Free The Letters by Suzanne Woods Fisher Page B

stayed with them since the fellow who didn’t like the sounds of cows mooing in the morning. Rose felt a spike of worry, that all of this effort to create an inn would be for naught, but then she dismissed those doubts. Already, this venture was bringing the family together. Why, for that matter, the neighborhood too. Galen and Naomi had gone the extra mile for them. Good was coming out of it. God always had a plan, she reminded herself.
    After she finished dusting, Rose walked through the rooms. She needed to get sheets on the beds, towels in the bathroom, maybe a few calendars to hang on the walls. She turned in acircle and felt an inside-out excitement. She said a prayer over each room, asking God to fill it with his chosen guests—those who needed rest and refreshment. In his time.
    Rose heard the boys shrieking outside, chasing each other. She was just about to tell them to stop acting like wild Indians when they disappeared. She closed the door to the basement, thinking about how she needed a different name than the basement. What was it Galen called it? A flat? Yes, that was it. She liked that idea, because it was flat. A guest flat.
    A car pulled into the driveway and came to a stop. Ever so slowly, a woman opened the door and eased out. Rose stood at the window a minute studying her, wondering if she was lost and needed directions. She was tall and elegant, with pale hair pulled back in a bun. She wore dark sunglasses, but Rose could see that her features were fine, delicate. Suddenly the boys were back, whooping and hollering like they were being chased by a swarm of yellow jackets. Rose went out and shooed the boys away before she turned her attention to the driver of the car.
    “By any chance are you Rose Schrock?” the woman asked, pulling her sunglasses off her face.
    “Yes. Yes, that’s me.” Rose took a step closer. Something about the abject relief in the woman’s face spiked concern in Rose. “Are you all right?”
    “I’d like to book a room at your hotel.”
    Oh. Oh! A guest. A guest! “Well, I need to get fresh sheets on the bed, but then you would have the entire base—flat—to yourself. How long did you want to stay?”
    The woman looked at the setting sun. “I have absolutely no idea.”

    As Delia Stoltz got out of the car, she suddenly heard shrieks of laughter, and a little boy flew around the corner of the house, another slightly taller boy in hot pursuit. The boy in the lead ran to one of the sheds between the house and the barn and tried to hide in it, but his brother caught him before he could get inside, and they tusseled and shrieked. The older boy was trying to put something down the younger boy’s shirt and finally succeeded, at which point the smaller boy began to hop up and down while the older one ran off, laughing.
    The mother, Rose Schrock, appeared out of the basement to the house. She wore a plum-colored dress and a matching apron and had a stack of sheets in her hands. Clearly out of temper, she yelled something in another language at the two boys, who immediately stopped their shrieking, looked at one another, and slowly approached her. Rose addressed herself to the older boy, who made some excuse, and the younger boy, in his own defense, pointed back toward the shed. She listened a minute and began to talk rapidly in a low voice, too low for Delia to hear. She was giving her sons the what for, Delia supposed.
    At first Delia hesitated. If the woman were the quick-tempered type, perhaps she should get back in the car and leave. The last thing she needed right now was a woman out of temper. But as Delia watched her, she found she couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes flashed as she lectured her sons, neither of whom was taking the lecture silently—both were trying to talk back, but Rose Schrock didn’t pause to listen. She had abundant brown hair tucked into a bun, covered witha thin organza cap, though the bun had partly come loose in little ringlets around the