This was a sign she was going to settle in.
Once she got everything into the cabin, her next task was settling her kitten. She showed her where they’d keep the litterbox, then got some toys out of the bag and shook out the soft, fluffy bed, which the kitty immediately began to claw.
Next, Kaylee set up her music—she chose her Beatles playlist. She ate a couple of tomatoes with avocado. She did a quick inventory of the kitchen to see if there was anything she had to buy in order to feed herself dinner.
She made tea. Then she sat down and read those seventeen pages again. Blah, blah, blah.
She opened the document she had titled A New Start and began to write.
She wanted to feel safe, cozy and completely confident. After all, being alone was hardly a new thing for her. And this temporary space had everything she needed from a porch swing to a flower bed bordering the house. In days gone by, all she had to do was burrow into a comfortable chair, open her laptop, place her mind in a story and write. Not that it was easy—even the easiest writing was filled with constant revision, change and improvement. But it had always felt good before. Now, with her best friend gone, it was like her talent was gone as well. She didn’t know where to look to find her magic again.
She should give herself and her best friend names.
Sometimes she felt like her mother was still alive. Sometimes she thought of her alive and well, robust and funny and cynical and pouring a cup of coffee or glass of wine in her house in Newport. Countless times she felt her hand reaching for the phone to give her a quick call. “I’ll go get us Mediterranean and we’ll eat on the patio,” Kaylee would say. “Do you have good wine?” And before she finished the thought she would remember Meredith wasn’t there.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of barking dogs and she went to the porch cautiously. Landry was in the fenced yard behind his house with a couple of dogs. She didn’t know what kind they were. Two were blond and hairy, one was sleek and black. Landry was throwing ball after ball for them to chase. He stopped, put three balls in his pocket and called the dogs with a shrill whistle, and all three trotted over to him, wagging their tails fiercely. They sat. Then he lowered a hand to one, then another, then threw a ball to the third. Only that dog ran to fetch. Then that dog sat and was told to stay while the second dog was invited to fetch. Then the third. Remarkable. They took turns and politely waited.
“Cool,” she muttered to herself. But she had no desire to be anywhere near them. She sat on the porch swing and listened to the barking, the whistling, the quiet, rinse and repeat.
She put her kitten in the carrier to keep her out of mischief while she was gone, packed up her computer and drove to town.
Given it was midafternoon, there were only a few people in Jack’s Bar. He called out her name, greeting her, and even though it had only been a couple of days it had much the feel of Cheers—friendly and familiar. She went to the bar for a Diet Coke, found a table in the corner away from the door and bar, and opened up her computer.
She forced herself to write one page of her novel. She was desperate to make some progress and the best way she could think of was to toss a dead body in there. To make it interesting, the body had several bullet wounds and was discovered by one of her favorite recurring characters—a seventy-eight-year-old woman, a busybody with a fierce interest in forensics.
Then she flipped over to the other document.
The last thing she had any interest in was a man or a romantic encounter. She noticed that Landon spent a lot of time outdoors with his horses and his garden. She couldn’t help but see him. A lot of him. The way his jeans fit seemed to be particularly appealing, not that she was checking him out. She told herself she wouldn’t have noticed the jeans if it hadn’t been for his lovely personality. He was so comfortable around her, so accommodating and affable. His eyes were so shockingly blue and his smile both frequent and engaging. When he smiled at her she felt her pulse pick up a little. She couldn’t help but watch him when he was in sight.
She wondered if they might become friends while she lived in his guesthouse. And she hoped to become better friends with the bartender and his wife—they were so kind and generous, not to mention fun.
“Hey, it’s the fire girl,” someone said. She looked up to see Mike, the guy who had been behind the bar the first night she was in town. She had since learned that he was Jack’s brother-in-law and lived next door to Mel and Jack. Today he was wearing a badge on his belt. “The writer.”