A Spicy Secret Read Online Free PDF

threw on her usual wintertime work clothes—a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. A trip to the attic was in order to retrieve yarn so she could start crocheting her first blanket for the group project. It seemed no matter how much time she spent in the attic—how much she discovered, and how much she cleaned—she always found something new, and she stirred up some dust. She also felt certain that Alice would call and request her assistance at the carriage house since she hadn’t heard from her the previous day. The things they had found under the floorboard in the carriage house nagged at Annie, and she wanted to talk to her friend about it.
    “I bet Alice will be bored again today. What do you think, Boots?” The cat just looked at her with a “like-I-care—feed-me” expression on her whiskered face. “Don’t worry, little rascal. You’ll get your breakfast!”
    Before making a trip to the attic, Annie walked downstairs to the kitchen. She pretended to ignore the cat’s clamor while she started a pot of coffee. She filled Boots’s empty bowl with kibble before fixing herself a bowl of cold cereal and milk. When the coffee was ready, she retrieved her favorite mug and filled it, going to the window to enjoy the view of the ocean while she sipped her coffee. The clouds cleared, and the sun came out, cheering her immensely. Boots finished her breakfast, sniffed, put her tail in the air, and sauntered off to take a nap.
    Her own breakfast finished, Annie washed, dried and put away the dishes and then climbed the two sets of stairs to the attic. Opening the attic door, she was once again thankful that Wally had installed track lighting. The original lighting—a bare bulb with a pull cord—had been less than useful. And the small eyebrow windows on either side of the attic were more decorative than utilitarian. Not only did she have more light now, but she could actually point a lamp wherever she needed to be able to see.
    She had stashed much of her extra yarn—a thoughtful and generous gift from her daughter, LeeAnn—in one of the many dressers Gram had stored in the attic. She and Alice had carried it down to the living room shortly after the treasure of yarn had arrived, only to lug it back to the attic after Annie discovered the dresser didn’t fit with any of the decor in the room. She smiled and thought, How could I ever say Alice didn’t hoist her fair share of stuff around this house?
    She couldn’t resist poking about in some of the boxes and bins surrounding the dresser. Even after doing so much to clean and organize, she still found something new on every visit. This short foray didn’t yield much of interest: a bin full of old dish towels, another brimming with bank statements and cancelled checks from the 1950s, and a battered green hatbox stuffed with dribs and drabs of colorful embroidery thread. Annie once again heard an echo of Gram’s voice saying “Waste not, want not,” and smiled, imagining that many of those remnants were probably leftovers from a Betsy Holden Original, one of Gram’s cross-stitch masterpieces for which she was revered. She set the hatbox aside in case Alice could use the contents in her own work.
    Just one more box, and then I’ll collect my yarn and get to work! Annie told herself.
    She shifted yet another uninteresting bin and found a sturdy cardboard box, strapped in tape and labeled in Gram’s strong handwriting: “From Charlie’s desk.”
    As far as Annie knew, Gram had never emptied her husband’s desk in the library—it certainly didn’t appear to have been touched since he’d died, and she didn’t think Gram would have ever gone through it when he was alive, either, just like Grandpa had never gotten into Gram’s desk or cross-stitch supplies and projects.
    Most of her grandfather’s files and notebooks were on the bookshelf in the library. She had spent many a happy hour reading through the adventures chronicled in his meticulous journals. So what