Engaging Emma by Elle M. Adams

Author:Elle M. Adams [Adams, Elle M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2022-05-01T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

When Emma woke the next morning, she had a clutch of text messages from Miss Lily, each one of them irate. Looked like Tucker—the tattletale—had told her about the clause in the contract about Harlan Beaufort. Emma had been summoned to the Big House, an order that had her scrambling to get ready. She jerked on her clothes and ran a brush through her hair before heading out the door.

“Miss Lily,” Emma called as she let herself in. No answer. She went upstairs to find a ladder reaching into the attic, climbed up, and found Miss Lily rummaging through an old box.

Miss Lily looked relieved to see her. “You can take over,” she said, sitting down.

Emma didn’t argue. She pushed up her sleeves and got to work. “What are we looking for?”

“The plat map. It should have the legal description and show the boundaries of the property lines. Hopper says that what he got from the county courthouse is fine, but I don’t trust that Harlan Beaufort. The courthouse has a copy, but I want the original. If they match, then I’ll know Harlan hasn’t somehow finagled his way into claiming part of Madsen land as his own. He’s a crafty old goat, that one.”

Emma suppressed a grin. She doubted Harlan had that kind of influence, but she started looking anyway.

“Try that one.” Miss Lily waggled her finger at a box next to an old steamer trunk.

“We already looked through that one,” Emma said, sniffing. Dust in the attic was as thick as jam. If she stayed up here much longer, she’d go into anaphylactic shock.

“No, we didn’t.”

Emma opened the box and pulled out a couple of Jack Madsen’s old fedoras. “See? Not here.”

Miss Lily made a sound of disgust. “I don’t think it’s up here,” she said, taking one of the hats and running her thumb over the velvet band. Emma hoped that meant she was giving up the hunt, but she said, “I’ve got a lot of old family papers stored at the mercantile. Maybe it’s there.”

The mercantile. Five years ago a microburst storm had blown part of the roof off the old building. It had been vacant when it happened, and Miss Lily hadn’t seen the sense in making repairs right away. When she’d finally had the roof patched, the walls were water stained and the woodwork warped. The original tin ceiling had fallen to the floor. These days it was used as a storage unit, a dusty mess of broken furniture and discarded equipment. Finding a single piece of paper would be roughly on par with finding a needle in a haystack.

But Emma knew Miss Lily wasn’t going to give up. She sighed. “I’ll go.”

* * *

The bakery on Main, the previous establishment to inhabit the mercantile, had gone out of business eight years ago when the owner, Shirlene Parsons, had decided she was sick of getting up at four in the morning to make everyone else’s breakfast.

It was true. Most of Normal had

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