The Devil's Puzzle by Clare O'Donohue Read Free Book Online

name. He was a ghost in our family. A man who had big plans, big ambitions, but ended up with his car wrapped around a tree after a night out with friends. He left my grandmother a widow at twenty-six, with two small children and a pile of debt.
    “Did he make you happy?”
    “We were kids, with kids. We didn’t think about being happy.” She paused. “But I guess we were.”
    “Was he the love of your life?”
    “When did you become a romantic?”
    “I’ve always been one.”
    “I would have thought you had more sense.”
    “I have enough sense to believe in love,” I said.
    “I’m sure Jesse will be happy to hear that.”
    I sighed. “I just don’t know if I’m ready for all of that. I feel like I’m just beginning to grow into myself. But I do love Jesse,” I said, “and I know you love Oliver. I’ll bet he’s the love of your life.”
    “Not everyone has that kind of happiness, Nell. Or deserves it.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I’m going to get that coffee before you fall asleep.” She got up and walked to the door of her office. “Jesse is a good man. He’ll be good to you, and you’ll have a nice life together—you, Jesse, Allie, and whatever children you bring into the world. If you want to be happy, you will be. It’s more of a choice than you think.”
    I nodded. So why wasn’t she choosing to be happy, I wondered as I waited for her to return. Was the specter of my grandfather, or the long-ago pain of losing him, keeping her from marrying Oliver? Or was it as simple as feeling too old and too settled to become a wife again? Or was it something else? Whatever the answer, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t hear it from Eleanor.

CHAPTER 10
    “O kay, no time for gossip,” I said once all the members of our quilt club had arrived. “We have serious quilting business to discuss.”
    Carrie and Natalie were both at the counter eating oatmeal raisin cookies, but stopped when I spoke. Natalie sat next to her mother, Susanne, the award-winning art quilter in our group, and Carrie sat next to Maggie, my grandmother’s best friend and the only person I knew who could win an argument with Eleanor.
    “I thought we were going to talk about the skeleton,” Bernie said. Bernie was our local pharmacist, an ex-hippie, sometime psychic, and my go-to person whenever I needed cheering up.
    “We’re not talking about the skeleton,” I said. “We’re talking about the quilt show that I somehow got roped into organizing.”
    I looked over at Eleanor, who shrugged.
    These Friday night get-togethers had been going on long before I moved to Archers Rest, but I was welcomed as a member before I even knew how to quilt. Theoretically we gathered to share quilt ideas, show off new projects, and spend some uninterrupted time engaged in our favorite hobby. But soon after I joined the group I came to realize that the quilts everyone brought to a meeting served mainly as an alibi for outsiders. We did talk about quilting once in a while. But what made our meetings a not-to-be-missed occasion was the opportunity for seven women to share the events of their week, and whatever gossip happened to be floating around town.
    “I heard he was a gambler,” Susanne said, ignoring my plea to talk about the quilt show.
    “They found a poker chip in his pocket,” I told her, “but I don’t know if that makes him a gambler.”
    “There’s a casino not far from here,” Carrie said.
    Bernie shook her head. “Oh, that was built less than ten years ago, and he’s been in the ground for at least forty.”
    “Why do you think that?” Maggie asked.
    “Well, he had to be buried there when Eleanor moved into the house or else she would have noticed someone digging in her garden.”
    Carrie turned to my grandmother. “When did you move in, Eleanor?”
    “Nineteen sixty-five,” Eleanor said. “And the garden was in good shape for several years.”
    “You don’t remember anyone digging in it?” Carrie