Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(48)

That’s the thing about a town like Sisters: everyone knows everyone. And everything about everyone. It’s a miracle I’ve kept my own situation under wraps.

Chuck stops in front of the counter and throws me a wink. “Who’s your lovely coworker?”

“This is Water. Ginny Fitzgerald’s cousin, who moved here a few weeks ago from . . . ?” She squints in thought.

“Pittsburgh,” I fill in. I feel bad for lying to Dakota, as nice as she is.

Chuck’s eyes widen. “Crazy Tree Quilt Lady?”

“The one and only.” I force a smile. Yes, she may be crazy, but she has her share of reasons and it bothers me that people call her that so openly.

“Dad says he saw Old Fitzgerald’s yellow truck driving through town but figured Ginny had sold it, given she hasn’t been seen in years. She still have those horses?”

“Just the two.”

“She’s nuts for not selling off some of that land, or at least taking in some boarders. My pops drove out there one day to suggest it to her.” He chuckles. “That didn’t go over too well.”

“Let me guess. She chased him away with a broom?” He’s right—renting those stables would be great for her, financially. But that would mean people coming onto her property, and everyone knows how Ginny feels about that.

“You should talk her into it. I know lots of people who’d be interested.”

“I’ll mention it to her,” I offer, though I’m not sure I will. That will earn a thirty-minute rant about nosy Sisters townspeople.

“She’s got over a thousand acres, last I heard. It’s worth a mint, so close to the mountains. Get on her good side and maybe she’ll leave it to you when she kicks it.”

“Uh . . .”

“What’s it like, living with that old nut, anyway?” They’re both looking at me as if they expect me to pull up a chair and start listing all of Ginny’s quirks.

“It’s great. She’s been very kind to me.” I begin rearranging the jewelry rack to make room for the new bracelets.

I guess Chuck gets the hint. “So, Dakota . . . you called about a problem with your stereo system?”

Dakota throws her hands in the air. “Please! It just stopped working one day and this silence is driving me insane!” She leads him back through the beaded curtain, giving him a chance to do a once-over, his gaze lingering on her ass.

“No wonder it quit. How old is this thing?” I hear Chuck exclaim from the cramped storage room/office. The stereo system hasn’t been working since I started here. Neither has the security camera, which Dakota says is just a dummy anyway, to scare off thieving thirteen-year-olds.

The bell jangles over the door and Amber walks in with a quilt folded over her arm. “Hey! Why aren’t you sleeping?” I ask. Amber’s been working a stretch of night shifts. Her red Mini usually pulls into the Welleses’ driveway around the same time that I’m filling the horse trough with grain and fresh water each morning.

“I picked up a day shift tomorrow, so I need to stay up until tonight.” She hands me the quilt.

I shake my head. “I don’t know how you do it, Amber.”

“Reminding myself that I’m going to be traveling the world next year with ease. That’s how I do it.” She hands me the quilt—the blue-and-green one Ginny’s been working on all week. “Ginny said to put it in the display window.”

I can’t help but smile. The woman doesn’t own this shop, but she acts like she does. I lay the quilt out over the table of wool blankets. The token tree is there, as always, with gold and green fields stretching into the horizon.

It’s just like all the others—except this one has two tiny horses in the far distance, one black, one brown.

Amber digs into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “The artist sent this with me. You forgot the grocery list on the porch.”

“Let me guess . . .” Sure enough, the same three things top the list. “When will she stop doing this!”

“When she’s six feet in the ground, and knowing Ginny, that won’t be for another fifty years.”

After two weeks straight of dried-out chicken legs, mealy instant potatoes, and beans from a can, I politely offered to cook dinner one night, as a thank-you to her. I wasn’t even sure I knew how to cook, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Ginny grumbled but then relented—admitting that she hated cooking—and I set out, borrowing a cookbook from Meredith, getting ingredients for a beef stew that looked easy enough and using my ’70s kitchenette for the very first time.

I may not remember ever cooking, but it turns out I’m pretty good at it. By Ginny’s second helping, she agreed.

I suffered through a few more days of “Ginny’s Classic” and then, when it was time for Meredith to go grocery shopping, I insisted on doing it. Ginny gave me two folded twenty-dollar bills and a grocery list with three items: two pounds of chicken thighs, five boxes of instant mashed potatoes, and seven 14-ounce cans of Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce.

I humored her by picking them up, but I also used my first paycheck to grab ingredients for several recipes I wanted to try. When I dropped her groceries off at her doorstep that day, I asked if I could cook again that night.