Wrapped Up In Christmas

“Didn’t take her near as long to figure out how to Photoshop twenty years off her selfies,” Maybelle added drily, pulling a snowflake out and putting it in the “needs work” stack. “One click of a button and wrinkles be gone! Of course, so is her nose since it takes so much blurring.”

Rosie’s mouth dropped open and she tossed an ornament at Maybelle, who just chuckled and added it to her “needs work” pile.

“I do not blur my nose out of photos, Maybelle Kirby,” Rosie denied with great indignation, then smiled sweetly as she added, “I understand how you could miss it, though, being as it’s not nearly as big as the one on your face.”

Staring at them, Sarah slowly shook her head. “I don’t know why I thought any of you could be trusted with advanced technology.”

Poor Bodie. He had no clue what he’d gotten himself into when he’d agreed to work at Hamilton House.

“His references checked out and I hired him.”

From the moment she’d watched him with Harry, she’d liked him. There was an inherent honesty about Bodie. Yes, he had a dark cloud hanging over his head that said back off, but just as visible was a sense of honor and morals. She’d barely met him, and yet she trusted him.

“Aren’t you curious what the sheriff found out?” Maybelle tempted, the twinkle in her eye saying she knew something Sarah didn’t.

“You already told me he wasn’t a serial killer,” Sarah reminded, feeling a little guilty that they’d essentially done a background check on Bodie. Still, she supposed since he was a stranger to Pine Hill, she understood why the women had. Despite her gut instinct that told her he was a decent person, she should have requested one herself.

She wouldn’t tell the spying queens, but knowing they’d checked Bodie out made her feel less silly for immediately taking him at his word. He’d come across as someone who was dependable, and who lived by high ethics. Time would tell.

“Sheriff Roscoe says he’s clean,” Maybelle continued in her deadpan voice, letting Sarah know a punch line was about to come.

She wasn’t disappointed.

“Not even a speeding ticket on his record.”

Sarah fought sticking her tongue out at Maybelle. She was way too old to do so, but sometimes, the Butterflies made her feel as if she were back in grade school, hanging with Aunt Jean and them as they worked on some project. They’d always included her, always treated her as if she belonged to them all rather than just Aunt Jean.

“If that was a jab at me,” Sarah said, ignoring the laughter in Maybelle’s eyes, “You should know that I was running late to meet with the school board about our back-to-school backpack program and wasn’t driving that fast.”

She’d only been going four miles over the speed limit and there hadn’t been another car on the road for miles, for goodness’ sake. She’d barely crossed into the lowered speed zone when the blue lights came on.

“Donnie should have given me a warning, not an actual ticket.”

“He gave you a warning the time before,” Claudia reminded in her most grandmotherly tone.

Sarah wrinkled her nose. Well, yeah, there was that time last month when she’d been going a whole two miles over the posted speed limit when Donnie had gotten blue-light happy, too.

“Well, it’s good to know Bodie hasn’t run into Donnie since he’s been in town,” she pointed out, then gestured to their ornaments. “That’s the last of these. Ready to cut out more snowflakes before it’s time to deliver meals to shut-ins?”

There were lots of little odds and ends needing addressed or touching up, but Bodie had decided to start with the first bedroom Sarah had shown him. It was the bigger of the two downstairs rooms she wanted done and had been her aunt’s. The other had belonged to her aunt’s in-laws.

Sarah had told Bodie he could go anywhere in the house and Harry could come inside if he kept an eye on him. No worries on that account. If he moved, Harry moved. The dog apparently thought Bodie couldn’t inspect the house unless he accompanied him.

Still feeling as if he didn’t belong inside the sprawling old mansion, Bodie pushed the uneasiness aside by focusing on his work. He did a full check starting at the bottom by crawling under the floor space. After making sure to clean off any stray dirt, he then checked the attic to identify any problems Sarah might be unaware of before heading downstairs.

One by one, he inspected the rooms, making written notes.

When he’d gone through the door to the room where Sarah slept, his throat had tightened.

With its sunny yellow walls and intricate blue and yellow quilt covering a full-sized bed, the room fit Sarah. Next to her bed was a walnut nightstand with a well-read Bible and lamp on it. There was a matching walnut wardrobe and dresser. But what drew him was across from Sarah’s bed.

He walked over to the table where the antiquated sewing machine was set up and ran his finger over the sleek line of the black and gold machine. The quilting in Sarah’s creation had been done by hand, but most likely she’d sewn the quilt top pieces together while sitting here.

Even now, with everything she had going on, there were sewn pieces of fabric neatly stacked in a basket where she worked on a new quilt top.

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Red, white, and blue fabric.