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“You think so?” Cindy asked. “I guess I’m the weird one, then. This is my favorite room in the house. Before I got married, I lived in a Victorian quite a bit like this one. And it was the interesting rooms like this one that convinced me to live there. I can just picture willowy curtains—and this fabulous window seat, well…I always felt it was so private. I could curl up with a book or music and it was a secret nook, all mine.”
Kirsten looked over at the window seat. “I guess so.”
“I plan to make cushions for it when you decide on your color scheme,” Laura added.
They repositioned the bed one last time and then started on the other pieces. It was especially helpful to have Flynn’s brawn to move the furniture into place. The room looked pretty well put together when they were done. She had hoped by making the room special, it might help to break down Kirsten’s defenses.
“What now?” Flynn asked.
“Aren’t we keeping you from your work?”
Flynn grinned. “One of the bonuses of being boss.”
“We need to make sure we have all the upstairs boxes actually upstairs,” Cindy told him.
“Aye, aye.” He smiled. “Boss at work, that is.”
“Pooh.” Cindy’s red hair seemed to crackle in the outpouring of sunlight from the windows. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s hardly henpecked. Do you know where the boxes with the sheets are?”
Laura felt so inept. “Not really.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find them. I want to make sure Flynn finds all the boxes that need to come up anyway.”
Shaking her head at the resourcefulness of these women, Laura headed back downstairs. At noon, the doorbell rang. Although Laura had forgotten to plan for lunch, the women hadn’t. Someone had ordered sandwiches—made with homemade bread—from the café down the street, along with soup, salad and brownies.
Even Kirsten relaxed as everyone in the house stopped to eat. The women knew each other so well, by the time lunch was over, the place rang with their laughter.
Laura learned that Katherine was the pastor of the Community Church. She had married her husband, Michael, after moving to Rosewood. Cindy was her best friend and she had married Flynn after the death of her sister—then his wife and mother of his triplets.
Grace had survived a horrific car accident that required numerous surgeries. Which was how she had met her husband, Noah, the finest surgeon in the area. But then, Grace was biased.
Emma had come to Rosewood through the witness protection program. Fortunately, the man who was stalking her had been caught and now was in prison for life. Even more fortunately, she had met her husband in Rosewood— Seth, the man who had refurbished this house.
And Leah had come to Rosewood from Los Angeles, in search of her child, who had been abducted by his father as an infant. Now, she and her son were reunited, and she was married to the man who had loved the boy as his own. They were expecting another child in six months.
Laura wanted to confide her own past, but she couldn’t. Everything she had ever confided to Jerry had been turned around on her, more ammunition for him to belittle her with. Besides, her situation was so humiliating. It seemed as if she’d been ashamed all her life. From childhood when she couldn’t invite friends over because of her parents’ fighting.
Cindy stood and stretched. “If I eat another brownie, I’m going to bust.”
“Me, too.” Katherine began gathering empty paper plates.
By the time evening rolled around, the breakfast table was in place in its nook, all the boxes that had been stacked there previously now distributed appropriately. All the bedrooms were set up, bed linens and blankets on each bed, and towels were stacked neatly in the bathroom. Dishes, glasses, and pots and pans were put away in the kitchen cabinets.
As the women prepared to leave, they gave Laura a hug, and again she felt close to tears. Ridiculous, she told herself. More emotional than she’d felt since the death of her husband, since finding out about her own untenable situation.
“Thank you all so much. I don’t know what to say.”
“We’re glad we could be here for you,” Katherine murmured.
Emma shifted her purse to her shoulder. “And I’m supposed to tell you that Annie’s bringing dinner.”
“But, she’s already done so much—”
“Don’t fight it,” Leah advised, leaning over to whisper. “She’s my best friend and a definite keeper.”
As Laura closed the door behind them, she finally gave in to tears.
“Mom?” Kirsten’s voice wavered behind her.
Laura quickly wiped her cheeks. “Yes, sweetie?”
Kirsten stared at her for a moment. “Gregg’s hungry.”
“Annie’s bringing dinner over. Isn’t that thoughtful?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
But Laura had seen a crack in Kirsten’s rocky facade. It was a start. Now she just had to work on Paul. And pretend she had the courage she had lost so long ago.
Chapter Three
“You moved here?” Astonished, Paul got up from behind his desk, staring at her. Only a nut would pack up her children and move to a strange town on a whim. “What did you do with your house? You didn’t leave it empty, did you?”
“Of course n—”
“You know you’re supposed to consult with me before you make these decisions. That’s why Jerry left the plans in place—to protect you and the children.” He perched on the edge of the desk. “What were you thinking? Just hire movers and…Hey! Where’d you get the money to move?”
“You told me you couldn’t teach me how to flip houses since I was living in Houston, so that left me one option—to move here.” She edged back in the chair. “I rented a house over on Elm Street that I can afford on my allowance, then went back to Houston and leased out the house. And I had an estate sale to raise the money for moving costs. That and I used a bargain mover.”
He pictured her selling everything Jerry had accumulated over his lifetime and groaned. An estate sale? In the short time since he had seen her it had to be a giveaway sale. And no telling what kind of people she had rented the house to. But she had him there. He wasn’t sure he could interfere with that decision. She did own half the house by Texas law. As a broker he knew that. And he had never imagined that she would twist his words to mean that she could be part of the business by moving here. But he didn’t know how to undo what she had done, either.
She shifted, loosening her grip on the chair. “So, what do we do first?”
“First?”
“You know, to begin my training.”
He hadn’t even begun to wrap his mind around what she had done yet. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Oh, um, yes. Okay.” She started to get up. “Where is it?”
“I’ll get it.” He needed a minute to think. He crossed the room, filling two mugs. “Cream or sugar?”
“Just cream, thanks.”
He handed her one of the mugs. “So, Laura. This was a huge step.”
She warmed her hands on the steaming mug. “It was. But it means a lot to me. I explained that before.”
“Settling in is going to be a big adjustment.”
“I thought so, too.” She lifted her gaze, her green eyes entreating. “But Rosewood’s a lot different than Houston.”
“You form opinions pretty fast.”
She wondered if he thought that was bad. “It’s hard not to.”
“You’ll have to enroll the kids in their new schools.”
She swallowed a sip of the hot brew. “Did that yesterday.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t want them to miss any more than necessary. It’s difficult enough to settle in a new school without having them get behind.”
“Don’t you have to have records transferred or something?”
“I did that.” She took another tentative sip.
He put his mug down on the desk. “Still, you’re going to need time unpacking, settling in—”
“No.” She ran her fingers over the handle of the mug. “I’m ready. That’s done for the most part. There’s always more to do, but it’s livable.”
He pictured the house in a jumble of boxes. But that was why Jerry had named him executor, to keep an eye on how she was caring for the kids. “Laura, this isn’t a school.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s an office.”
Her expression faltered. “But you said—”
“That I couldn’t train you if you lived in Houston. But I can’t stop working and set up classes, either.”
“Then what?”
She had gone from hopeful to desperate in the space of minutes. She wouldn’t last. “Start by spending some time in the office, watching what I do.”
“Oh.” Deflated, she gripped her mug tighter, then nodded. “Okay.”
She would get bored fast. Sitting at the desk next to his, listening to only his side of telephone conversations, trying to digest a lot of financial information she couldn’t possibly understand. He’d give her a week at the most before she stopped coming around. She’d probably get bored with Rosewood almost as soon.
The phone rang. And her tutoring began.
“So, how was school?” Laura put a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies on the table. She had made arrangements with Paul to be home each day before the children got in from school. Since he looked relieved at the suggestion, she guessed he would have been just as happy if she had suggested a much earlier quitting time.
Gregg grabbed a cookie. “There’s a kid in my class who can cross his eyes, hold his breath and wiggle his ears. All at once.”
“Impressive.” She tweaked the tip of his nose. “Do you like your teacher?”
“Yeah.” He took a swallow of milk. “She said next Monday we can all bring a pet for show-and-tell.”
“Oh.” They didn’t have a pet.
“It’s okay, Mom. Even if we had the aquarium set up I couldn’t take it to school.”
He always rolled with the punches. She put another cookie on his plate.
“Kirsten, how about you?”
She shrugged. “It’s a school.”
“Did you meet anyone who could wiggle their ears?”
Her daughter sighed. “Mom.”
Nothing so unsophisticated for her daughter. “Let me rephrase. Did you meet anyone you liked?”
Kirsten was quiet for a few moments. “Kinda.”
“Does this person have a name?”
“Mandy. She’s sort of new, too. She moved here at the first of the year and started with the other kids.” Kirsten broke her cookie into smaller pieces. “People think she’s neat, though.”
“They’ll think you are, too.” Laura had never worried about Kirsten’s popularity. Like Jerry she had always attracted followers. She smoothed her daughter’s hair, but Kirsten jerked back. Laura kept her sigh to herself.
“If I could catch a frog, I could take that on Monday,” Gregg deliberated.
Kirsten shuddered. “Gross.”
Laura poured more milk into Gregg’s glass. “What if I talk to the teacher? See if you could bring your butterfly collection instead?”
“That’d be cool. It’d be my dead pets.”
“Double gross.” Kirsten rolled her eyes.
The doorbell rang. “After you’re finished with your snack, homework, guys.”
Laura went and opened the door. It was Katherine and Cindy.
“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” Katherine began.
“No, not at all.” She gestured to the living room. “Come in, sit down.”
“We thought you might need a hand with the rest of the boxes.” Cindy held up her cell phone. “The girls are keeping the time open if you agree.”
Laura was touched by their offer. “I can’t ask you to keep helping.”
“You didn’t.” Katherine tucked her keys into her pocket. “Would it be all right for us to phone the others?”
