Her phone vibrated. It was most likely Cody. He’d left five messages yesterday—an all-time high. He was evidently desperate for a fiddler. She pulled out the phone and glanced at it.
Yup. Cody. She pushed the ignore button.
The sound of Granny moving boxes around the living room reached her through the open windows. She needed to make Granny sit down. And Ella needed to get up, stop the poor-pitiful-me party, and go do something useful.
But instead, her finger hovered over the call button. Cody’s increasingly frantic messages were so seductive. He wanted her. He needed her. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but being wanted and needed was seductive.
She might have called him back, but Ashley Scott strolled down the path. “Hey,” she said. “You’re just the person I came to see.”
“Uh, if you’ve come to pitch me on the idea of hosting Mom’s engagement party at Howland House, I’m afraid Jim is leaning toward the yacht club, perish the thought.”
Ashley’s wide smile put Ella at ease. According to Granny, the innkeeper had her crap together. She was a single mom running an important business and, as a direct descendant of the town’s founding mother, was nothing short of Magnolia Harbor royalty.
Ella would love to have a life like that. She wouldn’t even mind single motherhood. Having kids had been another thing she and Cody had argued about. No home, no ring, no children. Just the road and her fiddle. As much as she loved playing music, the road was an empty life.
“I’m not here about your mother’s engagement party,” Ashley’s said.
“Oh?”
Ashley gestured toward the jostling board on Granny’s porch. “I haven’t jostled in years. May I?”
“Of course.”
Ashley sat down on the long wooden bench beside Ella’s rocking chair. The jostling board was ten feet long, made of Carolina yellow pine, and was designed to bounce when you sat on it. Ashley put it to use, bouncing on it for a few moments as a tiny giggle left her lips.
The idea of Ashley Scott giggling kind of blew Ella’s mind. But then the jostling board had a way of transporting people back to their childhood. Ella had grown up in Indiana and had visited her grandmother infrequently. But she’d almost lived on the jostling board as an eight-year-old. And the board was one of many reasons she held Magnolia Harbor deep in her heart.
Granny’s wonderful old house was like the jostling board. Letting them go was going to be hard.
“Is your grandmother taking her jostling board to the condo?” Ashley asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think her new lanai is big enough.”
“Well, if she’s not, I might be interested in buying it. When I was a kid, my grandmother took me to visit Patsy Bauman one time. She has one of these on her porch, and I spent the whole afternoon bouncing while Grandmother and Patsy were back in the kitchen drinking sweet tea and gossiping.”
Ashley closed her eyes as if she were savoring the moment. “I didn’t get to visit here often as a child,” she said after a long silence. “Dad was in the army, and we moved around all the time.”
“I was the same way,” Ella said. “Mom and I came to visit for Thanksgiving and sometimes in the summer for a couple of weeks.”
“I could jostle all day, but I came on a more important errand.” Ashley stood up and moved to the second rocking chair. “I wanted to talk to you about a job.”
“What?” Ella stopped rocking.
“I’m sure you know how the Piece Makers gossip. Your grandmother is not really one of the worst offenders, but it was only a matter of time before we heard about your situation. And I think I’ve got a solution.”
Her situation? Damn. Was all of Magnolia Harbor pitying her because of her precarious living situation? “What kind of solution?” she asked cautiously.
“I’m in need of an assistant. Someone to help with the breakfast service in the morning, and also take care of stocking the kitchen, handling reservations, and doing webpage updates. My helper, Judy, just moved away, and I’m desperate. I’ve interviewed a few people, but I haven’t found the right person yet, and in the meantime, I’ve got a few part-time high school kids helping out, but the kids are not always dependable.”
“Okay. But, um, I don’t have a lot of experience. Except, you know, playing fiddle in a country band.”
Ashley nodded. “I know. But this is entry level. And the best part is that I have a room at the inn that you can have rent-free.”
Ella got the picture. Granny’s friends had joined together to help her out. Was it charity? Not quite, but maybe.
Ella wanted nothing more than to take charge of her own life, but refusing this offer would be supremely stupid, and maybe even ungrateful. Ashley had a job and a room, which were the two things Ella needed most in order to start rebuilding her life.
Emotion hit her like a rogue wave. The lump that had been sitting in her throat all morning suddenly dissolved into tears that flooded her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “Oh my goodness,” she said on a puff of air. “Thank you. Yes, I’ll take the job.”
She wiped the tears away just as Granny came through the front door and said, “Oh, thank the Lord. I was afraid you’d turn out to be stubborn and proud like your momma.” Then Granny turned toward the innkeeper. “Ashley, if you want to make me an offer on the jostling board, it’s definitely for sale.”
* * *
Dylan knocked on the exam room door and walked in when Mrs. Whittle gave him the all clear. His patient was in her midforties with sharp features and prominent cheekbones. She was painfully thin, as if she might be suffering from a wasting disease.
Mrs. Whittle was a teacher at the elementary school, so he’d met her a time or two around town, but this was his first time treating her as a
