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“I know what goes into them. I’m an interior designer by profession, so naturally I have an appreciation. But—” Before she could add that she had no desire to spend the next year of her life in Laurel Ridge, they were interrupted.
“Hey, Sarah, do me a favor, will you?” Nick stood in the doorway, holding a large dog of indeterminate breed by a piece of rope that looked inadequate. Even as Allison watched, the dog made a dive for the nearest display rack, which was hung with an assortment of baby crib quilts.
“No!” Allison’s instinctive cry was echoed by Nick, and he hauled the dog back by the rope. The animal didn’t seem to show any resentment of the handling. It sat on Nick’s foot and looked up at him with an adoring doggie expression, tongue lolling.
“Is this bring-your-dog-to-work day?” she asked tartly.
“Not my dog,” Nick replied, his face relaxing in a grin that invited her to share his amusement. “A beauty, isn’t he?”
Her expression must have spoken for her, because he chuckled.
Sarah hurried to interpose herself between them with the air of one who was used to being a buffer between fractious personalities. “I see Ruffy showed up again. Mr. Sheldon must have let him slip out of the house.”
“Who is Mr. Sheldon, and why is his dog here?” Surely, as what she supposed was provisional owner of the building, she had the right to ask.
“Randall Sheldon had an office upstairs before he retired,” Nick said.
“And Ruffy used to come to work with him every day,” Sarah contributed. “Ruffy doesn’t seem to understand retirement. He keeps trying to come to work.”
By this time the dog was sniffing at Allison’s boots, probably smelling Hector on them. She stepped back. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to call this Mr. Sheldon to pick him up?”
“No need.” Nick hauled the animal to him, forestalling an effort to pursue Allison and the interesting smell of cat. “I’ll take him home. Sarah, I’m expecting Mr. and Mrs. Pierce in to look at cabinets. Will you tell them to start looking around? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “Give my best to Mr. Sheldon.”
Nick nodded. “Heel, Ruffy.” The dog promptly sat down. “Come. Walk.” No response. Nick finally had to drag the animal across the polished marble to the front door.
Sarah had already turned back into the shop, and Allison followed her, unable to resist a comment.
“With that casual attitude toward his customers, I’m surprised Whiting has any business at all. Why didn’t he make the owner come and get the dog?”
Sarah seemed surprised. “Because that’s not the kind of person Nick is. He knows Mr. Sheldon regrets retiring, and he doesn’t want him to have to come in for the dog.” She smiled a little. “You might not know it to look at him, but Nick has a tender heart.”
Allison felt as if she’d been put in the wrong, no matter how gently. And the incident just emphasized her feeling that she’d wandered into a world she didn’t understand.
“Still, you wouldn’t leave your shop unattended, would you?”
Sarah seemed to consider. “Well, usually there would be someone else around. Sometimes my mother is here, sometimes members of the quilting group. But if I had to, I could trust Nick to keep an eye on things.”
It was a different attitude—that was all she could think. She would no more walk off and leave a shop full of valuable merchandise than she’d take flight.
“Of course, if I had a partner here, it wouldn’t be a problem.” Sarah’s smile teased her.
“I...I’m not sure that’s possible,” Allison muttered, feeling ill-equipped to cope. She’d assumed knowing more would help her decision become clear. Instead, everything she learned just seemed to make it more difficult.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ff32967f-a21e-55af-b3f9-e62c0fdf010c)
SHE REALLY OUGHT to go through the building and introduce herself to the other renters, but Allison decided she needed a break from other people’s expectations. Lunch and a little time to decompress—that was the solution.
Telling Sarah goodbye and trying to ignore the trace of disappointment in her blue eyes, Allison headed across the street toward the café she’d noticed the previous night.
The Buttercup Café lived up to its name, painted inside with a yellow so sunny it made Allison blink. In that instant, she realized something else. The room had fallen completely silent at her entrance, and every single person in the café, with the exception of a toddler banging on a high chair tray, stared at her.
Feeling her cheeks warm, Allison moved forward. The middle-aged woman behind the counter, seeming to rouse herself, hurried to greet her. Amish, Allison noted. Like Sarah. There must be a lot of them in the area.
“Table for one, Ms. Standish? Right over here.” Somehow Allison wasn’t surprised that the woman knew her. Apparently, from what she’d heard so far, anonymity wasn’t an option in Laurel Ridge.
At Allison’s nod, the woman gestured to an open table and then pulled the chair out, her ample cheeks bunching with her smile. Her eyes seemed to take in every detail of Allison’s appearance from behind the wire-rimmed glasses she wore. With her white hair, rosy cheeks and round figure, she reminded Allison of a china figure of Mrs. Santa she’d once had. But the woman’s gaze was both curious and cautious, unlike the loving expression of her Mrs. Santa.
“I’m Anna Schmidt, owner, chief cook and just about everything else at the Buttercup. I’d recommend the chicken potpie. It’s the special today, and I made it fresh this morning.”
Allison had intended to order a salad, but she sensed it might be more diplomatic to agree. “That sounds lovely.” She handed the menu back. “Just water to drink.” She’d resolved to cut down on caffeine, although possibly this stressful time wasn’t the best for healthy changes.
Allison glanced up, caught an elderly man staring at her and fished in her bag for her cell phone. Maybe she’d have to resign herself to being a subject of curiosity for a time—not that she’d intended to stay long enough to become familiar to the denizens of Laurel Ridge.
Propping her arm on the bright yellow-and-white tablecloth, she checked her messages. Nothing from either Di or Greg. Maybe that was just as well. She opened a text from Leslie, her closest friend. An attorney, Leslie’s reaction to news of an unexpected legacy had been to advise caution.
Don’t sign anything without reading it thoroughly. That was the gist of it.
The text was brief. Call and tell me all about it.
Smiling, she responded. Nothing ever as it seems. Talk later, okay?
She couldn’t expect Leslie to rush to Laurel Ridge to represent her, but Leslie would be generous with legal advice. If there was a way out of this tangle, Leslie would find it.
Anna Schmidt returned a few minutes later, bearing a steaming bowl of what appeared to be a chicken stew rich with square noodles whose uneven sides declared that they were homemade. The woman lingered until Allison took a cautious first bite. At Allison’s involuntary exclamation of pleasure, she beamed.
“Never had real homemade chicken potpie, ain’t so?”
“No, I haven’t. It’s delicious.”
“Your daadi love my chicken potpie. I was certain sure you would, too.” Still smiling, Anna turned away to attend to another customer, leaving Allison bemused.
Odd, that she hadn’t even thought of her father since arriving in Laurel Ridge. The more she considered it, the stranger it seemed. Hugh Standish had walked out of her life when she was six. She’d trained herself not to dwell on him, because doing so inevitably led to pain. That was yet another good reason for not taking up a new life in this place.
Allison had just about succeeded in dismissing her father from her thoughts by the time she returned to Blackburn House later that afternoon. She’d brought Hector along in the carrier, deciding she’d relieve the innkeeper of his presence.
Before she talked with Leslie this evening, she really needed to have a better grasp on the economics of the situation. She couldn’t expect advice if she didn’t have the facts, and Leslie was a glutton for details. She’d want to know the assessed value of the property, the taxes, the expenses and the amount of rent that came in each month before venturing an opinion as to the best course of action for Allison. The logical place to look for those answers was in the office her grandmother had maintained upstairs.
Early spring daffodils curtsied in the cool breeze that swept across the lawn in front of Blackburn House. Care of the grounds was undoubtedly her responsibility. She could only hope her grandmother had a service in place to deal with such things.
The stained-glass detail in the transom pane above the front door glowed as a slant of sunlight hit it, and the brass door handle echoed with a gleam of its own. The meticulous care that had been taken of the building seemed to indicate that Evelyn Standish had been fond of the place. Odd, surely, that it didn’t bear her family’s name.
Allison went inside, the cat carrier dangling from one hand, and nearly ran into Nick, who was just turning away from the door to his showroom, keys in his hand.
He smiled, eyes crinkling, and nodded toward the cat carrier. “You’re not going to attack me with that again, are you?”
She couldn’t seem to stop herself from responding to that smile. “I was just defending myself, remember?”
“True enough.” He reached out to test the cat carrier door, earning a hiss from Hector. “Is it holding together all right?”
“Fine, thanks.” She glanced at the door to his showroom. It bore a hand-lettered placard. Out now. Leave a note or try the workshop in back. That reminded her of her disapproval.
“Closing early today?”
Nick blinked, as if not understanding her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I can’t waste time sitting there hoping someone will come in. If anybody does, they know to look for us back in the shop.”
She couldn’t help frowning a little as she glanced at the shop door. “Wouldn’t you get more business if you kept the showroom open?”
His brow lifted in that infuriating manner. “Know a lot about cabinetmaking, do you?”
“No, but—”
“Then maybe you ought to let me run my own business while you tend to yours.” He strode off toward the back of the building, obviously having had enough of her.
She clutched the cat carrier and stalked to the stairs. All right, fine. She’d take care of her own business. That’s what she planned to do right now. Avoiding the gaze of the bookstore proprietor, who had come hopefully to the entrance to his shop, Allison hurried upstairs toward her grandmother’s office, heels clicking on the marble stairs.
* * *
NICK, PROPELLED BY what he considered righteous indignation, stormed to the back door, but before he could reach it Ralph Mitchell darted out of the bookstore and intercepted him. Ralph’s thin pale face was anxious, his nose twitching so that he looked like an elderly rabbit.
“You were talking to her. What’s she like? What’s she going to do? Did she tell you?”
Nick curbed his annoyance with Allison and tried to look reassuring. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s decided yet what her plans are for the building.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Ralph about the restrictions to Allison’s ownership, but he held back. Ralph’s reputation as a gossip was well deserved. He talked to everyone who visited Blackburn House, to say nothing of all the people he encountered on his daily trips to the post office and the bank. He collected tidbits of information everywhere he went, sometimes sewing them into a fantastic array of speculation, but more often than not into something very close to the truth.
Ralph would undoubtedly find out about Allison’s provisional ownership from someone, but it didn’t have to be him.
“But how can you be sure? If she sells, what’s going to happen to us?” Ralph was close to wringing his hands. “You know Evelyn hasn’t raised our rents in years. How could we find comparable places for our businesses at those prices?”
“We probably couldn’t.” That was the truth, and Ralph knew it as well as he did, but it was hardly reassuring. “Look, we don’t know anything yet. For all I’ve heard, Ms. Standish may intend to just turn the business over to a property manager to handle and head back to her job in the city. That would be the easiest thing she could do.”
“True.” Ralph pushed his glasses back up on his nose with a characteristic gesture. Usually they clung to the end of his nose and he peered over them nearsightedly. “Still, I don’t understand why she hasn’t come to talk to me yet. It makes me nervous.”
That was a good question. As far as Nick could tell, Allison seemed inclined to avoid her responsibilities here.
“I’m sure she’ll be around to see you soon.” He patted Ralph’s slumped shoulder. “No need to start worrying before you have to, right?”
“I suppose you’re right.” Ralph sounded reluctant. “But do you think—”
“Gotta go. Dad’s expecting me, and I’m late.” He moved as he spoke, knowing if he didn’t, Ralph was capable of keeping him there talking and speculating all afternoon.
In a couple of minutes he was clear of the building, and he blew out a breath of exasperation. He felt sorry for Ralph, but the man’s timidity and gossipy nature about drove him crazy.
Dad, on the other hand, was so calm that Nick sometimes wondered if he caught all that was going on around him. When he reached the workshop he found his father already well into the next job they had on hand, humming tunelessly while he worked. He was what Nick would be in another thirty years, he supposed—lean, leathery, with tanned skin, wrinkles around his eyes, going a little gray at the temples.
Nick tossed his jacket in the general direction of the hook on the wall and joined him. The new cabinets were cherry, and the wood a challenge but a joy to work with. He smoothed his hand down the fine grain.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Dad shrugged. “No problem. Somebody come in the showroom?”
“Nothing like that. I had another little run-in with Allison Standish.”
“Was that a good idea?” His father’s voice was mild.
“I didn’t start it.” Nick wished the words back the minute they were out of his mouth. It sounded like what he and Mac used to say when they’d been squabbling. “Anyway, the woman is being unreasonable. She hasn’t even talked to the rest of the tenants in the building yet. Ralph is in a state about it.”
“Ralph’s always in a state.”
True enough. “I couldn’t blame him this time. Seems to me she’s trying to impose her big-city standards on Laurel Ridge, and that’s not how things are done here. The least she could do is to talk to everyone and let them know what’s happening instead of standing back looking down her nose at us.” He frowned down at the screwdriver in his hand and wondered what he’d picked it up for.
“Hmm.” Dad took a careful measurement, wrote it down and then measured again. Only then did he glance at Nick. “So, besides being obnoxious and superior, what’s Allison Standish like?”
He shrugged, for all the world as if he hadn’t paid attention. “Red hair. Well, more coppery-colored, I guess you’d say. Green eyes. Sort of a heart-shaped face and fair skin. She’s got a way of looking up at you that...” Never mind about his reactions. He certainly didn’t want to discuss them with his father. “Not much like her grandmother, that’s for sure.”
“You hardly noticed her, right?” Dad’s eyes were twinkling.
“It’s not like that,” he said with as much dignity as he could manage. “I’m just concerned about all of us. She could do a lot of damage through not understanding how small towns work.”
Dad didn’t respond. He just kept on working, but Nick felt sure there was something more. As the silence stretched, he had to speak.
“Well?”
Dad gave him a considering look before turning back to the piece of cherry work he was shaping. “Seems to me you might be jumping to some conclusions based on appearances.” He paused, probably to let that sink in. “The way I see it, the woman’s been thrown into a stressful situation she probably never expected. Maybe we have to give her a chance to find her balance.”
He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. Nick knew exactly what Dad was hinting at. He thought Nick had an unfavorable opinion of Allison because she reminded him of Sheila.
His first impulse was to deny it. Loudly. But he had too much respect for his father’s judgment to reject it out of hand. Maybe there was a fragment of truth to the idea. He couldn’t deny that Allison seemed to be everything that Sheila had wanted to be.
He and Dad worked side by side in silence for a few more minutes. The feel of the cherry wood beneath his hands soothed him.
When he finally spoke, much of his irritation had disappeared. “Why do you suppose Evelyn left Blackburn House to a stranger?”
Dad shrugged. “That stranger is her granddaughter, you know.”
“The way I heard it, Evelyn never showed the least interest in Allison, so it doesn’t sound as if she cared whether she had a granddaughter or not.”
“Evelyn Standish was never one to show her feelings,” Dad commented, holding the piece he’d been working on up to the light. “I doubt anyone knew what she thought of her son’s child.”
“Not even Brenda?”
“Especially not Brenda.” Dad’s tone was dry.
“From what I’ve heard, Brenda expected her aunt to leave everything to her. I imagine she’s none too happy about this turn of events.”
Dad shrugged. “Allison’s her own blood. Her son’s child.”
