I reached for my purse and tucked the envelope inside. “Please thank Everett for me,” I said to Lita. “And thank you for delivering it.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, peeling off her other glove and stuffing them both into one of the pockets of her duffle coat. “I was coming out anyway. Our coffeemaker died and Everett doesn’t work well uncaffeinated.”
“Neither do I,” I said with a grin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rebecca roll hers. She thought I drank a bit too much coffee. I thought there was no such thing as too much coffee.
“Is everything set for tonight?” Lita asked.
I nodded. “Everything’s ready,” I said. “Wait until you see the stage. You’ll think Maggie and Ruby somehow transported a Parisian street to Minnesota.”
I had my fingers crossed that the gala would raise enough money to expand Reading Buddies. The program had turned out to have benefits I had never anticipated. I’d seen the little ones blossom under the attention of the older kids, and many of the older ones had developed a strong sense of maturity and responsibility toward their little students.
“Everyone’s looking forward to this,” she said, loosening the red-and-black scarf at her neck. She smiled. “I better get back to the office. If you need anything, call me there or on my cell.”
“I will,” I said, returning the smile.
“See you tonight,” Lita said to all three of us before heading for the counter, where Nic had just started a new pot of coffee.
I watched her weave her way around the tables and wondered if Lita would show up alone, or with Burtis Chapman. Lita and the burly “entrepreneur” had been quietly seeing each other for several months. I’d only figured it out because I’d seen them in a close moment in the library parking lot. Lita and Burtis were very different. She’d worked for Everett for years. Burtis had a number of small businesses. Rumor had it that some of them danced on the edge of being legal.
I was surprised that they had managed to keep their relationship quiet. It wasn’t easy to keep a secret in Mayville Heights; the town was so small. And in Lita’s case she seemed to be related, one way or another, to pretty much everyone in town.
“Rebecca, how long has Lita been Everett’s assistant?” I asked.
“Ever since he came back to Mayville Heights for good,” she said. “Lita was very young when she was married—and divorced. She wanted to stay here and raise her girls, and Everett needed an assistant who knew the town as much as he needed someone who was organized and efficient. That was Lita to a tee.”
“Is it just my imagination or is Lita pretty much related to everyone in Mayville Heights?”
Roma laughed as she set down her mug. “It’s not your imagination.”
Rebecca leaned back in her chair, nodding in agreement. “Her mother’s family and her father’s family were the first non–Native American settlers here. Only the Blackthornes have been here longer. Half the town is cousin to Lita on her father’s side and the other half is related through her mother. I think the only people she’s not related to are the Chapmans, and that’s just because Chapman men tend to marry women from somewhere else and bring them back here.” She laughed. “Which is a good thing or we’d all be our own grandparents.”
“What about you?” I said. Across the room Eric had just come out of the kitchen carrying a large stainless steel thermos.
“We’re cousins about half a dozen times removed through our mothers,” Rebecca said. “On the Hale side of the family.”
Roma glanced at her watch. “You know that Oren and I are second cousins.”
I nodded.
“Well, we’re cousins with Lita somehow on the Villier side of the family, her father’s ancestors.” She reached for her scarf on the back of her chair. “As much as I’d like to sit here, I should get back to the clinic.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door to the café swing open and a well-dressed woman step inside. I knew immediately that she was, as my friend Harry Taylor would put it, from away. She was wearing beautiful high-heeled, black leather boots. They seemed molded to her long legs—no room for a pile lining for warmth—and the very high heels weren’t practical for navigating snowbanks. I’d learned that the hard way my first winter in town.
I looked down at my warm, lace-up footwear. My boots might not have been trendsetters, but my feet were warm and dry.
I glanced at the woman again. She had the collar of her elegant coat turned up against the side of her face, and her shoulders were hunched as though she was cold.
Rebecca turned her head, probably to see what I was looking at. She put one hand, palm down, on the table and some of the color seemed to drain from her face.
“Oh my word,” she said softly. “It can’t be.”
I put my hand on the older woman’s arm. “Is something wrong?”
She let out a breath. “I’m not sure.”
Roma shot me a worried glance. “Rebecca, do you know that woman?” she asked.
Rebecca nodded. “I do,” she said. “That’s Dayna Chapman, Burtis Chapman’s wife.”
2
“Dayna Chapman?” I repeated. “Burtis Chapman’s wife?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said, her gaze locked on the woman making her way toward the counter and Lita. “Ex-wife.”
Two frown lines appeared between Roma’s eyes. “Rebecca, are you all right?” she asked.
Rebecca shook her head and turned back toward us. “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching up to give Roma’s hand a squeeze. “Seeing Dayna was a little like seeing a ghost for a moment. She hasn’t been back here in more than twenty years.”
“I wonder what brought her back now,” Roma said as she shrugged on her jacket.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Rebecca’s eyes darted over to the counter again where Lita, still holding the thermos Eric had brought from the kitchen, was now talking to Burtis’s ex-wife.
The normally unflappable Lita was uncomfortable with the conversation, I realized. I could tell from the rigid way she held herself, shoulders stiff under her heavy jacket, back as straight as a metal signpost.
“I’d better get going,” Roma said, pulling on her gloves. “I’ll see you tonight. I think it’ll be fun.”
“I hope so,” I said. “If you talk to Eddie please thank him again for me.”
“I will.” She smiled at Rebecca. “Thank you for the coffee break,” she said, and then she headed for the door.
I reached for my own coat, noticing that Rebecca had darted another glance in Dayna and Lita’s direction. “You know, don’t you?” I said.
Rebecca focused all her attention on me. Her blue eyes searched my face. I waited for her to ask, “Know what?” After a moment she smiled and said, “How long have you known?”
“Since the fall.”
“Lita is a good person,” Rebecca said, pulling on her hat, a soft rose cloche. “This last year is the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time.”
Burtis and Lita had been a couple for the last year? How had they managed to keep that quiet?
“I like Lita,” I said, patting my pockets for my gloves. “And I like Burtis.”
It was true. The library renovations, which had originally brought me to town, would have been a lot more frustrating without Lita to answer all of my questions. And I considered Burtis a friend. We’d gotten to know each other after I discovered the body of Roma’s biological father, Tom Karlsson, out at Wisteria Hill, the old Henderson family homestead.
“I can’t help wondering what she’s doing here now,” Rebecca said, reaching for her purse and the check.
“Maybe she’s here for the fundraiser or Vincent Starr’s lecture tomorrow,” I said.
“It’s possible,” she said, but the tone of her voice said she didn’t really think so.
I leaned over and gave her a hug. “Thank you for this.”