Plain as Day

by Laura Bradford

  Annie’s gaze moved past hers to the screen. “Is everything okay? You seemed funny when you got back from lunch.”

  “No, no, I’m fine. I just had what I thought was a plan hit a dead end is all. Nothing a little backing up and redirecting can’t fix.” She pushed the chair back against the wall and stood. “But that’s for me to figure out. You go and have a wonderful time visiting with your sister and her family, and don’t worry about coming in until after lunch tomorrow. It’s the least I can do after making you close everything down on a day we were supposed to be working together.”

  “That is my job, Claire. To help at the store.”

  She crossed to Annie and guided her toward the back door and the alley beyond. “That may be so, but it’s also my job to be there as well. So I’ll take care of the morning shift and see you in the afternoon, okay?”

  Annie nodded and headed toward the chestnut-colored mare tethered to the post behind the shop. Halfway to her precious Katie, Annie turned back. “The Lord says, ‘ask, and it shall be given, seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ Keep seeking, Claire, and you shall find. It is God’s will.”

  She was pretty sure she nodded, maybe even acknowledged the young girl’s wisdom with a word of thanks, but really, at that moment, the only thing she was completely sure of was the lump rising inside her throat, making it so any further words were difficult. Six months earlier, she’d been pretty lost without Esther at the shop. She’d worked all day, every day by herself, any interest in hiring someone to replace her newly married employee and friend essentially nil despite Diane’s and Jakob’s encouragement to the contrary. And when Annie had walked in the door asking for a job, she’d almost said no. The last thing she needed to add to her already too-full plate was a teenage girl full of attitude and angst.

  But still, she’d taken a chance on Annie and had been reaping the vast rewards of that decision ever since in the form of a hard worker and a new friend—one who, while not much more than half Claire’s age, surprised her on a near-daily basis with a wisdom that defied her sixteen years on this earth.

  Katie’s soft whinny pulled her back to the moment in time to see the buggy approach the entrance to Lighted Way. Using her hand as a shield to block the day’s waning rays, Claire looked up at Annie as the girl passed.

  “Thank you, Annie. For . . . well, for being you. You’ve been a real blessing to me these past six months.”

  “It is me who has been blessed.” And then Annie was gone, the back end of her dat’s gray buggy disappearing around the corner in a nod to the end of yet another workday.

  Inhaling the early September evening into her lungs, Claire took advantage of the ensuing silence to take in the rest of the alley, the side of Ruth’s bake shop, and the absence of any real foot traffic along the part of Lighted Way she could see from her side stoop. There were probably a million things she could and should be doing at that moment—final preparation for Esther’s celebration luncheon, shop inventory, checking the books to make sure all her consignors had been paid, heading home for dinner . . .

  But just as she’d always needed to know the end of every story that was ever read to her as a little girl, she couldn’t leave the rose pendant alone until it was back where it belonged, one way or the other.

  The creek of a door on the other side of the alley shifted Claire’s attention from the comings and goings on Lighted Way to Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe’s back door and the twenty-four-year-old smiling shyly back at her with a bakery box in one hand and a bag in the other. Clothed in traditional Amish dress for a young, unmarried woman, Ruth was simply stunning. Her blonde hair, parted severely down the middle and covered with a kapp, set off her wide-set ocean blue eyes perfectly. Her high cheekbones and perfectly arched brows completed the face more befitting a high-fashion runway than an Amish bakery “Hello, Claire. Did you have a good day at your shop?”

  Nodding, she crossed to the bottom step and peeked inside the windowed box to find one of Ruth’s signature pies housed inside. “I’d ask the same thing of you, but I already know the answer. You always have a good day at the bakery and this”—she gestured toward the pie—“is why. Because you bake things that look like this.”

  Ruth’s cheeks reddened with discomfort just as her bag-holding hand waved off Claire’s praise. “It matters only how it tastes.”

  Again she peeked in the box. This time, her stomach rumbled in response to the sight. “Trust me when I say, you’ve got that part down pat, too . . . So what kind is this? Apple? Blackberry? And can you speak to your parents about possibly adopting me so I can have one of your baked goodies for dessert every night?”

  “Would you like something?” Ruth nudged her chin in the direction of the door from which she’d just come. “I have some cookies left that you might like and—”

  Her answering laugh filled the air between them. “No, no, please. That wasn’t a hint. I just love the things you bake and this apple pie looks amazing.”

  “It is actually blueberry,” Ruth corrected softly. “I must use the buggy when I get home to deliver it to a customer in Smoketown.”

  “I could take you!” She motioned at the road. “I actually have Diane’s car today.”

  “I could not ask you to do that when you are to be home to help your aunt with the guests.”

  “You didn’t ask, Ruth. I’m offering. Besides, tonight is my night off from dinner duty and I could use the change of scenery after staring at my computer the bulk of the afternoon.” She looked again toward the road and the reflection of the waning sun on a minivan carefully navigating the cobblestone thoroughfare that was the true heart of Heavenly. There, and in the shops that lined it, the Amish and the English mingled during the day before retiring to their respective homes and customs by nightfall.

  Ruth’s smile reached into her eyes. “That would be very kind, Claire. If you are sure it is not an inconvenience. Smoketown is a good ten miles . . .”

  “That means ten miles to visit with you in a way we don’t get to when you’re satisfying tummies and I’m selling people things they probably don’t need all that much, yet buy anyway because that’s what you do on vacation—buy souvenirs.”

  “Do not say that. You have lovely things in your shop.”

  She matched Ruth’s smile with one of her own, nodding as she did. “And you’re right. I do. Thanks to people like your brothers—Benjamin and Eli, and Esther and Esther’s mamm.”

  “You make candles and picture frames . . .”

  “I do my best.” Claire hooked her thumb over her shoulder at her shop’s back door. “Let me grab my keys, lock up this door, and then we can make that delivery of yours before it gets any later.”

  • • •

  Depositing the car keys onto the catch-all table beside the inn’s back door, Claire listened for any sort of sound that would indicate where in the house Diane was at that moment. A smell she identified as brownies having been baked sometime in the last thirty minutes or so led her to the parlor and the face that had a way of brightening any day.

  “Good evening, Aunt Diane! It looks like you’re having a nice quiet evening . . .”

  Aunt Diane looked up, plucked her trusty bookmark off the armrest of her favorite reading chair and tucked it inside a familiar jacketed book. “The guests have all either gone out for an evening drive or retired upstairs to their room, leaving me all by my lonesome.”

  Stepping all the way into the room, Claire made a beeline for the plate of brownies. She took one, broke it down the middle, and retreated to the overstuffed couch on the opposite side of the hooked rug. When she was settled in her favorite corner, she pulled her feet up and underneath her and took a bite of the still-warm chocolate treat. “Mmmm . . . So, so good. Jakob will be disappointed when he realizes he missed out.”

  “I have two set aside in a plastic baggy for him as we speak.”

  She grinned at her aunt across the top of her brownie. “I’ll be sure
to tell him that when he calls.”

  “So you weren’t out with him this evening?” Diane released the book onto her lap and stretched her arms above her head in conjunction with a rare yawn. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not the company, dear, I assure you. I just seem to be a little tired this evening.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Of course. It’s nothing like that, dear. It’s more because today was move-out day for two different rooms and, well, you know how that is on the busyness scale.”

  “I do, and it’s why I wish you’d consider hiring a part-timer the way you insisted I do after Esther left. It would make transition days a little easier on you and it might make it so you can take that trip to Paris you were telling Bill about over the summer.”

  Diane slid her book onto the ottoman at her feet and scooted forward, her face flushed.

  Or, was it, flushing?

  Powered by excitement as much as curiosity, Claire leaned forward. “Wait. Have you heard from Bill since he left?”

  Any question as to whether the woman’s crimson cheeks were the result of the mere mention of the handsome sixty-something travel agent who’d spent nearly two weeks at the inn earlier in the summer disappeared along with all eye contact.

  “Aunt Diane . . .” She didn’t need a mirror to know she was smiling. She could feel it spreading across her face like wildfire. “You have, haven’t you? And why haven’t you told me?”

  “It’s just been a letter or two.” Diane stood, plucked her dustcloth from its constant home inside the front pocket of her apron, and ran it along the end table beside her chair. “And as for why I mentioned Paris that one time, it was simply in reaction to a conversation-making question on where I’d like to go if I were to go somewhere, that’s all, dear.”

  “A conversation-making question with a man who is showing real signs of being quite smitten with you, Aunt Diane.”

  Diane spun around. “Claire!”

  “What? Am I wrong? Did he not ask to have lunch with you before he checked out? Did you not just tell me he’s written to you twice?”

  “To tell me he’s putting together a senior tour to Heavenly in the spring—”

  “The spring?” Claire echoed, her shoulders sagging. “I thought maybe he’d get one together sooner so he could see you.”

  “See me? Oh, Claire, you’re talking nonsense.” But the crimson was back, and this time, instead of disappearing behind a pair of hands tasked with shielding her reaction from Claire, Diane turned back to the same two shelves she’d already dusted—twice. “Now, what were we saying before all this nonsense?”

  She considered calling her aunt on the obvious diversionary tactic but opted to let it go. For now. “We were talking about you going to Paris.”

  “No. You were talking about me going to Paris, dear. I was reminding you of my work here and the fact that Paris was just an answer to a question—nothing more.”

  “But you work so hard and I’d love to see you do something for yourself for once.”

  Diane moved on to the next set of shelves, her cloth moving with a practiced hand. “Don’t make me sound like a martyr, Claire. I do things for myself all the time.”

  “Name one.”

  “I visit the horses at Mervin’s ranch whenever I have some quiet time. You know that.”

  “I know that now. But I’m talking about something where you really spoil yourself.”

  “Feeling a horse nuzzle my palm is spoiling myself, dear. So, too, is reading.” Diane ran the cloth across the cover of her book. “Especially when it’s a favorite like this one.”

  Claire leaned forward on the couch. “That’s a Subject Murder book—one you’ve already read.”

  “I know. But hearing you tell Jakob about the series the other night got me thinking about them again. So I picked up my favorite—Murder of a Statistician, and the next thing I knew, I was on chapter eight and you were walking in the room just now.”

  “Is it as good as you remember?” she asked.

  “Better, if you can believe it.”

  Dropping her feet back down to the floor, Claire stood, plucked the book from the ottoman, and returned to her spot, flipping the book over in her hands as she did. “Did I tell you that I heard back from the author’s fan club president via email last night?”

  “No. What did she say? Did she have anything that’ll make finding the pendant owner a little easier?”

  She ran her hand along the book’s dust jacket and then reached into her back pocket and removed her phone. “No. In fact, they’ve never given away any of those pendants and they don’t sell them in their website store. In fact, here’s what she said.” A few quick taps of her phone brought the email from Misty up on the screen. “She says . . . hang on . . . let me get down to—oh, here we go. ‘Jane is a very private person and we try to honor that here on her fan site by making sure the items we sell are about the Subject Murders series, rather than Jane, herself. I’m disappointed for her that a symbol that means so much to her has drawn the attention and efforts of other jewelers. As to who else might have chosen to have this symbol made into a pendant, I’m afraid I can’t even begin to guess. Jane has many, many fans across the globe. Thank you for reaching out. Best wishes, Misty.’”

  “So the rose and the moon is her symbol rather than the series’.”

  Claire looked up at her aunt. “Excuse me?”

  “The symbol. It belongs to the author rather than the series.”

  “I don’t know why you’re saying . . .” Shifting her focus back down to the phone, she reread the section she’d just shared with her aunt and then sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, my gosh, you’re right. I can’t believe I missed that.”

  She swapped the phone for the book and instantly located the logo image that was a perfect match to the pendant Jakob had found in the dresser drawer. And while she could still see why she’d tied it to the series, she could also see now that it was positioned next to the author’s picture and bio.

  “Oh, wow, okay . . . I see it now. But . . .” She looked back up at her aunt. “The pendant is identical to her logo. And I do mean identical.”

  Diane’s shoulders drooped briefly, only to regain their normal composure just as quickly. “So we find out who had the dresser first and see if it is tied to an uber fan who may have had the pendant custom—”

  “It came from an Amish home in Smoketown. The original owner was Amish, as were the grown children who may have utilized the dresser while visiting their aging father.” Claire glanced down at the rose and moon logo, released the sigh she’d been holding back since the moment Samuel delivered the reality she’d just shared, and stood, the room’s lone computer suddenly calling to her like a beacon in a storm. “You know what? I’ve given this pendant a little too much of my brain power today as it is. Somehow, we’ll find a way to reunite it with its owner. But for now, I need to go over the last few to-dos on my list before Esther’s luncheon this weekend.”

  Clasping her hands beneath her chin, Diane let out the tiniest squeal. “Do you still think she’ll be surprised?”

  “Eli says she will be.” Claire took a detour on the way to the computer that had her stopping at the large picture window overlooking the fields in the distance, the gathering darkness making it so that many of the farms owned by her Amish friends were hard to pick out. But that was okay. Just knowing they were there helped quiet her thoughts. “Either way though, I just want Esther to know how truly treasured she is by everyone she touches with her smile and her sweet ways.”

  “You’re a good friend, Claire.”

  “Esther is a good friend. Her steadfast presence next to me at Heavenly Treasures those first few months was invaluable. I had no idea what I was doing, but we figured it out together. And the way she accepted me, and looked forward to our talks as much as I did, well, that helped me to heal from my divorce in ways I can’t ever truly describe.”

  She heard Diane’s footsteps as the
y approached the window and welcomed the feel of the woman’s cheek against her own. “Friends—true friends—make all the difference, don’t they, dear?”

  “They do. But so, too, do aunts who open their homes and their hearts without hesitation, quietly tending to the invisible boo-boos with the kind of bandages and medicine that can’t be found in any store or therapist’s office.”

  Diane pulled back, planting a kiss on Claire’s cheek as she did. “You being here has been, and continues to be, a blessing to me, too, Claire. Never doubt that.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but you were doing just fine before I showed up on your doorstep with my suitcase.”

  “I was fine, yes. But now, I feel more whole. Like I’m getting to experience what it’s like to have a daughter. Seeing you pick yourself back up . . . Watching you make new friends and embrace this community in the way that you have . . . Quietly cheering you on as you fell in love again . . . I couldn’t be more proud.”

  She didn’t mean to laugh, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I’m not so sure about that quietly cheering part, Aunt Diane.”

  The corners of Diane’s mouth twitched ever so slightly. “Oh? What makes you say that?”

  “Hmmm . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe it was the way your face would light up every time Jakob would stop by . . . The questions you’d ask when I’d mention having seen him during the course of my day . . . The lists of his attributes you were fond of giving even when we weren’t talking about him . . .”

  “Guilty as charged, though I hope I didn’t make too much of a pest of myself.”

  “Not too much,” Claire teased.

  “I was right though, wasn’t I?” Diane turned to face Claire. “He’s perfect for you, dear.”

  “You’ll get no arguments from me on that one.” She leaned forward, kissed the sixty-two-year-old’s forehead, and then gestured toward the computer. “I probably better get to that list. I want everything to be perfect for the mother-to-be.”