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“You went to school with Caleb Swift, didn’t you?” I asked. “Lily went out with him for a while.”

Elspeth hesitated for a moment; then she nodded. “I did.”

A look passed between her and Liz.

“What’s going on?” I said.

Elspeth pressed her lips together for a moment. Then she looked at me. “I knew Caleb,” she said.

Liz looked concerned, but she didn’t speak.

Either way it was Elspeth who shook her head. “It’s not a big deal, Sarah. Caleb and I went out for a while. He was a jerk, the proverbial entitled rich kid. Which I should have seen.” She rolled her eyes and gave me a self-deprecating smile. “I didn’t have the best taste in men back then.”

I smiled in sympathy. “I’ll tell you about some of the guys I dated in college sometime.”

We talked about some ideas Elspeth had for luring more tourists to town during the off-season. I finished the last of my coffee and stood up. “I’d better get back to the shop,” I said. “It was good to see you, Elspeth.”

She smiled. “You too.”

Liz walked me to the back door. I wrapped my arms around her in a hug. “I love you,” I said.

She smiled. “Everybody does.”

Mr. P. showed up at Second Chance just after lunch, when Avery arrived for her shift. It turned out that the two of them had walked to the shop together.

“Am I a distrustful and suspicious person for thinking that it can’t be a good thing having those two in cahoots?” I said to Mac when they came in, heads together.

“They could be working toward world peace,” he said with a slight smile.

I turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

The smile got a little wider. “Or world domination,” he added. He looked at his watch. “Do you have time to go over the list of things you want to put an offer in on from the Thomas estate?”

“Yes,” I said. “Just give me five minutes to get Avery working on some new teacup gardens.”

Charlotte was at the cash desk with a pencil and a pad of paper, working on an idea for a window display for Valentine’s Day. Our window displays changed a lot, usually because Charlotte or Avery had come up with a new idea. But since their ideas seemed to bring customers into the store, I didn’t mind if they changed the window every second day.

I touched Charlotte on the shoulder as I passed her. “Come up with any ideas yet?” I asked. All I could see on the paper were some scratched-up hearts and the word “love” crossed out several times.

“What exactly did you have in mind for the window?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t really know. Just something other than hearts and chubby babies with bows and arrows. Something a little different.”

“Define ‘different,’” Charlotte said with a smile.

“I can’t quite do that yet,” I said.

Her eyes twinkled. “Can I ask Avery to help me?”

“I don’t know. Can you?” I said.

Charlotte laughed.

“If I say ‘yes, go ahead,’ am I going to regret it?” I asked.

“Possibly.”

“Go ahead,” I said, smiling back at her. “I trust you.”

I went out to the workroom and showed Avery the box of cups and saucers I wanted her to clean and fill with potting soil. Our tiny teacup gardens were a perennial hit with the tourists, and I wanted to have more ready for the next bunch of Canadian skiers.

“Want me to do the planting, too?” she asked.

“That would be a big help,” I said. “Thank you.”

She slipped off the stack of bracelets she was wearing on her left arm—some of them her own creations and some from her collection of vintage jewelry—and stacked them on the workbench. “Is it okay if I help Charlotte with the front window when I’m done?” she asked, picking up the box of teacups.

I nodded. “As a matter of fact, she’d like your help,” I said. “She’s looking for ideas.”

Avery grinned. “I’m full of ideas,” she said.

She was definitely full of something.

Mac was just coming out of the tiny staff room with two cups of coffee when I got to the top of the stairs.

“Umm, is one of those for me?” I asked.

“Yes, it is,” he said, holding out one of the mugs.

We spent the next hour going over our scribbled list of items we’d seen at the Thomas house that might work in the store. I was surprised by how many of the items I had scrawled on my handwritten list had ended up on Mac’s as well.

“Great minds think alike, I guess,” I said when we got to the sixth thing in a row.

“It’s better than fools seldom differ,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

I shifted sideways in my chair and tucked one foot up underneath me. “Speaking of fools,” I said. “I told Rose I wasn’t going to give them a hard time anymore about their investigations.”

“Why?” he asked, narrowing his dark eyes.

I stretched my shoulders, hunching them up around my ears. “It took me a while, but I realized that I’m wasting my time. They’re either going to nod and smile and do what they want anyway. Or argue until they wear me out and do what they want anyway. I decided to eliminate that whole part in the middle.” I pulled my hand back through my hair. “It’s the part that makes my hair fall out, so it seemed like a good part to get rid of.”

Mac tented his fingers over the mouth of his cup. “What about Nick?”

“He can fight with them if he wants to,” I said, stretching my arms out in front of me. “Let Nick’s hair fall out for a little while and see how he likes it.”

Mac stood up. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s a good decision,” he said. He looked toward the hallway. “I’d better go see how Avery is doing.” He gestured at the notepad on my lap. “Let me know if you want me to check the numbers before you put the final offer together.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I will.”

He hesitated in the doorway. “Sarah, what about the chandelier from Doran’s department store? What do you want to do with it? It doesn’t look like the North Landing project is going to happen, so are they still going to want to buy it for some other project?”

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Is it ready?”

“I’ve cleaned it up and replaced the missing screws. I don’t want to do much more without some money on the table. What do you think?”

I looked up at the ceiling, but there weren’t any answers there. “I agree with you.” I got to my feet. “I think I’ll call Jon West’s office. If he’s not interested anymore, I’ll call the guy I told you about who’s renovating that restaurant.”

He nodded. “Let me know what happens.”

“I will,” I said.

Mac left, and I moved over to my desk. The door opened a little more and Elvis wandered in, giving a start of surprise when he saw me. “Merow?” he said inquiringly.

“Hey, it’s my office, too,” I said.

He looked around as if he were going to dispute my words. Then he walked around the desk, jumped onto my chair and gave me a look that was decidedly smug.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I said. I scooped him up and sat down in the chair, and he settled himself happily on my lap. I had the feeling I’d just been conned.

I called the North by West office and left a message with Jon West’s assistant. She promised she’d have him call me back as soon as possible. That was the kind of promise I tended to view with a lot of skepticism, so I was surprised when my phone rang only twenty minutes later and it was the North by West developer on the other end.

“Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, Jon,” I said. “I wanted to check with you before we put the chandelier from the Doran’s department store up on our website or sold it to someone else.”