Tessa smiled at her grandmother’s last comment as she hung her coat in the closet. “I thought you had decided you didn’t want to leave Schroon Lake and all of your friends.”
“Come on into the kitchen.” Her grandmother avoided her question, waving the dish towel toward the doorway. “We need to talk.”
Tessa tensed.
“I put some water on for chamomile tea. I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee at the reception. It’s past my usual bedtime, and I’m not at all sleepy.”
Tessa followed her into the kitchen. She could use something calming, too. An old longing awoke. Even after five years, the craving for alcohol was there deep inside her. She breathed in. Lord. And out. Help me. “Tea would be great.”
Grandma’s old metal teakettle began to whistle when they walked into the kitchen.
“Grab a couple of mugs, spoons and the tea tin.” Her grandmother bustled over to the stove, turned off the gas and lifted the kettle from the burner. “And the hot plate from the dish drainer. Since it’s just the two of us, I’m not going to bother with a teapot.”
Tessa had the mugs, tea and hot plate on the table when her grandmother brought the kettle over. She put a tea bag in each mug, and her grandmother filled them with boiling water.
They sat next to each other at the small round table.
“You’re the only one in the family who drinks tea plain, like me,” her grandmother said.
Tessa stirred her drink, watching the tea bag swirl around. She pressed it against the side of the mug and placed the tea bag and spoon on the table. “But we didn’t come in here to talk about tea or sugar. What happened to your decision to stay in Schroon Lake?”
Her grandmother dropped her gaze to the mug of tea sitting in front of her. “I found out how little you have left of the money your grandfather gave you to make a go of the Majestic.”
Tessa started. Grandma wasn’t a person to go snooping around in other people’s business. “How?”
“I went paperless with my bank statements and was having trouble printing them out from the bank’s website. I stopped in at the bank to see if someone could show me what I was doing wrong. Along with my other accounts, the bank officer gave me the statement from the joint checking account your grandfather set up for you when he was sick. He must have put me on the account, too.”
“I wasn’t hiding it from you.” Tessa couldn’t keep the defensive note out of her voice. The days when she purposely hid her actions were over. “I didn’t want to worry you while I figured out what we were going to do.”
Her grandmother reached over and squeezed her hand. “Honey, you don’t have to struggle for me. Your grandfather didn’t leave you the theater to tie you to it or me or Schroon Lake. He left it as an option, if you wanted to come and run it while you figured out what you really wanted to do. You didn’t seem happy with your engineering job with the State Department of Transportation in Albany.”
“I wasn’t. But I don’t want you to have to leave everything you love because I didn’t come through for you.”
Grandma and Grandpa had been there for her when her parents hadn’t been. They’d opened their home to her for school breaks when she’d been partying her way to disaster her first year at college because she was trying so hard to fit in. They’d given her nonjudgmental guidance to right herself with God and go back to college her second year. They’d stood by her when Blake had broken their engagement because he’d found even her “controlled” drinking a problem, and afterward when she’d fallen into a spiral of binging that had landed her in rehab.
“We loved you. You do for those you love. You don’t owe me anything. And it’s not like you’d leave me out on the street, or that I’d have to move away, unless I want to. Who knows, if I go see those condos Bob is hounding me about, I might like them. And Marie Delacroix has mentioned several times that she wouldn’t mind having someone share her house with her. It’s smaller than this monstrosity and easier to manage.”
“But you love this monstrosity, and I have a plan that will let us stay right here.” Tessa explained Jared’s loan and Josh’s agreement to help her with the work.
Her grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve thought this through, prayed on it? It sounds to me like you’d be taking on a lot. A loan, all that remodeling. How much time will Josh have to help you? Edna says he practically lives in his office at GreenSpaces. Besides, didn’t you tell me he wasn’t so keen on the dinner theater idea?”
Tessa raised her empty mug to her lips to hide the disappointment she was afraid would show on her face. She swallowed. “That was before Jared suggested a couple of ways to reduce expenses, and I offered Josh free rent on the apartment above the garage.”
“Has he seen the apartment?” her grandmother asked, her smile and the twinkle in her eye breaking the tension.
Tessa laughed. “No, I have my work cut out for me tomorrow.”
“You are so sweet to want to do this for me.”
“It’s for me, too. Grandpa had faith in me. I love the Majestic as much as he did.”
Her grandmother’s smile faded. “As long as you’re doing this for yourself and not for him. He wouldn’t want that.”
Tessa nodded and rose to rinse her mug in the sink. Grandma was right about her having to live for herself. She’d lived most of her life trying her best to do, be, what her parents wanted. So they’d be proud of her, love her. That certainly hadn’t worked out as she’d wanted.
“And to be an interfering old woman, watch that Josh Donnelly. You know his reputation. I would hate to see your heart broken again.”
She squirted dish detergent in the mug and turned on the faucet. “I know all about Josh Donnelly. You don’t have to worry about me seeing him as anything but a buddy.”
* * *
Midday Wednesday Josh pulled his pickup into the small parking lot beside the attorney’s office. When Tessa had called him about setting a time for an appointment to sign their contract, he’d asked her if she could schedule it at lunchtime today, so he wouldn’t have to take extra time off work. He’d already scheduled a half day of vacation for this afternoon to talk to his little sister Hope’s third grade class for career day. It wasn’t that he didn’t have vacation time accrued, lots of vacation time. But he was really into the project he was working on directly with the owner of GreenSpaces, Anne Hazard, and he might need some of that time later to help Tessa.
He tossed his shades onto the passenger-side seat and glanced in the rearview mirror, running his hand over his hair. He and Tessa didn’t need all the formality she was insisting on. She couldn’t think he’d bail on a less-formal agreement. She was his best friend, probably his only real friend, except for his brothers. There were the people he hung out with at work, the singles group at church and the vets at the American Legion in Ticonderoga, but they were more acquaintances. He hadn’t connected with any of them like he had with Tessa. As for his high school friends still in the area, they were better avoided.
A motion in the mirror caught his eye. Tessa waved from the sidewalk in front of the law office. He unfolded himself from the truck and strode over, battling the uncertainty that he couldn’t seem to shake about the wisdom of this deal.
“Hi,” Tessa said, “right on time.”
“Would you expect anything less?” He opened the door to the building and motioned her to go in first.
“Not with you and a business deal.”
He