Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Snow was beautiful, but it sucked driving in it. Cold was cold, and although I had a furnace, it was probably installed in the 1970s, so the cabin was constantly chilly. The only time I got really warm was about two hours before I woke up under my multitude of covers every morning.
Now there was this sitch with my not-so-friendly neighbors.
I didn’t want to leave another friend behind.
I couldn’t say I missed Orlando.
I could say it killed how bad I missed Kacey and Mona.
“Shakes are shakin’,” I replied, stopping in front of the counter, opposite her behind it. “Came down for provisions. I’m in an iced brownie mood.”
She rolled her eyes in delight like she’d just bitten into one of those particular treats, as she would. She knew my brownies.
I cooked. I baked.
I lived alone.
As much as I enjoyed the challenge of eating an entire pudding cake, it always bested me.
So, considering I spent so much time in my workshop or on the road hitting sales and thrift shops, since the only people I knew in MP were Abigail, her family, and to a lesser extent, Clarissa and Julie, I always rounded them up to help me save the planet by not adding more waste.
“Since I was in town, though I’d stop by,” I told her.
“Glad you did,” she replied. “How’s the bureau coming?”
“It should be done by the weekend,” I told her.
“Awesome. I have just the space for it. I’ll give Brett a heads up he needs to phone a friend and come get it from you,” she said. “And I sent you an email. We need to reorder from Jo and Ida.”
Jo made some of our jewelry.
I leaned into the counter and said quietly, “You know you have my go ahead with that.”
“I quit my job and spent four years managing nothing but laundry and burping,” she retorted. “I get you trust me, Mabel, but if you don’t mind spotting me. Just for a little while longer.” She smiled. “I like to spend money, but spending yours still makes me hesitate.”
“Make the orders,” I said.
“Great,” she replied. “And the paper mill is reopening next weekend. I think we should go.”
I felt my brows draw together. “What?”
“The old paper mill?” she asked.
“I’m new here, remember.”
She gave me a stern Mom Look. “Babe, that excuse is beginning to wear thin. You’ve been here a while. Misted Pines is awesome. You need to spend more time in the town.”
She probably wasn’t wrong.
I’d been licking my wounds.
It was time to snap out of it.
“What’s this paper mill gig you’re talking about?” I asked.
“The old paper mill. Closed down in the eighties. I wasn’t alive then, but Mom tells stories, and seriously, there was a good long while everyone thought Misted Pines was going to become a ghost town. A lot of people lost jobs, and nothing was coming our way again.”
“Yikes.”
She bobbed her head. “Yeah. It was rough. Then, in the nineties, the Bonners got hold of the Pinetop, and first, employed a ton of people to gut the joint and build it into a world-class hotel. After they opened, they still employed a ton of people running it. When that went down, the town didn’t rest on its laurels. The Misted Lake Cinema started to show cool stuff, double bills of vintage films, doing festivals, stuff like that. The Farmer’s Market got going. The town razed the old department store and made the town park. Josie and Todd Newman started their wildlife tours. Bob Wagoner started doing his horse trail rides. Jill Stanislov began her history tours during the day, ghost tours in the evenings. You should take both. They’re fantastic.”
I made a mental note to do so, because I loved history, and a good spooky story, as long as it didn’t land on my welcome mat.
“Brett, of course, took me on the ghost tour on our third date,” she shared. “Obviously, I couldn’t stop clinging to him, so he also got laid.”
I burst out laughing and then drawled, “Nice play.”
“He promised, even crossing his heart, he’d never done that before with another girl.”
“Mm-hmm,” I hummed skeptically.
She wagged her brows. “One thing I do know for sure, even if I wasn’t the first, I was the last.”
As far as I could tell, Brett Buckner was in that less than one percent of decent dudes too.
“Anyway, then, of course, came Ray Andrews,” she carried on. “And all the stuff that happened after, so now we’ve got the true crime buffs and sociopath stalkers,” she said.
I smiled at her.
“It dies down in between one whackjob running amuck, and another one acting up,” she told me. “But not by much, God love Elsa Cohen, perpetual streaming and nothing on the Internet ever dying.”
That made me laugh again.
She shrugged. “So now, the president of our town council, Meg Nichols, in her last act and to build an enduring legacy, got hold of the old paper mill. You can’t miss it. It’s the big building about two blocks east of here, four blocks north.”