The House on Blackberry Hill (Jewell Cove 1)

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Abby gave up on the pedicure. After a long day of scrubbing and scouring, she was too tired to cook so she ventured into Breezes again, greeted by the savory scent of pot roast, seafood chowder, and fresh bread. She recognized a few faces already and smiled as they nodded in greeting. Instead of taking a table and sitting alone, she sat up at the counter, perched on a wooden swivel stool with a rung back. The fastest thing to order was the chowder, and within seconds a steaming bowl was placed in front of her along with a plate holding the largest dinner roll she’d ever seen.

“This smells fantastic,” she complimented the woman behind the counter. “Thanks.”

“You need anything else, give a holler.” The woman looked over Abby’s head. “Evening, Art. Sweet tooth acting up again?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Be right back.”

A man sat up to the counter a few stools over and Abby stole a look. Older than Luke Pratt for sure, probably in his sixties or more, with a friendly face and a slight potbelly. She smiled as he looked over, then turned her attention to her bun—really the size of a small loaf. She broke off a piece and spread it with butter. The real stuff—no artificial low-fat anything here, she realized. The sign said home cooking and they meant it.

“You’re Miss Foster, aren’t you?”

Abby supposed this would go on until she’d met everyone in the town, so she reluctantly looked away from her steaming chowder and smiled. “I am.”

“You’ve got your great-aunt’s smile. Art Ellis. May I?” He nodded at the stool beside her, and when she agreed he slid over, taking off his Bruins ball cap. “I used to look after the grounds up at the house before Ms. Marian took sick.”

Her smile came easier. At least Ellis wasn’t just being nosy, he actually had a connection to the house. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too. Town’s been buzzing with the news that you’re here, but I didn’t want to intrude. Thought you might be sort of a private-type person, like Marian was.”

The waitress put a gigantic piece of apple pie in front of him, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that was already starting to melt. “Linda, you’re an angel.”

“Our little secret,” Linda replied with a wink. “And if you blame this on me and Margie asks, I’ll deny it.”

He grinned at Abby, then took a bite of his pie and sighed contentedly. “My missus would have a fit if she knew I was eating pie. Worries about my girlish figure. But Linda here makes the best pastry in town.” He grinned, a sideways smile that made him look boyish, and patted his stomach. “Wouldn’t want Margie to know I said that, either.”

The smell of apples and nutmeg was heavenly. Abby sipped her water. “My lips are sealed.”

He ran his hand over the thinning hair at the top of his head. “There’s lots of speculation about you, Miss Foster.”

She met his gaze. “Call me Abby. And I’m just as curious about the town as it is about me.” She was surprised to realize it was true.

“It’s true, then? That you never knew Marian?”

She didn’t know why she was shocked that he should know that. “News travels fast around here. So you were the gardener?”

He nodded. “Of a sort. I cut the grass and kept the trees prune

d, did odd jobs around the house. But the garden, that was all Ms. Marian. She loved her garden, especially the roses. She always had the nicest blooms. I’d hate to see the state of it now.” He shook his head.

“It’s a mess,” Abby confirmed. “I don’t think it has been touched since she stopped living at the house.”

“A shame,” he said, cutting through the flaky crust of his pie. “After all the work she put in. The house probably isn’t much better, is it?”

Abby smiled back. “I got the feeling that Captain Foster built it to withstand any storm, but it needs some attention,” she conceded. “I need to have it assessed, but my initial impression is that it’s sound.”

“You should have Tom Arseneault have a peek at it. That boy knows what he’s doing.”

That “boy” had to be thirty years old and was the size of a barn door. “So I’ve heard,” she replied dryly. Ellis didn’t need to know she’d already asked Tom for a quote. Besides, she was sure the gossip mill would have everyone well informed about it all in no time anyway. “You know the house well, Mr. Ellis. I’d love to learn more about it. It’s on Foster Lane, but more than once I’ve heard it called Blackberry Hill. Do you know why that is?”

Art sat back against the padded seat. “It’s been called that for years. Blackberries grow wild all over that side of the mountain. You take a walk up sometime and check it out. Between them and the blueberries, the odd black bear’s been known to show up now and again.”

“I haven’t gone up yet. Is there anything up there?”

Art nodded. “There’s still one of the old barns from when it was the Prescott farm. That’d be your great-grandmother Edith’s family.” He leaned closer, as if sharing a secret, and damned if she wasn’t drawn in. “When I was younger there was a rumor that the barns and buildings were hiding spots for spies during the war. But that’s just a bunch of romantic talk. The Prescotts moved away after Edith and Elijah married and years later the old house burned in a lightning strike. The barn’s still there, and the gate was put across the road because teenagers used to go up there and get up to no good in the barn.”