She parked her car in one of the four Special Guest of Inn reserved spots.
When she climbed the steps of what looked like a miniature Tara mansion from Gone With the Wind, a tiny woman, in her late fifties, rushed out with a welcoming smile. Her chocolate-colored apron was neatly embroidered and read JOIN THE DARK SIDE. We have chocolate chips in our cookies.
You must be Jillian James. Im Mrs. Kelly, the innkeeper, but the locals call me Mrs. K. Ive got your room all ready, dear. Did you have a nice drive? The internet didnt give us a home address on you so I dont know how long your journey was, but I hope it wasnt too far. Dont you just love our town?
Papas rule: Never give out too much information. Itll trip you up.
I had a great drive and I love your beautiful home. Youll have to tell me a bit of the history of this place. Jillian smiled, thinking of one of her own rules. Never try to outtalk a talker.
Of course, dear. This house is old enough to have not only a history, but a ghost, as well, though hes quite shy. The innkeeper handed her the key, then they climbed all the way up to Jillians room on the third floor. Ill tell you about Willie Flancher over coffee some cloudy morning. Its the only time to talk about ghosts, you know. Folks in town talk about the house Flanchers Folly because he built it for his fifth wife and died on their wedding night.
Jillian didnt care about ghost stories. All she wanted was a quiet, clean place to stay for a while. Third floor, back of the house. Usually least expensive and quietest.
Once Jillian circled the tiny room, she gave an admiring smile. This room would be perfect. Just what she needed.
The chubby innkeeper, who was very spry for her fifties, moved to the door and made her official announcement, Breakfast at eight, if thats all right. Soft drinks in the small fridge on the landing, and I put cookies out in the parlor after sunset for those who like a late snack.
Thank you. Jillian pulled off her coat. I think Ill rest before I explore the town.
You do that, dear. There are maps in the foyer but youre only a half block from Main, so you can park your car around back and walk if you like. Mrs. Kellys head rocked back and forth as if ticking off an invisible list of what she needed to say. Ill see you in the morning. Youre the only one booked up here tonight. Both my other guests are on the first floor. No one wants to climb two flights of stairs these days.
I dont mind. Setting her suitcase and backpack down, Jillian grinned when she spotted the wide window. Its worth the climb for the view alone.
Mrs. Kelly smiled as she backed out of the room. I agree.
When the lock clicked, Jillian pulled out her ledger and curled up in a window seat that had three times more pillows than it needed. On a blank page she wrote the date and Day 1 beside it, along with the cost of the nights lodging: Winter rate: sixty-three dollars.
Papas rule: Always keep count or you might lose track of how long you stay and forget to leave.
She had to be very careful. Thanks to car trouble a month ago and two crummy bosses in a row, she was less than a thousand dollars away from having to sleep in her caror worse, a shelter. In her ten years on the road, shed ended up broke twice before. Once in California when someone had stolen her purse, and again in New York City when shed been in a wreck. None of her belongings had made it to the hospital with her. Both times shed lost not only her money, but also her identification.
Papas rule: Always keep copies of vital papers somewhere safe. Birth certificate, drivers license, passport, social security card.
In New York, without money and looking like shed been in a street fight, it had taken her three months to collect enough cash to buy a bus ticket to Oklahoma City. There, shed found her stash, money, ID and the letter, still unopened, that shed left for her father just in case he ever used the secret hiding place beneath a shelf in the basement of the downtown library. Both times shed come back to the hiding place, her stash was still there and the letter was unopened.
If hed dropped by, hed left no sign, and she doubted when she circled past Oklahoma City again that anything would be different. All her papers and the mailbox she rarely checked showed her as from Oklahoma. When shed asked her father if that were true, hed simply said, Oklahoma City is the center of the country and as good a place as any to be from.
Jillian took a shower and changed into dress pants and a sweater. She was close enough to her stash now to relax. If she had to, she could make the drive northwest for more cash in a matter of hours, but somehow that would mean shed failed.
She wasnt running to or from anything. She wasnt hiding out. She just wanted to continue drifting. It was all she knew. Maybe in a few more years, shed come up with another plan. Maybe shed drift forever. To do that, she had to get bettersmarterat managing.
As she always did, she unpacked her few belongings. Clothes on hangers in the closet. Underwear in the top drawer. Shoes and backpack in the bottom drawer. Her fathers tiny journals on the nightstand beside the bed. Everything in order.
Her billfold and her laptop slid into her shoulder bag. The laptop went everywhere with her. The backup drive always remained with her clothes tucked away in the back of a shelf or tucked into a pocket. Against her fathers advice, she kept details of everywhere she stopped, be it for one night or a few months. He might have jotted only zip codes and number of days stayed, but she liked to log in the history of each place, how it looked, how it might feel to live there.
Walking out of her room, she studied the polished old mahogany of the staircase. The faded wallpaper peeling free in places, reminding her of fragile lace. The house was beautiful and well cared for, like an aging queen, still standing on a street with abandoned and broken-down homes huddled near, as if hoping the memory of great days gone by might still live in realitys shadow.
Slipping past the foyer, Jillian rushed down the front steps like an explorer hungry to begin digging. This towns zip code, like dozens of others, had been listed in her fathers first journals. Maybe in his early years, hed left a trace.
She told herself shed feel it if hed been here. If this was the place where hed stopped wandering just long enough to care for someone.
But she felt only the cool winter wind whipping between buildings, whirling her around as if pushing her off any direct course.
A few blocks later, she was strolling down Main, her still-damp hair swinging in a ponytail. She blended in with the crowds, window-shopping, as if she had no direction. The smell of cinnamon and ginger drifted in the winter air, blending around pieces of conversations and laughter like icing melts into warm cake.
Jillian swore she could feel her heart slow. The very air in Laurel Springs seemed to welcome her.
Halfway down the block she found what she was looking for. A small help-wanted sign in the corner of a window.
Above hung a faded sign that read LAUREL SPRINGS DAILY.
She let out a breath through her smile. Newspaper work. She could handle that. Selling ads. Writing copy. No problem. Mentally, she made up her resume in her head. Nothing too fancy, nothing too bright. Nothing too easy to check.
As she pushed open the newspaper office door, she selected a new identity as easily as she might change a hat.
2
Connor Larady looked up from the copy machine hed been trying to murder for an hour. Morning, he said as he set down his latest weapon of destruction, a screwdriver. May I help you, miss?
The woman clamoring through his office door was tall and slim enough to be a model. With hair in a ponytail and little makeup, she could have still been in her teens, but the wisdom in her big, rainy-day-colored eyes marked her as a good ten years older.
He shoved his tools aside, walked over to the front desk and tried to find a scrap of paper to write on. No one ever came into a newspaper office without either wanting something written, or rewritten.
Youd think a writer would have a pen and pad handy. Only he wasnt much of a writer, and this wasnt much of an office. The Laurel Springs Daily had been whittled down to little more than a weekly flyer and a spotty blog of what was happening in town when he got around to it, but he kept up the office his father and grandfather had both run.
Considering himself a good judge of people, Connor had a premonition hed be filling out a free obit form or a lost dog report, also free.
There were some days hed thought of combining the two columns in the weekly paper. The header could read LEFT TOWN FOR PARTS UNKNOWN. The byline could be Those Recently Departed or Run Over.
The woman moved one small step closer. Connor had no idea if she was just shy or half-afraid of him. Maybe his grandmother and daughter were right: he was starting to look like the mug shots on the Dallas nightly news. Hair too long, this was the third day hed worn the same old wrinkled shirt, and he hadnt bothered to remove the raincoat his gram said only a vampire would wear.
Hed tried to tell them both that he didnt have time to commit a crime. He was too busy running the town and keeping up with them. His grandmother had taken to wandering off alone, and his daughter was worse. She preferred wandering off with any pimpled-faced, oversexed boy who had a drivers license. Between the two of them, his curly brown hair would be gray before he turned forty. That is, if it decided to stay around at all.
Connor shoved his worries aside and waited for the attractive stranger to say something. Anything. Or run back out the door. He didnt much care which. He had more than enough to deal with this morning, and he didnt want to hear a complaint. Everyone thought if you were the mayor, you loved listening in detail of what was wrong in town.
Maybe this stranger just wanted to talk, or ask directions?
Conversation wasnt his strong point. Plus, she was just the kind of woman who made him nervouspretty, and near his age. With his luck, any second shed decide there was more to him than people could see and would start trying to remake him into marriage material.
Maybe he should wear a sign. TO ALL WOMEN: I AM MADE OF MUD. NO MATTER WHAT YOU MOLD ME INTO, WHEN IT RAINS, IM BACK TO MUD. Save us both some time and move on to another project.
Raising her head, she studied him a moment, then said, without smiling, Im here about the job.
What job? He hadnt had a secretary for two years. That had been a disaster. He could go slowly bankrupt by himself without a helper continually suggesting they buy supplies or turn up the heater, or paint the place.
The attractive woman before him tilted her head, and he noticed her eyes werent quite blue or gray, but they were looking directly at him. The help-wanted sign posted?
Shed said the words slowly as if he might need time to absorb them. I can write copy, proofread fairly fast, and Im willing to try any type of reporting.
He lifted an eyebrow, thinking maybe he should recite his resume to her if that was how she wanted to introduce herself. One degree in English, one in history, a masters in anthropology. None of which had ever earned him a dime. Come to think of it, maybe he was slow? No one had bothered to tell him that he was wasting his time in school.
This stranger in town pointed at the faded note in the window and his brain clicked on. Oh, that jobs not here at the paper. Its across the street at the quilt shop. He pointed out the window to A Stitch in Time, the shop directly across Main.
Its been so long since I put it there, I forgot about the sign.
Sorry to have bothered you. She turned, obviously not a woman to waste time.
Wait. He hadnt had a single bite for the job at the quilt shop in weeks. Everyone in town knew what it was and no one wanted it. But this outsider just might be dumb enough to take it. Its only a short-term job. Three or four months at the most, but it pays fifteen dollars an hour if you have the right skills.
What skills?
She wasnt running at the thought of working in a quilt shop. That was a good sign. My grandmother has owned the towns quilt shop for over fifty years. Shes closing down, but what we need done has to be accomplished carefully. Every quilt in the place has to be cataloged for the county museum. She holds the history of this town in there.
Connor had no idea how to say what he needed to say, but he had to be honest. Grams slipping a little. Beginning to forget things. Over the years shes collected and made quilts that mean a great deal to the people of Laurel Springs. Theyll have to be treated with care. The history of each one logged and photographed.
Museum-quality preservation. I understand. I worked at the Southwest Collection on the Texas Tech campus while I was in college. My salary will be twenty an hour for that detailed kind of work.
She stood her ground and he had no doubt she knew what to do. Which was more than he knew about the process. The county curator had been excited about the collection but offered no time or advice.
Now Connor was sure he was the one afraid of her. All right. Ill walk you over and let you meet my grandmother. If you last an hour, youre on the payroll. Shell be the boss. Some days youll be working at her pace.
Nodding, she passed through the front door he held open. When they started across the street, she hesitated. Arent you going to lock your office door?
What, and hamper anyone trying to steal my copier? No way.
The woman was giving him that look again. Shed obviously decided he was missing critical brain cells.
Im Jillian James. She held out her hand, palm up as if to say, your turn next.
Connor Larady. He grinned. Im the town mayor.
She didnt look impressed. Shed probably heard hed run unopposed.
Without another word, they stepped inside the quilt shop. He didnt miss her slight gasp as she looked up at the size of the place. It widened out from the small storefront windows in a pie-slice shape, with two stories opening to an antique tin ceiling. Massive fans turned slowly, so far above he couldnt feel the air move.
Every inch of the twenty-foot-high walls was covered in colorful quilts; a collage of fabric rainbows.
Deep shelves lined the wall behind the wide front counter. Folded quilts were stacked five deep for a dozen rows.
This may take longer than three months, she whispered.
Ill help, he offered. But I should tell you, Gram is in charge here. This is her world, so whatever she wants goes. I dont want the cataloging to cause her any stress.
I understand.
Im not sure you do. He looked at her closely, wondering how much to tell a stranger. Were working against a ticking clock and its in Grams head. The cataloging, the inventory, may not always be her priority. You may have to gently guide her back to the task.