Page 29 of Silver Linings

I hadn’t missed the way Ben had said “we,” as if he counted himself as an honorary member of the community, even though he’d only been here for a couple of days. However, I didn’t see the point in commenting on that, not when it sounded like he had the kind of experience that was exactly what the town needed right now.

“My grandmother kept records of all the flowers and animals she saw in the woods,” I said…again omitting the important detail that she was mostly writing down an account of all the mythical creatures who came and went in the forest.

But she’d also made notes of the owls and the gray foxes and the mule deer, not to mention sketching whatever flowers and other plants she spied that looked interesting to her.

“The spotted owl is endangered, isn’t it?” I asked next, digging up that piece of trivia from somewhere in my memory banks.

“I’m not sure,” Ben replied. “I think I remember reading about that someplace, but since they’re not native to the locations where I had most of my digs, they weren’t a species I needed to research.”

“Well, it should be easy enough to look up,” I told him. “Let me go grab my laptop.”

I set my glass of water down on a coaster on the coffee table, then hurried off to the ground-floor bedroom that had been used as an office for as long as I could remember. My grandmother’s big old PC still occupied the place of honor on the desk, but my laptop was charging on a small table off to the side. After unplugging it from the charger, I returned to the living room, where Ben had remained seated in his chair. No, I hadn’t really expected to find him poking into things during my absence, and yet it reassured me to see he was being respectful and not acting like a snoop.

“Okay, let’s see what I can find out,” I said as I opened my laptop.

It didn’t take long to discover that the western spotted owl was threatened but not outright endangered. Still, its slightly precarious status might be enough to convince the people of Silver Hollow that our forests should be left undisturbed.

“Better than nothing, but we still might need more than that to convince people who’re uncertain that the woods here are a treasure and should be left completely alone,” Ben remarked, and I was inclined to agree with him.

Then I thought of my grandmother’s journals. Yes, there were sections I didn’t dare show him, but the little diaries also contained plenty of innocuous entries that only talked about the regular flora and fauna in the woods. If he had more information to work with, he might be able to present more convincing evidence to the people of Silver Hollow. Or at least, if Ben could give me some pointers on how to persuade those who might only looking at dollar signs to understand how those precious birds and animals and plants needed to be preserved rather than have their habitat destroyed, then I thought I might have a fighting chance at getting Northwest Pacific to back off.

“Just a sec,” I said, then got up from the sofa again. He sent me a quizzical glance but seemed content to wait while I returned to the study. Once there, I paused as I ran my finger over the journals’ spines, coming to rest on the one dated June 2001 through October 2002. I’d noticed that diary in particular because it seemed as if there hadn’t been any legendary beast sightings during that entire time. When I’d first looked through it, I’d only wondered what had caused there to be such a gap, even though my overall family history told me such things weren’t so unusual.

Now, though, I realized it would be the perfect journal to hand over to Ben, since it didn’t contain anything that would give away the true secrets of the woods.

With the small leatherbound volume in hand — not for the first time, I wondered where my grandmother had found such a large matching set, considering how Etsy hadn’t even been a thing back when she started keeping a journal — I returned to the living room. Ben was still in his chair and sipping some water, and if he’d snooped in my laptop, there was no sign of it.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d seemed trustworthy enough so far, despite his reasons for coming to Silver Hollow.

“Maybe this will also help to convince people to send Northwest Pacific packing,” I said as I handed over the journal.

Ben took it from me, hazel eyes immediately alight with interest. “What is it?”

“My grandmother’s diary,” I replied, then returned to my spot on the couch. “She liked to wander in the woods and was a kind of amateur artist, so she recorded a lot of what she saw. There could be species in there that no one even knows about.”

The nod he gave me in reply was almost distracted, and I could tell he was already absorbed in flipping through the pages of the journal, his gaze scanning the pages and the writing and illustrations it contained.

“This is amazing,” he said after a moment. “Your grandmother is really talented.”

I couldn’t help noticing how he’d avoided using the past tense. That was kind of him, even though I’d already started to slip up and think of my mother and grandmother in such terms, as if some part of my brain had decided to acknowledge the very real possibility that they might be gone forever.

The rest of me, however, wasn’t ready to go there. It had only been three months, after all, and since the authorities still had them listed as missing and not presumed dead, that was the position I planned to take as well.

“She loves her watercolors,” I responded, making sure I used the present tense as well. “When she wasn’t exploring the woods, she’d paint the flowers in the gardens or anything else that took her fancy. One of the shops downtown has a couple of her pieces for sale, even though she never wanted to refer to herself as a professional.”

“Well, she should,” Ben said as he continued to inspect the journal. “This diary in itself is a work of art. But anyway, I think there’s plenty here to try to convince the people of Silver Hollow that too much is at risk to allow Northwest Pacific within ten miles of those woods.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

For a second or two, his gaze met mine, and an odd little shiver went through me. It wasn’t just that he was the best-looking man I’d encountered in a long while.

No, there was something in that look which seemed to tell me he planned to be here to help me with this, no matter what. Considering how my previous boyfriend had basically abandoned me to deal with my family drama on my own — sure, I was the one who’d formally broken things off, but that was only after he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in lending any real emotional or mental support — I wasn’t sure how to react to someone who seemed so willing to reach out and lend a hand.

All right, Ben Sanders wasn’t my boyfriend, wasn’t anything close.

However, he did seem to have become an unexpected lifeline…and God knows I desperately needed one right then.

His next words were no-nonsense enough, though.

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