Downstairs, the phone rang, startling Abigail. It was past nine. She worried it might be her parents and rushed to answer.
“Abby, is that you?” The reception was spitting static.
“Lottie?”
“Yes, dear. It’s
“The romance novels. Yes, I found them. Thanks. They’re…” Abigail scrolled through a range of descriptive phrases, selecting the least disparaging. “A quick read. Say, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you about the house.”
No time like the present to come clean about the changes she’d made.
“Wish I could chew the fat, dear, but my cousin is still recuperating from her girdle thing, and I have to wait on her hand and foot. Such a princess.”
“Then maybe I could come by the office to talk. When will you be back?”
“Say again, Abby?” Lottie’s cell phone hissed. “I can’t hear you over this noise. Sounds like frying bacon. Mercy, I need to put that on my grocery list. Wouldn’t a BLT be delish about now? Gotta go, Abby. You have my mouth watering with all this gabbing about food.”
“Hold on. Lottie?”
The line dissolved into a dial tone.
“From books to bacon. A quantum leap. She must have thought you were going to yell at her about the caretaker’s cottage. Can’t say you didn’t try to tell her.”
Upstairs, the ledger was lying on the unmade bed. Abigail moved it to the nightstand, then reconsidered. She had slept soundly the night before, which she hadn’t done in months.
Slipping under the quilt, Abigail placed the ledger at her side and waited patiently for sleep to find her.
ruc
tion (ruk?sh?n),
She moved the ledger onto the nightstand. “You’re as trusty as an alarm clock.”
If only her body were as dependable. Painting Duncan’s house yesterday had thrust Abigail past her physical limit. Stiff, she slowly rooted through the dresser for something to wear. She was running out of clean clothes. The garbage bag she was using as a hamper was full. A trip to the laundromat would be in order shortly, as would a stop at the market for some aspirin.
Abigail wanted to assess the situation in the basement before Nat arrived. Sheets off, she counted fourteen pieces of furniture. The dining chairs were light, and Abigail could manage them herself. However, navigating the narrow, rickety stairway was going to be a challenge.
As she crested the stairs, lugging a chair, there came a knock at the front door. Nat was on the other side.
“We doing this?” he asked.
“Yes,” Abigail sighed. “We are.” She waved him in.
“Do you need to change?”
“My clothes? Why?”
“They look too fancy to be moving furniture in.”
Abigail couldn’t see how a sweater and a pair of trousers could be construed as overdressed. “It’s not like I’m wearing a ball gown and pearls.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t have anything else that was clean,” she admitted.
“Okay.”
“I have to go to the laundromat. I’m going tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“I shouldn’t have to explain myself.”
“Okay.”
“Now you’re placating me.”
“I’m trying.”
“Stop.”
Nat motioned at the dining chair she’d brought up. “You started without me?”
