London Harmony: The Pike Read Online Free PDF

was the last of her family from what I was told.  I was happy that she at least had Katie.
    I feel blessed that I haven't had to go to a family member's funeral in my life yet.  Though Mrs. Z still felt like family.
    With promises of seeing them down in Vancouver for a few days after we spent some time with friends here in Seattle and dealing with the business of the reading of Emily's will, we all braved the paparazzi again to head to the wake at the Pike.  I was grateful that the location of the wake was a closely guarded secret.

Chapter 4 – Wake
    Leigh sighed and looked at me with that wistful smile she gets that warms me inside.  She was my itsy bitsy huggable woman.  She signed shyly as she spoke, “We should get going, Ash.”
    I could see her anxiety building, she really didn't like being around groups of people.
    I nodded and signed back, “Ok, I'll pull Gerty up front.”
    She blushed.  I knew she wanted to argue that she could walk from the worker's cabin here at Valentine's Cascade Experience, to the parking lot where my beat up old 1977 Chevy Vega sat.
    It was a banged up rusted bucket of bolts, but it was mine.  My grandpa, Remington had bought it brand new back then, for just under three grand.  They were mocked as 'disposable cars' at the time and were prone to catastrophic breakdowns.  But old Gerty had beat all the odds and forgot to die, and was handed down to my mother when she turned sixteen, then to me when I turned sixteen.  I viewed the dark rust marks on the orange paint to be badges of honor.  Three generations and still rolling.
    I grabbed the keys off the counter and almost skipped out the door.  I waved to Steve over by the stables as I walked to the main parking lot of the lodge.  We were invited to the wake for Mrs. Zatta by her business partner, Zoey.
    I had really liked Mrs. Zatta, she was always nice to Leigh and me whenever she had me over to the Pike to fix her imported equipment.  And she could get my Leigh to smile.  I was going to miss the woman.  We would have been at the funeral, but they had already invited the maximum people for the occupancy rating of the funeral home.
    I paused at Gerty's door with the key in my hand when I noticed Vernon at the main vehicle bay door of the log framed lodge which served as the headquarters for Valentine's.  The huge mountain man looking guy with this shaggy beard, was having troubles fixing the track rollers that had failed yesterday.  He was always working, always in motion.
    The man never spoke much, he suffered from severe PTSD from his time in the military and wound up on the streets.  Sandra Callahan had recommended him to Bobbie when she was looking for a handyman.  The man is brilliant like his son, Tim Phearson.  Though he fancies himself a loner, he certainly was close to the people here at the lodge that he views as his family.
    Grandpa Remmy was his best friend and they lived in the worker's cabin together until Grandpa passed away.  Leigh and I share Grandpa's old room when we work the summers here at Valentine's.
    Vernon sort of took us under his wing.  I think partly because he feels he owes it to Remmy to look after me.
    I walked over and saw his conundrum, with only two hands it was hard to hold the segmented door panel in place while hefting the weight of the door against the torsion springs, and aligning the roller in the bushing and sliding it into the track.
    I stood in front of him and grinned, rocking on my heels.  He glanced up at me and grunted, hiding his smile.  Then he asked, “So are you going to stand there babbling all day or are your going to help?”  He grinned and held out the roller to me.
    I snorted and signed something unladylike to him which made him grin.  I smiled back and took the roller as he stood, hefting the twenty-foot wide bay door up like it was made of aluminum foil.  I slapped the roller in place and guided it into the slot on the track.  I grabbed the power driver