Linda Hall - Storm Warning

“Great. Okay, well.” She felt a jittery jangle of nerves. She knew the price of handcrafted cupboards. Her budget only had so much in it. “But we’ll need to talk price.” She added quickly, “I also have to order new appliances—dishwasher, fridge, stove, one with two ovens and a separate warming oven. And I’ve got my budget down to the penny.”

“What’s wrong with that stove?” Steve pointed at the stove up against the wall.

She stared at him. “That’s a wood stove.”

“Yeah? So? It’s a classic.”

“I know it’s a classic. And it’ll stay there. I just don’t think I’ll be using it to actually cook things.”

“No,” he said. “You gotta use it. It’ll really warm up the place, too.”

“Well, even if I use that as a stove, I still want a new, proper, energy-efficient oven. And dishwasher. This washing dishes by hand is for the birds.”

Before she had even finished talking Steve was up and examining the cupboard next to the sink. It was empty inside. He closed it, opened it again. She watched in silence while he ran his fingers over the wood as if reading Braille.

He turned. “I can fix you up with brand-new cupboards. We can look at woods. I would recommend something dark. I think that would fit in with the decor of the rest of this old kitchen.”

He went on. “If you’re going to run a guesthouse and retreat center you’ll want the best. Nothing prefab for here.”

She furrowed her brow and looked at him. “How did you know I plan to open a retreat center?”

“A little birdie told me.” And then he chuckled deeply. “Actually, Marlene may have mentioned that.”

“Oh. Right.” Marlene at Marlene’s Café was one of the few people she’d gotten to know. Nori didn’t have Internet access at Trail’s End yet, so took advantage of the free Wi-Fi at Marlene’s Café at least once a day.

While Steve and Nori drank their coffee, she went over the rest of her list and pictures. Next was a tour of the lodge. Steve had a lot of good ideas. When she asked him how he had learned so much about interior design he told her it was the influence of his parents. “My dad did the carpentry work and my mother did the designing.”

“So, you worked with your father?”

He didn’t answer her question and the tiniest of frowns settled between his eyes.

After they’d gone through every room in the lodge, they decided to take a look at the cabins since the rain had lessened.

The sun began to glisten through wet tree branches as the two of them headed outside.

“Why don’t you get your dog?” she said.

After Steve let Chester out of his truck, Nori commented on what a remarkably well-trained pooch Chester was.

“He’s had a bit of police training.”

“Wow. That must be interesting.”

“It is,” he added.

Beyond them the lake lapped gently against the shore. It was hard to believe that an hour before it had been a maelstrom.

About an hour later, she and Steve and Chester ended up back in the kitchen going over numbers and ideas. At the end of another pot of coffee and some cookies she had bought at the bakery in town, they came up with a workable plan. Steve would head into Shawnigan tomorrow and look at woods for her cupboards. He had promised her that he could do it for her budgeted amount. Then he would organize work crews. “You’ll like the kids from the church,” he said.

“I’ve met Selena, Marlene’s daughter. Does she go to church? She’s the only young person I know. She seems a bit quiet, though,” Nori said.

“All the kids around here are a bit quiet,” he said.

She thought that was an odd statement, but didn’t pursue it. Instead, she asked, “Are you from around here. Steve? You don’t have the accent.”

“I’m a transplant. Been here three years.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Boston.”

They both noticed the smoke at the same time, but Steve got to the fireplace first.

“Sometimes that fireplace smokes.” Nori was close behind him. She knelt down beside him and watched him work on the flue.

“Do you think the chimney works properly?”

He fiddled with the knob. “It’s the flue. It wasn’t opened all the way. It was a bit stuck. I think I got it. But I would get it cleaned. That’s part of the problem.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I could give you names.”

“Please.”

Their faces were at the same level and he was so close she could catch the scent of him. He smelled like the out-of-doors—canoeing and camping.

He said, “Who split all this wood?”

“I did.”

He looked at her and raised one eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m used to hard work.” Nori looked away from him. The truth was, she wasn’t. Splitting a few logs had taken her hours and she had the blisters to prove it.

The fire was burning nicely now. He said, “I’m glad someone’s taken over this place,” he said. “It’s too good a place to let go.”

There was something so tender in his gaze that she found herself backing away lest she be drawn too closely into those deep eyes. Standing, they were face-to-face with her framed photos on the mantel. There were pictures of her daughters, several of her late husband, Marty, one with the girls draped on either side of him, smiles all over everyone’s faces.

“My daughters,” Nori said by way of explanation. “They’re twins. Sixteen. They’re working in a church camp this summer. That’s their father…”

He looked at the picture for a while without saying anything. “I have an eight-year-old son myself. Jeffrey. He lives with his mother down South.”

“I’m sorry,” Nori said, finding her voice again.

He looked back at the pictures of Daphne and Rachel. “Your daughters are very pretty. You said they’re at a church camp?”

She laughed a bit at that. “Yes, a church camp. I haven’t been to church in a while, but my daughters never lost the faith their mother did.”

Nori hadn’t been to church since her husband’s funeral. Sometimes she wondered if God had forgotten all about her. He had looked the other way when that drunk had barreled into her young, strong husband, out for an early morning jog. It felt to her that God’s back had been turned on her ever since.

“I’m sorry that you lost your faith.” His words sounded genuine. He paused before he said, “I just found mine. I’m still finding mine. I still have a lot to work out. Not in God’s love to me, but in my own life.”

It was an odd sort of moment. She’d had the idea that Steve might be someone she could talk to, that he was a listening sort of man, that he would somehow understand everything she had gone through and why it was that she had lost her faith. But then he had stiffened and his face darkened.

They said goodbye and she stood on her porch and watched until his truck was out of sight.

As she made her way back inside something felt curious. She was sure she’d left all the windows open when she went kayaking. Had Steve shut them all? When would he have had time to do that?

Nori Edwards was nothing like he expected. Steve leaned against the gas pump at Earl’s Gas and Convenience and filled his truck. From Marlene and her husband, Roy, he’d heard a lot about the woman who had bought Trail’s End, but he hadn’t met her until today. Everyone in town had a comment or two about “that woman who bought Trail’s End.”

The place had a history, he knew. Five years ago Earl had bought Trail’s End from the couple who had run it for fifteen years. They were tired of the upkeep. Earl wanted to winterize the cabins and turn it into a winter rental place.

Shortly after he bought it, Earl fell off a cabin he was roofing and broke a leg and injured his back. It had turned into something that was chronic. He put Trail’s End up for sale shortly after he realized his back wouldn’t get better.