What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(5)

“Yes, please,” she said.

“I’ll get it.” Enid went around the corner to dish it up.

The store didn’t have a big kitchen, just a little turning around room. It was in the southwest corner of the store; there was a bar and four stools right beside the cash register. On the northwest corner there was a small bar where they served adult beverages, and again, a bar and four stools. No one had ever wanted to attempt a restaurant but it was a good idea to provide food and drink—campers and hikers tended to run out of supplies. Sully sold beer, wine, soft drinks and bottled water in the cooler section of the store, but he didn’t sell bottled liquor. For that matter, he wasn’t a grocery store but a general store. Along with foodstuffs there were T-shirts, socks and a few other recreational supplies—rope, clamps, batteries, hats, sunscreen, first-aid supplies. For the mother lode you had to go to Timberlake, Leadville or maybe Colorado Springs.

In addition to tables and chairs on the porch, there were a few comfortable chairs just inside the front door where the potbellied stove sat. Maggie remembered when she was a little girl, men sat on beer barrels around the stove. There was a giant ice machine on the back porch. The ice was free.

Enid stuck her head out of the little kitchen. She bleached her hair blond but had always, for as long as Maggie could remember, had black roots. She was plump and nurturing while her husband, Frank, was one of those grizzled, skinny old ranchers. “Is that nice Dr. Mathews coming down on the weekend?” Enid asked.

“I broke up with him. Don’t ever call him nice again,” Maggie said. “He’s a turd.”

“Oh, honey! You broke up?”

“He said I was depressing,” she said with a pout. “He can kiss my ass.”

“Well, I should say so! I never liked him very much, did I mention that?”

“No, you didn’t. You said you loved him and thought we’d make handsome children together.” She winced as she said it.

“Obviously I wasn’t thinking,” Enid said, withdrawing back into the kitchen. In a moment she brought out a bowl of soup and a thick slice of cheese toast. Her soup was cream of mushroom and it was made with real cream.

Maggie dipped her spoon into the soup, blew on it, tasted. It was heaven. “Why aren’t you my mother?” she asked.

“I just didn’t have the chance, that’s all. But we’ll pretend.”

Maggie and Enid had that little exchange all the time, exactly like that. Maggie had always wanted one of those soft, nurturing, homespun types for a mother instead of Phoebe, who was thin, chic, active in society, snobby and prissy. Phoebe was cool while Enid was warm and cuddly. Phoebe could read the hell out of a menu while Enid could cure anything with her chicken soup, her grandmother’s recipe. Phoebe rarely cooked and when she did it didn’t go well. But lest Maggie completely throw her mother under the bus, she reminded herself that Phoebe had a quick wit, and though she was sarcastic and ironic, she could make Maggie laugh. She was devoted to Maggie and craved her loyalty, especially that Maggie liked her more than she liked Sully. She gave Maggie everything she had to give. It wasn’t Phoebe’s fault they were not the things Maggie wanted. For example, Phoebe sent Maggie to an extremely good college-prep boarding school that had worked out on many levels, except that Maggie would have traded it all to live with her father. Foolishly, perhaps, but still... And while Phoebe would not visit Sully’s campground under pain of death, she had thrown Maggie a fifty-thousand-dollar wedding that Maggie hadn’t wanted. And Walter had given her and Sergei a trip to Europe for their honeymoon.

Maggie had appreciated the trip to Europe quite a lot. But she should never have married Sergei. She’d been very busy and distracted and he was handsome, sexy—especially that accent! They’d looked so good together. She took him at face value and failed to look deeper into the man. He was superficial and not trustworthy. Fortunately, or would that be unfortunately, it had been blessedly short. Nine months.

“This is so good,” Maggie said. “Your soup always puts me right.”

“How long are you staying, honey?”

“I’m not sure. Till I get a better idea. Couple of weeks, maybe?”

Enid shook her head. “You shouldn’t come in March. You should know better than to come in March.”

“He’s going to work me like a pack of mules, isn’t he?”

“No question about it. Only person who isn’t afraid to come around in March is Frank. Sully won’t put Frank to work.”

Frank Masterson was one of Sully’s cronies. He was about the same age while Enid was just fifty-five. Frank said he had had the foresight to marry a younger woman, thereby assuring himself a good caretaker for his old age. Frank owned a nearby cattle ranch that these days was just about taken over by his two sons, which freed up Frank to hang out around Sully’s. Sometimes Sully would ask, “Why don’t you just come to work with Enid in the morning and save the gas since all you do is drink my coffee for free and butt into everyone’s business?”

When the weather was cold he’d sit inside, near the stove. When the weather was decent he favored the porch. He wandered around, chatted it up with campers or folks who stopped by, occasionally lifted a heavy box for Enid, read the paper a lot. He was a fixture.

Enid had a sweet, heart-shaped face to go with her plump body. It attested to her love of baking. Besides making and wrapping sandwiches to keep in the cooler along with a few other lunchable items, she baked every morning—sweet rolls, buns, cookies, brownies, that sort of thing. Frank ate a lot of that and apparently never gained an ounce.