Free Hide in Plain Sight by Marta Perry Page B

my grandmother’s.” Andrea climbed in, frowning at him as he got behind the wheel. “Maybe she did gush a bit, but I’m sure she meant well.”
    “A bit?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You looked as if you were drowning in it.”
    Her lips twitched. “Just because she runs another B and B, that doesn’t make her the enemy.”
    “In her mind, it does. Believe me. She takes pride in having the only inn in Churchville, and she doesn’t like to share the limelight, or the tourist dollars, with anyone.” He pulled out onto Main Street for the short drive home.
    “Surely there’s enough tourist trade to go around.”
    He shrugged. “Ask Rachel, if you don’t believe me. She’s the one who’s had to deal with her. The other B and B operators in the county have been supportive, by and large, but Margaret created one problem after another.”
    “What could she do? Surely you don’t think she was our prowler.”
    That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to him, and he filed it for future consideration. “I don’t see her wandering around in the dark, no, but she has played dirty. Complaints to the township zoning board, complaints to the tourist bureau, complaints to the bed-and-breakfast owners association. All couched in such sickeningly sweet language you’d think she was doing them a favor by putting up roadblocks.”
    “Maybe she was.” It was said so softly he almost missed it.
    “Is that what you’ll tell your grandmother when you bail and leave them on their own?” The edge in his voice startled him. He hadn’t meant to say that.
    He felt Andrea’s gaze on him and half expected an explosion. He didn’t get it.
    “Think what you like.” Her tone dismissed him, as if he were no more important in the scheme of things than the barn cat. “But as a matter of fact, I’m notleaving. I’m staying until I can be sure that my grandmother and sister are all right.”
    It silenced him for a moment. “What about your job?”
    Her fingers clenched in her lap. “I don’t know. Talking to my boss is a pleasure I haven’t had yet.”
    “I’m sorry. I hope he understands.”
    “So do I.” Her fingers tightened until her knuckles were white.
    “It means that much to you?”
    “Yes. It does.” She clipped off the words, as if he didn’t have the right to know why.
    She was willing to sacrifice something that was important to her for the sake of someone else. The few people who knew the truth about him might say he’d done the same, but he’d done it as much for himself as for anyone else, because he’d known he couldn’t live with himself if he hadn’t.
    It had brought him unexpected benefits in the long run—helped him to know what he wanted from life, brought him to faith. Still, he couldn’t assume that would be the result for Andrea’s sacrifice.
    “I hope it works out for you, Andrea. Really.”
    He glanced across the confines of the front seat at her. There was something startled, a little wary, in her eyes. As if she wasn’t sure whether she believed him. Or maybe as if it mattered what he thought.

SIX
     
     
    A ndrea sat in the room she still thought of as her grandfather’s library that afternoon, frowning over the rather sketchy records Rachel seemed to be keeping on the inn’s start-up. Sketchy didn’t cover it. Surely Rachel had better records than this. If not, they were in more trouble than she’d imagined.
    She flipped through the file folder, her frustration growing. Hadn’t Rachel been saving receipts, at least? Grams might know if she had records elsewhere. Maybe, like Grandfather, she preferred to do it all by hand, although he had been far more organized than this.
    Grandfather’s tall green ledgers had been a fixture of their childhood. Presumably the insurance and real estate business he’d shared with Uncle Nick had long since been computerized, but she’d always associate her grandfather with those meticulously handwritten ledgers. She glanced at the shelf