She waved to Ruby and headed for the stairs. She was a woman on a mission. I was glad I’d made a full pot of coffee.
8
The journal-making workshop was just as successful as Vincent Starr’s talk had been. I wasn’t surprised. Ruby was a natural teacher—good at explaining her techniques in simple terms. When the class was over, five different people sought me out to ask if we were planning more workshops.
Maggie showed up about ten to twelve—dropped off by none other than Brady Chapman. The library closed at lunchtime on Saturdays. We climbed into the truck and headed for Wisteria Hill to have lunch with Roma and help her continue to fix up the place.
“How did Ruby’s workshop go?” Mags asked as I started up Mountain Road.
“Really well. All but two people put their e-mail addresses on a list to be notified about more workshops, and they were tourists from out of state.”
Maggie clapped her mittened hands together and smiled at me. “I knew people would love her class. I wish I’d been able to get there, but Oren and I spent the morning going over the plans for the changes to the store.”
Maggie had gotten a grant to renovate the artist co-op store and add a small space for demonstrations and courses in the summer and fall. Oren was going to do the work.
I glanced over at her. “What did he think about your drawings?”
Maggie pulled off her fuzzy hat and ran her fingers through her blond curls. “He had a couple of suggestions for changes—he thinks we should move the half wall about a foot to the right and he suggested glass block for the other wall.”
I tried to picture the sketches Maggie had made for the proposed changes to the main floor of the store. “I do like the idea of using the glass block,” I said. “It would let in more light.”
“I do, too,” Maggie said. “Oren says that costwise it should work out about the same.”
We talked about the renovations all the way out to Wisteria Hill. I wondered when Mags was going to tell me that Brady had dropped her off at the library. There was something going on between those two. I knew she’d tell me about it eventually.
As I flicked on my blinker to turn into the driveway of the old estate, I thought about all the changes that had happened since Roma bought the property from Everett. The house and grounds had been empty for so long. I’d always thought the whole place had an air of sadness. Now that Roma was getting ready to live in the old farmhouse, it somehow seemed alive again.
I had a big soft spot for Wisteria Hill. It was where I’d found Hercules and Owen—or to be more exact, it was where they had found me. It was where Marcus and I had become friends—and then more than friends.
Once Roma was living there full-time, she wouldn’t need her group of volunteers who made sure that the feral cat colony in the old carriage house was fed and cared for. I was going to miss watching Lucy and the other cats.
Roma waved from the kitchen window as we got out of the truck. This was my first chance to see the kitchen since Oren had finished installing the new cupboards.
We took off our boots in what used to be the old side porch. Now it was a combination mudroom/laundry/storage area.
“Ready?” Roma asked, eyes sparkling.
Maggie and I both nodded.
Oren had done a beautiful job on the new cupboards—not that I’d ever had any doubt of that. Maggie and I had helped Roma steam about a hundred years’ worth of wallpaper off the kitchen walls. Before training camp Eddie had patched and repaired them and Maggie and I had spent a weekend helping Roma paint the kitchen a creamy shade of palest yellow. The new kitchen cupboards were a simple Shaker style, painted white, and they went beautifully with the buttery walls and the wide boards of the refinished hardwood floor.
“Oh, Roma, it’s beautiful,” I said.
Maggie put her arm around Roma’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “It really is,” she agreed.
Everett and Rebecca had left Roma the original farmhouse kitchen table as a kind of housewarming present. It sat in the far corner, surrounded by a bank of windows.
“Hey, where did you get the chairs?” Maggie asked, pointing to the corner.
I looked across the room and realized Roma had four new-to-her chairs that looked as though they’d been made to go with the big table.
“Eddie and I found them at a flea market,” she said. She smiled at me. “Marcus said he’ll spray-paint them black for me in the spring.”
“Isn’t he a sweetheart?” Maggie said, giving me a saccharine grin. She was never going to let me forget she’d thought Marcus and I were perfect for each other about ten minutes after we’d met.
“Yes, he is,” I said, making a face at her.
“So you like the kitchen?” Roma asked. “Really?”
“Very much,” I said.
“Me too,” Maggie agreed, running a hand over one of the cabinet doors. “The energy of the entire house has changed.”
She was right. The lonely feeling the old place used to give off was gone.
Roma had made minestrone soup for lunch and there were thick slices of brown bread and a wedge of cheddar cheese. We ate at the kitchen table.
“This is Rebecca’s brown bread, isn’t it?” I said.
Roma nodded. “Yep. She brought it out this morning along with two new shelters for the cats.”
Since the cats were feral, they lived in the old carriage house year-round. Harry Taylor Junior had strengthened and added insulation to one corner of the old building, where hay had once been stored. Rebecca and several other volunteers had made warm sleeping shelters for each cat out of large plastic storage bins with straw for insulation.
“How are Lucy and the others?” I asked. Lucy was the smallest member of the feral cat family, but she was its undisputed leader. We seemed to have a rapport. Maggie liked to call me the Cat Whisperer.
Roma looked out the window toward the carriage house. “I’m going to put the cage out for Smokey.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shifted her gaze to me. “He was moving a lot more slowly yesterday and he didn’t eat very much.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Smokey was the oldest cat in the colony as far as Roma could tell. The scar above his right eye and the missing tip of his tail made me wonder what his life had been like before Roma had discovered the cats and taken over their care.
She gave me a half smile. “Thanks. There isn’t anything you can do right now. I’ll let you know how he is once I get him down to the clinic.”
Maggie shot me a look of sympathy and I picked up my spoon again. “What about Micah?” I asked.
Micah was a small ginger tabby that had been wandering around Wisteria Hill since early fall.
Roma broke a slice of bread in half and dipped a piece in her bowl. “She shows up to eat about every second day. But it doesn’t matter what I put in the cage; I can’t catch her.”
Maggie’s head was bent over her bowl, but she inclined it in my direction. “You need to use the Cat Whisperer and her sidekick, the Cat Detective,” she said.
Roma laughed. “The Cat Detective?”
Maggie smiled. “Marcus is the one who found Desmond and brought him to the clinic, which is how you ended up discovering the cats up here. That makes him the Cat Detective.”
“Very funny,” I said.
“And Marcus managed to figure out that Micah was a girl cat and not a boy cat, something that had stymied the best veterinary minds in town,” Maggie added teasingly.
When Roma first spotted Micah she’d thought the little cat was male. Later, when Marcus and I encountered him, he quickly saw that “he” was in fact “she.”
Roma squared her shoulders, and her chin jutted out. “I wasn’t wearing glasses,” she said.
“That’s because you don’t need glasses.” I reached for the cheese.
She crinkled her nose at me. “I mean my sunglasses,” she said. “It was a very bright day.”