The Jewelry Case by Catherine McGreevy Page A

I needed this — but you were right."
    Of course, the question remained what to do once the last of the money ran out. Maybe Paisley would have to accept Nigel's offer after all. But as Scarlett O’Hara, that indomitable heroine of Gone With the Wind, said, tomorrow was another day.
    #
    While deep in the pages of an Elizabeth Peters novel, Paisley heard the Toreador song go off again. Ian had texted the appraisal for the house repairs. The amount was surprisingly reasonable, but she hesitated. This was her last chance to back out. Everyone had advised her to sell the place, and surely they were right: the wise course of action was to get what money she could out of it, instead of sinking her rapidly vanishing savings into fixing it up.
    Then she looked at the blaze of red and yellow tulips in the flower beds, sprouting from bulbs someone , Esther no doubt, had planted long ago. Fluffy white clouds scudding across the intensely blue sky, and the towering old oak that stood in front of the house cast cool shade. Although she was not given to flights of fancy, Paisley felt again that oddly powerful feeling that she was meant to be here. In that moment, her problems vanished completely, and she sensed an overwhelming sense of peace and well being. Everything felt ... right .
    Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of gray in the bushes and sat upright, sending the hammock swaying. So Esther's cat had decided to remain after all. Somehow, the fact confirmed her own decision to stay.
    She texted Ian back, opened a can of tuna, and spooned it into the cat food dish by the kitchen door. Then she settled back into the hammock and fell into a deep, restful sleep.
    The sound of a truck awoke her, followed by a deafening clamor. Still yawning, she found Ian in front of the house, unloading equipment from his truck with three helpers of assorted sizes wearing virtually identical faded jeans, old T-shirts, and tool belts.
    "Oh, hi. I thought we'd start right away," Ian said, looking up as she approached. His hair had lost its dusty, tousled look: it was damply combed into bangs over his forehead . He had shaved, probably with a dull straight razor. His jaw looked raw.
    "I thought you were a late sleeper," she said grumpily. "When I called you from the yellow pages, I could have sworn you were still in bed."
    "Oh, I was just up late the night before working on something important," he said cheerily. "I'm usually up by six."
    He introduced his co-workers by their first names: Quinn, whose broad shoulders, long black hair, and high cheekbones caused her to surmise that he was Native American; and Rusty, a thin, sandy-haired man with the beginnings of a straggling beard and a stained T-shirt, who nodded politely and crushed her hand in an unexpectedly strong grip.
    "Quinn and Rusty are going to help me out," Ian explained. "This afternoon, we're going to gut the upstairs bathroom. Gotta take care of the mold first, it's a health issue."
    "Okay, fine," she said, shuddering a little at the thought of mold infiltrating the house. "I'll leave you guys to it."
    She wandered back to the kitchen and made herself lunch. There was something decadent about watching other people work while having nothing to do oneself. She used the rest of the tuna to prepare a sandwich with lettuce and pickles, and ate it at the kitchen table, watching through the window as the men flexed their muscles setting up the buzz saws and uncoiling electric cables.
    Idly, she planned the rest of her day: perhaps a short walk in the woods behind the house this afternoon, another nap before dinner, and then some reading in the evening, curled up on the sofa with Esther's old records for background music. There was a whole bookshelf of paperback mysteries by her favorite authors in the living room.
    Finishing her sandwich leisurely, she continued watching as Ian give brief directions and walk around overseeing the work as it progressed, taking hammer in hand himself to