The Stroke of Winter(7)

That was when the idea of turning La Belle Vie into an inn hit her. She could still tap into her love of cooking and hospitality, but do it for herself.

The sensibleness of it all was what convinced her to do it. It made perfect sense to turn La Belle Vie into an inn. Didn’t it?



Later that afternoon, Tess stood in the kitchen at the massive butcher-block table, chopping meat and slicing veggies for her stew. A fire blazed in the fireplace, the Renaissance music channel played on her music app, and she was sipping a glass of cold chardonnay as she worked. Perfect. Very few things could be better than this for Tess. Nothing relaxed her more than cooking. Thinking of the perfect menu, shopping for the ingredients, and just the rhythmic act of chopping seemed to melt away all her anxiety and fears. The creative aspect of putting it all together, straying from recipes to concoct something new and her own, was lifegiving to her. It had been necessary during Eli’s recovery.

These past few months, she had been compiling breakfast recipes with an eye toward making them for her future guests, along with snacks she would serve on the front porch before dinnertime as a sort of happy hour.

But tonight, it was all about making dinner for Jim and Jane. Her famous harvest stew. It was her own recipe, born one evening when she was making one of her all-time favorite dishes, French onion soup, and wondered what it would taste like with some steak thrown in. It had morphed and grown from there into what Eli called French onion soup on steroids.

She was using beef chuck, because that was what she had on hand, but any cut of beef would do. The stew had to simmer for two-plus hours so the meat would become fork tender.

She began by pouring a splash of olive oil into her favorite heavy dutch oven, along with some butter. As that melted, she added a bit of garlic and three large Vidalia onions she had sliced thin, along with chopped carrots and celery. She sautéed it all for a good thirty minutes until the onions started to caramelize.

Then came the meat, chopped into small, bite-size pieces that she had dredged by placing them and a scant quarter cup of flour into a plastic bag and shaking it. With the meat added to the pot, she sprinkled some thyme and sautéed the mixture for a couple of minutes until it made a sort of paste, then poured in a bottle of dark beer. Tess let that simmer for a bit and then added enough beef stock to cover the meat and veggies, put the cover on the pot, and turned down the heat. She checked the clock. Plenty of time for the stew to simmer into wonderfulness before Jim and Jane arrived.

She checked the fridge to make sure she had salad fixings and swiss cheese to round out the meal. Seeing that she was all set, she quickly washed her prep tools and cleaned up her work area—Clean as you go in the kitchen, her grandmother always used to say.

Tess topped off her glass and was about to head to her study to sit with her thoughts awhile and plan out her next moves on the back-of-the-house renovation when she heard a noise.

It was faint, at first. Was it really there? Tess turned off her music and listened closer. Yes, there it was—scratch, scratch, scratch—coming from the kitchen door. Not this again. Now something was scratching on another door, from the outside? Tess let out a groan. But it wasn’t the same scratching she had heard during the night. This was different.

She looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky, casting a glow over the snowdrifts. She didn’t see anything in the yard or the driveway, until she looked down. A white dog was huddled against the door, shivering. Its face was looking up at her, its eyes pleading.

It had to be ten degrees below zero out there. She wasn’t in the habit of letting stray animals into her house, but . . . this dog would freeze to death if left to brave the elements.

Tess opened the door to a whoosh of cold. The dog just sat there, shivering, looking into her eyes.

“C’mon in,” Tess said, with as much gentleness as she could muster. “You’re welcome here, inside. Come in and get warm.” Her tone was soothing.

The animal got to its feet and crept into the kitchen. Tess held her breath, not knowing how it might react—was it aggressive? But the dog noticed the fire in the fireplace and crept over to the hearth on shaky legs before lying down before it with a great sigh. It sounded like the groan of an old man whose limbs were sore and weary. Maybe that was exactly what it was.

Tess had grown up with dogs but hadn’t lived with one since Eli was born—Matt was allergic, and after he left, it just never seemed the right time to add more responsibilities to her plate. But she loved animals and was, in her heart, a caretaker. Her heart swelled, thinking of this dog outside, braving the storm on its own. She found a bowl in the cabinet, filled it with water, and set it gently in front of the animal.

“You take a drink, now,” she said. “You must be thirsty.” But the dog didn’t budge. It laid its great head on its paws and closed its eyes.

It probably needs to get warm, Tess thought. She eyed the animal. No collar. Its white fur wasn’t terribly matted but could use a little love and care. She noticed a slight hint of auburn running along the length of its back. Its ears were pointy and pink inside, and its snout was long. It had the look of a malamute or white German shepherd or even a white wolf, but Tess couldn’t be sure. She put it at about one hundred pounds. It wasn’t malnourished but wasn’t exactly carrying any extra weight, either.

What to do now? Tess headed into the hallway to the phone alcove and dialed Jim and Jane’s number.