Inside the east guest suite of Hawthorn Ridge, the air was warm, smelling of almond soap, crisp cotton sheets, and the dry, sweet pine fragrance of woodsmoke rising from the central hearth down the hall.
Eleanor Miller lay beneath a mountain of goose-down quilts, her eyes open, staring up at the hand-carved cherry wood canopy of the four-poster bed. For the first time in eighteen months, she had not awakened to the damp chill of a car backseat, the sour stench of a shelter dormitory, or the rattling clatter of sleet hitting the rusty corrugated steel of a construction dumpster.
Advertisement
Beside her, buried deep in the blankets, Chloe was breathing with that slow, deep rhythm of a child who had finally surrendered all fear.
Eleanor turned her head slowly.
On the polished walnut washstand beside the clawfoot tub, the two plastic diner containers sat completely empty—the ribeye steak carved down to the bone, the baked potato scraped clean, and the two slices of Dutch apple pie devoured to the last crumb of buttery crust. Beside the plates, neatly folded over the back of a ladderback chair, was a long, plush bathrobe made of emerald-green flannel. It had belonged to Caroline Vance. The fabric carried the faint, powdery trace of dried lavender and French vanilla, clean and immaculate, as though it had been waiting in an cedar chest solely for this morning.
