Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(30)

No. Don’t even think about that.

The old pipes groan loudly as she turns the kitchen faucet so that Max can wash the red stickiness from his hands.

“It sounds like home,” he says contentedly, stretching to reach the sink.

“Hmm?”

“The sink. It used to do that at home, too. I like it. This place smells like home, too, and it even kind of looks like it.”

Yes. There’s no denying that the house offers happy reminders of the one they left behind. If Bella could only set aside the nagging worry that something isn’t quite right around here . . .

“Max, listen, I want you to sleep in the Rose Room tonight, okay?”

“No! That’s your room. The Train Room is our room.”

Our. He’s referring, of course, to Chance.

“If we stay here through the weekend, you’ll have to share with me. There’s plenty of room.”

“For all three of us?”

She eyes the cat, who eyes her right back, reclining on the mat in front of the sink beside her son’s sneakered tiptoes.

“Sure,” Bella agrees. After all, it’s only a few nights.

“And the kittens, too?”

“Kittens?”

“Chance the Cat’s. There’s going to be seven of them. Maybe even eight.”

“That’s a lot of kittens,” she points out with a smile, turning off the tap and handing Max a towel. “And they’re not here yet, so . . .”

“They’re coming tomorrow, and they’ll need to sleep with their mommy, and she needs to sleep with me, so if I need to sleep with you . . .” Max shrugs, drying his hands. Clearly, it’s a done deal.

“I don’t know if they’re coming that soon, sweetie.”

“They are. Tomorrow.”

“Well, then, we’ll figure it out when they get here. For now, Chance can sleep with us. Okay?”

“As long as the kittens can stay, too.”

She shrugs and agrees. Most likely, she and Max will be long gone by the time the kittens arrive, and if they’re not, then . . .

Then it looks like I’ll have a small boy and a large cat and seven or eight kittens in my bed.

“But you don’t have to worry about the tooth fairy tomorrow or the next day. My tooth isn’t even going to fall out until the Fourth of July.”

“Well, that’s good. The tooth fairy might push us over crowd capacity.” She bends over and gives him a quick hug. His hair desperately needs a good trim, she notices. Millicent is bound to comment.

Sam was the one who always took Max to the barber. They’d go together, on Saturday mornings, and come back freshly shorn after a pit stop for burgers and French fries.

Since then, Bella has only had Max’s hair cut once or twice, at her own seldom-visited salon. She couldn’t bear to bring him alone to the barbershop, where they’d ask about Sam.

She pats Max’s shaggy hair. “Thanks, kiddo.”

“For what?”

“For always making me smile and for being resilient.”

“What does—?”

“It means you’re going with the flow. You know, not complaining about things.”

“I like it here,” he informs her with a shrug. “Don’t you?”

“Sure.”

Now that that’s settled, she sends Max upstairs to move his things into the Rose Room. As she waits for a cup of tea to steep, she tries to talk herself into calling her mother-in-law but can’t quite bring herself to pick up the phone just yet.

Instead, she turns her attention to the other detail that escaped her when she said yes to running Valley View Manor for a few days.

“This is for breakfast,” Odelia had said earlier, handing her an envelope of cash.

“What do you mean?”

“For the guests. You’ll have to feed them in the morning.”

“Feed them? You mean . . . I guess I didn’t realize I’d be cooking for them.”

“Oh, you don’t have to cook. It’s just continental breakfast—cereal, fruit, maybe some bagels or muffins if you feel like baking.”

She doesn’t. She used to bake cakes and cookies when Sam was alive. Max would help her, though his help mainly consisted of asking questions and licking the bowl.

But it’s no big deal, Bella assures herself as she surveys the contents of the refrigerator and cabinets, making a list of what she’ll need to buy. Anyone can make coffee and put out cereal and pastries, right?

But what kind of cereal? she wonders, dunking the tea bag into the boiling water. How many pastries? Where—

Her thoughts are interrupted by a loud knocking on the front door.

It must be another guest. According to Leona’s painstakingly notated reservations file, another couple should be checking in today. Their names are Karl and Helen Adabner, and they’re from Iowa. There are a couple of check marks by their names—whatever that signifies. Leona’s handwritten shorthand isn’t always clear.

Earlier, Bella noted what looked like the word frumpy or fussy or prissy—or maybe hussy?—jotted in the margin beside another guest’s name. When the exceedingly prim woman, a bespectacled blonde named Bonnie Barrington, checked into the Teacup Room, Bella realized the first three adjectives definitely applied. She entertained herself imagining that the unlikely fourth might, as well.