Heaven Preserve Us (18 page)

"It's hard to help someone who doesn't want it. I bet if she
needed you now, you'd be there," I said.

"I guess."

Cyan snorted again. Kyla ignored her.

"How long ago did her dad die?"

"Couple of years. We were sophomores. He was in a car accident on Highway 2."

I seemed to remember that. Drunk driver swerved into his lane
and ran him off the road, from what I could recall.

"And her mother? What's she do?" I asked.

"She's a bookkeeper or something. My mom knows her pretty
well. She's-Hey, who's that?" Kyla interrupted herself, pointing
out the back window.

I glanced over my shoulder before turning back to the label in
my hand. "Luke Chase. He and his brother are building a chicken
coop for us."

"What for?"

I lifted one eyebrow. "So we'll have a place to put the pullets once
they're old enough this spring." Meghan and I had done our research
and decided having fresh eggs from our own hens would be worth a
little extra work. I was already dreaming of those gorgeous orange
yolks you get when they eat fresh greens, of homemade mayonnaise and real angel food cake ...

"They sound like a stinky pain," Kyla said, sealing her opinion
with a curled lip.

"Is that his brother?" Cyan asked.

Another glance up from me. "Yeah, that's Seth."

"How old is he?" Cyan seemed much more interested in the
boys than in chickens. Who could blame her?

I put down the bar of soap and walked over to the window.
"I'm not sure. Seth is a couple years younger than Luke, I'm guessing. Maybe twenty-one?"

The girls joined me at the window.

"Hmm. Maybe a little younger," Kyla said, her voice sure. Well,
she'd be able to tell. I'd steadily lost my ability to estimate the age
of others as my own age increased.

"Does Luke have a girlfriend?" she asked. "He's cute."

"I have no idea," I said, smiling. "But I thought you had a boyfriend."

"She does." Disapproval weighed Cyan's tone. "And he's applying to the same colleges she is, so he can be with her."

Kyla shrugged. "Hard to tell what's going to happen with us.
Besides, I was just asking."

Luke looked up then and saw the three of us standing at the
window watching them. I waved, and he raised a hesitant hand in
response. I turned back to the job at hand, feeling like a dirty old
woman. Kyla joined me, her fair complexion reddening.

Cyan boldly studied the boys for a few more moments, unabashed that they were aware of her gaze. "I wouldn't mind a boyfriend of my own right now," I heard her say under her breath before she also came back and got to work.

I frowned. She was only sixteen, and even Seth was way too old
for her. It was probably adolescent fantasy, as so many quick
crushes like that are. I hoped so; her mom would kill me if she
found out I had anything to do with Cyan getting involved with
either of the Chase boys.

The brothers finished up their work on the coop for the day, and
shortly after that the girls finished up their work for me and left for
home. I took a break and went out to check Luke and Seth's progress.

Situated at the end of our large backyard, their new home was
bound to make our future hens happy. We'd only planned on getting four of them to start with, purchased as day-old chicks in a
few more weeks and then raised under lamps in the old mudroom
off the kitchen. Hopefully the "guarantee" of getting pullets as opposed to cockerels from the local feed store was a good one, since
we weren't allowed to have any roosters within the city limits.

The boys had finished the A-framed roosting house where the
chickens would sleep, as well as the adjacent nesting house. The
latter structure was a rectangular box on legs that contained two
removable frames where the hens would lay eggs, and sported an
angled roof that lifted up so we'd have easy access. Two-by-fours
protruded from the ends so the girls would have a place to perch
and preen off the ground when they weren't in the roosting house.
Both the roosting and nesting houses had their first coats of red
barn paint. I was also pleased to see that they'd nearly finished stapling the heavy two-by-four-inch wire to the exterior frame. Now
they had to put the chicken wire over the top-more to keep predators out than to keep the chickens in-and add several inches of
round gravel to the floor for easy cleanup with a hose. It made me
want to go buy those cute little baby chicks right away.

Back inside, I took a quick inventory in my storeroom to see
what I needed to mix up next, and discovered the gel room fresheners I'd recently added to my product list were more popular than
I'd anticipated. Time to make more. I'd gather the ingredients tonight and be ready to manufacture the next day. Kyla and Cyan
and I could work as a kind of assembly line.

The sound of the phone ringing upstairs registered somewhere
in my consciousness as I dug out my recipe and double-checked the various adjustments and improvements I'd made to it over
time. Erin opened the door at the top of the stairs and shouted
down to me.

"Sophie Mae! It's for you."

She held the phone out to me with a bored look as I came up
the stairs. Would it have killed her to bring it downstairs? Heck, it
was probably just Allen anyway, all revved up for a chat about the
Grim Reaper.

I braced to hear his voice. "Hello?"

"Sophie Mae. It's Rhea Waters." Kyla and Cyan's mother.

"Hi, Rhea. How have you been?"

We chatted for a few minutes, catching up in a superficial way
as acquaintances who never quite got around to being good
friends do. Then she said, "Kyla said you were asking about Mandy
Koller. Are you looking for an accountant?"

My ears perked up double at that. I wanted to know more about
Mandy Koller, and I was looking for an accountant.

"As it happens, I have been thinking about offloading some of
my Winding Road bookwork," I answered truthfully.

"Well, I can't recommend Mandy enough. She's bright, savvy
about taxes, efficient, and her rates are quite reasonable."

"She sounds terrific. Do you and your husband use her?"

"Oh, heavens no. We don't have very complicated taxes, and
she specializes in small businesses." Rhea's husband, a nondescript
man whose name I could never seem to remember, was an electrician. "But I've known her for years. I know I'm recommending
her as a friend, but I assure you everything I've told you is true. If
you're wondering, check out her website. She offers a free consultation so potential clients get a chance to interview her."

"You've known her a long time?"

"Oh, yes. For well over a decade. We used to be neighbors. When
her husband died, it was so tragic. But she pulled herself together
and got her degree, and now she's working her tail off getting her
CPA business off the ground."

Hmmm. "So she doesn't have a great deal of experience," said
the side of me who never wanted to add debit and credit columns
ever again.

"I wouldn't steer you wrong. Just give her a try."

"Thanks for the referral, Rhea. I'll check her out."

"You won't regret it."

If I ended up with an accountant, great, I thought as I hung up.
But at the very least I had an excuse to go talk to Mandy Koller,
and I could guarantee the subject of Philip Heaven and his penchant for dispensing advice willy nilly would come up in the conversation.

Mandy's website looked like it had been professionally designed, and as Rhea had said, she offered a preliminary consultation. I called, got her voicemail, and left a message asking to set up
an appointment as soon as possible. I was pushing it, since it was
already late February, smack dab in the middle of tax season.

I packed up four retail orders from my website before the tantalizing fragrance of Meghan's cooking wafted down from the
kitchen. It was early, only five o'clock, but I followed it up the stairs
like some cartoon character snagged by the curlingly visible scent
of pie cooling on a window sill.

Not that we were having pie, mind you. Sloppy Joes, made with
Meghan's mother's homemade tomato sauce and a boatload of
spices, and a casserole of macaroni and cheese laced with sharp cheddar, parmesan, and cream cheeses and sprinkled with bacon
sat in the middle of the butcher block kitchen table. Erin was setting the table with plates and silverware, while Meghan tossed a
simple salad of greens with balsamic vinaigrette.

She spoke to me over her shoulder. "Maryjake called. She wanted
to know if we had an extra jar of pickled asparagus. She didn't get
any at the exchange, and it's one of her favorites."

"It's one of my favorites, too," I grumped.

"Which is why we took so few jars to give away. Take some
over to her tonight, okay?"

"Oh, all right."

We ate, and Erin helped me with the dishes while Meghan ran
up to change and primp. I packed a tote bag with Erin's homework and a book to read in case she finished early and tired of
Nardella's Treasures. Then I put in a hardback novel for me and
the pickled asparagus for Maryjake. I was thinking about adding a
snack when the doorbell rang. I glanced at my watch and muttered something under my breath.

"What?" Erin asked, all wide-eyed.

"Never mind. It's six, we're already behind, so grab your shoes
and let's go go go." I knew Maryjake would be waiting for me, no
doubt tapping her toe and thinking bad thoughts about volunteers who showed up for their shifts late.

"Geez. Okay"

I went to answer the door, but Meghan already had it open. I
stopped dead in my tracks when I saw her practically fall into the
arms of the man on the doorstep.

He was handsome, I had to admit that. When she pulled back
from their hello kiss I saw how well their looks complemented each other. But there was no way this was their first date, was it?
Because I could feel the fire between them from where I stood
thirty feet away.

Then I saw he wore an old pea coat. A funky hat peeked out of
the pocket, a tassel hanging down from the earflap.

My breath caught in my throat. I recognized both the coat and
the hat-and now the man.

Why had Kelly O'Connell been watching Heaven House last
night?

I coughed.

Meghan turned. "Oh, Kelly, this is my housemate and best
friend, Sophie Mae Reynolds. Sophie Mae, Kelly O'Connell."

I pasted a smile on my face. "Hi, Kelly."

"Hey. Saw you at the preserves exchange, but with all the excitement I didn't get a chance to introduce myself." He didn't seem
to recognize me from the night before. Of course, I'd had the light
behind me, and he probably couldn't see me very well. Or, maybe
he was simply a better actor than I was.

"Erin!" I called. "Come on."

"I'm coming." She clattered down the stairs and snagged her
coat off the hall tree. She greeted Kelly and wished her mother a
fun evening as I got my own coat, and we practically ran out the
door. I really wanted to find out more about Kelly; maybe Maryjake could enlighten me, if she wasn't too mad at me for showing
up after my shift had officially started.

MARYJAKE WAS INDEED WAITING, but she didn't seem at all upset
that I was late. In fact, I was pretty sure she hadn't even noticed,
she was so involved in conversation with Jude when Erin and I
walked in.

"I'm going to set up Erin in the game room to do some homework, okay?"

Jude, crouched over a pile of papers at a nearby table, paused
in leafing through them to give me a brilliant smile. "There's a
new table and chairs in there, but it's kind of loud and crowded
now. Might be hard to concentrate. We've got people working,
putting up some shelves."

It was the first time I'd seen him genuinely happy.

"The Chase brothers?" I asked.

He nodded.

Maryjake jumped in. "Shelves for games and books, and a
dartboard on the back wall. The pool-slash-ping pong table and a
big television will be here next week."