"The battery must be out. What's wrong?"

"Kerry called," she gasped. "In tears. She's calling off the wedding."

It felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. All my plans, all my work, all the money I didn't really have but decided to invest, believing that this wedding was the event that would put Beecher Cottage Inn on the map-it was all for nothing.

"Oh, no. Poor Kerry. How is she?"

"Pretty torn up," Tessa said. "She didn't say for sure, but I think her fiance got cold feet. Another girl? Anyway, she was definite. The wedding is canceled."

"Poor Kerry," I repeated. We'd never met, but I must have talked to her twenty times in the last month. She sounded so excited and so young. Too young to have her heart broken, but isn't everybody? And if that's the kind of man her fiance was, it was better she found out before the wedding than after. I'd call her tomorrow. And after that, I'd have to call the florist and musicians and everybody else who'd been involved in the ceremony. d.a.m.n.

"So much for my instincts." I put Ivy's plate down on the table and sank into a chair. "And my first sold-out weekend."

"But isn't that the same weekend as the Dylan Tyler concert?" Abigail asked. "I'm sure there are all kinds of people who need rooms then."

"Of course!" I exclaimed, wondering why I hadn't thought of that myself. "I'll call Barbara Jansen at the Goshen Chamber and see who she has on the waiting list."

Tessa shook her head. "No go. I phoned Barbara at home first thing after I hung up with Kerry. They put out a call for local people who would be willing to rent rooms that weekend. The response was so big that they were able to accommodate everybody on the wait list. I tried to talk her into moving people to the inn, but she can't do it. The deposits are already in."

Frustrated, I smacked my fist against the table and cursed. Margot frowned with concern but didn't say anything.

"It's not all bad news," Tessa reminded me. "You've got deposits too. At least you won't lose money on the rooms."

"No. Not on that," I grumbled, thinking about my new brick sidewalks, the garden arbor, and the other improvements I'd made in antic.i.p.ation of the wedding.

I closed my eyes and let my head flop back. It was my own stupid fault. I shouldn't have counted my chickens before they were hatched. And I shouldn't have let myself get so emotionally wrapped up in this wedding. In my mind, I'd begun to think of it as the grand opening we never had, a good omen, the first of many celebrations to be held in the Beecher Cottage Inn. I hated the idea of canceling the weekend.

Then don't.

The words came into my mind out of the blue, without any thought on my part, as if someone else had spoken them into being.

My head popped up like it was on a spring. My eyes flew open and moved around the ring of faces, starting with Tessa and ending with Ivy.

"Ladies? What are you doing next weekend?"

47.

Tessa The greenhouse Lee built this winter is nothing fancy-just thick opaque plastic sheeting stretched over a wooden frame-but it has served its purpose, giving us a small crop of early strawberries that brought premium prices, and now letting us get a jump on tomato season as well. We moved the berries out of the greenhouse and planted them in the garden a couple of days ago, and today we're moving the tomato seedlings out from under the grow lamps in the cellar to the unheated greenhouse to harden off before planting.

"Why so many?" I asked as I ducked my head to make it in through the greenhouse's low door and then set a tray of seedlings down next to Spitz, who was curled up on the floor. She opened one eye to see what was going on and then went back to her nap. "You must have three hundred tomato plants here."

Lee was on his knees, scooting the plastic pots together into more or less orderly rows. "Three fifty," he said. "I'm going to sell a hundred and fifty plants at the farmers' market, three dollars each, then plant the rest."

I knelt down on the opposite end of the greenhouse and started organizing the plants like Lee was, being careful to keep each variety in its own group and leaving a walkway in the center. It really is amazing how many tomato plants you can fit into a ten- by twelve-foot s.p.a.ce.

"How many pounds of tomatoes will you get from each plant?"

"Depends," Lee said. "Could be five, could be twenty-five. I wish I'd done more. Next year I'm going to expand the greenhouse. The restaurant business has come on so strong, I bet I could have used five hundred plants this year."

"Or more," I said as I unloaded another tray of seedlings.

Lee shook his head. "No, that's about as many as I'd want to do. Best to keep things small. I'm looking to do three things: support us decently, provide quality products to our customers, and enjoy doing it. That's all. I didn't escape the corporate rat race just to enter an agricultural rat race."

"Sounds like a smart plan." I sat back on my knees and breathed in the scent of rich, loamy earth, taking a moment to enjoy the sea of green surrounding me and the feathery leaves of the tomato vines, most already flowering, many already sporting tiny green globes.

"You know, I don't miss the shop as much as I thought I would. It wasn't that different from being tied to my desk back in Ma.s.sachusetts. I like having control over my own schedule and more variety in my work. Working at the inn is fun, but I wouldn't want to do it full-time, and helping you is fun, too, but I wouldn't want to spend forty hours a week planting tomatoes," I said, grimacing as I circled my shoulders to work the kinks out of my back.

Lee got to his feet and, after dusting his hands off on his jeans, came up behind me and started to ma.s.sage my neck. "Well, I appreciate your help. It was lonely around here before. Nice to have some company." He bent down and kissed the top of my head. "Better?"

I nodded. "Thanks, babe."

"My pleasure." Lee got on his knees next to me and helped me finish the job.

"Hey, are you sure you'll be okay on your own this weekend? There's such a lot to do right now. If you need me here, I can bow out. Madelyn would understand."

"And have you miss the greatest girls' weekend ever? Complete with luxury accommodations at New Bern's most elegant inn and quilting instruction from a real live television star? Uh-uh," Lee said with a grin. "Nothing doing. That's the kind of sacrifice a guy can spend the next ten years paying back."

I elbowed him good-naturedly. "Very funny. Seriously. If you need help . . ."

"I'll be fine. It's just for two nights. Besides, I've got it covered. Since Madelyn is going to be busy, too, Jake and I decided to retaliate and have our own weekend here. Of course, we'll be picking strawberries and milking cows instead of making quilts, but I imagine there will be a little cigar smoking going on too. . . ."

"Not inside my house, there better not be."

Lee rolled his eyes. "No, not in the house. That's why I put those chairs out on the porch. Charlie is coming over, too, on Sat.u.r.day night, and he's bringing Abigail's husband."

"Franklin Spaulding?"

"Yeah, and Evelyn's son, Garrett. We're going to make chili and play poker."

"Oh, good. That sounds like fun." I smiled as I bent over my work. It was nice to hear that, like me, Lee was finally making friends. Knowing he'd be occupied over the weekend made me feel less guilty about leaving him on his own.

"So, how are the plans coming for the big quilt retreat?" he asked.

"Good. Does it sound silly if I say I'm kind of proud of Madelyn? I mean, here she's faced with this big disappointment with the wedding being canceled, and instead of feeling sorry for herself, she decides to turn the situation on its head and use it to do something nice for others. I don't think she'd have thought of that six months ago, do you? She's invited Ivy and all the women in her GED prep cla.s.s, plus Connie and Bella, the teachers, and everyone in the quilt circle. Wasn't that generous of her? An all-expense-paid weekend of quilting, complete with food and . . ."

"A bag of luxurious herbal goodies from you," Lee added.

"Oh, but that's nothing." I sat up to wipe my brow with the back of my hand. "I had stock left over from the store. I might as well put it to good use."

"It was still nice of you."

I shrugged. "Anyway, everybody is very excited about the quilt retreat. Of course, Evelyn's friend from Texas, Mary Dell, has something to do with that. A couple of the women from the shelter were on the fence at first. Some of them have little kids and were worried about finding sitters, but once they heard that Mary Dell was going to be the teacher for the weekend, they all said they'd figure out something."

"I'll bet." Lee laughed. "It's not every day you get to go on a quilt weekend with a celebrity. I bet they're all starstruck."

"I am, too, a little. I hope I don't say something stupid when I meet her."

"You won't," Lee a.s.sured me. "She's just a person. Puts her pants on one leg at a time and has to rip out seams now and then, just like everybody else."

I nodded and told myself that what Lee said was undoubtedly true. "Evelyn says she's very down-to-earth. I'm sure we'll have fun. We've just got one problem-not quite enough room at the inn. There are fifteen women coming, but Madelyn only has five rooms with capacity for twelve guests total, and we can only squeeze in that many by bringing rollaway beds into the larger rooms. I'm not sure where we're going to put everybody," I said as I lined up the last tomato plant in the last row and then stacked up the empty trays in the corner.

Lee got to his feet and then reached down to help me up. "Five rooms? I thought there were six."

I groaned as I got up-all that bending over hurts my back. "Nope, just five. Madelyn has plans to create a sixth room up in the attic, actually a suite. There's plenty of room. But she doesn't have the money to do it right now. Even if she did, there's no time to do it before Friday night."

Lee narrowed his eyes and sucked on his teeth, the way he did when he was thinking. "What's she got up there in the attic anyway?"

"Right now? A bunch of junk." I stopped myself, grinned. "No, wait a minute. I meant a bunch of treasures. To you and me and anybody else, it'd be junk. But to Madelyn, every rusty bedstead, every broken lamp, every bookend that's lost its mate is a potential treasure. She'll figure out a way to put all that stuff to good use-one of these days. But at the moment, it's just taking up s.p.a.ce. Good thing she's got so much storage. You know . . ."

Lee nodded quickly as I spoke, the way he does when he's trying to be polite but is really hoping I'll cut to the chase. "Yeah, yeah, but is it full as in there's no room to move? Or full as in there's just a lot of stuff lying around?"

"Just a lot of stuff lying around. Why do you ask?" He ignored my question and volleyed off more of his own. I was starting to feel like I was on some sort of quiz show.

"Is there lighting up there? What about outlets? How low are the ceilings?"

I closed my eyes, trying to picture the attic. "There's a light, an overhead bulb in the middle of the room. And there's some natural light that comes in from the side windows. I don't know about outlets. The ceilings are low on the sides, but there's plenty of room to walk around."

"Huh. That just might work. Better talk to Jake and see what he thinks." Without explaining further, Lee opened the door to the greenhouse and strode across the gra.s.s toward the house.

Sensing his absence, Spitz opened her eyes and got to her feet, looking at me for an explanation.

"Your guess is as good as mine. But I guess we'd better go see what he's up to."

I patted my leg and Spitz fell in beside me, casting a longing glance at the goat pen as we pa.s.sed the barnyard and went inside.

Three hours later, I was standing on a ladder, hammering long lengths of muslin, painter's canvas from Jake's store, onto the attic beams of the Beecher Cottage Inn so they hung about eight feet from the floor. Madelyn stood at the bottom of the ladder, supporting the weight of the still-unattached canvas with one arm and handing me gold upholstery tacks with the other. Ivy was there, too, with her little girl, Bethany, who was about nine years old and absolutely precious. They were sweeping the floor, Ivy handling the broom while Bethany held the dustpan. Lee and Jake were busy carting off the furniture, boxes, and miscellaneous junk that wouldn't be needed for our current project and stowing it behind the newly constructed canvas walls, where the ceiling was too low to walk upright.

"Lee," Madelyn called out as my darling husband walked past carrying three cardboard boxes, "you're a genius! The light color of the canvas makes the whole room look brighter."

"It does look pretty good," Lee said in a m.u.f.fled voice. His mouth was hidden behind the stack of boxes and only his eyes and forehead peeked out over the top. "Anyway, it'll do in a pinch, until you've got time and money to put up real walls."

"Well, I like the effect so much I'm thinking that even when we do get real walls, I might hang canvas curtains over all of them. It just creates such a nice, modern background for all these antiques. Very eclectic. I'm telling you, Lee. If you ever decide to give up farming, you could make big money as an interior designer."

Lee didn't say anything to that, just laughed from behind the canvas wall where he was stowing the boxes. Jake came out from an opening between the canvas, holding strings of little white Christmas lights in his hands.

"Look what I found," he said. "We could string them down the center beam."

Madelyn frowned. "And plug them in where? I don't want to overload our one sad little light fixture."

"I found two outlets, one on each wall. They were hidden behind some cartons. I took a good look at the wiring. It's sound. It'll easily handle these. It's not a permanent solution, but it'll do through the weekend."

"I think they'll look nice," Bethany piped up. "Pretty. Like Christmas."

Madelyn smiled at the little girl. "I think you're right. Let's give it a try."

The lights did look pretty; so did the rest of the room.

When we were finished, Ivy stood gazing at the three iron bedsteads (Madelyn had sanded the rust off and spray-painted them white)-a double with a twin on each side, lined up in front of the muslin wall and sitting atop a multicolored braided rug that we'd found rolled up in a corner. The beds were made up with white sheets and blankets, with a quilt lying across the foot. The quilts were torn and worn in spots but when they were folded properly, you couldn't see that. A trunk sat at the end of each bedstead and there were small tables sitting between the beds, to give the occupants a place to lay a book or a pair of reading gla.s.ses.

"It looks like a dormitory," Ivy said. "An attic dormitory in a girls' school. Like in A Little Princess."

"Or Jo's room in Little Women," Bethany added. "That's my favorite book."

"Have you already read Little Women?" Madelyn asked. "You're a clever girl."

Bethany smiled. "Mommy read it to me. We read together every night."

"Ah, I see. Then I guess your mommy is a clever girl too." Madelyn smiled at Ivy, who blushed.

"We'll see about that in a few days, won't we? I wish I knew if I pa.s.sed the exam or not. It feels funny, you giving a weekend to celebrate us getting our diplomas when we don't even know if we pa.s.sed yet."

"We're not celebrating your exam," I said. "We're celebrating you and all those other gals, and the fact that you're working so hard and being such great examples to your children."

"And to all of us." Madelyn looked down at Bethany. "Aren't you proud of your mommy?"

Bethany nodded soberly before asking her mother, "Can't I come to the party too? You said it was a girls' weekend. I'm a girl. And I know how to quilt too. I'm a very good quilter."

Ivy ruffled her hair. "I know, but this weekend is just for grownup girls. Besides, where would you sleep? All the beds are full."

"Not quite," Madelyn said. "If you slept up here, Tessa and I could take the twin beds and you could have the double-you and Miss Bethany. That is, if you don't mind sharing."

Bethany looked up at her mother, eyes wide with hope, clasping her hands together under her chin like a cherub at prayer.

Ivy looked at Madelyn doubtfully. "Are you sure you wouldn't mind?"

"Mind? I'd love it. She must come. I insist."

Ivy looked at her daughter and said, "I guess that settles it. You can come." Bethany whooped with excitement and galloped around from one end of the room to the other like a frisky colt.

Ivy laughed and called to her, "All right, Bethany. Calm down and get your coat. We've got to run by the market before we pick your brother up from soccer. Come on."

Bethany found her coat and followed her mother down the stairs, stopping to wave at Madelyn before she left. "See you on Friday!"

"See you on Friday, darling!" After they'd gone, Madelyn turned to the rest of us. "Oh, isn't she just the sweetest little thing? I've heard that Abigail and Franklin are sort of surrogate grandparents to Ivy's children, but do you think they'd mind sharing the t.i.tle?"

"Why not?" Jake said. "But I didn't know you liked children so much."

"Neither did I," Madelyn replied. "But then, I've never spent much time with children. I sure like that one.

"Thank you, Lee, for coming up with the dorm idea. There'd be no way we could have found room for Bethany otherwise. And thank you too," she said, looking at me and then Jake, letting her eyes linger on his face in a way that made me wonder if her feelings for Jake were quite as platonic as she claimed. I knew she said she'd never love again and I understood why, but never is a very long time and Jake was a very special, and very patient, man.