A Lasting Proposal

The madness had begun with a phone call she’d placed shortly after signing the agreement with Jake, to a real estate company in Calgary about listing her home. It just so happened that the agent had a buyer willing to pay top dollar for immediate possession. Given twenty-four hours to think about it, Maureen had talked to Holly and her teachers.

Holly claimed not to care what Maureen did. The teachers considered a change might be in her daughter’s best interest.

That had left dealing with her partners about leaving the firm. Here again she’d met with less resistance than she’d expected. They’d been very open-minded about a year’s leave of absence. Of course, she would have to finish up a few cases personally. But by and large, the other partners were willing to take on her clients, including that new case in Edmonton.

Now she was more unfettered than she’d been since Holly was born—and scared to death about it. What was she going to do with her time? Certainly not spend it all with her daughter, as Kelly had suggested. On the drive up, Holly had barely spoken. Their relationship was getting worse with every passing day, it seemed.

At the sound of the screen door opening, Maureen braced herself.

“You made it!” Cathleen burst through the door and came barreling toward her. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt and brown boots, her dark hair a tumble of waves framing her wonderfully expressive face. “Oh, Maureen, this is going to be such fun!”

“I’m not sure Canmore is big enough for the two of us, let alone this house of yours.” Maureen gave her sister a tight hug and a peck on the cheek. “But we do appreciate your hospitality, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t be silly. The lodge is huge. We have lots of room. Here’s Dylan. He was working on the books, so don’t mind if he’s grumpy.”

“You’re the one who gets crotchety doing the books, darlin’. Not me.” Dylan stepped off the porch, toward the car. “Hey, Maureen. Let me get those for you.” He took a suitcase in each hand, then glanced back at his wife. “Which rooms?”

“Teddy Bear for Holly,” she said. “Which would you like, Maureen?”

“The Three Sisters room. If it’s free.” Located at the front of the second story, the suite had a big bay window with a view of the triple-peaked mountain that the Shannon girls liked to pretend had been named for them.

“All the rooms are empty this week,” Cathleen said. “It’s still a little early in the season.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll be out of here before summer,” Maureen said. She felt bad about taking up two rooms as it was, especially as both Cathleen and Dylan had refused to accept payment for this stay.

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, understand, but the cutest town house just went on the market. Beth Gibson phoned this morning, and Kelly and I want to show you later. Come inside and let’s have a coffee. Poppy’s been baking.”

Poppy was always baking. Poppy was their grandmother on the paternal side of the family, but none of them had known about her until she’d arrived on Cathleen’s doorstep last summer. The redheaded seventy-year-old had claimed she was a cookbook author who needed a place to stay and work on her latest project.

Not once had any of the Shannon girls suspected that this woman was in fact the mother of their vagabond father, who’d deserted their family shortly after Kelly’s birth.

Once Poppy had admitted her true relationship to them, she’d provided the girls with the missing pieces of the puzzle. Apparently, after leaving his family, their father had returned home to the Maritimes and never mentioned his wife and three daughters. Only after his death in a car accident had Poppy discovered the truth.

She’d found it easy to track her three granddaughters to Alberta, but hadn’t risked contacting them directly, worried that negative feelings for their father might make them unreceptive to other members from that side of the family. So she’d booked into Cathleen’s bed-and-breakfast as a guest, to see how things went from there.

Frankly, Maureen wasn’t all that impressed with the subterfuge. But her sisters had taken to their new grandmother unreservedly, to the extent that the elder woman was now an integral part of their lives. Poppy had been managing the kitchen at the B and B since the first day she moved in. And now she baby-sat Billy and Amanda on the afternoons that Kelly had to work and Mick was at the paper.

Poppy was pulling butter tarts from the oven just as Maureen stepped into the kitchen. Holly was at the large oak table, a glass of milk already in front of her. Poppy glanced up from the hot tray with a welcoming smile.

“It’s so good to see you, Maureen. My, but you’re thin.”

“And it looks like you have just the remedy.” Maureen accepted Poppy’s kiss without reciprocating. Scents of vanilla and toasted pecans emanated from the small baked pastries. “Cath, how do you keep your figure with this woman’s cooking to tempt you all the time?”

“Oh, we believe in lots of vigorous physical activity around here.” Dylan came up from behind with the suitcases. He winked at Cathleen, whose suddenly pink cheeks told the whole story.

Maureen laughed, then helped herself to a mug. She poured it half full of coffee, topped it with milk, then stuck it in the microwave for forty seconds.

“Can I ride Cascade every day now that we live here?” Holly asked her aunt.

“You bet, kiddo. She’ll love the extra attention.”

Maureen noticed a beautiful white cat peeking out from under Cathleen’s chair. She bent to the floor.

“Hey, pretty kitty. Who are you?”

“Oh, Crystal was Dylan’s mother’s cat,” Cathleen explained. “He found her out on the street the day of his mother’s funeral.”

“Max kicked her out? Oh, you poor baby.”

Coaxed from her hiding place, Crystal allowed Maureen to scratch her under the chin before scurrying from the room.

Three beeps from the microwave announced that Maureen’s coffee with milk was hot. She cupped the mug in her hands, then stood to one side as Holly chatted happily with Poppy and Cathleen. It was great to see her daughter so animated. So she could be happy. When the right people were around.

Unlike many girls her age, Holly still didn’t care much about fashion or her looks. She wore her blond hair short, hadn’t asked to pierce her ears and still chose clothing with comfort in mind. Today she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and thick gray socks.

Maureen supposed she was a bit of a tomboy, as Kelly had been at that age. Which Rod had definitely encouraged Holly to be.

Another sip of coffee went down like sulfuric acid. The pit of her stomach felt like a witch’s cauldron today. Must be the anxiety of the move…wondering whether or not she’d made the right decision. Maureen tossed the remaining contents of the mug down the drain and poured herself water, instead.

“I’ve put out plates and forks because the tarts are still so warm,” Poppy said, serving Holly first. Maureen noticed that Holly didn’t slide away when Poppy put a hand round her shoulders. “You’ll be starting at the Laurence Grassi Middle School, will you?”

Holly nodded. “I guess.”

Dylan had come downstairs from depositing their luggage. Maureen noticed him trying to catch her eye, his expression unusually serious.

“What’s up, Dylan?”

“I was wondering if you went to Conrad Beckett’s funeral,” he said. “Cathleen and I debated whether or not to attend. In the final analysis we decided against it.”

She understood his dilemma. He wouldn’t want to stir up old memories of Jilly’s murder. “I did go. Linda looked pretty rough.”

Guilt nudged as she recalled her good intentions of phoning before the move. But she hadn’t had five minutes to spare in the past two weeks.

“Do you think we’ll ever know who killed Jilly?” Holly asked.

“Knowing and proving are two different things, kiddo.” Dylan ruffled the curls on Holly’s head, then straddled the chair next to hers. Again, Maureen noted how her daughter didn’t seem to mind being touched, this time by her uncle.

How long would it take, she wondered, until everyone living in this house realized how much her own daughter despised and avoided her? Then one of her little secrets would be out….

That competent, capable Maureen was a lousy mother.

HOLLY LOVED HER NEW BEDROOM. It was a little young for a twelve-year-old, but she didn’t care. Each teddy bear in the room had its own personality. She’d named many of them on previous stays. Now she took Stanley off one of the shelves and propped him on the bed next to her.

“Hey there, Stanley. Want to know something? You and I are going to figure out who murdered Jilly Beckett.” All great detectives had a sidekick, right? Sherlock had Watson. Poirot had Hastings. She would have Stanley.

The bear stared back at her. She imagined him nodding his approval. Yes. I think I can work with you.

She pulled her backpack up from the floor and dug out the detecting kit her parents had bought for her eighth birthday. She’d told them she was going to be a detective when she grew up. They—especially her mother—thought it was just a phase, but it wasn’t. She was serious, and Jilly’s murder was the perfect opportunity to prove it.