Before the auction house could sell it all, some of the furniture had to be refinished. Some of the paintings needed a heavy professional cleaning. Everything was getting spruced up and ready for photographs for the catalogs, but Scott had warned her it might take longer than the three months—at the earliest—that he’d originally thought. As long as she was doing okay, that three months was fine; four months was even fine.
But, if it went too much longer, she wasn’t sure. So far though, everything had come up roses, and she was seriously happy with the way things had worked out. Her house was basically empty. She had reorganized the last few pieces of furniture left. She had an old bed to get rid of in the spare bedroom. Thinking of that, she brought out her phone and jotted down a note to contact Mack about a dump run. As she walked forward, Mugs barked. Huffing, he picked up his pace and ran, and she looked up to see Nan, standing at the edge of her little patio, waiting for her and the animals.
Chapter 4
Thursday, Just Before Noon …
Doreen lifted her hand in greeting and smiled as she pocketed her phone again. Nan waved as she bent down to greet Mugs, who’d raced up to see her. Goliath sauntered closer, not quite as eager or open about his affection, and yet his love for Nan was still there for everyone to see. It did Doreen’s heart good to see how much the animals loved Nan. And Doreen thought it probably did Nan a lot of good too. Who was she kidding? These animals did Doreen a lot of good as well. Nothing like knowing you were loved. Not to mention the fact that Nan’s and Doreen’s relationship was unbelievably wonderful now too. They’d been separated a lot over the years, mostly as Doreen grew up with her mom and then throughout Doreen’s disaster of a marriage.
She walked along the flagstones, stepping over the little lip to her grandmother’s patio, before bending to give the beautiful woman a hug.
“It’s so lovely to see you,” Nan said gently.
“Lovely to see you too,” Doreen said with a smile.
“How is the latest injury?”
Doreen shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ve got a bruise still. In truth, I keep forgetting about it until I poke it somehow.”
“Maybe, but you’ve got to make sure you look after yourself,” Nan scolded.
“I will,” Doreen promised. She sat down at the little table as Nan gently fussed over Thaddeus, who had hopped off Doreen’s shoulder and walked across the table to greet Nan. He appeared fascinated by the treats awaiting the humans on the table.
“You said vegetables,” Doreen said with a chuckle, as she eyed a plate of cookies. “And those cookies are monstrous.”
“That way, when you only have one,” Nan said, “you’re actually getting something. You don’t need more than one.”
“So you’re trying to trick your eyes. Is that the main idea?”
“Maybe, but when you only get one cookie, and it’s small, it’s depressing.”
“Making them the size of four cookies defeats the purpose because, for whatever reason you were told to only have one, this will hardly be the correct answer.”
“Psshaw,” Nan said with a wave of her hand. “What do those dieticians know anyway?” She picked up a cookie and handed it to Doreen. “Now, you enjoy yours.”
While Nan poured their tea, Doreen accepted the large cookie and stared at it in fascination. “How does it even stay in this shape?” she asked. “This thing’s got to be five inches across.”
“If you can’t eat it all, you can take it home,” Nan said.
“I thought we were splitting it.” Doreen raised her horrified gaze to Nan.
“No,” Nan said with a smile. “I’ve got my own cookie.” She pointed just to the other side of the cut flowers—at another big cookie, just the same as Doreen’s.
Doreen chuckled. “You are incorrigible,” she said in a lightly scolding voice.
Nan grinned. “We’re conspirators in crime. And that’s the way it should be at my age—a cookie is a cookie.”
“Well, not if it’s the equivalent of five cookies,” Doreen said, eyeing the monster in front of her. The trouble was, she was looking at it with absolute joy. “I really want this cookie, but I’m hoping halfway through that I’ll get full.”
Nan laughed. “But you know what it’s like when you have a cookie. Once you start, you have to eat the whole thing.”
“No, you already told me that I could take it home, if I couldn’t finish it,” Doreen said, “so that’s what I’ll do.”
Nan chuckled. “We’ll see how you do.”
At that, Thaddeus walked closer and lowered his head to her cookie. “I’m pretty darn sure you’re not allowed to have chocolate,” she said. But a piece of walnut stuck out one side. She gently broke it off and gave it to him.
He attacked it with great pleasure.
“This is a really bad habit,” she scolded Thaddeus.
Thaddeus eyed her cookie as she lifted it to her lips. “That’s all you get,” she snapped. Thaddeus ruffled up the feathers around his neck and said, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“Be good,” she said, “or you’ll go down on the patio with the others.”
As a response, he squatted down, so he was basically sitting with his tail feathers dripping off the edge of the table. She laughed, looked over at Nan, and said, “We’ve created monsters between us.”
Nan laughed. “And I love every one of them.” She added a little milk to both their teacups and said, “Have you recovered from that last case yet?”
“I asked for three days of peace and quiet,” Doreen said with a chuckle. “And somehow, ended up with almost a week after falling off that dratted bridge. So yes, I’d say I’d recovered. In fact I felt so good this morning, I started digging in the backyard garden again.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Nan said. “You needed time to let that ankle heal.”
“I would have stopped if there’d been any pain and there wasn’t. I think the ankle is fine now.” She dug into her pocket and brought out the two little metal plates and placed them on the table. “Besides I have a new puzzle. The day I fell, Thaddeus brought me these. I had them in my pocket but only found them after they went through the wash and I put these pants on today.”
Nan picked them up and looked at them in surprise. “Oh my, I know somebody who did this.”
“Did what?”
“Those numbers are a date,” she said, “and that’s a name.”
“What is that name? Kelowna something or other?” Doreen asked. “I figured it was a company.”
“Well, it kind of is. But not really. He tried to make a go of repairing and sharpening tools and stuff like that. He had these little metal plates made up out of tin, and he stamped them with his mark and dates. Interesting that Thaddeus found them.” She raised her gaze. “Where did he find them?”
“He brought one to me, so I don’t know where he got that one. Then he took me to a spot where the second one was. I presume it was close to the first one, on the opposite side of the creek, almost down to the lake.”