of pine, fir, and alder. The entire area was mountainous, each peak dusted with a brilliant white layer of mid-spring snow.
It was spectacularly beautiful and worth the entire trip just to see it. Charity grinned to think that for the next six months she would be living in this wild, scenic place.
They rounded another curve and the pickup’s red taillights went on in front of her. Charity had noticed earlier that one of the bulbs was out. She glanced toward the stream they had been following, out across a rickety-looking wooden bridge, and spotted a small log cabin situated among the pine trees at the edge of the creek.
The Lily Rose. A little thrill shot through her. Never mind that the bridge looked like it might collapse at any moment. It could be fixed easily enough. She still had money to make the needed repairs.
Maude drove over the bridge as if it were perfectly safe, so Charity closed her eyes, summoned her courage, and pretended it really was. She clattered to the opposite side and released the breath she had been holding. Parking the Ford next to the cabin, she set the emergency brake and climbed out of the car.
The breath she took of fresh Klondike air was cold and clean and smelled of the pine trees that grew on the hill behind the cabin. She could hear the rush of water over the boulders in the creek as she walked toward the house.
She paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the covered porch. The cabin was made of logs, as the advertisement had said, but the wood shingle roof was sagging and a broken board made it hard to climb the front-porch stairs.
“Needs a little work,” Maude said—the understatement of the year. The house was a shambles, Charity discovered with a sinking heart as she opened the door and walked in. It was hard not to feel a rush of disappointment.
“A cozy, one-bedroom cabin on a wild, rushing stream,” she quoted from the advertisement. “Well, the stream is wild and rushing, and I can see the convenient kitchen from here.” Two steps to the right of the door, just at the end of the living room, such as it was.
“It ain’t as bad as it seems,” Maude said firmly. Reaching into the pocket of her plaid flannel shirt, she pulled out a short-stemmed pipe and stuck it between her teeth. “Just needs a little work, is all.”
More than a little, Charity thought glumly, watching Maude chew on the end of the unlit pipe and imagining the small inheritance her grandfather had left her shrinking by the minute. “The place needs just about everything.”
“Stove works real good.” Maude pointed to the big, black woodstove in the kitchen. “And the water’s piped in from the well and stored in that big tank behind the house. You don’t have to carry it up from the creek.” She turned the handle on the faucet over the sink to demonstrate and it sputtered dirty brown water out of its nozzle. “Ain’t been used in a while. Take a minute to start runnin’ clean.”
Charity’s stomach knotted. They wandered past a small, round table and four rickety kitchen chairs that had been painted white and now were a peeling, dismal gray, and stepped into the living room, ducking cobwebs here and there. The rustic rock fireplace was exactly that, but the smooth, round river stones were covered with a layer of thick, black soot and ashes spilled over the hearth onto the wood-planked floor.
“Roof might need some work, but the place is sturdy—I can tell ya that. When Mose moved in, he fixed it up real good.”
He must have. It looked as if it had been sitting there for the last hundred years, which she now believed it might actually have been.
“Fireplace looks real purty on a cold winter night, but the real heat comes from that little pellet stove in the corner. It’ll get hot enough to run you outta here.”
Well, at least she’d be warm. They wandered into the single bedroom, which was furnished with an old iron bed with sagging box springs but no mattress, a rickety wooden dresser, and two homemade bedside tables. As the ad had boasted, there was indeed a bathroom with indoor plumbing—a claw foot tub with a makeshift shower above it, a sink, and tank-overhead, flush toilet. But the toilet was stopped up and no water came out of the shower when Charity turned it on.
She sank down on the lid of the toilet and gave in to a sigh of despair. “I thought it would at least be livable.”
“Will be. Soon as we get it cleaned up. This used to be a real nice place. Won’t take much to make it that way again.”
Charity looked over at Maude, saw the determined set of her jaw, and took heart from the older woman’s words. She had come here seeking adventure. She was hardly going to let a little thing like a dirty house get her down.
“You’re right.” She stood up from the commode. “We’ll put it back in shape. It’ll just take a little more time than I expected.” And money, but she left that part out. “Once we get it cleaned up enough to live in, I’ll go back into town and hire workmen to make the necessary repairs.”
Maude smiled her approval. “Electric works real good. Mose put that in just a couple years ago.”
The power ran off a generator, Charity discovered, which was turned on each morning and evening. It seemed to be the only thing working in the house.
“I’ll bring in the cleaning supplies,” she volunteered, beginning to get into the spirit. “We might as well get started.”
Maude helped her unload the Explorer and the two of them set to work. If Charity had any doubts as to whether or not a woman Maude’s age could handle the grueling job of scrubbing walls and floors, cleaning out the fireplace, dusting cobwebs, and hauling trash, it didn’t take long to squelch them. Maude Foote had more energy than most women half her years. There were times Charity would have rested, but Maude’s boundless energy kept her working.
“We’ll burn the trash in the morning,” Maude said. “There’s some rotten food in it and we don’t want to attract any bears.”
Her head came up. “Bears?”
“Don’t worry, most the time they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”
Most the time?
Charity shoved the disturbing thought away and continued filling the old tin bucket she had found, with ashes from the fireplace. By the end of that first day, when Maude climbed into her battered blue truck to make the short drive to her house down the hill, the kitchen was spotless, the cupboards cleaned out, the dishes all washed and put away. The fireplace held a cheery blaze made from the last of a stack of wood they had found in one of the sheds, the pellet stove was lit and hopefully would keep the house warm through the night, and Maude had helped her rig slats to prop up the sagging box springs.
She was grateful for the air mattress but even without it, as tired as she was, Charity had no doubt she’d be able to sleep. The bad news was, until she got the plumbing repaired she would have to use the outhouse.
Just part of the adventure, she told herself, never having had the dubious pleasure. She thought of the bears Maude had mentioned, thought of having to go outside in the middle of the night, and set the glass of water she had been drinking back down on the rickety table next to the bed.
CHAPTER THREE
At the pounding on the door, Charity’s eyes cracked open. Her little travel alarm clock said it was only 6:00 A.M. Groaning, she tossed back the covers. She had thought it would be cold when she got up, but the pellet stove had done its job, thank God, and the house was still fairly warm. Charity pulled on her thick terry cloth robe and stumbled toward the door.
Maude Foote stood on the porch, she saw when she peeked through the grime they hadn’t yet washed off the living room windows. Charity slid back the bolt and pulled open the heavy wooden door.
“Figured you’d want to get started early,” Maude said, shoving past her into the house. “I’ll fire up the cookstove and fix us somethin’ to eat while you get dressed.”
That was the deal Charity had made. Maude