“So what if he was? Maybe he saw a little old lady trying to put her family back together and decided to give her a hand. Is that so awful?”
“Yes.” A light came on upstairs in Connor’s house, and Maddy let the curtain fall back into place.
“Either way, this was your grandma’s doing. I’m no expert, but you might be shifting some of your frustration from her to this guy. Sometimes it’s easier to blame a stranger than someone you love.”
Ouch. “All right, you might have a valid point. But I still don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to trust him. He’s just a neighbor, and now that your grandma’s turned up safe and sound—thank the good Lord—you can finish your business there and come back home.”
“You’re right.” Maddy settled back into the couch. “I don’t have to associate with him. I have enough on my hands with this house and my sisters.”
“Just focus on that.”
“I will. I absolutely will.”
But an hour later, as she tossed and turned in the bed, it was thoughts of Connor that persisted. Thoughts of those enigmatic gray eyes. Thoughts of his calm response to her accusation yesterday. He was like sand on her skin after a day at the beach. No matter how hard she tried to get rid of it, it just kept turning up in unexpected places.
Chapter 8
Two days later Maddy was focused on the tasks at hand. After enjoying coffee and dawn on the deck, the sisters headed upstairs. They’d spent the last two days cleaning out their rooms, but the task of cleaning the attic still loomed.
Maddy opened the diminutive door at the end of the hall, flipped the light switch, and headed up the narrow staircase. She’d played up here as a girl on rainy days. Sometimes Emma and Nora would humor her with a tea party, or they’d dress up in some of Gram’s old hats and coats, laughing at the old-fashioned styles.
Over the years there’d been a lot of talk about renovating the attic. The house was crowded when all six of them were there. But big talk in the summer faded away once it was August and they were all back in Charlotte, back to their normal lives.
Maddy reached the top of the stairs and stopped at the sight. “Oh my gosh.”
Ever impatient, Nora edged around her. “What in the world?”
“What is it?” Emma edged in for a view. She gasped.
There were piles and piles of... stuff. Boxes, small pieces of furniture, mystery objects draped in white sheets like ghostly relics. A beam of light flooded in through the small window at the end of the room. Pippy took off, tail wagging as she rooted about. Dust motes danced wildly around her.
Emma halted her gum chewing long enough to sneeze.
“When in the world did all this happen?” Maddy asked. “There used to be just a few boxes and that old rocking chair.”
“Well, that was a long time ago.” Nora took a few steps into the room, making the floor squeak. “I’ll bet Mama sent Daddy’s stuff here after...”
The sentence hung out there like a live wire, no one willing to grasp it.
“This is going to take forever to go through,” Emma said.
“Maybe we don’t need to actually go through the boxes,” Maddy said. How much easier would it be to just haul the boxes to the dump unopened? Most of the furniture could go as well.
“We can’t do that,” Emma said. “There’s probably memorabilia here that Gram wouldn’t want to part with. Letters from Grandpa, things from Daddy’s childhood.”
“Well, maybe she shouldn’t have left it all to us then,” Nora said.
“That’s cruel—even for you.” Emma gave Nora a dark look. “These are Gram’s memories; we can’t just trash them.”
“Emma’s right,” Maddy said. “She’d be heartbroken.”
Nora crossed her arms. “Well, she’s not going to have room for a bunch of boxes if she moves into a little apartment.”
“Which is why we have to sort through them,” Emma said firmly.
“I see you’ve finally learned to speak up for yourself,” Nora said.
