Something Borrowed, Something Bleu (6 page)

_____

It would be an hour or so before everyone gathered at the house again. Enough time to check out some old newspaper stories.
The Spring Creek Public Library was near Old Town Square, surrounded by older homes and streets lined with well-established trees. Along with a small museum and expansive, park-like area complete with playground and picnic benches, it took up an entire city block. Out front, three apparently homeless men lounged on sunny benches, looking as content as the cat in Celeste Atwood’s driveway earlier.
I found the reference desk upstairs and asked for help in tracking down newsworthy events from eighteen years ago. Soon I was seated in front of a microfilm machine, trolling through copies of the Spring Creek
Courier
starting two weeks before Bobby Lee sent the letter.
By the time half an hour had passed, my eyes were burning from scanning headlines on the screen. It had been a pretty boring period. I bypassed sports and national news, focusing on local stories that might have had an impact on Bobby Lee and his friends. Not much caught my attention, and I had to wonder if I was missing something important. I told myself it was just a first pass; the archives would still be here if I needed to come back and spend more time.
At the end of an hour I’d read sixteen days’ worth of newspapers from the middle of November and culled four possible events that fit Celeste Atwood’s vague description, though only two of them actually ended in death. After all that reading, the four items that piqued my interest happened within a twenty-four-hour period.
A young woman had fallen in a nearly frozen river east of town. The owner of the property had rescued her and driven her into town, but she died of hypothermia on the way.
A sixteen-year-old girl had been attacked by a mountain lion in the Poudre Canyon, but survived when her uncle threw a rock at the big cat and hit it on the head. From what I could tell, he was a bit of a local celebrity for about a week, but the girl was badly mauled and required plastic surgery.
A young man riding a bicycle in the early morning hours had been hit by a vehicle which had then sped off without stopping. No one had found him for an hour, by which time he was half frozen and could barely talk. He was in the hospital for two days before succumbing to his injuries.
And a woman had severely beaten another young man who’d sneaked into her bedroom and tried to steal her underwear. She was quoted as saying, “They were my granny pants, too! I just don’t get some people.” He’d required hospitalization, but survived to raid panties another day.
Hurrying, I printed out copies of the articles, thanked the reference librarian for her help, and hightailed it out to the Subaru. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to put the fold-out shade in the front window, so it was broiling inside. Cursing, I started the engine and gingerly turned the burning steering wheel toward home with my fingertips.

My mother was on
me like white on rice the second I walked through the door. Looking over her shoulder toward the kitchen table where Meghan and Erin sat talking and eating cookies, she hissed, “I have to talk to you,” and strode toward her den. Bewildered, I followed behind. As soon as I cleared the threshold, she clicked the door shut behind me.
“Good Lord, Anna Belle, what’s wrong?”
She turned to face me, and alarm trilled through me at the look on her face. I’d rarely seen her so upset.
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“Bobby Lee’s letter. It’s
gone
.”
Uh oh.
“Someone
took
it, Sophie Mae.” Her voice shook.
Oh, God. There was just no way out of this. My lips pulled back in an apologetic grimace. “It’s okay. I have it.”
She stared at me.
“It’s safe,” I reached into my tote bag and handed it to her. “See?”
Taking it, she gazed down at the envelope for a moment. “But …” Her eyes met mine. “How did … ?”
“I needed to show it to Tabby.”
Anger flared behind her eyes as she assimilated what I’d said. “You took it out of the house? Without even asking me?”
I nodded. “You’d already left. I needed to be able to show her, to see if she’d tell me what it meant.”
She walked to the bookshelf. Turned. “And how exactly did you know where to find it?”
My inner child whimpered, but I squared my shoulders and said, “I followed a hunch.” I shrugged. “Turned out I was right.”
Surprise warred with the anger on her face. Then they gave way to an expression of amused admiration.
Now I was confused.
Her lips quirked up in a half grin.
“What’s so funny?”
“If only you could see your face. You look like you did when you were eight years old, and I caught you sitting on the floor of your closet eating a whole bag of Oreos.”
Great. “Well, I’m glad you’re not upset.”
Her eyes hardened. “Oh, I’m upset all right. You had no right to come into my private space and snoop around. I didn’t raise you that way. What were you thinking?”
But her earlier smile mitigated her current scolding, and I answered truthfully. “I told you. I needed that letter to show Tabby. Do you or do you not want me to get to the bottom of what happened eighteen years ago?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. A long moment of silence as she weighed how to respond. Then, “You could have called me, asked where the letter was, told me you wanted to take it.”
I bowed my head. “You’re right. I could have called.” Old habits had dictated my actions. “I should have.”
“And I don’t suppose it occurred to you to take a copy of the letter, instead of the original?” She nodded toward the combination printer/copier in the corner behind her desk.
“Er,” I said, feeling more chastened by the moment.
She stepped over to the machine, opened it, and placed the letter and envelope on the glass surface. As the copies printed, I said, “I took it to the post office, too. To ask about how it could have taken so long to come back.”
“I want to hear everything. Here.” She handed me copies of the note and the envelope.
We heard the front door close, and my father’s voice filtered through to the den. He sounded enthusiastic about something.
Anna Belle looked at me expectantly.
I turned and opened the door. “Come on. Let’s join the others.”
Behind me, she made a small sound of protest, but had no choice but to follow me to the kitchen.

_____

“This is so incredibly yummy,” Meghan said, taking another bite of bread and butter.
“Who knew something so mundane could be so tasty?” my mother added, licking her lips.
We sat around the table, sampling the cultured butter Tabby had given me. I’d picked up a loaf of rustic ciabatta at the Spring Creek Bakery on the way home. Dad was at the counter, dressing the trout a friend had given him with lemon and dill. That’s what he’d been so excited about: scoring the fresh fish. Erin had gone upstairs to change out of her hiking clothes. Bright sunburn swooped across Meghan’s perky little nose, and her freckles stood out in stark relief. Anna Belle had just finished lecturing her on the strength of the sun at high altitude and broken off a piece of the aloe vera plant on the window sill for my friend to rub on her burn.
“So did you make this?” Meghan asked me now.
“No. Tabby did, but tomorrow I’ll learn how.”
“You know, Europeans regularly culture their butter.” There was a tang of self-satisfaction in Dad’s voice.
“And we don’t in America? Then where does cultured buttermilk come from?” Meghan asked.
“In most cases, the buttermilk itself is cultured, rather than the cream before it’s churned into butter.”
Erin entered the kitchen and plopped down on a chair. “You
churned
butter today? God, Sophie Mae. Don’t you think this whole pioneer woman thing is getting out of control?”
“Actually, I didn’t. Maybe tomorrow, though I’d be surprised if we use a churn. More likely a food processor. Not exactly like sitting on the front porch working a dasher.”
“What’s a dasher?”
“The handle thingie that you move up and down in a traditional butter churn.”
“See what I mean?” she said. “You know what a dasher is. Do you know how weird that is?”
“Hey!” I protested.
She shook her head. “I’m going down to that park I saw at the end of the block. See if I can find someone normal to hang out with.” She stood.
“Ahem,” Meghan said.
Erin paused. “I mean, is it okay if I go down to that park?”
Meghan hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. But be back in an hour.”
Erin shrugged. “Whatever.”
Meghan watched her go, and then we heard the front door open and close. She turned back to us with a frustrated expression. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
Anna Belle laughed. “Years. And there will only be more. Brace yourself.”
“Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad, was I?” I asked.
“You never got into any serious trouble, but boy did you have some attitude on you when you were growing up.”
Meghan snorted. “Like that’s changed.”
I made a face at her, then looked at Anna Belle. “Gee, I wonder where I would have learned attitude.”
A smile flitted across my father’s face. “It sounds like you got a chance to do a little extra credit work at the dairy. How is Tabby?”
“She seems happy. Has a fifteen-year-old daughter.”
Meghan looked sympathetic.
“And she’s going to give me private classes on cheese making, so I’ll be at the dairy for a while every day. And day after tomorrow, I’m going to take the mold-ripened cheese class.”
“Can I come?” Meghan asked.
“I don’t see why not. Tabby said it hardly ever fills up.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Excellent.”
“I showed her Bobby Lee’s letter.”
My mother’s eyes widened in alarm, flicking sideways to my dad.
“It’s okay,” I said to her. “He already knows about the letter.”
She blinked, then whirled around. “You do?”
His lips twitched. “Uh huh.”
She looked pointedly at me.
“What? I didn’t tell him. He already knew before we got here.”
Her attention returned to him. “Calvin! How long have you known? How did you find out? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Pick one,” he said.
“One what?”
“Question.” His smile widened.
“But … how—oh, never mind.” Anna Belle scowled at us both. I couldn’t blame her. By now she must suspect she didn’t have any secrets left. I wondered whether Dad had read the old high school love letters. Even I hadn’t stepped over the line that far.
Dad settled at the table with us. “Tell us what you found out, Sophie Mae.”
So I did, including my visits to the post office, Celeste Atwood’s house, and the library, and what I had discovered.
Which, after I’d gone over everything, wasn’t much. “So I spent most of my day trying to track down information and came up with a big fat zero. Sorry.”
Dad shook his head. “That’s not true. You found out Tabby’s mother returned the letter and Tabby knew nothing about it. And you found out Tabby herself either doesn’t know what Bobby Lee meant, or won’t tell you. Believe it or not, that’s progress.”
“The mystery of how that letter appeared out of nowhere has only deepened, though,” I said.
Anna Belle drummed her fingernails on the table, looking out the window.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
Her attention came back to us. “You said you printed out the newspaper articles you found at the library?”
I got up and removed the pages from my bag. “Right here.”
She held out her hand. “Let us take a look at them. Maybe we can help.”
Handing her the printouts, I said, “I hope so. I need all the help I can get.”
My mother stood. “I’ll see what I can do. And then, after dinner?”
I waited.
She smiled. “We can go over the progress I made on your wedding plans while you were gone today.”
“What? Anna Belle!”
She left the room, and I turned to Dad and Meghan. “Did you hear that? She’s planning my wedding without me.”
Meghan laughed. “There are people who would pay for that service, and here you are, getting it for free. Now, what kind of cheese did you make today?”
“Mozzarella,” I grumbled.
“Really? Can we do it at home?”
I launched into a detailed description of the process while my housemate listened with interest, my mother’s wedding-related antics hovering in the back of my mind.

Not until after a
dinner of grilled trout, green beans, and caprese salad—made with tomatoes and basil from Anna Belle’s kitchen garden and the tennis-ball-sized round of fresh mozzarella I’d brought home from class—did I have a chance to follow up with my mother regarding my wedding.
But first I stopped by my old bedroom to say goodnight to Erin. I found her sitting in bed, Kitty Wampus draped across her legs. The beast cracked one eye when I came into the room, then gave a languid stretch and returned to full slumber.
Erin barely glanced up from her Philip Pullman novel when I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she mumbled.
“I bet you miss Brodie, huh.” Her corgi was staying with our neighbor, Mrs. Gray, while we were gone.
She shrugged. “I guess.”
That was weird. She loved that dog.
“Erin.”
She looked up at me from under her eyebrows without raising her head.
“Are you mad at me? Did I do something?”
“No.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
Big sigh from Erin. “Acting like what?”
“Well, like you’re mad at me.”
Yet another shrug. I felt like putting her in a straitjacket.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Listen—when you want to tell me, I’ll be here to listen. Okay?”
Our eyes met for a few moments. Raw vulnerability shone from hers. “I’m sorry I haven’t been very nice.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on?”
She blinked and shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Erin—”
“Can I read now?” She returned to her book, effectively ignoring me.
I leaned back and watched her for a few moments. Yes, something was definitely up. It almost made me feel better to know that, because it meant that this bright and funny girl had not somehow morphed into a rude pre-teen. This wasn’t about attitude, or at least not only about attitude.
She’d tell me or Meghan when she was ready. But she’d better be ready soon, because I was getting tired of being treated like an enemy.
As I’d expected, Anna Belle was working at her desk. I cleared a pile of books off one end of an old carved bench and sat down, leaning my back against the wall.
“What are you working on?” I asked.
She pushed the pile of papers aside. “Finals. Marketing 101. Summer course.”
I took the bull by the horns. “You mentioned something earlier about wedding details?” There: my voice was calm, my words carefully chosen to sidestep conflict.
She dropped her red pen on the desk blotter and leaned back in her chair with a satisfied look on her face. “Not much. Just checked on the schedule of a certain judge who lives near that perfect venue we’ve talked about. Oh, and I talked to a friend of mine who’s a florist, and she had some very nice suggestions for arrangements.” Suddenly she was gushing. “What do you think of gerbera daisies? Have you decided on your colors? And are you planning to wear white? I know it’s not strictly traditional for second weddings, but more and more people are doing it, you know. It’s perfectly acceptable.”
She launched to her feet and began pacing behind the desk while I looked on, slack-jawed. “We really have to get the invitations put together first. Good Lord, Sophie Mae, you haven’t left much time for planning, now have you? I’ll tell you what: Get me a guest list by tomorrow, and I’ll get right to work on ordering the invitations.”
“Stop,” I said.
“At least we won’t have any problem booking the Horseshoe Guest Ranch, given it belongs to your future in-laws, but—”
“Stop.”
This time she stopped. Stared at me. “Now, you weren’t serious about not having a real wedding, were you?”
“Absolutely. Positively. Is there any other word I can use to get that through your head?”
Her excitement and high energy disappeared, as if all the air had been released from her balloon. “I talked to Cassie Ambrose, you know. She’s thrilled at the idea of you and Barr getting married at their place.”
I sighed. Barr’s family owned a guest ranch a few hours north, in Wyoming. For weeks now Anna Belle had lobbied for us to get married in the main lodge. I’d seen pictures of the ranch on their website and had to admit it looked beautiful. I had yet to meet any of Barr’s family—we hadn’t even been dating for a year before getting engaged, and we hadn’t had a chance to make it back to Wyoming during that time. However, I frequently spoke with his mother, Cassie, on the phone, and I loved her to death.
No, the sticking point with getting married at the Ambrose’s Horseshoe Ranch wasn’t the facilities or Barr’s family. It was his brother Randall’s girlfriend who had worked at the ranch for years.
Who happened to be Barr’s ex-wife.
And looked freakishly like me.
We’d had our difficulties before—one encounter involved a handgun—and I just couldn’t imagine having to deal with Hannah on my wedding day. Still, I didn’t say anything to Anna Belle about that. For one thing I didn’t think she’d be all that sympathetic, and for another, I felt like a big baby.
I let out a slow, deep breath. “I’ll talk to Barr about it.”
Her eyes brightened at that and the corners of her mouth turned up. “Excellent. Now, about those gerberas …”