Retreat to Woodhaven (The Hills of Burlington Book 2) Page 25

  

  See Sneak Preview of the next book in the Hills of Burlington series below.

  Sneak Preview of Summer Street Secrets - A Hills of Burlington book

  Casey kicked an empty pop can to the side with one foot and nudged a pile of paper and who knew what out of her way with the other. "I take it you bought this sight unseen." She didn't even pose it as a question. The statement was a given just as her cousin's purchase of this house would have been. They might tease her about collecting houses but this would be the one that she wouldn't have turned away from for any reason and at any cost.

  "Pretty much," Mary looked back at both her cousins. They had come here alone this time without any of the rest of the other family members who had little by little returned and re-settled in Burlington. "Pete told me about it a couple of months ago," she glanced over her shoulder at Casey, "I told you about it then."

  "I remember." At that moment Casey Kyle Modig didn't look anything like the major news network anchor she’d been up until the last year. Anyone who would recognize her then wouldn't stand a chance of doing so now. Dressed in old jeans with an array of colorful patches and a sweater that had long ago seen better days, she pulled a garbage bag out from the bucket of cleaning stuff they'd brought with them.

  "Is it this bad upstairs?" Carrie asked to the room at large.

  Mary Lane, author of dozens of bestselling women's fiction novels shrugged her shoulders. "I have no earthly clue. I wanted to wait for the two of you to see it for the first time." As she spoke she pulled her work gloves out of her pocket. "There're some more gloves in the bucket with everything else."

  "This is almost worst than that place that Dave bought." Carrie wiped what she hoped was an empty spider web from her face.

  "Nothing on this planet could be as bad as that was." Casey agreed immediately shuddering as she thought of the run down house Mary's brother had purchased not long ago.

  "I don't know," Mary took in the room, the only one they'd made it through so far. "Pete told me it was bad the further you got into it, next time I think I'll ask him to specify just how bad."

  Carrie McMuerty, with her divorce newly final had taken back her maiden name and felt all the better for it, moved towards a doorway at the back of the room stuffing trash into the trash-bag she carried as she went. "Why don't we explore the house a bit first before we decide where to focus our efforts. We can grab the most obvious garbage as we go through."

  "Sounds good to me." Casey finished pulling on the thick gloves that reminded her of the ones her mother had worn to do dishes even after her father had finally broken down and gotten a dishwasher. "I still can't believe you bought this place." She flashed a quick smile at both her cousins but directed her thoughts to Mary. "When Pete told me you were trying to buy it I had a hard time believing you were buying another house period."

  "Some people collect stamps..." Carrie began, laughing at Mary's blush.

  "I know, I know." Mary picked up a huge pile of old newspapers and stuck them into her quickly filling garbage bag. "But this one I simply couldn't pass up. To think they came to Burlington and settled in this house almost as soon as they arrived."

  "And if your research is right they lived here until Great-Grandma died."

  Carrie shook her head in amazement. "Over fifty years in one place. That doesn't happen very often anymore."

  "It's rare people stay together that long anymore." Casey turned quickly, regret lining her face. "Carrie, I didn't mean..."

  "It's true, Casey, don't ever apologize for stating the truth." She sighed, they'd all been tiptoeing around her for weeks and worse, she'd been letting them. "I should have done it a long time ago." As if that somehow made it all right. It didn't. But the realization of it, the acceptance of it, made her feel better. And with her final divorce papers in hand she had decided that for the next little bit, it was going to be all about her. At least until she decided what to do next.

  "Since we're on that topic," Mary broached the subject carefully, "have you heard anything from Nick?"

  Carrie thought about the man she'd been married to for almost half her life. If she had any hopes that her act of filing for a divorce would bring about some lost emotional attachment between the two of them she had been sorely and quickly disappointed. Nick had treated the announcement from her with a sense of irritation that she had the audacity to mess up his schedule. There had been no real personal reaction let alone anything that could even come close to being described as emotional. So instead of having a reconciliation and second honeymoon with the man she had once loved and promised a life time to she was now the former wife of the powerful Senator who could cause most to tremble in their shoes. Not her. Never her. And she wondered now, had wondered often, if that hadn't been part of their problem. She had stood up to him when no one else would. Not always. Not unless it was important to her. And the Good Lord knew that her view of important had slid downward over the years. Only recently had she been able to reevaluate and put things into a perspective that better suited her than it ever had the Senator's wife. Sighing she looked over to where both her cousins stood waiting. Patience and love personified. She wouldn't have made it through the last months without their constancy. They'd kept her busy and they'd kept her challenged. Though it embarrassed her to no end she answered them honestly.

  "Not unless you count the press releases his office sent me the day the divorce was final. The one he planned on releasing and one that he wanted me to release."

  "Did you?"

  Carrie looked at the cousin she hadn't always gotten along with, hadn't always understood. But in the recent months of sharing their mothers' childhood home they had come to better understand each other. "What do you think?"

  "I think you wanted to tell him what he could do and where he could put his press release."

  "Exactly." She anticipated the next question. "And no, though I dearly wanted to, I didn't."

  "Too bad," murmured Mary under her breath just enough for Casey to hear. The smile they shared spoke far more than any words between them could.

  They moved through the house, taking notes and avoiding walking through the muck.

  "I don't understand how people can live like this let alone leave it behind." Carrie shook her head completely befuddled that anyone could live in this kind of mess that she was having a difficult time just walking through. She glanced over at her cousin wondering what beyond sentiment brought about her desire to own the old house. "Do you have any plans for it other than shoveling out all this nasty stuff?"

  "I thought Dave's place was bad but it's beginning to look mild compared to this." Casey added. The change in subject was accepted and she didn't blame her cousin a bit. It had been a rough couple of months for her since she had filed for her divorce. The entire situation had drawn them together in a way nothing else could have. Even in the midst of her hastily put together wedding plans Carrie had dealt with the day by day crap that her now ex-husband had thrown at her with grace and a classy style Casey knew she could never have pulled off. And through it all had helped her plan and pull off her wedding making it a day she would never ever forget. For that she owed her a lot and changing the subject was a minor way to begin repaying her.

  Mary looked around the room they stood in taking in the mess that it was now and in her mind more importantly what it could be once it was all cleared away. She had come to Burlington for very personal reasons. To reconnect with what had brought her such tremendous happiness in her childhood. She had never considered she would find a new life beyond that personal desire. But she had. And now it included finding out more about her great-grandparents. Especially her grandmother's parents on her mother's side. They had played a huge role in the lives of their own children, far more than she had ever realized. And now she stood in the house that had been their home for literally all their married lives. There wasn't the immediate connection she'd felt in the home that she lived in, her grandmother's home during
her own childhood. Nor was there the connection with the Marshall Street house that her mother had grown up in. But there was a connection. There would be no way to bring this house back to what it had been unless her Aunt Charlie had any memories of the place to share with them. There was no way she was going to bring her here though until the place was cleaned up. She shook her head, she needed to stay in the here and now and not get too far ahead of herself.

  She looked at her cousins, understood their concern. "I actually do have some thoughts on what to do with the place. But it has to work for you as well since we're all in this together." That got their attention. "We really need a place for the business side of all we're doing. We've got so much going on now that everything is flowing over into everything else at the Marshall Street house. It was okay in the beginning but now I just feel badly that Carrie has to live among all that. And I worry that one of these days Aunt Charlie's going to trip and fall over something and hurt herself. She might live in the Carriage House out back but she's in and out of the main house a lot during the day depending on what's going on."

  Casey nodded, agreeing especially now that she'd moved out with her new husband and family and saw the situation from a different perspective. "She's right Carrie. I know it doesn't bother you but we really need actual offices. Now that Mallie is managing the rink with Beth she's been bringing home paperwork to work on and doing it in the kitchen at the main house because she and Aunt Charlie just don't have the room in the Carriage House out back. We've spread out all the businesses throughout most the first floor and that's just not fair to you."

  "You know," Mary started, studying both her cousins knowing they weren't going to resolve anything in the next several minutes, "let's leave this for later." She looked pointedly around the room they stood in which was the same as every other room in the house. "I think it's more important for us to sit down together and map out where we are," she paused, letting her own thoughts circle around and settle giving her cousins time to do the same. "And where we're going, or at least where we want to go with all we're involved in."

  "Sounds good to me," Casey moved cautiously over to the window that looked out into the huge yard out back. "But it's needs to be someplace where we're not going to get continuous interruptions if we want to get anything accomplished."

  Carrie nodded in total agreement. "That counts out either of the houses since they seem to be Grand Central Station the minute we try to get uninterrupted time in either." She smiled, something that was becoming more frequent. "That's not a bad thing, I've gotten to enjoy seeing Mallie and Beth bound into a room with all the energy I used to have."

  "There is that," Casey wondered absently at the cluster of stones in the far back corner of the yard but turned her attention back to the discussion at hand. "But Mary has a point. We've been lucky to keep things as organized as they've been without putting a lot of effort into it. I'm not certain we'll be that lucky going forward."

  "You're right." Carrie ran her hand through her hair, recently cut just as she wanted not as decreed by her ex-husband. "How about the soda fountain?" She suggested referring to the small restaurant on the outskirts of the old downtown area they'd recently discovered and frequented often. The food was good and while often packed during the lunch and dinner hours the atmosphere was conducive to quiet conversations and shared meals most the rest of the time.

  "Sounds good to me." Casey turned to Mary who nodded. "Let's go then. I want to be home before the kids get there this afternoon." Her children from her recent marriage were every bit hers as if she'd labored at their birth.

  The three women carefully and cautiously made their way back through the mess that littered the floor throughout Mary's new purchase. Carrie tried without success to control the shiver that ran up her back at the slight ruffling noise she heard only seconds before a quick movement near her feet had her stepping backwards and only barely holding on to her balance.

  "Mary." She continued making her way to the front door even as she got her cousin's attention. "I would get an exterminator in here before any clean up is scheduled."

  "Yes." Mary stepped even more carefully over a suspicious looking pile of shredded papers. She'd seen the same movement Carrie had. "I most certainly will." And she knew just who to call to find out who the best person for that would be. "I'll call Court on my way to the restaurant and see what he suggests."

  Neither of the women walking through the front door with her noticed Carrie's sudden reaction to the mention of his name. At least that's what she told herself.

  Other books available by the author.

  The Last Christmas Ornament

  Cost of Redemption

  Her Letter

  When Words Matter

  The Hope of Hyde Hills

  When We Trust

  How We Love

  Where We Turn…coming soon

  The Andersen Saga

  Betrayal

  Resolute

  Broken

  Found

  Choices

  Regrets

  Remember

  Forgiven

  Truths

  Always

  Expectations

  Decisions

  Disillusioned

  Believe

  Hills of Burlington

  Return to Cedar Hill

  Retreat to Woodhaven

  Summer Street Secrets

  Refuge on Leebrick

  A Christmas Dinner on Marshall Street

  Return to Summit Falls

  Going Home

  Home Again

  Coming Home

  Finding Home

  Sharing Home

  Home to Stay

  Home Again for Christmas

  The Delahass Legacy

  Family

  Family Unbroken

  Family Shadows

  Family Always

  Family Trust

  Family Promise

  Home In Madeira Springs

  The Typewriter Playoffs

  They Will Know You

  The Civil War Connection

  The Seneca Falls Connection

  The French Revolution Connection

  The Wilberforce Connection

  Worlds They Left Behind