three in the afternoon when we left the Spa. The store was a forty-minute drive, but it was open until five. Tucking myself into her Subaru, I relaxed and let her drive, and even though nothing new came out about Grace—Joyce was clearly as tired as I was—it felt good to be with a friend. It felt good to be out of Devon, felt good not to be looking around for media vans or, nearly as bad, for Edward.
The yarn store was the messiest place I’d ever seen. Yarn was everywhere, although it apparently did have some sort of order, judging from Joyce’s conversation with the owner. All I saw was chaos. But the chaos was colorful and soft, the warren of small rooms toasty, and the background Simon and Garfunkel music that my mother would like, hence soothing to me.
By the time we left, I was feeling mellow, so when Joyce pulled onto the drive leading to The Farm at Lyme Creek, I had no problem. There were several cars in the lot. Parking beside a Jeep, she ran inside for a wedge of local cheddar. Since I needed none, I stayed in the Subaru, stretched out in my seat, and looked out over the farm. There was a bucolic ambiance here that appealed.
The fields were still fallow, but they had been tilled in advance of spring planting. The barns were newly painted, and the farmhouse, farther back, held a lopsided charm. The store itself was a rambling affair with a long porch for warm-weather chairs and bins of fruit. Attached to its hip was a bakery, where bread and rolls were baked fresh daily and, just beyond that, a greenhouse whose windows were opaque with steam. Herbs would be growing there now, along with the pea shoots whose leaves were a standard in March salads. Just this week I had seen ads for them, along with firewood, frozen steaks, and fresh maple syrup, in The Devon Times.
The Devon Times. Not a comforting thought, that one. I wondered what Thursday’s issue would have to say about Chris Emory. Jack Quillmer, the paper’s owner and editor-in-chief, would respect the gag order and avoid mentioning Chris by name, but he couldn’t ignore the issue altogether and still keep his publication relevant. That left the possibility that he might mention Grace.
Five minutes into imagining the unpleasant scenarios that might result from that, I grew antsy and glanced at my watch. Joyce was a resource, which made her good at her job at the Spa but required being in the know. She might be talking with the farm’s owner, who typically worked the store on Sundays, about whether his cows had started to calve, what he knew about a new restaurant opening in Devon, or where he was filling his insulin prescriptions. They might talk for fifteen minutes. They might talk for thirty minutes.
Climbing from the car, I wandered toward the barn. Other than a handful of chickens pecking at the mud, the yard was empty. I braced my arms on the pen rail and inhaled. Beyond the familiar scent of moist earth, I smelled the musk of cattle, the sweetness of hay, the tang of manure. As a group, they worked. Bundled together, they sang of life and growth. I leaned back against the rail, closed my eyes, and took another deep breath.
When I opened my eyes again, I gasped. Edward was walking from the store toward the Jeep in the lot. Despite the mud on its side, the Jeep looked new, and didn’t that spring another memory? He had owned a Wrangler when we first met. He had loved that Wrangler. It remained his dream car before our lifestyle demanded something more.
This Wrangler might be a rental—and wouldn’t that be great, if he returned it to the Hertz stand at the airport before flying back home?
But who was I kidding? People from Boston—or Hartford or New York—didn’t fly here. They drove. They didn’t work at the Inn. They didn’t buy a house or receive boxes of bedding. Add that muddy Jeep, the barn jacket and jeans, and the red scarf that hung on either side of his collar? Edward Cooper looked to be settling in.
One arm held a large brown sack. When he reached the Jeep, he put it inside and, straightening, raised a hand to the vehicle’s roof. He took a breath, like I had done seconds before. He was smelling the same things I had. All were innocent, but