A Spicy Secret by D. Savannah George Read Free Book Online

remember she liked chickens but didn’t like their upkeep or them getting into her garden.”
    The ledger, written in her grandfather’s neat hand, was a straightforward list with the date, animal name and type, owner’s name, procedure, and the amount owed.
    Annie missed her grandfather. She’d felt closer to her grandmother, probably because she’d helped Gram with chores—at Gram’s insistence, of course—and the older woman had spent hours teaching her to crochet, while her grandfather had been busy with his practice.
    She’d been a teenager when he’d retired. At that age, she’d hung out with Alice and her other friends more than with her grandparents. But she had fond memories of rainy days or those days when everyone else was busy—she’d sit on the window seat of the library, working on a crochet project, while Grandpa sat at his desk and wrote in his journals, occasionally reading a short anecdote aloud. And she’d loved it when, as a child, he’d read her stories from The Jungle Book or other classics . She was nearly through with college when he died and was thankful for the years she had known him.
    Annie decided to add the ledger to the bookshelf that held her grandfather’s journals. Just holding it made her feel close to him.
    “Looks like we’re almost to the end,” Alice said, nudging Boots off the last stack.
    “Thank heavens,” Annie replied. “I forget how tiring it can be to go through stuff.”
    They discarded the first few files without comment.
    “Hmmm … this one looks interesting,” Alice said. “Apparently our esteemed mayor had a very sickly cat when he was a child.” Annie tried to grab the file, but Alice kept it just out of reach. “Seems that little Ian liked to feed ‘Banana’ raw eggs, which caused the poor kitty’s fur to fall out.”
    “Ian named his cat Banana?” Annie asked.
    “Yes. And there’s more! Seems after the raw eggs incident, our young friend decided that Banana needed some raw meat.”
    “And?”
    “And that caused vomiting and diarrhea. For the cat, not Ian.”
    After a few minutes of laughing and playing keep-away, Alice finally handed it to Annie so she could see for herself.
    “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look him in the face again,” Annie said dryly.
    “Me either. Or at least, not without giggling!”
    At the very bottom of the stack sat a nice, slim container, in much better condition than the rest of the files.
    “This looks rather official,” Annie said, turning the box over in her hands and then opening it. “Look—here’s a sticker that says ‘Connor and Sheehan, Boston, Mass.’” Unfolding the papers, she let out a squeal. “Why, it’s the building plans for the renovation of the carriage house!”
    “Oh cool!” said Alice. “This is really neat.” Together, they spread the blueprints out on the floor and examined the documents. “Here are a couple of sketches of what the interior and exterior used to look like.”
    “According to this, your spare room was the original bedroom,” Annie said. “That means whoever hid the recipes could have lived there back in Captain Grey’s era.”
    “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t put there by someone who rented from the Swanns either.”
    “True enough, true enough,” Annie said. She began folding everything up again. Once the pages were neatly placed back in the container, she handed it to her friend. “I think you should have these. After all, you’re going to be the new owner of the carriage house and in charge of its history.”
    “Are you sure you trust me with this?”
    “Absolutely! I’m also sure it’s one less thing for me to worry about!”
    ****
    After Alice had gone home, Annie fixed herself a light lunch and looked through some of Gram’s crochet books. One of the books, with a copyright of 1979, instructed the crocheter to make forty-eight different squares in very dated shades of gold, light orange, and dark orange. Annie