The Heart of a Hero by Janet Chapman Page B

under the sink to check for cleaning supplies and found only a mousetrap.
    Wait, hadn’t a couple of cats lived here? Then what idiot mouse would think this was a good place to spend the winter? Unless . . . Julia shivered and closed the cabinet doors. Unless the cats snuck in mice as future entertainment for when the boss was at work all day—which is exactly why there had never been any cats in the Campbell home. Well,
inside
the house, as there were always several semi-feral cats prowling the mill, thanks to their mouse and bird diets being supplemented with table scraps.
    Julia spent the morning cleaning—one full hour vacuuming—and the afternoon unpacking all of her and Trisha’s worldly possessions, until she found herself staring into Trisha’s closet with a stupid smile on her face. She touched the ankle-length green wool coat, heartened to know her sister would be going to college looking quite sharp thanks to Peg MacKeage’s beautiful hand-me-downs.
    Julia had met Peg—then Peg Conroy—their first day of kindergarten, as the both of them had stood pressed up against the school building watching the horde of children on the playground, both still shaken from the hour-long bus ride to Turtleback Station. Julia remembered whispering that it felt like they’d traveled clear across the world as Peg had inched closer and pulled a small rock out of her pocket, saying her mom had given it to her to rub if she got scared, and that they could share it for the day and she’d ask her mom if she could bring one for Julia tomorrow.
    That had been the beginning of a quarter-century friendship that had seen them through way too many outrageous pranks and disastrous romantic crushes, marriages and births, deaths and divorce and widowhood, and everything in between.
    Peg was actually a year older—which she liked to lord over Julia—but had been in the same grade because her birthday was October 19, making her miss starting school the previous year by four days. Julia’s birthday was October 1, so she had technically still been four years old that first day.
    Julia closed the closet door and walked out of the room, down the short hallway, and into the kitchen just as her stomach gave a hungry gurgle. More from wishful thinking than optimism, she opened the fridge hoping Nicholas had forgotten to pack his cold food, only to find a bottle of wine sitting beside a tray of dome-covered dishes with an envelope propped between them. She pulled out the tray, set it on the counter, and started to close the door, but then reached in and grabbed the bottle of wine. She set the wine on the tray, picked up the envelope, and pulled out the note written in bold, familiar handwriting.
    A little something to tide you over until dinner tonight.
    —Nicholas
    His phone number—which was seven digits, indicating it was his personal cell rather than an employee phone—was written below his name, along with a PS stating to give him a call when Trisha got back and he’d come pick them up.
    Dang, she’d completely forgotten about dinner. Why hadn’t she told him they wouldn’t be going when she’d first arrived at the apartment just as he and another man had been loading the last box into his truck? Although in her defense, since he hadn’t asked if she’d enjoyed her breakfast or mentioned her vacuuming, she’d thought he might not want Olivia to know about their deal, so she hadn’t said anything, either.
    Julia lifted one of the domes to find a club sandwich large enough to choke a horse wrapped in plastic to keep it fresh, a small bowl of potato sticks, a dish of pickles, and a tiny jar of mayonnaise. She found a decadent-looking piece of cake large enough to choke an elephant under another one of the domes, and what looked like apple-filled pastries under the last one.
    Heck, forget the sign saying she was an utter and complete failure; she must be wearing one that read
Julia Campbell will do anything for food
.
    She tucked