The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club Read Online Free PDF

said, shooting to her feet with a hand to her chest in surprise when she saw Lacy. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”
    â€œSorry. I drove all night to get home and I was just stretching my legs. After I sat down here, I guess I fell asleep,” Lacy said as she came around to Heather’s side of the marker.
    It was a little weird for someone to be napping in a graveyard, but Heather shrugged as if it were no big deal. She folded her lanky frame back into a kneeling position to continue work on the tulips. Back in the day, long-legged Heather Walker had been a power forward on the Lady Marmots basketball team.
    Lady Marmots. Now that Lacy had been away for a while, the team name struck her as beyond odd. Coldwater Cove’s high school athletes had been known as the Fighting Marmots since the 1950s. The Marmots at least had the benefit of being politically correct since no one could possibly be offended by a glorified ground squirrel.
    Except, of course, Lacy’s dad. A squirrel of any stripe was enough to make his cheek muscles twitch.
    â€œHeard you were coming home,” Heather said.
    â€œFor a while.” She hadn’t given up on figuring out a way to pay off that note and rebuild her design business. And when I do, no one remotely related to Bradford Endicott will even be allowed to gawk through the windows.
    â€œGot a place to stay?” Heather asked.
    Lacy shook her head. “I need to find something pretty quick.” She didn’t add pretty cheap. It went without saying.
    â€œMrs. Paderewski has a one-bedroom on the Square. After you left, the town council required all the owners to refurbish the upper stories above the businesses. Mrs. P’s rental is next to mine over Gewgaws and Gizzwickies,” Heather said. Lacy recognized the shop as her mom’s favorite junk emporium. “We’d be neighbors.”
    Lacy didn’t connect with people easily. It was part of why she’d fled Coldwater Cove for the anonymity of a big city. But it was hard to resist Heather’s friendly smile. “That sounds good to me.”
    So after helping Heather finish her grave tending, Lacy went home, called Mrs. Paderewski, and made an appointment to see the rental. Then she finished her nap on her mother’s hundred-year-old settee. It was much more comfortable than the cemetery.
    And Fergus finally found the lap he’d been looking for.
    * * *
    â€œIs up here. Come, come.” It was a warmish Monday afternoon when Mrs. Paderewski motioned Lacy up the wrought-iron stairs on the back side of the brick building. The steps led to a second-story metal deck that stretched the whole length of the structure. Mrs. P’s sensible shoes clanged on the iron work. For a round little woman, she hoofed it up the stairs pretty quickly. All those years of teaching piano to the tone-deaf children of Coldwater Cove hadn’t hurt her spryness one bit.
    â€œIs $575 a month,” she said in her harsh Polish accent as she ushered Lacy into the apartment. “Water, heat, is all included.”
    Lacy didn’t blame the piano teacher for branching out into real estate. Most of Mrs. P’s students would never do her proud. Even Lacy had spent one summer squirming on the Paderewski piano bench for thirty minutes every Tuesday before her parents realized she’d do better with a clarinet. At least with a wind instrument she could only butcher one note at a time.
    â€œ$575?” Lacy said as she looked around.
    In Boston, that wouldn’t rent a closet. In Coldwater Cove, it’d bag a funky one-bedroom walk-up. The place didn’t have granite countertops or stainless-steel appliances, but the kitchen was adequate, considering how infrequently Lacy cooked. Fortunately, the “refurbishing” Heather had told her about hadn’t updated away the charm of the old building. The ceiling was still punched tin and the big farmhouse sink looked original