the time for total honesty? After nearly a day together? Honesty would have been nice before she drove eight hours to come here to Silver Bells.
“The truth is, I’m in a pickle and need help, and not just someone to hand me pills and find me a clean nightgown.”
“That’s good, as you haven’t let me do either of those things since I arrived,” she said tartly.
Winnie looked abashed. “I’m a stinker. I know. I’ll be the first one to tell you that. I’m also the last one to ask for help unless I’m really desperate. I’m really desperate.”
Abby sank down onto the adjacent chair at the sincerity of Winnie’s words.
“What can I do?” she asked immediately.
Winnie gave a heavy sigh. “I may have gotten in over my head with something and need somebody to help pull me out of the mess I’ve made.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” Abby said, only half joking. “What’s going on?”
And why hadn’t Winnie mentioned any of this earlier, when they had been working together all day on Thanksgiving dinner?
“How much of the house did you have the chance to see when you came in last night, before you went to bed?”
She frowned a little at what seemed an unrelated question. “Not much. The great room, your bedroom, my bedroom. Today I’ve seen this room, the kitchen and the dining room where we’ll be eating. Oh, and the outside, which is beautiful. It’s a gorgeous house, Winnie. I can see why you love it. It’s obvious this is a house that has been lived in and loved.”
“Holiday House is historic here in this region. A treasure, really. One of the truly great leftover estates from the silver boom.”
“Maybe I’ll have time tomorrow to walk through and see everything.”
“I hope so. And I hope you love it as much as I do.”
“What’s this about, Winnie? Why do you want to know how much I’ve seen of the house?”
“That’s a bit of a long story.” Winnie again shifted in her chair. Abby couldn’t tell if she was physically uncomfortable or trying to avoid answering.
“I belong to a choir that has existed in one form or another since the first miners’ wives used to sing together over their laundry. We’re called the Silver Belles. Belle with an e.”
“Cute,” Abby said, though she still had no idea what any of this had to do with her.
“We now have about thirty members. It used to be all women, but we decided about five years ago we were being discriminatory so we opened up to men, too. We now have twenty-three women and seven men to hit the low notes for us.”
“That sounds like fun. Do you put on concerts?”
Winnie nodded. “We do four main seasonal concerts a year, usually. In the summer we perform in the concert at the park series, and the rest of the time we use the high school auditorium. But we often do other events throughout the year. Church services, club meetings. That kind of thing. Do you sing? We can always use another strong voice.”
“I’m afraid not. If you were after another voice for your choir, you won’t find it here.”
She enjoyed singing but was well aware that her voice and range, while adequate, would never earn her a celebrity coach on a TV reality show.
“None of us is terribly gifted. There are a few who think they are, but most of us are amateurs. Still, we have fun together and it’s always for a good cause. At our concerts, we usually ask for donations of food for the local food bank in lieu of admission, that kind of thing.”
“That sounds nice.” She was still baffled about why Winnie was telling her this. Hopefully, the other woman would work her way around to it.
“This year instead of the food bank, we decided on our most ambitious project yet.”
“What’s that?”
“A couple of our members have children with disabilities. One is my best friend Sofia Navarro, who is coming to Thanksgiving dinner with her son Rodrigo. He’s amazing and funny and kind and happens to have Down syndrome. Another member of our choir has a daughter, Haley, who is nine years old with muscular dystrophy. She’s the greatest kid, with the biggest heart.”
“That’s wonderful.” As a pediatric nurse at a major university hospital, she had a great deal of experience with differently abled children and always loved having them as her patients.
“We wanted to do something for Rodrigo and Haley and other people with disabilities in our community, so