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Cam had checked out at the hardware store, where she had purchased a set of measuring cups and spoons to replace Birdie’s warped and dented ones, along with heavy-duty tape to secure the space heater cord so Birdie wouldn’t trip over it. Parsley had gotten a doggie treat from the bowl by the register, and so both dog and owner were feeling just a little more content as they headed to the door. A bulletin board stabbed with flyers and business cards caught Cam’s eye, and she stopped. She perused the assortment of advertisements. A colorful sheet hyping Silver Cove’s holiday fete had top billing, of course. There were posts from hairstylists, car detailers, Realtors, auctioneers—even a chicken farmer offering farm-fresh eggs.

Her eyes landed on a plain cardstock square pinned to the corner. It wasn’t as flashy as most of the others, bearing just a simple inscription. Ian McCabe, Historic Home Restoration, it read, followed by a phone number. Cam raised her phone up to the board and snapped a photo, not even daring to hope.

“Do you know this guy?” Cam asked the woman behind the counter, pointing to the card. “Ian McCabe?” Cam figured that the staff at the hardware store must have run across all the builders in town.

The woman considered it half-heartedly. “Don’t think so,” she said, yawning. “Must not be from around here.”

Cam called his number on her way home—again taking a circuitous route to minimize chances of another Roxy Encounter—and left a perfunctory voicemail. When she and Parsley reached the house, she was delighted to find everything quiet. No cars outside except Birdie’s. No noise from the kitchen. She tiptoed up the steep stairway to see if Birdie was sleeping, but the door to her grandmother’s bedroom was open, and Birdie’s neat, quilted bed was empty. Alone at last, Cam thought. She cleaned the new utensils she had bought, pulled out ingredients for the puttanesca sauce, retrieved her notebook, and got to work. When the sauce had just hit the barest bubble of a simmer, Cam started her timer and made a few notes, that familiar feeling of calm stealing back over her.

At exactly two minutes of simmer time, Cam heard a thump in the living room. That’s odd, she thought. Birdie would use the side door. Thunk-thunk. There it was again. Cam hesitantly walked into the living room to investigate, holding a wooden spoon in front of her like a weapon. She had once heard a rumor at school that Birdie’s house was haunted, but when she told her grandmother, Birdie had laughed. Probably not a ghost, Cam told herself. But could it be an intruder? she wondered as she crept farther into the room. It wasn’t like Birdie had a fancy flatscreen or stereo equipment worthy of a burglary—maybe it was a thief who specialized in homemade needlepoint pillows. She paused to listen and heard a rustle from behind the sofa. She approached the piece of furniture cautiously and then peeked around the corner and met a pair of beady eyes. It was a large gray squirrel, who looked as startled by her as she was by him. Cam froze, and so did the squirrel, momentarily, before he leaped in a panic on top of Birdie’s antique sideboard and froze again, this time between one of Birdie’s favorite teapots and their matching cups.

“Hey, little buddy,” Cam said, lowering the spoon. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s get you out of here.” She looked around. He had probably gotten in through a crack around the temporary plywood wall. Judging from the drafts, it was hardly airtight. This is no way for a seventy-four-year-old to be living, she thought again. She backed up toward the window and pried it open, screen and all. Maybe she could corral him out that way.

Cam grabbed a pillow from the sofa and waved it at the creature. “Shoo!” she called. “Out the window!” The squirrel had other ideas, instead scampering across the table, leaping down, and then jumping onto the mantel over the fireplace, knocking over china in its path. Cam charged again, “Get out!” she implored. “C’mon, just go!”

Just then, Cam heard the back door open and an unfamiliar man’s voice. “Is everything okay in here?” The man attached to the voice took a step in. He was tall with an athletic build and wore a heavy work jacket. Sandy curls peeked out from a knit cap. He looked quizzically at Cam, who was holding the pillow over her head somewhat menacingly, or so she hoped. “Are you all right? I heard shouts. And glass breaking.”

“I’m fine,” she said, motioning with her head over to the mantel, where the animal had paused, as if unsure how to navigate the gauntlet of candlesticks and vases. “It’s a squirrel. It got into the house.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, seeming to grasp the situation right away. In a fluid motion, he grabbed a throw blanket from the sofa and doubled it over. “Let me help.”

Cam felt an irrational irritation. She had been handling things just fine until this strange guy showed up. But then again, she wasn’t exactly in a position to turn him down, whoever he was. “Who are you anyway?” she asked, waving the pillow in an effort to direct the squirrel to his escape.

“I’m Ian McCabe,” he said, closing in on the intruder from the opposite side of Cam and gently waving the blanket toward the animal. “I just got your voicemail, and since I happened to be in town, I thought I’d walk by the place to check it out. I heard noises, and I wondered if you were in trouble.”

Great, she thought. She had finally gotten a contractor to show up, and he found her like this. A total mess. Out of control. This was not how she pictured things going.

“I’m trying to get him out the window,” Cam said.

“Good call,” Ian said. “Poor guy.”

The two of them closed in, giving the squirrel nowhere to go but toward the window. After a bit of maneuvering, they finally corralled the squirrel outside, and Cam shut the window behind him.

“Hey, that was nice work!” Ian said, tossing the blanket onto the sofa and holding up his hand for a high five. “We’re a good team.”

Cam looked at his outstretched palm and turned away. She wasn’t on anyone’s team. “Right,” she said, tucking the pillow back into its place and brushing back the hair that had escaped from her usually sleek updo. “Let me show you the work we need done.”

She picked her way around broken china and pointed to the corner. “Over here, you’ll see where the tree I mentioned in the voicemail had its biggest impact…”

Ian remained rooted where he was and sniffed. “I’m sorry to be rude,” he said. “But is something burning?”

Shitshitshit, Cam thought, noticing the smoke emanating from the kitchen. The puttanesca.

An hour later, Cam had swept up the broken porcelain and the charred pan was soaking in Birdie’s deep farmhouse sink. That had been a disaster, between the squirrel and the burned sauce, but at least there was the possibility that Ian would be able to fix the house so they would be spared future rodent invasions. He had spent a long time slowly walking around, taking notes and snapping photos on his phone. Birdie would have liked the way he admired her home, pointing out where the exposed sill showed the marks of an ax and how the shape of the nails could tell you when the frame was built. He would give her an estimate within a few days, he had said. Cam wasn’t optimistic, though, and every time Ian scrawled something in his notebook, she could practically see dollar signs floating around his head.

Her already dark mood went completely pitch black when a text came through. It was from Izzy, and her message was terse.

Really not feeling these recipes! it read. Can u send others?

Cam resisted the urge to throw the phone clear across the room. What the hell did Izzy mean about “not feeling” her recipes? Those were dishes that Izzy had claimed to have cooked herself! And that phrase—“not feeling” them! Did she think they were too traditional? Too trendy? Too heavy? Did she not like the flavor profiles? Cam thought of the mother she had once overheard admonishing her whining toddler in the supermarket: Use your words! And the worst part about it—other than all the work she had put into them going down the drain—was that she had no clue what Izzy wanted. Only what she didn’t, which wasn’t helpful. And time was ticking. It was almost Thanksgiving, and Cam was not one inch closer to getting those fifty recipes done than when she had signed that contract.

Her phone buzzed with a call from Russell, and Cam froze. Of course, her agent wanted regular updates on how the project was going. Avoidance wasn’t Cam’s usual style, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth, which was that it was going spectacularly badly. She let it go to voicemail.

CHAPTER SIX

The next couple days passed in a blur. Cam immersed herself in planning and cooking the Thanksgiving meal for Birdie and her friends, partly as an escape from the debacle that was the Izzy project and partly as a gesture of gratitude to her grandmother. Birdie had always been there for her, always done everything for her, and Cam had come to realize that now in a way she never had before. And cooking was the one way Cam Parker knew how to express her feelings.

This would be a holiday meal to remember, she had vowed—a giant bird with all the trimmings and homemade desserts. They would be missing a few people. Avery was in Budapest, of course, so she wouldn’t be joining them, and Avery’s parents were on a cruise. But Birdie’s house was never short on visitors, not on your typical weekday afternoon and definitely not on a holiday. Birdie was always known for taking in any “strays,” people who were without their usual friends and family for the holidays—visiting teachers, doctors from the nearby hospital on residency. Birdie made sure that anyone in the vicinity of Silver Cove who didn’t want to be alone on Thanksgiving had a seat at her dining table.