Free The View From Here by Cindy Myers Page A

just keeled over. You could ask Jameso. He’s the one who found him.”
    Jameso again. Did the guy make a habit of lurking around the cabin? Why? She fought annoyance—at Jameso, and at her father, for dying before she had a chance to get to know him, and for not letting her be a part of his life while he was alive. After all these years, that rejection still hurt.
    True to her claim of having “a little bit of everything,” Lucille unearthed a packet of needles and three spools of black thread to go with the theater curtains. Maggie added a pair of scissors and surveyed the pile. “What the heck am I going to hang these with?” she asked.
    â€œHardware store up the street sells steel pipe and plumbing fittings,” Lucille said. “That’s the only thing sturdy enough to support these heavy things, plus they’ll cut them to size for you.”
    Maggie nodded. After she measured the windows, she’d make another trip. She paid for the purchases with her credit card; then the two women wrestled the box out to the Jeep and Maggie headed back up toward Garnet Mountain, determined to spend the rest of the day looking for the French Mistress Mine and studying whatever papers her father had left behind.
    She’d just passed the hot springs when her cell phone erupted with the opening notes of Vivaldi’s “Spring.” Barb . She knew before she glanced at the phone, and guilt washed over her that she hadn’t yet called her best friend. She pulled over onto the side of the road and answered the phone.
    â€œYou had better have been held hostage by Yetis or be in bed with some gorgeous, rich stud.”
    Barb’s husky drawl filled Maggie with an unexpected wave of homesickness. “I’m sorry I haven’t called,” she said.
    â€œSo, no Yetis? And no stud? I’m disappointed in you, woman.”
    â€œGive me a chance. I’ve only been here one day.”
    â€œYou must have been busy doing something, if you couldn’t even be bothered to call me.”
    â€œThere’s no cell service at my dad’s place. And no landline.” No electricity or cable or Internet . . . Barb would be calling for men in white coats to take Maggie away when Maggie told her she planned to stay.
    â€œBack up. You’re staying at your dad’s place?”
    â€œYes, it’s a cabin on a remote mountain—a real cabin, not some real-estate developer’s idea of a weekend getaway for the Ralph Lauren set. This is an old mining shack my dad remodeled.”
    â€œUh-huh. And what about the gold mine? And the two vehicles?”
    â€œThere’s no gold in the mine.” Bob had been very definite about that. “And the vehicles are an old Jeep and a snowmobile.”
    â€œA snowmobile!” Barb’s laughter rang loud in Maggie’s ear. “Oh, darling, it sounds like you are having a real adventure. What’s the town like—Eureka or whatever the name is?”
    â€œEureka is beautiful. Not very big, but what’s here is lovely. Gorgeous scenery. Very different from Houston. Very . . . rugged.” The mountains, but the people, too, had an informality and individuality she hadn’t encountered before. As if living isolated from crowds and city conventions had allowed each person to assert whatever aspects of her personality she wanted, whether as a motorcycle-riding lawyer or as chicken-raising lesbian café owners. She smiled at the thought.
    â€œYou sound as if you like it.” Barb sounded amused.
    â€œI don’t know what I think, really. It’s all so different.”
    â€œMaybe different is what you need.”
    â€œOr maybe if I stay here I’ll end up as crazy as my father was.”
    â€œWas he crazy?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Maggie admitted. “I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and I’ve learned he may have had a drinking problem. He probably