Promises to Keep, Nan Rossiter [feel good fiction books .txt] 📗

farm also had a website and an online store! Why hadn’t she thought of looking the farm up before? Of course, they’d have an online presence—they were a brand with a following. She was just about to click on the website when she heard a loud ruckus outside and looked out the window. Pilgrim was squawking and flapping his wings frantically inside the fenced-in area around the coop. Maeve pushed back her chair, knocking it over, and flew outside just in time to see the fox pulling itself through a hole under the fence with one of the hens in its mouth.

“Nooo!” she screamed, running toward it, but the fox just stared at her and then raced off with the hen still clutched in its jaws.

“Dammit!” Maeve shouted, tears springing to her eyes. She stared up at the blue summer sky. “Why?” she asked angrily. “Why did you let that happen? It was just a sweet little hen.”

She clenched her fists, not knowing what to do, and then pulled out her phone to call Gage. She tapped his number and waited, but he was either driving or didn’t hear his phone because he didn’t answer. She left a message and reluctantly hung up, and then opened the gate into the pen and tried to console the rooster and two remaining hens. Pilgrim was still strutting around, squawking anxiously while the poor hens were in the back corner of the coop, clucking nervously. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s gone.” Maeve felt terrible—but how did she know the fox wouldn’t come back? The defenseless chickens were easy prey and the fox knew it. She stepped back out, closed the gate, found several big stones, and piled them in and around the hole, and then walked back to the cabin. She finished her coffee, closed her laptop, grabbed her lunch, and glancing one last time at the henhouse, prayed they’d be okay.

22

HOLDING A FOIL-COVERED PLATE, MAEVE KNOCKED ON THE LAST DOOR AT the end of the hall. Even though Bud Hawkins had been with them for more than two weeks, he still preferred having dinner in his apartment.

“It’s open,” he called.

She turned the knob, pushed open the door, and peered in. “I brought your dinner,” she announced cheerily.

“Thank you,” he replied from his recliner. “You can leave it on the table.”

Maeve walked over and set the plate on the table. “It’s roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes,” she said, “so don’t let it get cold.”

“I can warm it up.”

Even though he was gazing out his sliding glass doors and not looking at her, Maeve nodded. But then she spoke: “Sal knows you like it rare, so don’t warm it up too much.”

Bud didn’t answer, and Maeve saw something flutter past his sliding door. She stepped forward for a closer look and realized he’d hung a small bird feeder from the branch of the dogwood tree next to his patio. “You put up a bird feeder?” she asked in surprise.

He nodded. “It didn’t take ’em long to find it, either.”

She stood next to him, watching the little flock, chirping and swooping in from the branches to the feeder. There were finches, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. There was even a female cardinal. “You know what they say about cardinals, don’t you?” she asked.

He shook his head, watching the female hop around on the patio picking up seeds the finches had dropped.

“They say a cardinal represents a loved one who’s passed, and they appear when you miss them the most and need reassurance that they’re near and always with you.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said, smiling. “Thank you for telling me.” He looked back at the little female cardinal, and she stopped what she was doing and cocked her head. “Look at that,” he said. “Ethel used to give me a look like that when she was teasing me.”

“There you go,” Maeve said, smiling. “She’s keeping an eye on you.”

He laughed. “That would be just like her.”

Maeve marveled at the cardinal’s appearance on his patio—she had heard this lore many times over the years but had never actually witnessed it. “I have a few minutes,” she said. Even though she knew dinner would be getting under way in the dining room soon, she also felt like this—a possible breakthrough with their newest resident—was more important. “Would it be all right if I stayed for a bit?”

“Of course,” he said, gesturing to the couch.

They sat together, watching the birds, and then Maeve looked around the room and noticed what looked like a violin case leaning in the corner. She gestured toward it. “Do you play the violin?”

The old man followed her gaze. “That’s a fiddle case,” he corrected, “and I haven’t played it since Ethel got sick. I don’t know why I even brought it. I should have given the damn thing away.”

Maeve nodded. She wanted him to open up, but she didn’t want to pry or upset him. “What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle?”

“The difference is the type of music—you don’t play any of that classical stuff on a fiddle.”

Maeve smiled. “How long were you and Ethel married?” she ventured softly.

“Sixty-four years,” he said, smiling wistfully. “Best damn years of my life. I think there’s a picture of her in that box there,” he said, pointing to a box at the end of the couch with the word Pictures printed on it in black magic marker.

Maeve smiled. “May I look?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, waving at it as if it was no big deal, but when she opened the box and lifted out the packing paper, he immediately sat up, his face brightening.

Maeve pulled out a framed picture and carefully unwrapped it. It was a black-and-white photograph of a young Bud wearing his dress uniform and, on his arm, was his lovely bride wearing a beautiful satin wedding dress. “Wow!” she said. “Look at you! And your wife—she’s stunning!”

Bud nodded, smiling, and when she handed him the picture, he