Read Kilt Dead for Free Online Page B

take closer to an hour,” Liss pointed out. “I’m
afraid neither Sherri nor I can spare that much time away
from the booth”
    Luckily, the number of customers browsing at the display tables supported her claim. Just now they could have
used a third pair of hands.
    “You could give me a key to the shop,” Graye had the
audacity to suggest. “Barbara and I can stop in on our
way home”

    “I’m sorry, Mr. Graye, but I can’t do that. You’ll have
to wait until tomorrow.”
    Graye seemed prepared to argue further, but Barbara
put a restraining hand on his arm. “We’ll be back,” she
assured Liss.
    Graye’s expression was thunderous but he took his cue
from Barbara and left. As they walked away, Liss could
hear him muttering under his breath about the extra
mileage he’d have to put on his car to make a second visit
to the fairgrounds.
    “But apparently it’s okay for me to drive to Moosetookalook and back” Liss shook her head. There was just
no accounting for some people’s logic.
    Sherri rang up a purchase for a falconer with a hooded
hawk on his shoulder and then helped herself to another
soda from the cooler. “I wonder why Graye’s girlfriend
wants a kilt in the first place. All those pleats just make
women look fat. Now a man in a kilt, that’s another matter. Men in kilts are to die for. Just look at Mel Gibson in
Braveheart.”
    Liss opened her mouth to comment, then closed it
again. If Sherri was like most people, she didn’t care a bit
that Mel’s movie had taken appalling liberties with history.
    Working with a steady rhythm, Dan Ruskin applied
the final coat of varnish to an oak drawer. He knew Ned
Boyd was standing in the open doorway of the carriage
house he’d converted into a woodworking shop. He’d
seen him cross the town square. Dan was ignoring him,
hoping he’d get bored and go away.
    “What is that?” Ned finally asked.
    “Puzzle table.”
    “Could you be a little more specific?”
    “It’s a table purpose-built for putting together jigsaw puzzles. Folding legs for storage. Cover to keep cats, children, and other predators from knocking the pieces onto
the floor. Drawers for sorting.”

    “Huh. You sell many of those?”
    “A few.” Two, so far. One to his brother.
    Uninvited, Ned wandered around Dan’s workspace,
idly examining both the tools and the results of Dan’s latest experiments in hand-crafted furniture. There were two
decorative clocks with battery-operated works, one Shakerstyle and the other Art Deco. Also a cradle, a rocking chair,
a pair of high stools for use at a bar, and an earlier, less
successful model of the puzzle table.
    “Something you wanted, Ned?”
    “Wondering about the hotel.”
    “What about it?”
    “You really think you can make a go of it?”
    “My dad does. So does your mother.”
    “A less charitable soul than I am might wonder if Joe
Ruskin conned my mother out of her hard-earned life
savings.”
    Dan stroked too hard with the brush, caught himself
before he ruined the finish, and continued more slowly
and with a gentler touch. “You want to be careful tossing
accusations around”
    “I’m just saying that a hotel and convention center in
the middle of nowhere seems like a pretty shaky proposal. Might work in Portland or Bangor, where there’s
an airport nearby, but here?”
    “Why not? Look at the Sinclair House over to Waycross Springs. That place is still going strong after more
than a hundred years. So is the Mount Washington in New
Hampshire and the Mohonk Mountain House in New York
State”
    “Still going. That’s the difference, isn’t it? That old
wreck on the hill bled money for years before it finally
went out of business.”

    Truth to tell, Dan had his own doubts about his father’s
pet project. The castle needed a lot of work and it would
take more money than the investors now had to finance all
the renovations. But just as Dan’s dream was to one day
leave