LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I just had the most brilliant idea.” With that announcement, she left the door open and walked in, smiling at Jenny before she looked to him. “Jenny’s mom and I still exchange Christmas cards,” she prefaced, ignoring his blank look and Jenny’s quick confusion. “She always writes one of those Christmas letters. A nice, newsy one that tells how her children and grandchildren are and how her garden was the past summer.

      “In her Christmas letter last year,” she continued, looking thoughtful, “she mentioned that Jenny was still at the same big brokerage she’d gone to work for when she’d moved to Boston. Salomon something.”

      “Salomon Bennett?” he asked, identifying the huge investment firm his more affluent acquaintances used.

      “That’s it.” Bess gave a nod. “I remember she also mentioned that Jenny was still administrative assistant to one of the vice presidents. Since a job like that must require considerable organizational skill, and since Rhonda is going on maternity leave as soon as she goes into labor, we should hire her.”

      Without waiting for a response, she turned to Jenny. “Can you do accounting on a computer?”

      Greg’s eyebrow’s merged. “Hang on, Bess. We can’t just—”

      “It depends on the program,” Jenny cut in, uncomfortably aware that Greg wasn’t nearly as enamored with the idea as Bess was. Not that she could blame him. What he knew about her hardly recommended her as an employee. “I’ve used several. But I just got a job. I’m starting at the diner Thursday. Dinner shift.”

      Greg’s quick objection turned just as quickly to confusion. “Why did you take a job there?”

      “Because I need it,” she replied, ever so reasonably.

      Tolerance laced his tone. “What I mean,” he explained, “is why wait tables with your qualifications? Why not go where you can get a job that pays? You could apply at the bank or the school district over in St. Johnsbury. I know it’s a drive, but you’d make three times the money there.”

      The man had the eyes of a hawk, the instincts of a wolf after prey. His powers of observation weren’t too shabby, either. She supposed all that came in handy when trying to figuring out how to help a patient, but when a person wanted to keep certain things to herself, those abilities were downright unnerving.

      Her shrug didn’t feel nearly as casual as she hoped it looked. “As you said, it’s a long drive, and I don’t want the commute. Especially in the winter.” Both he and Bess should appreciate that. Ice and blowing snow often turned the hour-plus drive into two hours or more. “I worked at the diner before I left, so it’s not as if I don’t have experience there, too.”

      She also hadn’t had to supply references to get the job. References were a major problem at the moment. No company hired without references, and she couldn’t give those she had. That was the main reason she’d come back to Maple Mountain.

      “Aside from that,” she said, more comfortable with Bess’s faintly perplexed expression, “I don’t have an updated résumé to give you.” She smiled, hoping to end the conversation before either could ask more questions. It was obvious from Greg’s frown that something wasn’t adding up to him. “Thanks for thinking of me, though.”

      The sound Bess made was somewhere between a tsk and a snort.

      “You don’t need to show us a résumé. You’re qualified. You have a good work ethic.” Her tone turned confiding. “I know that because of how hard you worked to get your associate’s degree,” she told her, “and by how well you did for yourself in Boston. Even if you don’t know the program we use, Rhonda can help you figure it out. You’re experienced, and experienced is what we need.”

      Looking utterly convinced that she had just solved their staffing problem, she glanced to where Greg stood with his forehead furrowed. “It’s not as if she needs character references,” she insisted, clearly not understanding his hesitation. “I can vouch for her myself. So can half the town. Aside from that, we haven’t had any other qualified applicants, and Rhonda is already overdue.”

      “And feeling every minute of it,” the miserable-looking office manager announced in low tones as she walked in. “Sorry for the interruption, but Lorna Bagley just brought in her youngest with some sort of rash. I put them back in the isolation room since Bertie Buell is here for her blood pressure check. You know how Bertie is about being around anything she thinks might be contagious.”

      At the mention of patients, Greg turned his frown to his watch. “You take Bertie, Bess. I’ll get the rash,” he said to Rhonda. “Tell Lorna I’ll be right there.”

      Grasping the opportunity for escape, undeniably grateful for it, Jenny watched Bess, thwarted and disgruntled, head for the door as she backed toward it herself.

      “Thank you, Bess,” she called, thinking of the bandage, the ointment, the welcome and for thinking of her for the job that, if not for Greg and his obvious reservations, she would have loved to take.

      “I didn’t mean to keep you so long,” she said, turning back to see him move to the door himself.

      He stopped an arm’s length away, his hand on the edge of the door, his body towering over hers. Glancing from the swath of blue covering the middle of his impressive chest, thinking it highly unfair that she could so easily recall how hard it had felt beneath her fingers, she jerked her eyes to his.

      “Take care of that shoulder,” she reminded him, and slipped out with the feel of his uncertainty about her hounding every step.

      The positive thing about a place as small as Maple Mountain was that neighbors always knew if a person had a problem or if they needed help. If someone hadn’t been seen or heard from for a while, someone else would inevitably call or drop by just to make sure everything was all right. People watched out for each other. People cared about each other.

      Jenny had missed that.

      What she hadn’t missed was the relative lack of privacy that came with such neighborly concern.

      The people in and around Maple Mountain were a fiercely independent lot, opinionated to a fault about politics, their land and protecting it from anyone who might try to change the way of life that had worked just fine for them for however long they’d lived there. But for all that independence, they were also intensely interested in everything that went on around them. Strangers were easily identified, and a car didn’t pass through town that someone along Main Street didn’t note its license plate to see where it was from.

      A car with plates from any state other than Vermont would elicit speculation about where its occupants were going and how long they would stay. A vehicle they recognized as belonging to their little part of the world invited solemn conjecture about its occupant’s destination. Especially if they knew, or knew of, its owner.

      Old Parker must be heading into St. Johnsbury for that tractor part he’s needin’.

      Bet Essie’s on her way out to her daughter’s to help with the twins.

      Or observations about the vehicle itself.

      Been a while since Charlie washed that truck of his.

      Wonder how long it’ll be before Amos’s bumper falls off.

      There wasn’t much that slipped by the locals. Where other locals were concerned, anyway. Visitors were treated politely, especially when they came to vacation on the lake in the summer and for the festivals that fed the town’s coffers. Their spending helped pay for everything from the newly paved parking lot at the community center to sports equipment for the elementary school. But only the residents warranted true interest in conversations at the diner or around the checkerboard at the general store. Especially if whatever that person was up to proved more interesting than what seemed to be going on anywhere else.

      That was why Jenny wasn’t surprised when, by six o’clock that evening, she’d had no fewer than four visitors, including Joe

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