LITMIR.BIZ

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the hair on her arms.

      Delaney scrambled, snatching clothes from the furniture, stumbling between the bathroom and the bedroom.

      She couldn’t watch. Couldn’t bear seeing the rest of the house just yet. Sinking to her knees, she gathered Barney in her arms, but the dog wouldn’t be consoled. His howls echoed through the large two-story room as if he, too, were pouring out his grief. She rocked him in shaking arms, whispering to him in an attempt to calm them both.

      Delaney shuffled back and forth, loaded down with boxes, clothes hanging out of them. She wasn’t letting go of Barney to look through them. Knowing firsthand how demeaning that was, she couldn’t do it to another human being, even someone as useless as this manager.

      Besides, everything precious had already been taken.

       CHAPTER TWO

      FROMTHEPORCH, Indigo watched the ex-manager’s rattletrap truck pull out onto the road below. “Well, it’s up to you and me now, Barn.”

      The dog lifted his mournful face.

      “Cheer up, bud. We may suck at making decisions, but we can’t do worse than that guy.”

      A lead blanket of responsibility dropped onto her shoulders, making it hard to draw a full breath. No one to look to. No one to call. The success or failure of Harry’s last lifeline was in her hands. Her incompetent hands.

       Oh, come on. You’re not totally clueless. After all, you’ve run your own yoga business.

      A tattered remnant of a memory floated through her mind, of a carmine-red scrap of a dress that had cost her more than a good chunk of her bank account.

      Yes, and that worked out so well. She slammed her mind shut on it.

      She should start shoveling out the cabin. Turning, she stepped to the open door, then hesitated. The sun dipped below the edge of the world. The breeze blew colder than it had a moment ago. The dark played in the straggling vines, and she thought she heard the scurrying of rat-like claws in the dirt.

      Ghosts whispered from the open doorway.

       Blue? She’s a little chit, but I’m just glad to see Harry’s still got the interest.

       He’ll tire of her. Smart men always do, once they start thinking with their bigger head.

       You were less than nothing before you met my dad. You’re now free to go back to that.

      The ghosts chuckled, breathing the smell of boozy sweat-stained sheets and failure into her face. Turning her back on the past, she blindly reached for the knob and shut the door.

      She’d deal with the cabin when she felt stronger. “Let’s go, Barn.”

      As they walked down the hill to the winery, a white panel van pulled into the parking lot, the name of the air-conditioning company she’d called on its side.

      The dog woofed.

      “It’s okay, Barn. The cavalry drives panel trucks nowadays.” She unlocked the front doors for the repairman, but that was about all the help she could render, having no idea what a compressor looked like, much less where it was located. She told him where she’d be and left him to it, imagining dollars ticking by on a taxi’s meter.

      She and Barn walked through the tasting room and took the door on the left that led the way to the manager’s quarters. She shot a glance to the ceiling. “Oh please, God, I can’t take any more today.” Bracing herself for the worst, she opened the door.

      Encouraged by a faint whiff of stale Lysol, she walked down the long hall, opening doors as she went. The first on the left revealed an abandoned office with windows that looked onto the parking lot. The next door was to a long room. Empty barrels and equipment littered the floor. Behind the door on the right stood the industrial washer and dryer, the deep working-man’s sink between them.

      The next room on the right was the manager’s living quarters, and their home until the cabin was shoveled out.

      She opened the door and sniffed. “It’s safe, Barney. Come on in.” Set up like a room in one of those extended-stay hotels, the apartment had a small kitchen area on the right, a two-person dining table to the left, and a neatly made double bed before her. Crossing the room, she turned left to check out the bathroom. The shower/tub combo, sink and toilet all gleamed.

       Thank God the cleaning crew didn’t quit too.

      Problems lay tangled in her mind like huge piles of string. She had no idea where to begin unknotting them.

       First things first.

      A short while later, on her last trip to the car unloading what she and Barney would need for the night, the repairman found her in the hall.

      “I’ve cobbled together a temporary fix, ma’am, but frankly, your whole system is held together with bubble gum and cat hair.” He squatted to pat Barney. “It’ll need to be replaced.”

      “The whole thing?’ The taxi meter in her head whirred.

      “Well, some of the duct work could probably be salvaged.” Head down, he studiously petted an adoring Barney, whose tail whopped the metal doorjamb with a hollow bong.

      She didn’t want to know. “How much?”

      He named a figure that stole her breath, and a considerable chunk of the business savings account. But you couldn’t make wine without a consistent temperature. Even she knew that. Should she call another company for a second quote? She bit her lip. Businesses would be closed by now. Tomorrow might be too late.

       Bong. Bong. Bong.

      “Jeez, Barney.” She grabbed his collar and pulled the little traitor away from the door. He’d always liked men better.

      What to do? Nothing had gone right since she’d stepped foot on the property. She’d known when she took this path that she’d have to trust in her intuition, but she hadn’t known that the weight of responsibility would be so heavy. It smothered her last flicker of energy. She looked up at the repairman’s young, guileless face. Surely she could trust a face like that. “How long will it take?”

      “We don’t have a unit that large in stock. I’ll need to order one. Should take a week to ten days to get here.”

      “Will the cat hair hold out?”

      He smiled. “If it doesn’t, you call me. I’ll keep it running until then, no charge.”

      He should. The price he quoted for labor alone would send his kid to college for a year. What would Harry do? A chill wind filled the place in her chest where Harry used to be, howling around the cracks in her cobbled-together life. She crossed her arms to cover the void and chose the easier option. “Yeah, okay, order the parts.”

      She followed him out, locked up behind them, then returned to the manager’s quarters. The bed beckoned. She longed to fall onto it, curl into a fetal ball and welcome sleep’s respite. Instead, after a long, lingering look, she set up her laptop on the kitchen table and fired it up, then wandered into the kitchen area to find a bowl for Barney’s food. Her stomach growled, but the shelves and drawers revealed only dime-store dishes, bent-tined silverware and a few pots and pans. The fridge was empty save a box of baking soda that sure hadn’t been put there by the manager.

      She poured Barney’s food into a chipped cereal bowl with Mickey Mouse tap dancing around the rim. She knew she should eat something. The stress of the past month had her jeans gapping, hanging off her hip bones. A bevy of women in Hollywood would kill for a size zero, but they sure wouldn’t want the grief and worry that had gotten her there.

      You’ve got to start taking care of yourself. There was no one else to do it.

       Tomorrow.

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