Free Wisconsin Wedding (Welcome To Tyler, No. 3) by Carla Neggers Page A

make my grandfather mad sometimes. But she’d always remain so calm and composed. Granddad told me once that he wanted to get her mad enough to spit nickels, but I don’t think he ever succeeded. She just refused to let him get to her. You’re a lot like her, Nora. You don’t let people get to you, either.”
    Nora kept her expression neutral and refrained from comment, wondering what Liza Baron would think if she’d witnessed her throwing a book of Beethoven piano sonatas at her ex-lover just last evening. Fortunately, Ricky Travis wasn’t a big mouth or the story would have been all over town by now. If his little brother Lars, another of Nora’s piano students, had caught her, she might as well havetaken an ad out in the Tyler Citizen announcing the news. Lars did like to talk.
    “Your grandfather must be thrilled with how the lodge is shaping up,” Nora said, deftly changing the subject.
    “Oh, I think he would be, if we hadn’t…” She waved a hand awkwardly. “You know.”
    The Body. Nora nodded sympathetically, sorry she’d brought it up, even indirectly. But Judson Ingalls’s lodge, where his wife had had so many of her wild parties in the late forties, was showing fresh potential, new life. No one but Cliff Forrester had lived in the place since Margaret Ingalls had left her husband in 1950. And now, of course, Liza and her daily influx of renovators. Her creative spark was evident in the ongoing work, in the choice of walls she’d had Joe Santori knock down, in the colors she’d chosen, in her attention to detail, even in the way she’d made the spare furnishings and torn-up rooms seem downright homey.
    “What do you think of my rug?” Liza asked as they passed over a small Oriental rug in the entry. “Neat, huh?”
    “It’s beautiful.”
    “I found it up in the attic when Cliff and I—well, when we were still stalking each other, you might say. I think it’s a real Oriental, not a fake. Cliff’s not so sure. Look at those colors, though. I don’t know if you can get that rich burgundy from a fake. I don’t really care, except if it’s real, my grandmother might have bought it on one of her infamous shopping trips.”
    Nora, who treasured her own family heirlooms, was intrigued. Margaret Ingalls was on the minds of just about everyone in Tyler; Nora wanted more insight into the woman Aunt Ellie had believed was rather misunderstood by the townspeople. “Did you ask Judson or your mother about it?”
    “No, not yet. Margaret’s not the best subject of conversation to bring up right now. And I’d hate Granddad to make me take up the rug just because she might have bought the damned thing—you’re never sure how he’ll react. You know what an old curmudgeon he can be.”
    One, however, who adored his irrepressible granddaughter Liza. Nora had never pretended to fully understand the Ingalls family. But Liza seemed reluctant to say anything further about her grandfather.
    “And I’d ask Mother,” she went on, sighing, “but she hasn’t had much of anything to do with the lodge since she was a little girl. Of course, I wasn’t even born when my grandmother hit the road—I have to remind myself that she was my mother’s mother, not some stranger.” She made an exaggerated wince, as if she’d just caught herself doing something naughty. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bore you with all this stuff. Anyway, it’s no big deal. There’s so much junk squirreled away around here I got excited when I found the rug, but it’s probably just junk, too. Oh, well, I like it, regardless. I’m going to have it cleaned and appraised, but I thought I’d wait until the dust settles around here.” She gestured broadly toward a partially destroyed wall as they made their way to the kitchen. “Literally.”
    Long-lost rugs, sawdust, a rambling, run-down lodge—near chaos seemed to suit Liza Baron, which, Nora thought, was so unlike herself. She preferred order and stability. But in the