall in love!”
“Why?” he asked, taking a big bite of his sandwich.