Free The Long Way Home by Mariah Stewart Page A

male seated at the table. “He has that big farm on the left side of the road when you turn off the highway. Clay grows organic produce and is just starting up an organic brewery with another guy in town.”
    “Organic beer?” Ellie raised an eyebrow.
    Clay nodded. “Why not?”
    “No reason, I guess.” Ellie smiled. “Sounds good to me, anyway.”
    “We’ll put you on the list for the tasting when we’re ready for the big reveal,” Clay told her.
    “Clay’s engaged to Miss Grace’s daughter, Lucy,” Cameron added.
    “Congratulations.” Ellie felt like her face was frozen in the smile she was still wearing. She needed to get out of here before it became permanent.
    “Ellie, can you join us?” Grace asked.
    “Oh, no, I have some errands to run.” Ellie was grateful for an excuse to let the smile slide. “But thank you for offering.”
    “Another morning, perhaps,” Grace replied.
    “We’re here almost every day by eight,” Nita told her. “Please feel free to come in anytime and sit and chat with us for a while.”
    “That sounds great, thanks.” Ellie turned to Cameron. “Good seeing you again, Cameron.” She turned back to the table. “It was nice to meet all of you.”
    “We’re happy to welcome you to town, Ellie.” Nita turned in her chair.
    “I’m happy to be here, thank you.” Ellie glanced around the table one more time, committing facesand names to memory in the event she’d run into any of them again, which was likely, given the size of the town and the length of her intended stay. “I’ll see you all again, I’m sure.”
    “We’ll look forward to it,” Grace said.
    Ellie forced her feet not to flee to the door. Once outside, she exhaled a long deep breath. She got into her car, which was parked three storefronts down from Cuppachino, and sighed. She put the key in the ignition and started the engine, her heart beating a little faster than normal.
    “Fight or flight,” she muttered.
    She stopped at the light and watched a pretty dark-haired woman push a baby stroller across the street, where she stopped at the door of a shop and unlocked the door. The shop’s windows were decorated for fall and held beautifully displayed clothing. The name of the shop— BLING —was painted across the front and side windows.
    In another life, I shopped at places just like that
, Ellie recalled.
    These days, if Ellie shopped at all, it was for the things on her must-have list like cleaning products and sponges. She reminded herself that she needed to do exactly that. She made a left turn onto Cherry Street and drove around the block to reverse her direction on Charles. She headed toward the highway and the hardware store she’d passed on her way to St. Dennis, where she hoped to find that inexpensive coffeemaker.
    Laden with a two-inch stack of paint-color brochures but no coffeemaker, Ellie returned to Bay ViewRoad and parked all the way up in the driveway. When she got out of the car, she tried to peer through the carriage house windows to see what was behind the glass, but every pane had been painted black. She was just going to have to keep looking for the key, she supposed, so that she could satisfy her curiosity.
    She went into the house through the back door and dropped her bag and the paint brochures on the kitchen table. Her planned project for the day was the cupboards. She’d started emptying them a few days ago, but got distracted by the cache of duck decoys and hadn’t been able to resist taking them all out and placing them around the living room. Today she’d finish what she’d started.
    The upper cupboards contained dishes that were stacked haphazardly, so she had a hard time knowing what was there. For two hours she emptied the shelves, then washed her findings. As she dried each piece, she sorted by pattern, and soon she realized that she had a complete set of Fiestaware, original, she was certain.
    Nice
.
    She knew she’d need to paint the shelves at some