In This Mountain by Jan Karon

he did, writing and illustrating books was what she did, it was how she processed her life.
    “Umm. Good, dearest. More to the right, there’s an awful crick on the right.”
    “I need to adjust the chair at your drawing table again.”
    “Would you, Timothy?”
    “Of course. First thing tomorrow. Tell me about the book.”
    “I’m dismayed, it won’t come right. I should have listened to myself when I said I wouldn’t do any more Violet books. I think I may put it aside ’til we come home from Tennessee.”
    “No wonder you’re having a problem with it. That cat’s already done everything there is to do—been to see the Queen, learned to play the piano, gone to the beach, stayed in a hotel in New York, taken up French as a second language—”
    “Right there! Ugh, it’s sore. What did you and Dooley talk about at lunch?”
    “About finding his father, to see if we can learn something about the boys. Any involvement with his father frightens him, of course. It could be like stirring a nest of hornets.”
    “I understand. But it’s a good idea, Timothy.”
    “He remembered that his father had a best friend, a drinking buddy he hung out with, got in trouble with. The name came to Dooley very clearly—Shorty Justice. He lived in Holding, worked on the highway. I’m going to get Emma on it.” His erstwhile secretary, who had helped locate Jessie Barlowe, liked nothing better than to spread a dragnet in cyberspace.
    “I’ll help you any way I can,” said Cynthia. “I’ll do anything.”
    He leaned down and kissed her shoulders, loving the feel of her living flesh. She was balm to him, she was everything he might ever want or dream of having, she was his best friend, his encourager. How had he ever bumbled along in that odd dream state of bachelorhood, thinking himself sane?
    “I love you,” he said.
    “I love you back, sweetheart.” She yawned and rolled over and put her arms around his neck. “You are still my sweetheart?”
    He grinned. “‘Until heaven and then forever!’” he said, quoting the inscription engraved on his wedding band.



CHAPTER FOUR
www.seek&find.com
    Emma Newland thumped into his leather chair in the study, adjusted the needlepoint pillow behind her back, and opened her laptop.
    It was her custom to arrive at the yellow house at eight-thirty every Tuesday morning, with the express purpose of inputting the latest portion of his current essay, sending various e-mails in her erstwhile employer’s stead, munching tortilla chips to maintain appropriate levels of blood sugar, and tidying his desk whether he wished it tidy or not.
    She considered this stint, generally four hours in length, to be her “bounden duty,” having made a pact with God. She had committed to serve her helpless former priest ’til death did them part if only God would spare her the agony and aggravation of arthritis—which, at least in recorded history, had afflicted every female in her family. So far, she had suffered only a minor twinge in her right thumb, which she blamed on excessive use of the mouse.
    Far be it from her former priest to mention such a thing, but he thought her eyebrows appeared singed this morning, or even missing, as if she’d failed to jump back when lighting an outdoor grill. He’d always thought her eyebrows incredibly similar to woolly worms that had grown extra-thick coats for winter. In truth, his secretary’s face looked so oddly denuded that he was embarrassed.
    “What’re you lookin’ at?” she demanded, without glancing away from the screen.
    He felt like a schoolboy, caught releasing a toad in the girls’ rest room. “Nothing!”
    She fiddled with the thing in her lap. “So have you had your spring cold yet?”
    “I don’t expect to have a spring cold,” he said.
    “How on earth you’ll escape it, I don’t know…all that drinkin’ out of th’ cup with everybody and his brother and shakin’ a hundred hands at th’ Peace.”
    He didn’t