3
Maddie and Leo sat opposite each another at a table in the corner of a quaint little sandwich shop near Abbott College.
The fact that this lunch felt very date-like to Maddie was an aberration brought on by her own wishful thinking. He’s your deceased friend’s husband. We’re here to plan the garage sale! Nothing more!
“Are you sure your parents won’t mind hosting our garage sale at their house?” Maddie asked. They’d already determined that her apartment wouldn’t work and that his house, which was situated ten minutes outside of town, was too remote.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I talked it over with them. Their house is in town, and they have plenty of room on their driveway and in their garage. My sisters will help. It should work out well.”
“Okay, perfect.”
Their food arrived. Since she was celiac and couldn’t eat gluten, she’d opted for a soup, salad, and chips combo. Her mouth was watering, especially due to the potato chips. Potato chips were her favorite food group. She took out her phone.
“Are you taking a picture of your lunch?” Leo asked with bemusement.
“I am. I’m a fan of Instagram. Are you?”
“Are you on any of the social media platforms?”
“I have a Facebook account that I haven’t checked since 2016.”
She felt her dimples crease her cheeks as she adjusted her phone, trying to achieve just the right lighting and angle. “Well, I love looking at pictures on Instagram and sharing my own. Since I don’t get out that much and since this lunch is so very pretty, this photo is too good to pass up.”
“I see. Do people like looking at pictures of food?”
“Indeed.” She ended up having to stand and hover over her lunch like a praying mantis in order to capture the right shot. “Got it.” She lowered into her chair.
He was looking at her as if entertained. “Are you going to post that now?”
“No, no.” She waved a hand. “I’ll post it later.” She realized he hadn’t made a move toward his food. “Please don’t let me hold you up.”
He picked up his sandwich. A man who ordered a ham and Swiss on rye with lettuce and tomato was a very reliable type of man.
Also, looking into his gray eyes was muddling her thoughts and tempting her to imagine that they were on a date.
You’re not!
But it sure would be nice if they were. . . . if he’d never been married to Olivia and she was someone he’d just met, instead of a friend of his wife’s he’d known for years.
As they ate, they talked through their plans for their garage sale.
Once they’d covered everything, Maddie decided to venture a personal question. A this-isn’t-a-date type of personal question. “When you moved to Merryweather last summer, I assumed that you did so to be near your parents and Olivia’s parents. Is that why you moved?”
“Yes.” Leo sat back a few degrees in his chair. “Soon after Olivia died, I realized that it would be best for Charlie and me if we could live near his grandparents, but Abbot didn’t have any openings in my field at the time.”
Abbott College had been founded in the mid-1800s. Its campus brimmed with historic buildings, jade lawns, and the rarified air of advanced education. It was the pride of Mason County.
“A year ago, they finally posted a position that I had the qualifications for. The search committee called me in for an interview last February.” He ran a hand through his sandy hair, which left sexy furrows. “I wanted the job for Charlie’s sake, as well as mine, so I was nervous going in. Afterward, I worried that I might not get it.”
“I’m so happy that you did, Leo.”
“Me too. Abbott’s enrollment is less than fifteen hundred so most of my classes have fewer than twenty students, and they have on-site day care so I can go over between classes and push Charlie on the swings.”
She ate a bite of pickle. “How’s it been living near Olivia’s parents and yours?”
He regarded her with his straightforward, alert gaze. When talking with Leo, she never felt that his attention was anywhere else. Having all that IQ focused on her was so heady that it made her stomach tingle.
“Better than I’d hoped,” he answered. “Charlie gets to hang out with Olivia’s parents and her brother’s kids, and my parents and sisters. They’re all more involved in his life now.”
“Your younger sisters are both teachers, too, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “Both are pursuing their masters at the moment.”
“Degrees seem to run in your family, Leo.”
“Except for Audrey, who is totally unlike the rest of us.”
“Is she still working in the theater world in Los Angeles?”
“Still is.”
Olivia had once told Maddie that Leo had been raised in a family similar to that of Belle from Beauty and the Beast—brainy, creative, and just a little bit scatterbrained. “There are books everywhere,” Olivia had said with fond confusion, “being read by everyone all the time.” Other than Leo, Olivia had related to Audrey best. The rest of the Donnellys, while certainly friendly, had perplexed her.
“Is Brandon still working as a bartender?” Leo asked.
Leo had only met Maddie’s family members a few times, and always at highly attended occasions like weddings. Yet he remembered everyone’s first name, plus details about them. “Yes, for a few hours a week. The rest of the time he’s a professional slacker.”
Leo gave one of his subdued smiles, and it set off fireworks within her.
Holy cow. Get a hold of thyself, Maddie.
“He graduated, didn’t he?” Leo asked.
What were they talking about? Ah. Brandon. “Yes, he pursued the six-year plan and received a degree in video game design last spring before moving in with my parents. Since then, he’s been playing video games, but he hasn’t been designing any.” Her younger brother was as content as he was shiftless. “My dad has no idea where he went wrong with Brandon and me.”
“You’re not in the same category as Brandon. You have a great job.”
“I think so, but my dad’s not as convinced.” Her father had once had aspirations of etching Dr. Maddie Winslow and Dr. Brandon Winslow into the frosted glass of his office door beneath Dr. Thomas Winslow.
Instead, she ran a chocolate shop. Brandon slept late, ate everything in her parents’ pantry, and yelled instructions to professional athletes during games as if they could hear him. “My dad was hoping that, at the very least, I’d become a high-powered executive in San Francisco.”
“San Francisco?”
“I took a marketing job there right after college. I was miserable. I sat in a cubicle doing work I hated for a man who wasn’t very nice. I didn’t like the pressure or the anonymity or any of it. I was lonely.”
“So you came home.”
“I did.”
Until that time in her life, she’d thought she wanted to be a high-powered executive. Those two years had taught her differently. What she actually wanted was to live a simpler, more slow-paced life, surrounded by people she knew and cared about.
Maddie was an achiever, but she wasn’t motivated by money. What motivated her far more? The challenge of building Sweet Art into the best little chocolate shop it could be.
“You’re content with what you do, aren’t you?” Leo asked.
“Yes. I can post as many Instagram pictures as I want while on the job.” She grinned.
“Being a doctor or a high-powered executive is overrated.”
“You’re a doctor, Professor.”
“So I should know.” He looked into her eyes, and her muscles clenched with yearning.
The Saturday following her non-date with Leo, Maddie arrived at Carmichaels Christmas Tree Farm. Carmichaels, a local institution, was everything a person could want in a Christmas tree farm. Red barn in the center. Kindly farmer and his wife manning the property. Hot apple cider.
When Maddie and Leo had asked Kim what Christmas decorations they could supply, she’d informed them that she had plenty. Her only decorative need: a tree.
Happiness tugged at Maddie when she spotted Leo and Charlie waiting for her by the hot cider stand. It didn’t look like Kim and her girls had arrived yet.
Charlie ran to her on his short, robust legs. Leo had dressed him in corduroys, tiny Adidas sneakers, and his navy coat. “Hi!” he called, extending his hand as far into the sky as it would go.
Maddie knelt down to greet him. “Hi, yourself. You look extra cute today.”
“You look cute today, too.”
“Why, thank you. What a gentlemanly thing to say. Are you ready to go shopping for Christmas trees?”
“Yes. Daddy says I can pick out a tree for our house.” Olivia’s blue eyes peered at her from Charlie’s mostly angelic, yet ever-so-slightly mischievous face.
Olivia’s eyes. Would there ever be a time when she’d look at Charlie’s face and not experience a twist of grief? Grief for Charlie, grief for Leo, and grief for herself?
“I’m sure the one you choose will be perfect,” she told Charlie as they made their way to Leo. “He tells me that you’ve given him permission to pick out a tree for your house,” Maddie called.
“I did. I like living dangerously.” Leo’s tan canvas jacket complemented the gold and light brown shades of his hair. His classic black Ray-Bans reflected back an image of herself standing before him, surrounded by a cool, overcast morning.
Charlie scampered off to receive a mug of cider from Mrs. Carmichael.
“You’re not worried he’ll pick out a twenty-foot-tall tree?” she asked, voice pitched low.
“I don’t intend to show him any of the twenty-foot-tall trees.” His lips curved. “Experience has taught me a few things.”
Maddie smiled back. “I’m planning to pick out a tree for my apartment today, too.”
“So we’ll be shopping for trees for three households?”
“Correct. However, since the church hasn’t given us funds for the Huntingtons yet, I want you to know that I’ll pay for the Huntington’s tree. I don’t want you to think I expect you to open your wallet and start covering Mission:Christmas expenses right off the bat.”
“I was looking forward to paying for the Huntington’s tree. It sounds like the money from the church and the garage sale will pay for most of the rest. A tree is the least that Charlie and I can do.”
“You’re already giving of your time, though.”
“So are you.”
“In that case, we can split the cost of the Huntington’s tree. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Kim, Victoria, and Samantha hurried in their direction. “The girls are so excited about this,” Kim said as she wrapped Maddie in a hug. “I just love Carmichaels. Don’t you? This place is the cutest and—” Kim broke off as she spotted Mrs. Carmichael approaching, carrying a tray. “Well, here she comes now. You’re about to see for yourselves how delicious this cider is,” she told her daughters.
When Maddie accepted her cup, steam fragrant with cinnamon and apples filled her senses.
Their group climbed onto the waiting tractor bed and took seats on the hay bales lining its sides. Mr. Carmichael settled into the driver’s seat of the tractor and towed them toward the portion of his acreage containing trees for sale this season.
“You should take a picture of this,” Leo said. “For Instagram.”
“Oh! Right.” She spent time taking multiple shots she could comb through later in search of the best. As she did so, she could feel Leo’s attention on her like heat.
Charlie kept up a steady stream of chatter with Victoria and Samantha and Kim. When they motored over smooth stretches, they all attempted sips of the cider.
After exiting the tractor bed, they’d walked barely ten yards when Charlie made his tree selection. “This one!” He pointed, jumping up and down with excitement.
Leo held the double-handled saw they’d been entrusted with. Kim looked greatly amused. Her girls appeared befuddled.
The tree Charlie had picked was perhaps the ugliest tree on the farm. Squat. Sparse. A big bare patch in front. Tilting to one side.
“Are you sure?” Leo asked, no censure in his voice.
“I’m sure!”
“This is the one?”
“Yes!”
“All right then, buddy.” Leo gave Maddie a glance laced with humor while Charlie danced a circle around the tree.
“Perhaps you can turn the bald spot to the wall?” Maddie whispered.
“And trim it straight?” Leo whispered back.
“And add lots of lights so that no one will notice that it’s not very . . . full.”
Charlie beamed.
The little boy’s delight reminded her that the heart liked what the heart liked. She and Leo bent on either side of the trunk, then worked together to cut down the homely tree.
Her own heart also liked what it liked, despite all her self-lectures and all her best efforts.
Maddie grunted as she lifted a cardboard box marked Winslow Family China off of a box marked Save for Maddie.
She was spending her Sunday afternoon foraging for items for the garage sale. To that end, she’d bravely scaled the pull-down steps that led to her parent’s attic. Her father was tidy, so like the rest of the house, everything here was well organized. Nonetheless, a tinge of spookiness hung in the air.
Maddie’s family and friends had supported her involvement in Mission:Christmas by purging their belongings annually in order to stock her sale. So far this December, her purging pile and her parents’ purging pile were both looking thin. Her mom had mentioned that Maddie might be able to find more items in the attic, so here she was.
The Save for Maddie box was promising. She used the pair of scissors she’d brought with her to slit the duct tape holding the box closed. Sinking to her knees, she opened the cardboard flaps. A few well-loved, bedraggled stuffed animals rested on top. Below that, her favorite books from when she’d been small. Then artifacts from her school days.
None of this was garage-sale worthy.
After setting aside folded baby clothes and blankets, she unearthed a small, stained fabric bag, fragile with age. A bouquet of purple flowers had been stitched onto the front.
Maddie set her weight on her heels and lifted the bag. She could feel the contours of something inside, something firm. Turning the bag over, she saw that a row of letters and dates had been stitched onto the back. The topmost line read LD 1768. The bottommost read FBC 1959.
What in the world?
Gently, she opened the drawstring. A piece of jewelry slid onto her palm.
Silver had been artfully sculpted into interlocking hearts to form a base that supported a large pale purple heart-shaped stone. A single wide clasp stretched across the back. A brooch. An old brooch? She’d never seen it before. She’d have remembered if she had, surely. So why was it in her box?
She tilted the brooch to catch the light from the utilitarian bulb above. The stone seemed to draw in radiance, to glow with it . . . almost magically.
She carried the treasure down the attic steps in search of her mom and came upon Brandon watching TV in the game room. “Haven’t moved a muscle since I went to the attic, I see,” she said.
“Why would I?” He tilted a thumb in the direction of the flat screen. “Football’s on.”
“Hey, how about when I come back, you go up to the attic with me and help me hunt for garage-sale items?”
“Yeah, I would, but it might mess up my manicure.”
She snorted and continued downstairs.
Her mom stood at the kitchen island, rolling out pie crust.
“I found something,” Maddie said.
“Great, honey!” She had yet to look up.
“I found something mysterious that might be valuable.”
“Hmm?” The movement of the rolling pin ceased and her mom regarded her quizzically.
Maddie displayed the brooch, cushioned on top of the bag it had come in.
Her mom’s features slackened with surprise. “Oh my goodness.” She extended a hand. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
Maddie passed over the brooch and took a seat on one of the island’s barstools. Mom smiled at the piece of jewelry with nostalgic affection.
Her mom’s face was as familiar to Maddie as her own, and still, Laura Winslow’s prettiness always seemed fresh. Her mom’s thick, white-gray hair ended in a crisp line near the base of her throat. Her strawberries-and-cream complexion shone with health. And her blue eyes were surrounded by wrinkles that looked wise and beautiful rather than haggard. She wore an apron that said Kiss the Cook over her jeans and cotton top.
“Where did the brooch come from?” Maddie asked.
“Grandma gave it to me when I graduated from high school.”
They called Maddie’s paternal grandmother Nonni. They called Fleeta Chapin, Maddie’s maternal grandmother, Grandma. “Is the stone real?”
“Yes. It’s an amethyst.”
“Then it must be worth a considerable amount of money, right?”
“Possibly. Since I never planned to sell it, I never had it appraised. It’s a family heirloom.”
“It is?”
“Oh, yes. It’s been passed down by the women in our family for generations.”
Maddie raised her eyebrows.
“The women are all noted on the bag, if I remember correctly.” Mom donned her reading glasses, which had been lying next to the cherry pie recipe. “Yes. See here? Each woman in our family who’s owned the brooch has been added to this list.”
“Those are their initials, I’m guessing. And what, their birth dates?”
“Those are their married initials, I think. And their wedding dates.”
“Wow.” It appeared that the same woman had stitched the first several lines because they were all in the same color and style. “Why does the fourth lady have four initials and two dates?” Maddie asked. “Was she married twice?”
The other lines had been sewn with different colors of thread in varying styles. The last inscription, FBC 1959, was overlarge and lopsided. “Wait a second. Is FBC Grandma?”
“It must be. Her married name is Fleeta Brady Chapin, and she married Dad in 1959.”
“Grandma isn’t the neatest seamstress.”
“She’s always been better at shooting than sewing.”
“Why aren’t your initials on here?”
“I meant to sew them on.” She gave an airy shrug. “I just never got around to it.”
Maddie positioned the brooch next to the bag on the island. “Why was this brooch in a box in the attic marked Save for Maddie?”
“Well.” Mom resumed rolling out the circle of piecrust. “I packed it away in that box to save it until the time came to give it to you. For your high school graduation or college graduation or on some other special occasion. But, goodness, I must’ve packed that box back when you were ten. The brooch never crossed my mind when you graduated high school and college. I haven’t thought about it in ages.”
Mom was loving and social and cheerful but not necessarily the most detail-oriented of women. Her relaxed approach to life led to a high degree of contentment and a high number of things that fell through the cracks. Leaving a valuable piece of jewelry in the attic for years—typical.
“Sorry I forgot, honey,” she continued. “This isn’t as sentimental a moment as I might have hoped, but here you are.” Her eyes glittered with humor as she brandished a flour-dusted hand toward the brooch. “From me to you! Mother to daughter. Enjoy!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Maddie said dryly.
“Are you frustrated with me for failing to give it to you when I should have?”
“No, it’s okay. It’s hard to be frustrated about not receiving something you never knew existed.”
“An hour from now we can celebrate the brooch over this gluten-free cherry pie I’m making especially for you. How’s that?”
“That’ll work.” Maddie was not one to pass up her mom’s homemade pie. Ever.
Mom slipped the crust into the prepared pan then began crimping its edges. “There’s a legend that goes along with the brooch.”
“A legend?”
She nodded. “I’ll have to think on it. I believe it had to do with the bearer of the brooch discovering true love.”
“Hm?”
“Yes. Isn’t that sweet?”
“You mean to tell me that a brooch that might have the power to bring true love into my life has been gathering dust under baby blankets?”
Mom grinned. “That about sums it up. Not that I believe in the legend.”
“Yet you said that Grandma gave it to you when you graduated from high school. Right after that, you went off to the University of South Carolina and immediately met Dad.”
Maddie’s dad occasionally verged onto overly intense and taciturn territory with his kids. Never with Mom, though. Mom softened him into a cream puff.
The two had become friends shortly after arriving at the university. For more than two years, Dad bided his time while planning his careful strategy to win Mom’s heart. Eventually, he’d succeeded. When he returned to his home state of Washington for med school, he’d brought both an undergrad diploma and a new wife with him.
It was a match made in heaven. Of all the married couples Maddie knew, her parents’ relationship was one of the best.
Come to think of it, Grandma and Grandpa had a wonderful marriage, too. They were both upwards of eighty and had been married close to sixty years.
“It was a coincidence that I met your dad shortly after Grandma gave me the brooch,” Mom said.
“I certainly hope so. If this brooch has the ability to bring my true love to me then I sure could’ve used it a few years back.”
Mom laughed.
“What do we know about the women who owned the brooch before Grandma?” Maddie asked.
“I don’t know anything, I’m afraid. Call Grandma and ask. Her memory’s excellent.” She rolled out a second ball of dough to cut into lattice that she’d lay in a crisscrossing pattern atop the pie. “Speaking of true loves . . . are you dating anyone at the moment, Maddie?” She asked the question with casual innocence, as if she didn’t know very well that Maddie loathed discussing her boyfriend prospects with her mother.
“Nope.”
“Evan over at the post office is nice.”
“He smells like mustard.”
“What about that handsome Zander Ford?”
“Two problems there. One, he’s overseas at the moment and has been for more than a year. Two, he’s in love with Britt.”
“How about Brenda’s son, Drew? Will you let me set you up with him?”
“I’ve known Drew since we were four. If it was a love match between us, I think we would’ve recognized that by now.”
“Russell Goodman?”
“He lives with his mom.”
“Your brother lives with his mom!” she countered, quickly coming to the defense of her can-do-no-wrong son.
“Exactly. Men who still live at home are off my list on principle.”
“The Mission:Christmas party is coming up,” Mom said. “Who are you going to take?” Every year, Mrs. Pottinger, a member of Bethel Church, hosted a lavish Christmas party for the volunteers and their dates.
“I was thinking about taking you again this year.” Mom had proven herself to be a convenient date. She’d never met a party she didn’t like, knew everyone, and could easily spend the entire party chatting with people other than Maddie. However, should Maddie find herself awkwardly alone, she could default to her built-in wing woman.
“I’d be happy to go, of course,” Mom answered. “But should you find someone special between now and then—and I really think you should give Russell a chance, Maddie—then I’ll step aside. And you can go to the party with your new man.” She shot a hopeful look in Maddie’s direction.
Lord, have mercy.
“The brooch belonged to my mother,” Grandma explained to Maddie later that night over the phone. “My father died when a log truck overturned, and my mother died not long after that—of grief, they say, because she loved my father so much. I’ve told you all that before.”
“Yes.” Maddie sat cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in front of her newly decorated Christmas tree. Its branches sparkled with brightly colored ornaments and little white lights.
“My father’s brother, Uncle Oscar, and his wife, Maisie, raised me, but the brooch belonged to my mother, Marion Evans Brady.”
“Which makes perfect sense because the initials above yours on the bag are MEB. Did Marion’s mother give it to her?”
“I believe so.”
“Mom seemed to think that the women who have their initials on the bag are all related to us.”
“As far as I know, that’s true.”
“Has anyone studied the genealogy of that branch of our family?”
“Your aunt Susan has.” Aunt Susan was Maddie’s mom’s younger sister. “I have the family tree she sent me around here somewhere. Once I married your grandpa, I gave up wondering about all that folderol, but you’re welcome to it.”
“I’d love to take a look at our family tree. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to match all the brooch’s initials to names.”
“Give me a few days. I think those papers might be in the hall closet, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll call you when I find it.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Grandma.”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
“One more thing before you go. Mom mentioned that the brooch has an accompanying legend.”
“Yes, the legend has it that the brooch brings true love.”
“Do you believe that?”
A warm chuckle. “I didn’t want to. And then the brooch kept going missing and the same man kept bringing it back to me. That’d be your grandpa. I finally decided that the Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes.”