Seaside Harmony Part 17

"Caroline!"

She heard the fear in George's voice as she felt the stack of boxes begin to crumble. She stretched her arm out, knowing she couldn't steady herself. It was much too late for that. But she did latch on to the box of dolls . . . and then she tumbled, boxes and all.

"Caroline! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she called back. Her backside was a little sore from landing hard on the floor, but at least it was her derriere that hit first, and not her head or hip or arm. George was right-she didn't need to break anything.

"You'll be happy to know that there's a big open area back here," she muttered. "No boxes whatsoever, which means if you stop playing around underneath the Packard for a day or two, you should be able to s.h.i.+ft all the other boxes back into this s.p.a.ce so you can get the car off its blocks and out of here."

"Sounds like a plan."

"A very good plan, I'm sure, but right now, I need to figure out how to get out of here."

"You don't see any trapdoors, do you? Any secret rooms?"

"I see a box full of dolls looking at me through gla.s.s eyes. They have beautiful bisque faces, and dresses made out of taffeta and lace. And they're thinking the same thing as I am: Start moving boxes, George, so we can get out of here."

I can't believe you've talked me into getting my face painted." Gracie wrinkled her nose at her sisters, trying not to laugh at the red and white stripes painted across Caroline's face or the blue square dotted with white stars painted around her right eye. The artist had done a really good job, but should a woman of sixty-one really be walking around looking like the "Star-Spangled Banner"?

And Sam! Fireworks exploded across her face in shades of blue and white. They were awfully pretty, but again, what on earth were they doing here? Little kids got their faces painted, not grandmothers!

"You're looking good, Gracie," Caroline said, her arm tucked through George's. He was the only one who hadn't succ.u.mbed to Caroline's crazy scheme.

"The least you could do is tell me what's appearing on my face."

"It's a surprise," Sam told her. "Just smile and enjoy it."

"All I ask is that you promise not to take a picture of the three of us together to put on top of the piano for all our future guests to see."

Caroline beamed. "I hadn't even thought about that. Thank you so much for the idea, Gracie. It'll be perfect for next year's Fourth of July decorating."

Gracie wanted to groan, but she was afraid if she did so, it might mess up the painting. It was bad enough to be embellished with bright paints, but bright paints that were messed up in the process would be a tragedy. She'd sit still if it was the last thing she did.

At long last, the artist smiled at Gracie. "Done!" She handed her a mirror. "Want to see your work of art?"

"I'm rather afraid to, but let's do it."

Gracie held up the mirror. She stared for long seconds, and at last she smiled. "Not bad."

"What do you mean 'not bad'?" Caroline said. "Yours is the absolute best. You're the Statue of Liberty-and you're beautiful."

Gracie grinned. "Okay, I admit it, it looks rather good."

"Now that you ladies are through getting all painted up for the day," George said, "can we go check out the pie-eating contest?"

"Are you going to enter?" Sam asked.

"Not on your life, but I can cheer with the best of them."

Gracie couldn't believe she was having such a great time. It seemed forever since she'd simply let down her hair, relaxed, and gone along with the crowd. She cheered on both sets of firefighters-volunteers and regulars-as they competed in their annual water fight. The hoses were attached to an antique fire engine and hand pumper, and the spray splashed everywhere, nearly soaking Gracie to the bone. Sam talked her into trying out the potato sack race, and the two of them beat out the team of George and Caroline. She ate corn dogs and cotton candy and barbecued chicken and corn on the cob, served up by Bill Dekker and Megan Folger-Wildes for one of Harvest Chapel's yearly charity fund-raisers.

The fireworks shot high into the sky, hissing and crackling, their bright colors ricocheting this way and that. It was all rather glorious, Caroline thought, especially with Beethoven's Fifth playing in the background, thanks to an old CD player they'd found in a closet, and some music George had downloaded off the Internet that morning. John Phillip Sousa, the Boston Pops, and Beethoven's cannons sounded out loud and clear until they were ready to call it a night not long after the last explosion of color filled the night.

"See you tomorrow," George said, hugging Gracie the same way he hugged Sam and Caroline, although Caroline received a lovely kiss on the top of her head. She was one lucky woman, Gracie decided. George was a good man, kind of like her Art. Some relations.h.i.+ps were rather magical, and she saw that between Caroline and her friend.

Less than half an hour later, the porch was cleaned off, the dishes were washed and put away, and Gracie climbed into the shower. The spray wasn't quite as warm as she'd like, but it still felt great to wash the salty air out of her hair and the painted Statue of Liberty from her face. The shower sputtered a few times, and the water turned tepid, making her s.h.i.+ver. The plumbing in the walls groaned. It had been doing that all week.

Climbing out of the shower, she towel-dried her hair, combed out the tangles, slipped into a light nightgown, and crawled under the covers. She burrowed into the comfort of the crisp, cool sheets, turned off the light, and noticed the bisque doll with a taffeta dress and long blonde hair sitting on the chair next to her bed.

"The dolls are pretty," Gracie whispered to Caroline, who was lying on her side in the twin bed next to hers. "I'm glad you brought them in from the carriage house."

"I thought they'd look nice in the guest rooms, but I don't know, I think I could get rather attached to them and, really, when you think about it, we've already planned to put so many other antiques in the guest rooms, we should keep something for ourselves."

"Definitely." Gracie yawned again. "I had a great time today."

"The face-painting didn't bother you too much?"

Gracie shook her head. "Only at first. After I got used to it I rather enjoyed the stares. No one laughed, and a couple of women around our age said they wished they'd had the guts to get a face-painting too."

Gracie yawned again. She tucked her hands under her pillow and closed her eyes. She wanted so much to talk with Caroline, to share the events of the day, but she couldn't keep her eyes open. She could barely retain any sense of reality. She just wanted to sleep, and slowly she drifted off, dreaming of fireworks and rousing music, the clang of cymbals, the blast of cannons.

The blast?

Even in her subconscious, she knew there was something not quite right about those cannons.

Gracie jolted up in bed. "What was that?"

"You're dreaming, Gracie," Caroline said, her words drowsy-a little grumpy. "Go back to sleep."

"Dreaming, my eye. Something just blew up."

"You've got the sound of fireworks stuck in your head," Caroline said, as if she'd shared Gracie's dreams. "And the cannons in Beethoven's Fifth. It's all in your-"

Caroline jumped when the cannons-or whatever-shot off again. With moonlight s.h.i.+ning through the window, Gracie could see Caroline's eyes widen. "What on earth was that?"

"I don't have a clue, but I'm glad you finally believe that I wasn't dreaming."

Gracie sprang out of bed and-water splashed beneath her feet. "Oh dear! We're flooded."

"You're kidding."

"Climb out of bed, get wet up to your ankles, and maybe you'll believe me."

"I'm not exactly crazy about the idea of climbing out of bed," Caroline said, "but I believe you, and unless we want to risk the chance of floating out to sea during the middle of the night-"

"It's already the middle of the night, Caroline. It's two o'clock."

"Okay, no need to get picky, let's just figure out what's going on."

"It has to be the shower." Gracie groaned. "I knew there was something odd about the noises I heard when I took my shower. I should have known the plumbing was going to explode."

Gracie jumped again when the bedroom door opened and Sam trudged in, slogging through the water. "Something tells me the shower's on the fritz."

"Do either of you have any idea how to fix plumbing?" Gracie asked, trying to stay calm. "Art always took care of stuff like that, and I haven't had any problems since he pa.s.sed away."

"We could always call Bill Dekker," Sam said. "Or George."

"We own an inn now," Caroline said. "It's a big place and one of our guests could run into electrical or plumbing problems in the middle of the night. We won't always be able to get other help. My suggestion is we try to figure this out on our own."

Chaos erupted. With no clear idea where the water came from, Gracie ran to the bathroom, Sam ran to the kitchen, and Caroline grabbed towels and sheets and anything she could get her hands on to build dams to keep the water at bay in the owners' quarters.

"Do you see any leaks?" Sam asked Gracie, who had the doors flung open on the cabinets beneath the bathroom sink.

"These pipes are dry as a bone," Gracie said, on her knees now, kneeling in several inches of water that soaked through her pajamas.

"Think we should turn off the water?" Caroline asked, peering into the bathroom.

"I already turned it off under this sink," Gracie stated. She was breathing hard. And her knees hurt from kneeling on the hard tile.

"I turned it off under the kitchen sink too, although I'm not all that sure how good a job I did. I couldn't get the k.n.o.b all that tight, so it could still be leaking."

"Anyone know where there's a wrench?" Caroline asked, taking charge, even though Caroline probably knew less about plumbing than she or Sam. "If we could find one, we might be able to tighten up the k.n.o.b and make sure the water's off completely."

"Bill probably has one in his tools," Sam said, "but I haven't a clue where he keeps it."

"In the back of his truck," Gracie added. "Which isn't going to help at all."

"I'll try the bas.e.m.e.nt. He was working on the was.h.i.+ng machine yesterday. It might still be there." Caroline slipped in the water as she raced from the room. "Be back in a jiff."

"We could have gone the next thirty years without something like this happening." Gracie plowed her hands through her hair.

"Better now than when our first guests are here." Sam sopped up water with one of their new white towels and wrang it out into the sink. "I wish we knew where the water was coming from. I don't hear any drips. I don't see any."

"Drips?" Gracie was incredulous. "It's more like a deluge. A monsoon could have hit us and we'd have less water in here." Gracie grabbed another towel to soak up water. "Is the kitchen as bad as this?"

Sam frowned. She shook her head. "Something tells me the house is a little off-kilter. This bathroom must be the lowest point in the house, and-"

Gracie threw a hand up to halt her sister's words. "Don't say anymore. I don't even want to think about having to do work on the foundation or shoring up this part of the house to make it level with everything else. That could cost us a small fortune."

"Found it!" Caroline burst back into the bathroom, a big wrench in hand. She nudged Gracie aside. Her knees creaked as she knelt down on the floor, and she stuck her head under the sink. You could hear the grinding of metal as Caroline turned the k.n.o.b. "I found what I think might be the main water valve-or whatever it's called-in the bas.e.m.e.nt too. I've got that turned off, so it shouldn't make much difference if we're unable to tighten down this one and the one in the kitchen or not."

"You're sure?" Gracie asked.

Caroline stuck her head out from under the sink and hit Gracie with a sideways glance. "Of course I'm not sure. I'm as much a novice at this as you are, but I don't see the water continuing to rise. I don't hear any more drips or groans in the pipes."

"She has a point, Gracie," Sam said, still sopping up water with the towel. "But I think tomorrow we'd better ask Bill or George-or someone-to give us a quick, down-and-dirty course on home plumbing."

"Quick's perfectly fine," Gracie said, looking at the white towel in her hand. It used to be thick and pristine, but now it was now a candidate for the dump. "But I'll forgo dirty, thank you very much. Right now, I feel like I've seen and smelled and wallowed in enough muck to last a lifetime."

Just then they heard the wail of another set of pipes. Something inside the walls began to groan. And then they heard the very first pop!, and then the explosion.

"Well," Caroline said, "at least our first Fourth of July inside the Misty Harbor Inn is going out with a bang."

Heard you had a little problem in the middle of the night."

Gracie looked up from the middle of the overgrown weeds by the birdbath to see Bill Dekker. There was a carpenter's tool belt wrapped around his waist, and his white T-s.h.i.+rt was smudged with dirt and grime. Somehow she worked up a smile.

"I wish it had been little."

"You and me both, since I'm the one who inspected the house and told you the plumbing looked good. Sure doesn't do much for my credibility."

Gracie stood, pressing her hands against the small of her back to stretch out her muscles. She was achy after the middle-of-the-night debacle. "Did you find the problem?"

Bill nodded. "Something simple, thank heaven. The good Lord must have been smiling down on you, because it turned out to be nothing more than a pipe bursting loose behind the bathroom wall. Of course, I had to tear down the wall-and part of the tile-to find it."

Gracie tried to keep the sound of her groan hidden. She hoped this would be not only the first disaster, but the last. Too many catastrophes and their money would run out fast.

"You really should have called me. I meant it when I said I'd be here in a heartbeat if you ladies needed anything."

"At least we showed ourselves-and hopefully you and George and our families-just how resourceful we can be."

"Let's just hope you don't have to show that side of yourselves too often."

"From your mouth to G.o.d's ear."

Once Bill had hopped into his truck and took off for town to get plumbing supplies, Gracie strolled around the garden. The last place she'd wanted to be that morning was inside the inn. She needed the fresh air, and it seemed high time that someone tackle a bit of the garden. This was her domain. When she wasn't in church, she felt the closest to G.o.d was out among the flowers. When she was in the garden, she felt Art beside her too.

Grabbing a pair of clippers she'd set on the garden's pretty wrought-iron-bench, she started to gather flowers for the first dinner they would host in the inn. There were so many to choose from. Roses in every color-climbers, floribunda, hybrid tea, grandifloras. Daisies. Coneflowers. Lavender. Hydrangea. Stock. And that didn't come close to naming everything.

The inn had a lot of flaws, including flaws they never would have guessed, like the uneven floor, but the garden made up for everything.

When her arms were full, she went into the inn, skirting the kitchen where Sam was cooking up a storm. Jamie had come back to the island that morning and would be staying for a week, and she was helping her mother prepare the meal. She headed for the dining room and found Caroline snapping photos of the table and just about everything else in the room.

"What are you doing?" Gracie asked.

"I want to make sure our Web page reflects everything inside the inn-all that we do for our guests, everything people will see. I want to open all their senses when they look at our Web site. I want them to smell the food, to feel the lightness of the china cups and saucers. Well, you get the picture."

Gracie refused to roll her eyes, although she felt like it. "Aren't you taking on a little too much? Do you really feel it's important to go all out like that?"

"Our Web page could be the first view anyone has of the Misty Harbor Inn." Caroline snapped a photo of Gracie with the armload of flowers in her hands. "I want people to fall in love with the inn as much as we have."

"Maybe we should hire someone to do the Web page. Not that I think you can't do it-"

"I know. You're worried I won't get it done in time, and that I'll lose interest before it's finished and move on to something else that's caught my interest, but I won't, Gracie."

Gracie had her doubts.

"Come on, Gracie, put a smile on your face."