Sunrise Point (Virgin River #19)(61)

“I heard sarcasm there.”

She just laughed. “I have a patient pretty soon. See you for dinner.”

* * *

Things were opening up for Nora Crane in ways she had not dared hope for or imagine. First of all, she hadn’t expected to ever get to know her father and here she was, spending at least one afternoon every week with him. On almost every visit, Susan came along. And every time they appeared, more items for Nora’s home and children arrived with them. Jed pulled a port-a-crib and fancy stroller out of his trunk and she had to fight tears of gratitude. Fay wouldn’t have to sleep on the mattress with her mother and sister anymore. But that was nothing to the Sunday they were scheduled to have a picnic but were rained out; Jed and Susan arrived pulling a trailer.

“It looks like our picnic will be another day, but I think we’ll have fun anyway,” he said.

“What on earth…?”

“That old couch of yours, Nora—it just has to go! Your table and two chairs aren’t in much better shape.”

And in that rented trailer were a sofa, a chair, a side table, a lamp, small kitchen table and four chairs.

“No, you didn’t,” she said in a whisper. “Jed, you have to stop this or I’ll be taking care of you in your impoverished old age!”

“I can’t stop—not until I see you and the little girls comfortable. I don’t mean with extravagance—this stuff was on sale and wasn’t expensive as furniture goes. I just want to help you get on your feet.”

“But I can never repay you for this!”

“All I ever wanted was to have you in my life again,” he said. “I never counted on the bonus of granddaughters.”

When the furniture was brought into the house, Berry was absolutely thrilled. She climbed right up on it, her little eyes so round and happy. Fay immediately pulled herself up, too, and patted it.

Rain or not, nothing got past her neighbors. Martha and Adie were outside, checking out the delivery and from down the street Leslie and Conner arrived—Conner wanted to help Jed get the new furniture in and the old furniture out. The ratty old couch went in the U-Haul. “I’ll drop this off at the dump unless you have other plans for it,” Jed said.

“Nothing is thrown away around here without permission from Reverend Kincaid,” Nora said. “In fact, in a couple of months I will have been here a year and without the charity of my friends and neighbors, I don’t know if we’d have survived the winter.”

It was hard to imagine anyone being more needy than Nora had been but sure enough, Noah wanted that couch. “I think I know just the place for it,” he told her over the phone. Conner and Jed carried it through the drizzle for a block to the church where it would sit until it could be delivered further.

Her children were outfitted for the cold weather, there was new bedding, warm blankets and good food in the house. Just when Nora thought she couldn’t possibly wish for more, Maxie asked her, “Nora, do you bake?”

“Welllll,” she said doubtfully. “When I was a girl I made cookies, but it’s been a long time.”

“Do you think you’d like to?”

“If I had the time, I would,” she said. “I can follow directions, I think. But Maxie, I don’t have much cookware on hand.”

“Here’s what I’d like to do—and I’ve spoken to Tom about my idea. I have a couple of very big weekends coming up. If you’re agreeable, you could pick apples until lunchtime, run to town and fetch Adie and the little ones and come back. We’ll give them lunch and I think they’ll either nap or maybe Berry will even help. I think a few of my friends will arrive later in the week—you’ll like them. They’re as ancient as I am, catty as can be, a little on the doting side when it comes to small children and they give Tom as much grief as they can get by with. Would you like to help me in the afternoons this week?”

“Oh, Maxie, I would love to!”

“I think Martha would rather hike than bake, but I’ll leave you to extend an invitation to her, as well.”

* * *

It seemed to be the natural order of things in Maxie’s house that afternoon just stretched into evening—everyone gathered around her dinner table for a meal that had been started in the afternoon along with the baking. The little girls napped and when they didn’t, Berry stood on a stool in the big kitchen, stirring, and Fay sat in her booster chair amidst the commotion, playing and snacking.

By dinner on Wednesday, they had accomplished a great deal—there was apple butter, apple pies stored in the root cellar where it was cool, all kinds of cookies for the weekend festivities. Nora had also learned to bake bread and make cinnamon rolls; the fall vegetables had come in, so there was zucchini bread galore.

Nora worked as hard in the kitchen as she did in the orchard. “Pace yourself,” she said to Maxie. “Don’t wear yourself out before your big weekend.”

“Oh, darling, this doesn’t tire me—it energizes me! I love feeding people.”

Nora looked forward to dinnertime the most—the leaf was put in the table and everyone gathered around it, laughing, eating, telling tall tales. Adie was in her element—she couldn’t do things like this at home alone and loved being with friends. And when Tom came in cold and tired after a long day in the orchard, he was not the same man Nora had met when she first applied for the job. He was cheerful and playful and she tried valiantly to tamp down fantasies of being the woman in his home when he finished his day’s work.