LITMIR.BIZ

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for the cover of a magazine.

      At the far end of the hall was a narrow doorway. She thought it was a closet, and opened it to see if this was where extra linens were kept.

      Instead she found a narrow staircase, and, intrigued, she followed it.

      As soon as she saw what was at the top of that narrow staircase, Angie knew this was where she would stay. Her sense of gratitude deepened. The room was a secret sanctuary, octagon shaped, encased in windows. There was even a tiny bathroom through one door. She peeked in at the claw-foot tub, and at yet more windows overlooking the lake. Then she turned back to the room.

      It was a delight in whites: white bed, white linens, white walls. The white draperies, on closer inspection, were silk. She was delighted to see the room also had a small craft alcove with a sewing machine and neat cubicles full of fabrics and craft items.

      Angie could not help herself. She went over and inspected the sewing machine. It was a very good model. Growing up as she had, in a single-parent household, there hadn’t always been money for the fashionable clothes she wanted. But a sewing lesson in a home economics class had changed all that. By the time she was in high school, she could copy any design she saw and was creating her own designs, too. She had made extra money sewing for her mother’s friends and for her own classmates.

      At home, tucked away safely in a drawer was a sketch for the wedding dress she had designed herself and hoped to wear down the aisle.

      That memory brought her back to reality with an unpleasant snap. She became aware it was also unbelievably hot and stuffy in this room, and she went across the bleached hardwood floor and threw open the windows. Within seconds a gorgeous, cool cross breeze was coming off the lake, fluttering in the curtains and cooling and freshening the room.

      Though it was not 100 percent in keeping with her mission of making mental lists of what needed to be done in each room, Angie gave in to the temptation to flounce down on the bed. Her flounce created a cloud of dust, but she lay there, anyway, letting the fresh breeze from the windows carry the dust away. She allowed herself to contemplate the delicious sense of being 100 percent safe.

      The windows were low, and even lying down she could see the lake. The view from this room was spectacular. She was looking down at the decks below, the one with the hammock on it, and the other with the hot tub.

      She blushed at the thought she could spy on her boss while he sat in that tub. He did not seem like the kind who would wear a bathing suit!

      “That’s exactly the kind of nosey parker he does not want around,” she told herself.

      She looked away from the hot tub and could see that, beyond the decks, there were rough stairs carved out of the face of the huge stone the whole house sat upon. The steps led to a crescent moon of a beach and a dock with a sleek motorboat bobbing at its mooring. An afternoon wind was kicking up, and there was a chop on the water, the waves white capped.

      She knew she could not go to sleep. She could not. But to find safety after experiencing so much tension? To have a sweet sense of mission after floundering in her own distress for so long?

      Her eyelids felt as if they were weighted down by stones. She sighed, snuggled into the somewhat dust scented white of the duvet on the bed, and fell fast asleep.

      * * *

      Darkness fell, and Jefferson was edgily aware as he set down the phone after a long afternoon of conferences that he was not alone in his house.

      The envelope she had passed him earlier, marked Urgent, caught his attention and he opened it.

      Dear Jefferson,

      As I mentioned to you in our recent phone conversation, the town of Anslow hopes to provide a picnic area where the Department of Highways widened the road after your wife’s accident. Our intention is to name the area the Hailey Stone Lookout.

      Hailey had not been part of our community for very long, but we so want to honor her in this way. Would you please consider attending the fund-raiser as our guest? It would mean a great deal to all of us.

      The theme is Black Tie Affair and dress is formal. Dinner with dancing to follow.

      Will you let me know?

      The letter was signed by Maggie, who as well as running the Emporium, was second in command to the mayor, and the town’s most goodhearted busybody.

      She, like, Clementine, had been a friend of his grandmother’s. She had been one of the ones who circled around him after the death of his parents, clucking over him and loving him through all that pain, sewing him seamlessly into life of a small town. She had cheered at his hockey games and been part of the standing ovation for Grease. She had been in the front row, beaming at his graduation. She had held his grandmother’s hand when they had buried his grandfather, and again when he had gone away to university. It was Maggie who had held his own hand when he came back for his grandmother’s funeral.

      When he and Hailey had decided to build on this land that had been his grandparents’ it had been Maggie who had welcomed them home as if they belonged here.

      Had he already known, even at those initial stages, that Hailey would never belong here?

      Jefferson glanced at the date. The fund-raiser was two weeks away, the day before the magazine crew was showing up. He cursed under his breath. It was the second time in one day that honoring Hailey had come up. Just like with the photo shoot, how could he refuse? Plus, he didn’t want to let Maggie down. But he had a horrible feeling the whole thing was just a ruse—not to honor Hailey but to parade the whole town’s eligible women before him.

      The people of Anslow meant so well, but none of them could believe a life worth living could be had without family. They thought it was “time” for him to get over it and get on with it, as if these things could be done on a schedule. But couldn’t they see? For him family was forever connected to loss. And it was loss he could not bear any more of.

      “I’ll think of a way,” he decided. He wished his new housekeeper had never handed him the envelope.

      His new housekeeper. He listened. He thought he would hear sounds of her rummaging around, but there was nothing. In fact, he was pretty sure, now that he thought about it, that he had not heard a sound for hours.

      He slipped out of his office and into the hallway. Night was falling and his house was in deep shadow. He sniffed the air. He knew there was hardly anything to cook with, so why was he disappointed that she had not made him dinner, and then sharply annoyed at his disappointment.

       He had done fine without her for all these years.

      He noticed the doorway at the end of the hall was open, and he went toward it, and then quietly up the dark staircase.

      He paused as he came into the room. There was very little light left in it. It had been Hailey’s favorite room in the whole house design.

      “Like a secret room,” she had said.

      It had seemed to him it was the kind of room their kids might have adored, back then, when he had still held the hope he would one day create a family of his own.

      But Hailey had designed the room not for kids but for crafts.

      Crafts? He remembered the astonishment in his voice. Because his wife, the consummate professional, did not do crafts any more than she did double ovens.

      The knife ache of pain throbbed along his temples. Because he had had a dream of settling here, and having kids here, and the night that Hailey had run off into the storm, it had been apparent their dreams were entirely different.

      He had failed her so colossally.

      Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dimness in the room, Jefferson saw Brook on the bed. She was curled up on her side, facing him, and she was fast asleep, her golden sand curls scattered over the white pillow cases.

      It occurred to him he should feel annoyed. This was hardly the way for her to make the stellar impression

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