Ben had seen each other often over the years. They always smiled, talked and exchanged looks that were at once familiar and bemused. They danced together at weddings and avoided each other’s eyes at christenings, or at least Kate avoided his. They held hands at funerals in a way that was comforting but lacking the chemistry of their youth. She thought maybe magic wasn’t meant for her at all.
“I’m a spinster, and the fact that I even use that word in conversation means I spend too much time reading historical novels.” She made the announcement to the contents of her coffee cup, overwhelmed by sadness. “And now I’m unemployed on top of it. What else can happen?”
“Now there’s a loaded question.” Penny shook her head at her. “I think the last time Dan asked that was when I told him I was pregnant for the fourth time. The washing machine heard me say it and broke down immediately.”
Kate snorted. “Washing machines don’t have ears. They might sense things, but they don’t hear them.”
“It really worries me,” said Dan, “that not only do I listen to the conversations you two have, sometimes they almost make sense to me.”
“Aunt Kate?” Dan and Penny’s second daughter, Mary Kate, stood in the kitchen doorway, the cordless phone clutched to the flat chest of the Denver Broncos pajamas she wore to upset her Patriots-fan father. Her eyes were wide and horrified. “The fire department buzzed in on call waiting. They called here figuring Mom and Dad would know where you were. I guess the lady who lived in the other half of your duplex fell asleep while she was cooking and the whole place burned down.”
Kate stared at her goddaughter, not quite comprehending. “Burned down? My house? Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. They said it twice.”
“Come on.” Dan tossed Kate her coat and put Penny’s around her shoulders. “I’ll drive you over.”
A few minutes later, they stood at the charred remains of the saltbox house Kate had bought ten years ago. Firefighters, their faces streaked with soot, were checking the site for new flames shooting out of places still glowing hot in the darkness. The yard was a mire of mud and hopelessness.
Neighbors in pajamas hugged her, relieved to see her in one piece. The tenant who’d lived in the other half of the house had left with friends. She’d left carrying the plastic bowl of cookies something had compelled her to rescue.
Kate stood unmoving as near the rubble as the firefighters allowed. Her cat leaped from her next-door neighbor’s arms and came to stand against her legs as though to protect her.
She felt as though a block of lead was lodged in her chest. It wasn’t exactly heartbreak—everyone was safe, after all—but the sense of loss was overwhelming. Loss and loneliness. Her parents and sister lived in Tennessee, and she always missed them, but never this much.
“Do you have insurance?” Dan stood between Kate and Penny with an arm around each.
“Yes.” Her precious laptop computer was in her car. Family pictures and important legal papers had been reproduced on computer disks by her electronically savvy brother-in-law. No one had been hurt. Even Dirty Sally, the ancient one-eyed cat who stood sentinel against her legs, hadn’t been in the house. That was what mattered. Really it was.
Except that she had no job, no home and no clothing. Not even a nightgown or a pair of shoes without swooshes on the sides. She was thirty-seven years old, her roots were showing and she didn’t want to start over. She didn’t think she could. It was just too hard.
She borrowed Penny’s cell phone—her own had been on its charger in the kitchen—to call her family to tell them she was all right even though she was technically homeless. “Could you drop me off under a bridge somewhere?” she asked Dan, her voice wobbly.
He tugged at her hair. “Try not to be an idiot. It doesn’t look good on you. You’ll come home with us.”
Kate knew their house was already full to overflowing with three of their four offspring, a foster child and numerous and sundry pets. “Just loan me something to wear and take me over to Kingdom Comer. The insurance company will put me up. It probably won’t be full this time of year.”
“You sure?” Penny stood close beside her, her arm around her waist. “You know the kids love it when you stay. You always do their chores and then pretend you didn’t.”
“I’m sure.”
They drove her the few blocks to the big Victorian, Dan calling ahead so that the owner was waiting at the front door in her bathrobe.
As Kate had predicted, there was room at the inn. The bed-and-breakfast, named after its owners and the Northeast Kingdom, was empty except for the apartment over the garage. “That’s rented for the summer, but you can have the suite at the back of the house. Sally can stay in the three-season room with the dog. Lucy always likes company,” Marce Comer told Kate. “The suite is the quietest and will be more comfortable if you stay till you know what you’re going to do.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow.” Penny hugged her, her cheek wet against Kate’s.
“Things’ll look better then.” Dan pulled her hair again. “I’m a cop. We know these things.”
“She’ll be fine.” Marce locked the door behind them. “Come into the kitchen. I’ll make tea.”
Once there, seated at the big island in the middle of the room, Kate scrabbled for her checkbook, grateful she’d had her purse with her at Penny’s house, but Marce waved a hand. “I’ll just bill your insurance company. Is Joann your agent?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Here you go.” Forty, widowed and pleasantly round, Marce handed Kate a steaming cup of tea. “It’ll look better in the morning. It always does, though you surely don’t know how it will.”
“How are you doing, Marce?” It had been over a year since the innkeeper’s husband had sat down to watch the six-o’clock news and quietly died. His funeral had been the last time Kate had seen Ben. They had sat together. She’d felt the deep, silent shock of losing a friend who was way too young. When Ben had taken her hand without even looking at her and held it all the way through the service, she’d known he felt the same grief.
For a moment, the other woman’s clear eyes looked bewildered, like those of a child who doesn’t understand why she’s being punished, but then they cleared. “All right,” she said. She looked around the big kitchen of the B and B, her expression sad. “Yes, really, all right.” Her mother was British, and some of the crispness of that heritage stiffened Marce’s voice. “But I’m not sure what to do with myself. This was our dream and we realized it, but it doesn’t mean as much without him to share it. The twins are at university. I’d like to go, too. I never finished, and I’d like to.” She grinned. “I could get my degree in time to teach algebra to Josh and Michael. I only have about a year to go.”
Kate could relate to not knowing what to do with herself. Right now, her options seemed pretty limited. She smiled at Marce, afraid her skin would snap in little places from the effort. “Well, that should make you reconsider your choices.”
The women laughed together. Penny’s ten-and eleven-year-old sons were what was euphemistically referred to as a handful. They were also hilarious and loving in a way only young boys could
