Cold River by Liz Adair

scare you. This isn’t a disaster. We’re not due for another flood that high for a few more years. You’ll have time to find another place. One on higher ground.” He picked up her keys and rubbed his thumb absently around the ring. “So, if you can’t go with me tomorrow, how about Sunday?”
    “Sunday? Um, I thought I’d go to church. Can we do it in the afternoon?”
    Vince shook his head. “I’ve got to be downriver in the afternoon. Come on. I’ll show you a whole field of daffodils.”
    Mandy looked at the rain streaming down on the windshield. “I don’t have an umbrella or a raincoat.”
    “You won’t need one. We’re going to have sun.”
    “Really?”
    “Cross my heart. Will you come?”
    “If you promise it will shine, I’ll come.”
    “Done.” His white teeth flashed. “I’ll pick you up at eleven.” He selected the Miata key from her ring and held it out to her. “I’ll take you to your car.”
    He put the Escalade in gear and pulled over to her parking space. As she picked up her purse, Vince held out his hand. She gave him hers, and he said, “Till Sunday, then.”
    He had a strong, confident handshake. Mandy returned the pressure and said, “I’ll be ready.”
    She jumped down from the high SUV and quickly unlocked the door of her Miata, noticing that he waited until she had started the engine before he pulled away. She waved to him and drove out of the parking lot, smiling at the thought of daffodils and sunshine.
     

MANDY OPENED HER eyes Saturday morning to sun streaming in from the skylight in the bedroom of her new home. She sat up and looked out the front window through the posts of the balustrade. Blue sky blazed above the mountains on the other side of the river. “Wow!” she breathed. “Vince was right.”
    She picked up her watch from the floor beside the air mattress to check the time and saw that it was five minutes to eight. The movers had promised they would arrive by nine. She scrambled up and hastened to shower and dress, but she found herself more than once gravitating toward the window to stare at the vibrant scenery. The conifers’ hunter green stood out against the lacy blush of bare-limbed alders, and the cloudless sky arched over all like lapis lazuli— the most intense electric blue she had ever seen.
    At eight thirty she was at an east-facing window, letting the sunlight stream in on her face, when the moving van came lumbering down the road. She hurried out on the deck to wave them in, and soon she excitedly directed the crew of three where to place each piece of furniture and how to stack the boxes. Even with putting together the bed and bookcases and manhandling the old upright piano over the doorsill, the crew and van were on their way back up the hill by ten thirty. As they left, Mandy stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom and looked at the boxes filling every available inch of floor space, stacked as high as her chin.
    Courage flowed in with the warm spring air as she threw open doors and windows, and she dug in with a will. Salvation came at noon in the form of her landlady. Mandy was in the kitchen, awash in a sea of crumpled newspaper, unwrapping dishes and putting them in a cupboard, when she heard Fran hallooing at the door.
    “It’s open,” Mandy called.
    “I’ve brought lunch, and I can stay for three hours,” Fran announced. “I brought string cheese, cold cuts and veggies. We can munch as we work. Give me a job.”
    Mandy directed her to the book boxes and after that to the linens. By that time, she had finished the kitchen, and they tackled the upstairs together. They made the bed in tandem, and as Fran squared a corner to tuck in the top sheet, she said, “I heard you’ve stirred things up at the school cafeteria.”
    In the act of smoothing out a wrinkle, Mandy looked up. “Who told you that?”
    “Nettie Maypole came by to see Mutt, and she told me. Something about Arvella bribing you with a cream puff? Sounds