Chapter 3

It was full on dark by the time I pulled up to my house. Winters in Heaven could be brutal, with snow accumulations of up to forty inches a common occurrence and daily temperatures hovering just above zero most of the time. Luckily, my garage was attached to the main house, affording me the luxury of staying warm and not having to trudge through the cold. I unlocked the door leading into my huge kitchen and turned on the lights. I’d been leaving the thermostat a little higher than usual to keep the house warm during the day even though I wasn’t home. The reason I did this came shuffling out from his usual spot under the kitchen table the moment the lights came up.

I squatted and patted my knees. “Hey, baby. Come to Mama.”

George, my fifteen-year-old black Labrador lumbered toward me, his cloudy, rheumy eyes squinting. The stiff, disjointed way he moved told me he’d spent the better part of the day curled up in his dog bed. I waited for him to reach me, silently cursing as his hips swayed rigidly side to side. His back was deeply bowed, his neck hanging from his shoulders like a rag doll’s—weak and limp.

I reached out a hand, which he head bumped, then he lifted his nose to nuzzle my fingers. When I slipped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer for a cuddle, George leaned his entire body against mine.

The vet had confirmed my baby was almost blind, certainly deaf, and was living on borrowed time. Arthritis and severe age-related joint atrophy had invaded his once healthy, strong body, leaving him muscle depleted and in continuous pain. Since every movement for him was torture, he spent the better part of his days still. When he did need to move, to eat or to go out, his poor joints screamed against the effort.

The humane thing, the vet advised me, would be to put my closest friend out of his misery. The selfish thing was to keep him alive, making him drag through every day, suffering.

Love, I’d found, made one selfish in ways too deep to fathom.

I sat on the tiled floor, stretched my legs out in front of me, and pulled him onto my lap. In his day, George had weighed in at an impressive hundred and twenty pounds, most of it solid muscle and brawn. When he’d been weighed at the vet’s last week, the scale topped at sixty-three.

I wrapped my arms around his once-powerful neck and gently squeezed. This dog had gotten me through some of the worst days I’d ever experienced. If George hadn’t been such an integral, important part of my life, I don’t know how I would have survived the horrible days after my husband’s and my younger sister’s deaths. Knowing I had George to come home to every night, to care for, walk, and feed, gave me a purpose to move through each day. Unconditional love met me every night when I walked through the door and greeted me every morning when I slid from my bed.

So, yes, I was guilty of being selfish. When I’d needed George, he’d been there for me, imparting comfort, love, and loyalty, without ever asking anything in return. Now it was my turn to give him the same.

A thick, throaty moan blew past his mouth followed by a coarse rumble deep in his chest. I’ve heard it said after many years together pets start resembling their owners. I looked nothing like George—or he me—but after all these years we did have our own private communication system.

“I’m hungry, too,” I told him and kissed his muzzle. “Aunt Maureen sent home some boiled chicken and rice for you. Give me a few minutes to heat it up.”

I lifted his head from my lap and with it cupped between my hands, rubbed his whiskers back from his face. I swear he smiled at me.

He stood when I did, his legs a little shaky and wobbly, but once he was up, he was sure footed—on all four of them—again.

In a stovetop pot, I reheated the food my sister had sent home for George when I’d stopped by the inn yesterday afternoon. Maureen had a heart bigger than anyone I knew. She understood completely why I wanted George with me for as long as possible and had researched foods that were helpful with nutrition and pain control for aging, infirm dogs. Believe it or not, chicken soup came up more than any other item. Knowing my dog would probably turn his nose up at soup, she’d instead revised her old and favored chicken and dumpling recipe to a chicken and rice one instead. As George gingerly lapped at the stew-like concoction filled with carrots, peas, leeks, and fresh spinach, in addition to brown rice and an entire boiled organic chicken, I sent up a prayer of thanks for having such a wonderful, caring, and nurturing baby sister.

Thinking of Maureen and her inn sparked McLachlan Frayne’s face into my head.

The man was intriguing for a variety of reasons from the thatch of thick, unruly hair my fingers had itched a few times to run through to the haunted look in his eyes I was sure had a tragic story behind them. I knew nothing about him other than he’d written an intense, detailed, and well-received biography of my favorite poet and now wanted to do the same for my town’s founder and first leader.

I pulled Maureen’s meatloaf from the fridge and placed the container in the microwave. She’d given me detailed instructions for heating the dinner in the oven, but I was too hungry and in too much of a rush to eat to waste time waiting for the oven to preheat and then rewarm the food. If my baby sister knew I was nuking her delicious meal, I’d get no further food presents for at least a month.

“What your Aunty Mo doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I told George, “and will ensure we keep getting leftovers.”

I settled down at my kitchen table with a tall glass of Merlot, Maureen’s meatloaf, and George under the table, his body settled on my feet.

Another fun-filled, exciting evening in the Mulvaney household.

Three hours later, a cycle of laundry was completed, the kitchen was cleaned and cleared, and I’d finished writing my vows for the weekend ceremony. I settled George in his bed for the night since he wasn’t able to climb the stairs to my second-floor bedroom any longer and put a bowl of water next to it. Then, I crawled into bed with my e-reader.

My mind wouldn’t concentrate on the new mystery I’d uploaded, though. A thousand thoughts swirled and competed for attention ranging from what Nanny Fee’s mood would be in the morning, to my mental notes about my upcoming court cases, and then to a pair of pale eyes filled with secrets and sadness.

Finally, I gave up on the book, shut the bedside light, and snuggled down under the covers.

****

Even though I was five minutes early the next morning, Nanny was already waiting for me in the lobby of the nursing home. She was bundled up in a puffy coat skirting her ankles, a scarf I’d knitted for her last Christmas, a woolen hat and mittens courtesy of Colleen, and winter boots her tiny, dainty feet were lost in. I found her leaning across the check-in desk, blatantly flirting with the twenty-something rent-a-guard stationed there.

I knew she was flirting because the poor boy’s face was six different shades of beetroot red.

My ninety-three-year-old grandmother feels her age, social status with the community, and inherent charm (her description) give her the right to say aloud anything and everything that pops into her head whether it be considered appropriate or not. She doesn’t possess a self-censor or filter button, or if she does, I’d never known her to use it once in my thirty-nine years.

Her lyrical brogue rang through the lobby when she spotted me. “Ah, Number One. You’re right on time, lass. Good girl.”

“Actually, I’m five minutes early.”

“As long as you’re not late like the last time, you’re good.”

I wasn’t about to debate the two minutes I’d been held up by a school bus.

“Well, Jerald, dear boy”—she addressed the security guard—“it’s off to the doctor I am. With any luck, I’ll be back long before lunch is served.”

“Good luck, Mrs. Scaloppini.”

Was it my imagination or did he look relieved she was leaving?

Nanny gave him a mittened thumbs-up.

“How long have you been waiting?” I asked as I held her arm and guided her along the walkway.

“Long enough to advise Jerald on the perfect Valentine gift for his girlfriend.”

“Did he ask for your advice?”

Nanny’s eyes narrowed. She hated being called out on her nosiness. “Not in so many words, Number One. He told me he was plannin’ on askin’ the girl to marry him on Valentine’s Day. I had to set him straight about why ’twasn’t the best day of the year to do so.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, but lifelong habits are hard to break. “Why not? It’s literally the one day of the year devoted entirely to love. Asking someone to marry you on Valentine’s day seems like a good idea to me. It’s so romantic.”

“Well, since you’ve only been asked once in your life and if I remember correctly—and I always do—’twas New Year’s Eve when you were, you’d be wrong in your thinking.”

I’d left my car running to keep the interior warmed for Nanny. As soon as I was settled behind the steering wheel, she started speaking again.

“He didn’t think it through when he came up with his engagement scheme.”

Scheme?

“He never considered the lass might say no. Or even if she said yes, an’ then somethin’ happened to make them break up, Valentine’s Day would be ruined for the both of them forever more.”

“That’s a little dramatic, even for you, Nanny.”

She turned in her seat to face me. Well, eyeball me really, because only her eyes and the top bridge of her nose were visible. The rest was lost in the numerous folds of the scarf. “Dramatic am I, now?”

Uh-oh. Whenever that tone was released on me or my sisters—clipped and biting, precise and sharp—we knew it was time to be quiet.

Or run.

Since I was driving, escape wasn’t possible. I paid a great deal of attention to navigating the car onto the county road and merging.

Once I was in the appropriate lane, I flicked Nanny a side glance to find she was still laser focused on me and said, “Why don’t you explain why you feel the way you do so I can understand your point.”

Nanny’s sigh was loud and theatrical as it blew through the weave of her scarf. “A great deal like your father, you are,” she said, shaking her head.

No argument from me, there.

After a moment she said, “Think about it, Number One. Would ya be wantin’ to remember a broken engagement or being told no to a marriage proposal on the one day of the year—to quote you—dedicated to love? Wouldn’t it be better to pick an innocuous day, say August third, to make such a monumental request, instead? Then, when the date rolled ’round each year, ya wouldn’t be thinkin’ and rememberin’ a day of love as a day of pain instead.”

I had to admit, she made some kind of convoluted sense.

This was life with Nanny Fee, exhibit A.

“I’ve been asked to marry six times in me life, agreed to four of the proposals, and I couldn’t tell you the dates I was asked even if compelled to.”

I only remembered two of Nanny’s four husbands, numbers three and four. Number one died after a year of wedded bliss from the flu. Number two, my grandfather, died of a heart attack when my dad was ten. Three lasted the longest at twenty years, and number four a short six months.

Nanny had claimed to love each of them completely and was heartbroken with each death. I often wondered if people who knew of her much-wedded reputation thought she might be a black widow.

My mother had a different thought, claiming often and mostly under her breath, Nanny’s husbands had taken the easy way out when they couldn’t stand living with her anymore. I always thought this was mean and proved how much these two women disliked one another.

When we arrived at the orthopedic office, Nanny was brought right in and examined. I’d been worried she’d have an extensive list of questions to pepper the doctor with, the major one being if she could be discharged back to her home. My sisters and I had been grateful when she’d voluntarily signed herself into the Angelica Arms Nursing Home directly from the hospital. With two functioning arms, she’d been a handful. With one casted, we were concerned no one could be with her during the day to care for her since the three of us had to work. Nanny lived in the house we all grew up in along with Colleen. Recently, Colleen had become engaged, and her fiancé, Slade, was living with her now. While Slade adored Nanny, having her back home might not be the best situation for them.

It was the doctor who broached the subject of Nanny’s living arrangements.

“There now, I think I’d like to stay where I am.”

I don’t know who was more surprised, the doctor or me.

“Nanny? Are you sure?”

“Aye, lass. Being able to see me friends every day without havin’ to bother someone to drive me to the home has been wonderful. And Tilly’s come to depend on me more each day, ya know.”

Tilly Carlisle was a retired Broadway musical comedy headliner, Nanny’s best friend, and a fellow resident of Angelica Arms.

“She’s a mite more forgetful these days, and I’m afraid what would happen if I weren’t there to make sure she takes her meds and eats.”

The doctor agreed to her wishes and wrote a medical order for her to continue to stay in the facility.

On the drive back, Nanny was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Are you okay?” I asked when we stopped at a red light.

“Aye, lass. ’Twas the right decision.”

“You know you can change your mind anytime, don’t you? You don’t have to stay there if you don’t want to. You can live with any one of us, you know that, right?”

“I do.” She reached over and patted my hand. “It’s lucky I am to have the three of you in me life. Many at the home never see a family face but for Christmas or a birthday. Ach, it’s sad, ’tis, to get to an age where you’re forgotten. Where everything you’ve accomplished in your life is a memory only for you and no one else. Where the people you loved the most barely think about you anymore.”

I slid my hand from the wheel, pulled her mittened one into my own, and squeezed. “Well, we’ll never forget you or all you’ve accomplished in your life. Or all you’ve done for us. You’ve always been our cheerleader, Nanny, always been there for each of us. We were lucky to have you with us when we were growing up. You were the one who stayed with us after Eileen died, who got us through the terrible time when Mom and Dad…left.”

More than two years later and I was still angry about their move to South Carolina, asserting they couldn’t live in the house or the town where they’d lost one of their daughters. Apparently, it was easy for them to leave their remaining daughters, though. They hadn’t been back once to visit.

“Don’t be hard on them, lass. ’Tis a terrible thing to lose a child. A child is your child forever, no matter the age. Some never recover from the loss, the grief.”

“I get that, I do. But they forgot they had three other daughters who were grieving, too, and needed their parents to help them through it.” I shook my head, still unable to reconcile what they’d done by moving away. “They lost a child, yes, and we lost our sister. Maureen lost her twin, the person she shared exact DNA with, for God’s sake.”

“Don’t be takin’ the Lord’s name in vain, Cathleen Anne.”

Heat washed up my neck from my chest to my cheeks. Thirty-nine years old, a successful lawyer, a grown-ass woman, and my grandmother was still able to make me feel like an errant, naughty toddler with a few words and a forceful tone.

When she called me by my rightful name, I knew she meant business, too. The hated monikers of our childhoods, Number One for me, Number Two for Colleen, then Three and Four for Eileen and Maureen was how Nanny addressed us on any given day. To have our proper names spew from her lips meant she was annoyed, pissed, angry, or disappointed—take your pick. The history behind the nicknames was a long one, involving two alpha females—my mother and grandmother—and their individual quests for dominance in the household.

At ninety-three, Nanny wasn’t about to change a decades-old practice, meaning we all sucked it up and accepted it.

Colleen, though, still blanches every time Nanny addresses her.

“Sorry.” I put the car into park in front of the nursing home.

I wasn’t at all surprised when she told me to include the grievance in my confessions before mass on Sunday morning.

After getting her settled back into her room, I bent and kissed her cheek telling her I’d call her later on.

With an impatient wave of her hand, she said, “Don’t be worrying about me, lass. It’s fine, I am. Get along to work now. I’m sure you’re as busy as your dear father always was.”

“More,” I said, leaning in for a hug. “But never too busy for you.”

A soft and bewitching grin bloomed on her face. It was easy to see the beauty she’d been in her youth when she smiled this way.

“There’s a darlin’ girl, you are.” She lifted up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Oh, now, before I forget. Olivia Joyner stopped by the other day.”

“Olivia? What was she doing here?”

“Her grandmother was admitted after breaking a hip in a fall last week. She’s down the hall, and Olivia spotted me name outside the door and came in for a chat. She’s always been such a delightful girl.”

Olivia was the same age as me, and we’d gone from kindergarten through Heaven High together. I wondered if my grandmother referred to me as a girl when she spoke to others.

“Is her grandmother okay?”

Nanny waved a hand and grinned. “Right as rain, she is, but the doctor wanted her looked after until he’s certain she can get up and about by herself again. Olivia wanted to care for her at home, but it was too much with her business and her daughter finishin’ graduate school and movin’ out, and all.”

“I didn’t realize Freya was old enough to have finished college, let alone grad school.” I should have, because Olivia gave birth to her when we were seniors in high school. Time, as I’ve often thought, goes by ridiculously fast.

“Aye. She’s leaving the nest, but Olivia says she’s ready.”

The corners of Nanny’s eyes slitted a bit as she regarded me. Uh-oh. Whenever Nanny tossed you a slanty-eyed glare, it meant you were gonna have a come-to-Jesus lecture. She opened her purse and pulled something out of it. “Before she left, she asked me to give ya this when I saw ya again.”

“What is it?”

“Her business card.” She handed it to me. “Said to give her a jingle when ya got the chance.”

Olivia’s name was written in beautiful calligraphy, her occupation listed below it, and her business phone number in the bottom corner of the card.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry as day-old burnt toast. “Why does she want me to call?” I asked, even though I had a sneaking suspicion about the reason.

I hoped I was wrong, and she merely wanted a little legal advice.

“Well, lass, why do you think she wants to speak to ya? Wants to set you up, doesn’t she, being a matchmaker and all?”

Nope. It seems I wasn’t wrong at all.

Olivia Joyner was a fourth-generation matchmaker, and the fact she wanted me to call her about a possible set up was…uncomfortable to say the least. There were a few other words—like embarrassed and pitiful—I could add.

“It’s time, lass,” Nanny told me, her eyes softening as she stared up at me. “Time to move on. You’re still a young, beautiful, desirable woman. It’s time a man came into your life and brought some happiness along with him into it. Gave you babies to love. A fulfilling life. Olivia can help ya with that.”

I tucked the card into my coat pocket. “I have a full life, Nanny. Believe me.”

“Aye, lass, it’s busy you are with your career. But wouldn’t it be nice to come home to someone who loved ya? Who warmed your bed at night? You’re a healthy, vibrant woman. Ya’ve normal needs, you do, I’m sure.”

My earlobes burned with heat. There was no way I was having this conversation with my grandmother, a women old enough to have forgotten everything about needs, desires, and anything else sex related. Unfortunately, because this was Fiona, the four times married woman who’d been able to fit in love affairs with royalty between her marriages, there was no way she’d forgotten anything need or desire laden.

Looking for a diversion, I checked my watch and said, “Sorry, Nanny. Gotta run. I’ve got a full schedule this afternoon.” I bussed her cheek again and bolted from the room before she could say another word.

Back in my car, I took a deep breath and checked my phone to see if I had any messages, which I didn’t, not even from Heaven’s current writer in residence.

He was probably still rummaging through the public files. He’d want access to the subbasement at some point, and I hoped it wasn’t when I was neck deep in court cases. I could reschedule office hours, not my courtroom dates.

Since I’d finished earlier than I’d planned with Nanny’s doctor visit and my stomach was making itself known, I pointed my car in the direction of my sister’s inn. Maureen should be about ready to serve lunch to her guests, and if I played my cards right, I could finagle a little of whatever she’d made for myself.

All thoughts about matchmakers and needs were tucked into the back of my mind.