Still Lake. Anne Stuart
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needed to get her life back under control. The first year of a new business was always bound to be a bit shaky, but Stonegate Farm was the perfect location for a country inn, and Sophie had energy and enthusiasm to spare. For years most of her decorating and baking had been only in theory, research for the syndicated column she wrote while she lived in a small apartment in New York. Marty called her the poor woman’s Martha Stewart, which Sophie would have taken as a compliment if Marty hadn’t been sneering when she said it.
And now she had this early nineteenth-century farmhouse on the edge of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, a dream location for a dream profession. It was a huge, rambling old house, with half a dozen bedrooms and an extra wing off the back that might be salvaged and eventually turned into even more guest rooms. Everything had seemed so simple when she’d mortgaged her life and her soul to bring Marty and Grace up here.
Not that Grace was particularly thrilled. She’d never been the bucolic type, but her last bout with breast cancer had left her surprisingly weak, and for the first time she admitted she needed help. She’d accompanied them, reluctantly, insisting that as soon as she regained her strength she’d be off on her endless travels. Four months later Sophie knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
This time it wasn’t the cancer. As far as she could tell Grace had made it through this second reoccurrence with flying colors. But in the past few months her mother had gotten more and more forgetful. Grace had never been much of a deep thinker—Marty and Sophie’s mutual father had called her Spacey Gracey with equal parts malice and affection. But her current situation was serious enough that Sophie had gotten worried.
Not that there was anything she could do about it. Doc had been her best friend and confidant since she arrived there, and he’d basically shaken his head. “I don’t know whether she’s having tiny strokes or if it’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease,” he’d said. Grace had flatly refused to go into the hospital for testing, and Doc had told her there’d be time enough if things progressed.
Marty, with typical teenage charm, resented everything about the inn, including the fact she was expected to help out. She resented her older sister even more, but then, that was nothing new. And Grace was getting more and more forgetful, so that she drifted through their lives like a ghostly stranger, old before her time. Which suited Marty just fine. It was bad enough that Sophie had dragged her to the back end of beyond—why did she have to bring the old lady along, as well? Wasn’t this torture enough? she’d demanded.
Sophie eyed the last muffin. If she ate three of them she’d feel sick, not immediately, but soon enough. It didn’t matter, she wanted that muffin, and no one was around to watch her.
She was just about to reach for it when she heard someone outside the kitchen, and she pulled her hand back guiltily.
Grace wandered into the room, her gaunt figure dressed in mismatched clothing, the buttons on the raveling sweater awry. Grace, who’d always been so particular about her designer clothing and her hair. She looked twenty years older than her actual age of sixty. Marty came in behind her, not looking particularly pleased.
“I made muffins,” Sophie said cheerfully, ignoring the fact that only one remained.
“How nice, love,” Grace said in her soft voice. She had made a vain attempt at putting her long, graying hair in a bun, but strands of it stuck out at strange angles, and Sophie knew it would come down in a matter of minutes, leaving Grace looking even more disheveled. “I think I’ll just have some coffee.”
“You need to eat, Mama,” Sophie said. “You know what Doc said.”
Grace stopped to look at her, an odd expression in her hazy blue eyes. “Don’t believe everything everybody tells you, Sophie. People aren’t always what they seem.”
“I’m not…” Sophie began, used to Grace’s increasing paranoia, but her mother had already poured herself a mug of black coffee and wandered off, leaving Sophie alone with her sister.
Marty headed straight for the coffeemaker without a word.
“Good morning to you, too,” Sophie said, then could have slapped herself. Sarcasm didn’t make anything better.
Marty didn’t even bother glancing at her. She poured her coffee and took a deep gulp of it, studiously ignoring her.
“Did you put the new towels in the closet?” Sophie tried to keep her voice light and nonconfrontational. God knows Marty could find something to take offense at in the most innocuous of conversations, but Sophie did her best to avoid conflict whenever she could.
Marty kept her head buried in the crossword puzzle she was perusing. This week her short-cropped, spiky hair was black, tinged with fuchsia at the tips. She’d need to bleach it again when she went to her next phase. Sooner or later she wouldn’t have any hair at all, a prospect that Sophie regarded with mixed feelings. At least she could hope that not too many incipient bad boys would want to impregnate a bald-headed seventeen-year old. “You told me to, didn’t you?” Marty said in a hostile voice.
Sophie sighed, controlling her frustration. “I need your help, Marty. You need to contribute your share to the running of this place if we’re going to make a go of it. It’s nearing the end of summer, and you know we need to open by foliage season if we’re going to recover some of the renovation costs. I’ve already got reservations for September….”
“Why should I care? It was your idea to drag me off into the middle of nowhere, away from my friends. I’m not interested in running a bed-and-breakfast, I’m not interested in being locked up in the country with you and that crazy old bat, and I’m not interested in helping you.”
It was a good thing she hadn’t gone for that third muffin, Sophie thought—the second one was already doing a number on her stomach. “That crazy old bat is my mother,” she said. “I know she’s not yours, but I have a responsibility to her. Do we have to go over this every single day, Marty? Why don’t you go find someone else to harass?”
“I don’t have a problem with anyone but you, and I’ll keep after you until you listen.”
“I listen,” she said patiently. “I know you miss your friends, but, Marty, those people are no friends to you.”
“How would you know? I haven’t noticed anyone flocking around you. Face it, Sophie, you don’t know how to make friends and you’re jealous that I have so many.”
“Your so-called friends are nothing but trouble.” Another mistake, Sophie thought the moment the words were out. It just gave Marty more reason to fight back. How did her little sister always manage to get her back up?
Marty gave her a sour smile. “Then I fit right in with them, don’t I?”
“Please, Marty…”
“The goddamned towels are in the goddamned linen closet. Teal and beige and ivory and lavender and every other damned color you seem to think is necessary,” she snapped. “All set for your goddamned guests. Now, leave me alone.”
She slammed out of the room, taking her coffee and the paper with her. Sophie watched her go, a tight hand clamping around her heart. She reached for the third muffin.
It didn’t look as if things were going to get any better in the near future. Marty had been sullen and depressed for the last few months, ever since they’d arrived in Colby. Sophie had hoped and prayed that getting her away from the city would give her a new start. That sunshine and country air and hard work would start to make the difference.
So far things hadn’t improved noticeably. While Sophie did her best to manage a strained smile and ignore Marty’s sullen hostility, she wasn’t really made for sainthood. Tough love, she reminded herself, like a litany.
They were a mismatched family, the three of them. Grace had divorced her stodgy, Midwestern husband when Sophie was just nine, put her only child in boarding school and taken off for parts unknown. Sophie’s father, Morris, had quickly remarried, sired another daughter, Marty, providing a stifled, antiseptic existence for Sophie