Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman (i read a book .TXT) 📕

cup. “Connor decided they needed your father’s shop space as part of the expansion, so he moved the tools and equipment out there.”

“What expansion?”

“Your brother works too hard,” her mother went on, ignoring Sarah’s question. “That company’s a big responsibility. Too much for one man to shoulder.”

“Connor’s a big man. Broad shoulders.”

“I am speaking metaphorically.” Peggy gave her a sidelong glower, then picked up her cup.

“Ohhh-kay.” She’d ask Connor about the expansion when she saw him. “It would be a lot easier to inventory the lodge if they hadn’t started packing it up. That was a lot of work for nothing.”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Peggy said. “But he’s too busy now, and I can’t decide whether to put everything back, call an auction house, or what.”

“Sounds like we all need to sit down together and talk things over.” Everyone said you shouldn’t make a major decision like selling your house for the first year after your spouse died, but that didn’t apply to family property, did it? It couldn’t. She couldn’t ask everyone else to put this off until she was ready. With three siblings, someone’s life would always be in flux. And Peggy was getting older, and what if she was sick? Sarah added that to her mental list for this hypothetical conversation. “While Holly and I are in town. And we should probably include Leo. I know you and Dad bought his parents out years ago, but we’ve always let him use the place. Although he’s got a full plate, too.”

“Why is Holly here?” Peggy asked.

Sarah’s breath stopped.

“To support Janine?” Peggy continued. “They’ve stayed fairly close, I know. Unlike you. And—well, she came right out.”

There it was again, the hint of something about her sister that no one was telling her.

“Nic called her. You remember the letter Lucas Erickson sent Janine?”

“Of course I remember. Sarah, what is this about?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Mom. He sent Holly one, too.”

The car behind her honked. Deer Park only had one stoplight and it had turned green while she was daydreaming.

The horn beeped a second time and she resisted the urge to flip off the other driver as she accelerated through the intersection. So much for the quiet, small-town life.

Not fair, she told herself as she steered the SUV into the shopping center lot. The rules of the road were a mutual agreement. You went when it was your turn, you stopped when it wasn’t. You drove close to the speed limit, you stayed in your lane, and you turned down your brights when traffic was approaching.

If only the rest of life were that fair, and that simple. It wasn’t. It never had been. Her husband was nineteen days dead. And she hated when people reminded her, as Janine had at lunch, that she didn’t have to worry about money.

Did they think she didn’t know that? Did they think she wasn’t grateful that at least money wasn’t part of her worries?

Did they think she wouldn’t trade all the millions for more time with a happy, healthy husband?

At least Janine hadn’t invoked the other phrases she detested. “He’s in a better place,” or “God has his reasons.”

No way out but through. A saying from her therapist or another one of Abby’s posters?

She sighed, then grabbed her purse and stepped out of the car. Straightened her back and pretended she felt better. Fake it till you feel it.

Shit. She was full of cheap wisdom today.

Weird to go from bright daylight to brighter fluorescents. Weirder still to walk in the grocery store and hear her name. She turned to see a slender woman with short, highlighted hair, wind-whipped like her skin.

“Sarah,” the woman repeated, her voice rich with emotion, and set her shopping basket on the floor, then extended her arms. “How good to see you.”

“Mrs. Holtz. Hello.”

“It’s Pam,” the woman said. “I stopped being Mrs. Holtz when I retired. Forty-two years in the classroom—can you imagine? I don’t know how I did it.”

Sarah took in the woman’s close-fitting neon yellow jacket, the tight black pants that ended just below the knee, the cleated shoes. The bike helmet in the shopping basket.

“You biked to the grocery store?”

“Stopped in on my way home. Ted and I do a training ride a few afternoons a week. And I walk with your mother.” The longtime high school English teacher, one of Sarah’s favorites, turned somber. “Sarah, we were devastated by the news about Jeremy. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it out for the funeral.”

“Thank you.” Were the simple words enough? She hoped so. “I’m staying at the lodge.”

“Ahh,” Pam Holtz said. She picked up her basket. “I wondered. We just rode out to Granite Chapel and back and when we passed the lodge, I had the sense of it coming to life.”

“Pam, do you know”—it felt like betrayal to ask, but she had to. “Is my mother sick? Ill? I can understand her not telling me so soon after, but …”

“No, she’s not. And yes, she would tell me, and yes, I would tell you. My guess is she’s got a painting stuck in her head. You can count on it.”

She was counting on it. Desperately.

A movement caught the older woman’s attention and she gave a small smile, one hand raised. Renee Harper returned the greeting and turned her cart down the closest aisle.

“Another former student,” she said. “Renee Taunton. Harper, I think, now. Smart as a whip. But then there was that business over the scholarship.” She shook her head, remembering.

“I met her this afternoon,” Sarah said, not mentioning the encounter in the woods. “At Lucas Erickson’s office. I didn’t realize she was a local girl.” What scholarship business? There had been no diploma in the frames she packed up this afternoon.

“Came home a couple of years ago to take care of her mother. Judith Taunton would try the patience of a saint under any circumstances, and now …” Pam shook her head. “I’ve gotta run. Ted