Smitten Book Club (37 page)

“The music teacher?” Molly asked. Noah loved her. She’d heard about Mr. Willikins’s stroke, but not about the woman retiring.

“That’s right up your alley,” Heather said. “You have the degree, you love music and kids . . .”

It did sound perfect. School would be starting next month. “They haven’t replaced her yet?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I could check tomorrow.”

Molly found herself getting excited about the possibility.
If she could get the job, and it paid enough to support her and Noah . . . She could imagine being happy for many years as a music teacher.

Oh, please, God. This would be such an answer to prayer
.

As the girls rattled on with plans, Molly found her mind going a different direction. One that took her to thoughts of a man she’d been falling for. A man who’d sorely disappointed her.

Be honest, Molly
.

Okay. A man who’d broken her heart. There. She’d said it. And she didn’t know if any job in the world could make up for that.

Molly unlocked the store and stepped inside, flipping on lights. She looked around the quiet space, sad at the thought of giving up Curtis’s dream.

Curtis’s dream. Did you hear that, Molly? Not yours
. It was high time she let go and moved forward. Even if it did feel as if she were stepping off a cliff.

Heather had stayed with her yesterday afternoon, digging around online, trying to figure out what would happen after she defaulted. How long she’d have before they repossessed her home. She still wasn’t clear on the process, but she kept repeating Heather’s words: one step at a time.

Lia was supposed to call the school today and find out if the teaching position was still open.
Please, God .
. . She was actually excited about the idea. It was the perfect fit for her.

Meanwhile, she thought, looking around her quiet office,
she had tours to run, loose ends to tie up, and personal effects needing packed. She was going to do this right. Or as right as she could, and trust God with the rest. There was that word again.
Trust
. God had helped through her difficult year. He’d comforted her in her grief and provided for their needs.
Yes, Molly, but you can trust God
.

Unlike some people.

As Molly sat at her desk, the phone rang. She picked up the extension, realizing suddenly that there was no point in booking more tours.

A male voice asked, for Molly. It was Steve, her sales rep from
Explore Vermont
.

“I have a message from our intern to return your call. She says she sent you the invoice for your ad?”

The bill still had to be paid, so Molly hoped it was a terrible mistake. Or that she could talk him down on the price a bit. Or a lot.

“I know you worked out the price with Gage Turner.” She managed to squeeze out the name. “I guess I didn’t realize it would cost so much.”

“I’m so sorry, Molly. Kylie shouldn’t have sent the invoice. It was supposed to go to Gage.”

Molly frowned at a blank space on her wall. “What do you mean? Why would my invoice go to him?”

She heard a slow sigh.

“I hope I’m not breaking a confidence here . . . Gage’s ad was slotted for July’s issue. He said to bill his company as usual.”

Molly’s throat constricted. She palmed it. “What?”

“I told him he’d retain first right of rescission regardless, but he insisted he be billed for the ad.”

A terrible dread leaked into her veins. She swallowed hard. “I don’t—why would he—”

“I don’t know. I just do as I’m told. As long as the magazine gets paid . . .”

No, this couldn’t be. Had she made—

She closed her eyes and reminded herself to breathe. This didn’t make sense. Why would Gage pay for her ad? What kind of man shelled out over four thousand dollars to save his competitor?

“Are . . . are you sure about this, Steve?”

“I have his e-mail right here.” There was a click on Steve’s end. “It says, ‘Steve, can you make sure I’m billed for the Smitten Expeditions ad instead of Molly?’ Oh—oops. He did ask me to keep it between us. Well, shoot.”

Molly’s heart pummeled her ribs. “It’s okay. It . . . it won’t matter now.” None of it would. “But don’t bill Gage. I’ll . . . I’ll be paying for it now.”

“Well . . . hmm. You’ll have to work that out between the two of you, I guess. I’m really sorry. I should call Gage and apologize.”

“No, don’t—I mean, I’ll handle it. It was my fault, and you’re not the one who sent the invoice.”

“Good point. Let’s just blame Kylie.” A teasing note had crept into his voice. “It’s always the intern’s fault.”

“Exactly,” she said numbly. “Thank you for your help.”

“I hope we can work together in the future.”

They rang off, and Molly cupped her face in her palms. This couldn’t be happening. She flashed back to Saturday when she’d marched into Gage’s office. She remembered the look on his face when he’d first seen her. The joy in his eyes at
her arrival. Right before his smile had fallen away at the look on her face.

And later, the hardness of his eyes, like ice. The clenching of his jaw.

Oh, God, what have I done?
He’d done the sweetest, most generous thing, and she’d turned it into something awful.

And why? Because Curtis had said bad things about him? Because Curtis had betrayed her trust, and now she thought everyone else would too? What kind of excuse was that?

She flopped her head down on her desk, not caring when her forehead smacked it. She deserved to be thumped on the head. Her ugly words played back in her head. She’d been so nasty. And after he’d been nothing but kind. All the help he’d given her . . .

His parting words came back to her.
I guess we were both wrong
. Now she understood the cryptic words. Now, when it was much too late. She groaned.

“If you’re trying to see into the drawer, it’ll probably be easier if you open it.”

Molly lifted her head. She hadn’t heard Heather enter the store.

Heather’s grin fell. “What’s wrong?”

Molly covered her face.

Heather plunked down in the seat across from her. “It can’t be that bad.”

Molly dropped her hands and proceeded to tell her friend just how bad it was. Her face heated as she described Steve’s revelation.

“I’m such an idiot,” Molly said when she finished the whole sordid tale.

Wincing, Heather grabbed Molly’s hand, which was strangling a stack of Post-it notes. “Well . . . it could be worse . . .” She sighed and a moment later, she sat up straight and nodded once. “We can fix this.”

“He kissed me.”

Heather’s eyebrows popped up. “What? When?”

Molly sank into the memory. “Friday night, after book club. He came over. We talked awhile.” Molly gave a little sigh. “It was nice. Then at the door he . . . he kissed me. And he asked me out.”

“You went out?”

“No, the next day I went postal on him.”

Heather’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.” She stared into Molly’s eyes, a sympathetic look on her face. “Was it a nice kiss?”

Molly groaned, dropping her head to the desk. “The best,” she mumbled against the blotter. It had been. She’d relived it a hundred times. Even after her tirade. She couldn’t seem to help herself.

“You really like him, huh?”

Like him? She’d been getting dangerously close to—
Don’t go there, Molly
. “What does it matter? He’s never going to speak to me again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You didn’t hear me, didn’t hear the awful things I said or the—”

Heather cupped Molly’s head and pulled her up. “You’re mumbling.”

Molly felt the sting of tears. A knot formed in her throat. “I was awful.” She couldn’t remember feeling so ashamed of herself. It was so unlike her to go off on someone.

“Maybe he’ll forgive you.”

Molly shook her head. “You didn’t see the look on his face. Those hard eyes.” She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to remember him that way.

It was bad enough she’d never see his warm blue gaze on her again. Never feel the touch of his fingertips on her face. Never hear him chuckle at her like he thought she was adorable. There was nothing adorable about what she’d done. About what she’d allowed herself to believe. And no one knew that better than Gage Turner.

A sensible girl treads the stairs of love carefully and deliberately.

P
EARL
C
HAMBERS
,
The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

M
om, I’m ready for bed!” Noah called down to her.

She set aside the copy of
Love and Courtship
and traipsed upstairs, looking down at the wooden treads for anything she might have overlooked the last hundred times she’d climbed the stairwell. Three mentions of stairs in the last three chapters. What was she missing?

Noah was in bed, tossing the football to the ceiling, when she entered the room.

“Think fast.” He pitched the ball at her, but it went wide right, hitting the wall beside his chest of drawers.

The ball thudded off the plaster and onto the wood floor.

“Sorry,” he said.

Something about the thud made Molly frown. Had it sounded hollow? Maybe there was a safe behind the wall.

Really, Molly?

She was losing it. Thinking too much about this stupid treasure when she should just resign herself to losing their home. Losing the business.

The interview yesterday for the teaching position had gone well. Everything would be fine. Eventually.

Unable to stop herself, Molly knocked on the dingy plaster, then knocked again a few feet away. It did sound different. Could be an air duct or something. Probably was.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Just—” She knocked again all over the wall. There was a space that sounded hollow. It was a few feet wide and stretched from the floor to as high as she could reach.

“Mom, you’re acting weird.”

Adrenaline flowed through her veins. Was it possible? That plaster had been up there forever. The wall faced the west side of the house. She supposed something could be tucked behind it.

She looked at the plaster and counted the cost: a hole in the wall that she’d never have the time or know-how to fix before she put the place on the market. On the other hand, if there was gold back there, the house would never have to go on the market.

“Be right back.”

Molly returned a few minutes later with a hammer and two masks. She fixed one on her face and tossed the other to Noah. “Put that on.”

“Uh, Mom, what are you doing?”

“Seeing what’s back here.”

Noah was looking at her like she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had.

“Stay back, okay?”

She shoved Noah’s laundry basket aside and drew back the hammer.
Here goes nothing
. The plaster cracked on contact. A few more swings, and chunks were falling on the floor. Mercy, she hoped there wasn’t lead paint in there. Or asbestos.

“Stand over there.” She gestured toward the doorway, hoping the mask protected against such things.

She kept going until she’d cleared a space the size of a basketball, then turned the hammer and began prying on the wood slats behind the plaster. They slowly splintered away. A cool draft flowed through the growing hole. Her blood pumped with excitement. She peered through the hole, but it was pitch-black.

“Hey, Noah, grab a flashlight for me.”

His footfalls flew down the hall and padded down the stairs.

She kept at the plaster and wood slats. By the time he returned, she had an opening the size of her fist.

She shone the light into the hole and sucked in a breath. An open space. A closet? She aimed the light down.

No—a stairway!

Her hands trembled as she set the flashlight on the chest. A stairway, just like in the book. Maybe she wasn’t crazy after all.

“What is it? What is it, Mom?”

She pried a large chunk of plaster away. “An old staircase.”

“Sweet! Can I see?”

Another piece of plaster clunked to the floor. “Wait till I’m done. Stay back, sport.”

It seemed to take forever to clear a hole big enough to allow her through. By the time she did, sweat was trickling
down her back. She shone the flashlight through the pillow-sized hole. The stairs took a turn halfway down, but all she could see were old wooden steps and lots of cobwebs.

“Where does it go?”

“It must lead to the kitchen. The pantry, I think. Maybe the pantry was added on when the stairwell was covered up.” Maybe Pearl had made sure the stairwell was covered up.

Molly stuck a leg through the hole. “Stay here.”

“Aw, Mom . . . ,” Noah whined, but he stayed where he was.

She crouched through the opening. On the other side, her stockinged foot ground century-old dirt into the wooden floor. She emerged on the other side, shivering against the coolness. The beam of light illuminated cobweb-coated plaster walls and plank flooring strewn with dead bugs and dirt.