The Lakeside Inn Read online

  Wyatt wasn’t the only person who was looking forward to seeing if Abraham Lincoln had written the letter. Yesterday morning, he’d met Diana, Barbara, and Charlie on the trail around the lake. The two sisters were still excited.

  He placed the lid on the can of paint and handed it to Penny. “I’m surprised by your mom’s restraint. She hasn’t posted anything on the community Facebook page about the letter.”

  “The lady from the Smithsonian said not to say nothing until we know the outcome of their tests. For once, Mom listened.” Penny kissed him on the cheek. “Katie wants to have a few evening meal options for our Bed and Breakfast guests in case they want to eat in. We’re trying one of the recipe’s tonight. Do you want to come for dinner?”

  “I’d love to. What time?”

  “Six-thirty. If you need to go home straight afterward to do some painting, we’ll understand.”

  “I should be okay to stay longer. The paintings are almost finished.” Before Penny returned to her team, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Have I told you how adorable you look in your coveralls and red polka dot headscarf?”

  Penny’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s my new work uniform. After what’s happening at home, everyone’s wearing clothes that keep the dust off them.”

  Wyatt frowned. “I thought most of the messy work was finished?”

  “I did, too. But we had some hungry rats who chewed through our cables. And, believe me, a little dust is the least of our worries.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Penny shook her head. “I’ll show you what happened when you come for dinner.”

  Despite her rat problem and the other things on her mind, she kissed him and walked back to her painting team.

  He cared about Penny and wanted her Bed and Breakfast business to be a success. For her sake, he hoped there weren’t any more surprises that were too big or too expensive to fix.

  By the time Penny returned home, the electricians were still hard at work ripping out the old cables. Luckily, they would be able to replace most of them easily. The others would need a little more work, but she was determined the job would be done correctly. The last thing they wanted was a house that wasn’t safe.

  Barbara ran onto the front veranda. “Nick Costas from Bozeman called. He had some news about the enamel box.”

  Penny’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”

  “You were right. The box was made in Switzerland around the mid-1800s. He had it appraised by an antique dealer in New York City. How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “I don’t know.” Penny chose a number that was four times what she thought it would be. “What about two thousand dollars?”

  Barbara grinned. “If it went to auction this week, the dealer thought it could make about fifteen thousand dollars.”

  Penny couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure? It’s just a small snuffbox.”

  “A small snuffbox that’s worth a fortune. If we sold it, the money could pay for the remodeling.”

  “Maybe, but the snuffbox has been in our family for a long time. It wouldn’t feel right selling it. What do Diana and Katie think?”

  “They want to keep it. Katie thinks it’s too pretty to give to someone else and Diana’s attached to the sentimental value. If you want to keep it, that’s okay with me.”

  “I think we should. Did Nick say when it will be sent back?”

  “He’s using a special courier company. It should be here in the morning.”

  “That’s great. We’ll have to find somewhere safe to store it.” Penny took off her jacket. “Have you been able to do any work this morning?”

  “I only came back half an hour ago. It was too noisy here, so I used Mom and Dad’s apartment as my office.”

  “How are they?”

  Barbara sighed. “You know Mom. She puts on a brave face but, underneath, she’s sad. Dad’s keeping extra busy in the general store. He wants me to buy an orbital sander.”

  Penny smiled. Their dad had been trying to entice Barbara, Diana, and Katie into his workshop for years. But his daughters had completely different interests that didn’t involve sawdust and tools.

  “I’m assuming you didn’t want the sander?”

  “I told him I’m a lost cause. I’m much happier behind a computer.”

  “It sounds as though he needs some company in his workshop. Katie wants me to fix a bookcase she found in the attic, so I could do that with him.” Penny walked through to the kitchen. “Do we have power?”

  “Not yet, but we have some yummy food and drinks. Mom gave me a container of fresh lemonade. There are also sandwiches and pie on the counter, and some chocolate bars from Sweet Treats. Brooke heard about our rat infestation and thought a little chocolate might brighten our day.”

  “That was nice of her. I’ll put it in a plastic container so the rats don’t eat it.”

  Barbara took two glasses out of a cupboard. “Think positively. Once the traps are set and we’ve replaced the cables, we won’t have any more issues with four-legged rodents.”

  “I hope you’re right.” They didn’t need unexpected bills or more holdups. “Have you thought about what you’d like to call our Bed and Breakfast?”

  Barbara pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “It’s funny you should mention that. Diana, Katie, and I had the same conversation while you were at the tiny home village. These are our suggestions.”

  Penny read the list. “Honeysuckle Inn, The Lakeside Inn, Bluewater Inn, and Rose Inn. They all sound like great names.”

  “We thought so, too. But we can’t use Bluewater Inn. Another Bed and Breakfast not far from here has the same name.”

  “Which one was your favorite?”

  “Diana and I liked The Lakeside Inn. From a marketing perspective, it tells potential guests exactly what they’re getting; bed and breakfast accommodation right beside a lake. Katie liked Honeysuckle Inn because it sounded romantic. But we don’t have any honeysuckle vines around the house.”

  “If we use The Lakeside Inn, we could tie the name into the images we use on our website and Facebook page.”

  “Exactly,” Barbara agreed. “All our marketing and promotions should reinforce how wonderful it would be to have a vacation beside the lake.”

  “Was Katie okay with calling Grandma’s house The Lakeside Inn?”

  “She’s fine. If anything, it made her menu choices easier. She’s adding more fresh fish dishes to the optional meals we’ll offer our guests.” Barbara took the glass of lemonade that Penny handed to her. “Thanks. Now that we have a name for our Bed and Breakfast, when do you want to open?”

  Originally, they’d planned to open their business at the end of June. But now, with an extra two days needed to replace the electrical cables, and the flow-on effect, Penny wasn’t sure when they could take their first bookings. “If I were being optimistic, I’d say we might open on the second weekend in July. But I really don’t know. A lot depends on what the plumbers find.”

  Barbara crossed her fingers. “I’m hoping none of the water pipes need to be replaced.”

  “So am I.” Penny took a sip of her mom’s lemonade. The sweet, refreshing liquid was delicious. “We should ask Mom to make some of her lemonade for our guests.”

  “She’d love that. It would give her an excuse to introduce herself to everyone.” Barbara held up her glass. “To The Lakeside Inn. May we have plenty of guests, wonderful reviews, and water pipes that don’t burst.”

  Penny laughed. “I’ll second that.”

  Chapter 15

  Wyatt cleaned the last of his paintbrushes. Finally, after one gigantic push, he’d finished the paintings for the exhibition in Berlin. His agent would be thrilled and the gallery owner relieved.

  After the paintings arrived in Germany, it would be a busy time for the gallery owner. They already had a draft plan of where each painting would go. If the lighting design was as good as it appeared, the paintings would look incredible
and sell for a lot more than his last canvases.

  Standing with his hands on his hips, he studied the paintings. Wide brush strokes, understated colors, and layers of texture pulled his work from the ordinary and into something special. Usually, he was incredibly happy after he finished a painting. But not today. These canvases had been his escape, a way to balance the crazy, mixed-up emotions he’d experienced as he painted the portrait of Penny’s grandma and great-grandmother.

  His gaze landed on their portrait and the photo beside it. While he’d studied the way Margaret stood, the tilt of her head, the dimple that hinted at a sense of humor, he was busy imagining her life more than one hundred years ago. When he was painting, layering personality and purpose into the portrait, he’d discovered the most important part of being human.

  Through this portrait, he’d met Penny. And, because of her, he’d learned to love and be loved again.

  For three years, he’d allowed his world to settle under a suffocating blanket of grief. He’d hidden behind his paintings, slowly losing sight of who he was and what was important to him.

  And now that he’d found it, he wasn’t letting go.

  With one last look at the canvases, he headed toward the kitchen.

  While he was having something to drink, he’d check his emails and then go for a walk around the lake.

  At the top of his inbox was a message from his agent. He probably wanted to know how the landscapes were going and if he was ready to commit to another exhibition later in the year.

  Over the last few days, Wyatt had imagined taking time off from his busy schedule to paint whatever he liked. But his agent worked hard on his behalf. Together, they’d created a career that was exceptional by anyone’s standards. He didn’t want to let him down or the people who collected his work.

  He opened his agent’s email and frowned. Instead of the message he expected to see, it was an invitation. The Academy of Arts in Berlin was offering him a twelve-month residency at their award-winning arts school. As well as providing five-star accommodation and a generous allowance, they would display his work in their impressive landscape gallery.

  If he accepted their invitation, his paintings would hang beside some of the most influential artists the world had ever known. The prestige and the publicity that came with the appointment would lift his career to even greater heights.

  His agent, unsurprisingly, wanted him to say yes straightaway.

  If he’d received this email when he first arrived in Sapphire Bay, there was no doubt he would have gone. But now, after meeting Penny and becoming involved in her life, he wasn’t so sure. He’d already asked her to travel to Germany with him, and she’d refused. He didn’t blame her. Family was important and, with her sisters moving here, there was no way she’d leave.

  That left him with a really hard decision to make. A year wasn’t a long time, but it could mean the end of his relationship with Penny. Whatever decision he made, it would upset someone.

  Later that afternoon, Penny sat in her bedroom with the contents of her great-grandmother’s treasures spread around her. When the electricians started removing the damaged wires from the attic, she’d moved the chest to her room to keep it safe.

  She’d already gone through it once but, with no power in the house, this was the next best thing she could find to keep herself busy. She was amazed the chest and its contents had survived nearly a century of wear and tear. It contained linens so delicate that a brisk breeze would have damaged the fine cotton, and hand-stitched gowns as beautiful as the day they were made.

  She touched the gloves her mom had suggested she wear to read her great-grandmother’s journal and the baby clothes that made her feel sad.

  “What are you doing?” Diana asked from the doorway.

  “There isn’t much I can do in the house, so I’m having another look in Margaret’s storage chest. Can you imagine packing all your belongings into one box?”

  “I suppose it made it easier to transport everything.” Diana carefully stepped around a blue cotton gown and knelt in front of a small stack of envelopes. “What are these?”

  “They’re the letters I told you about.”

  “The ones Margaret wrote to her parents after she moved to Polson?”

  Penny nodded. “I’m amazed her parents kept them.”

  “It must have been difficult when she left home. Her family wouldn’t have known whether they would ever see her again.”

  “It’s the same for a lot of parents, regardless of the century you live in. Some of my friends from college went overseas to work and still haven’t come home.”

  “But your friends’ parents can get on a plane and be on the other side of the world the following day. Can you pass me a pair of gloves?”

  Penny reached behind her and pulled two Latex gloves out of a box. “When I read Margaret’s journals, I felt sorry for her. At some point, she must have regretted being so far away from her family.”

  “Or she could have enjoyed it,” Diana said with a mischievous smile. “Even after the shock of losing her husband, she could have reinvented her entire life and no one would have known who she really was.” She opened one of the letters and read it. “Margaret sent this letter to her parents a few weeks after she arrived in Polson. She sounds happy. I wonder if that was real or if she was being positive for her parents’ sake?”

  Penny picked up a different envelope. “If she was as courageous and determined as Grandma told us, she probably was happy.” She looked at the envelope she was holding and frowned. “This letter was sent to her parents about a month after her husband was supposed to have died.”

  When Penny read the letter, the same level of emotion didn’t spill from the pages as some of the earlier ones she’d read. “Do you remember Grandma talking about spending a lot of time waiting on the dock?”

  “I do. She said her mom met each steamboat as it came from the other side of the lake.”

  Penny hunted for another letter she’d read a short time ago. “I always thought she was grieving for her husband and hoping he would return. But I don’t think so. Look at this.” She moved closer to Diana. “Margaret’s telling her parents how well she’s doing. The sewing business she started is attracting a lot of wealthy clients and her daughter is happy. Does that sound like a grieving widow to you?”

  “Maybe she put his death behind her and was moving on with her life? If she hadn’t, she would have starved.”

  “But it just sounds so positive. As if her husband’s death had never happened.”

  Diana looked up from the letter she was reading. “Do you think she knew her husband was still alive?”

  “I don’t know what to think. It was the 1920s. She was a single mother with a young daughter, living in a small town in Montana. Her life should have been one struggle after another, but she started her own business and it was successful. She must have been getting financial support from somewhere, and it definitely wasn’t from her family. Grandma said they were as poor as church mice.”

  Diana placed the letter she was reading in its envelope. “Let’s pretend that she knew her husband was alive. What did she have to gain by pretending he was dead?”

  “Her independence. A chance to be herself for the first time in her life. A chance to make actual money that she could spend on anything she wanted.”

  “They’re all big things, especially for a single mom.”

  Penny knew she was talking about something that was impossible to prove, but she was at a loss as to how the blue enamel snuffbox had ended up in Margaret’s chest—and a letter in a set of drawers that could have been written by Abraham Lincoln.

  “Did you know our great-grandfather had gambling debts?” Diana looked up from the next letter she was reading. “This letter is dated about a month before he supposedly died. Margaret’s worried about their safety. Her husband must have been in trouble with someone important.”

  Penny looked up. “Grandma said he had issues, but she wo
uldn’t say what they were. I thought she meant he had a quick temper and got into a lot of fights.”

  Diana bit her bottom lip. “What if we’ve just found a motive for our great-grandfather’s disappearance? He might have owed someone a lot of money and needed to disappear.”

  Suddenly, Penny remembered something she’d seen the last time she searched through her great-grandmother’s chest. “Why didn’t I think of this sooner?” She scrambled across the room to a small pile of postcards her great-grandmother had kept. “A woman called Jane wrote these. I assumed she was a friend.”

  Diana looked at the postcards. “They’re from all over Europe. What was she doing there?”

  “Visiting all the tourist hot spots. She went to Switzerland—”

  “And Germany”—Diana turned over two more postcards—“France, and Spain.”

  Penny studied the signature at the bottom of a postcard. “Our great-grandfather’s middle name was James.”

  Diana’s eyes widened. “And Jane and James are similar names. What if he called himself Jane in the postcards? No one except his wife would have known they were from him. Do you think he sent Margaret the snuffbox as a present?”

  “If we’re right, he was in Switzerland, so he could have.”

  “What about the key? That was inside the box.”

  Penny frowned. “Maybe not at the beginning. Margaret could have put it there later on. She told her daughter that, as long as she had the key, she’d never need anything else.”

  “Do you think she knew about the letter and how valuable it was?”

  “I’d be surprised if she didn’t. Abraham Lincoln died eighteen months after he wrote the letter. Even then, anything of his would have been worth a lot of money.”

  Diana sighed. “We could be descended from a family of opportunists and imposters.”

  Penny smiled. “At least they were lovable imposters. But, if we’re right, Mom will be upset. If our great-grandfather staged his own death to get out of trouble, he wouldn’t have been as wholesome as Mom wants everyone to believe.”