Kelly stepped forward. "Is it open to the public?"

"Not only open, we've been advertising! It's free and with potential to find interesting stuff at rock-bottom prices. Most of the town just couldn't wait for a look inside that house--closest thing to a mansion we have around here. And no one from Virgin River was ever in it before she died."

"Interesting..." Kelly said.

"Have you heard of Muriel St. Claire? The actress?"

"Everyone's heard of her," Penny said.

"Well, she organized the sale. She's dedicated to yard sales, estate sales, antique sales... It's kind of her hobby."

"Did you hire her?" Penny asked, wide-eyed.

Shelby laughed. "She lives here. She dates my uncle Walt."

Jillian looked over her shoulder at her sister and friends. "Ladies?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, I'd like to see this," Penny said.

A few minutes later, after Luke fetched Art, a man with Down syndrome, to ride with him, the girls were back in the van and following the Riordans out into town.

Jillian and Kelly Matlock, sisters aged thirty-one and thirty-two, had a ritual annual vacation with girlfriends Penny Gerhard and Jackie Davis. All four of them had been friends since high school and were very successful in vastly different arenas--VP of Corporate Communications for a large software manufacturer, a well-known sous-chef in a busy San Francisco restaurant, a PR director for a large banking chain and a political analyst, respectively. Four highly compensated, extremely pressured single women.

Come hell or high water, they managed a full week to ten days away together every year. Kicking back, laughing late into the night, just like when they were in high school, bleeding off some job stress, then going back to their challenging work worlds feeling renewed and ready to do battle for another fifty-one weeks. They had all gone to the same university, except Kelly, who attended various culinary institutes around the world. They'd been taking these trips since the year they'd graduated college. The destinations varied greatly, from spas to sailing and diving trips to camping. One particularly memorable vacation was spent at a lodge in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota and it had been one of their best--they had indulged in everything from canoeing, hiking and tracking large animals to just lying around in chaise lounges at the water's edge under leafy boughs of trees, and delighting in the magnificent talents of the lodge chef.

This year they'd rented a roomy van and taken a road trip from the San Francisco area, where they were from, to Vancouver. A restaurant owner in Portland who liked to hunt and fish tipped them off about a beautiful little mountain town off the beaten track in Northern California, and Jillian called to see if there was room at the inn. A final two-day stay on their way back home in a little cabin along Virgin River seemed like a great idea. It'd bring back memories of the Boundary Waters, and they could enjoy the early fall weather, warmer here than in the Bay Area, and rest up from their vacation before heading back to their demanding careers.

Jill was ready to end the reunion and get home because she had a guy in her life and she missed him. The others were "between men" at the moment and not in any hurry to get back to their demanding jobs. Kelly worked in a five-star kitchen under a head chef as mean as Mussolini, Penny's banking chain was in a severe money crisis that made her PR job a living hell and Jackie, the political analyst, was gearing up for an election campaign as spiteful and bitter as any third world coup. Job pressure trumped boyfriends and the girls had headed to Virgin River for a couple of days before the annual vacation had to end.

None of the four would plan a vacation around an estate sale, but since the owners of the cute little river cabins mentioned this was a big event for their town, they decided to drop in. And it was far more interesting than any of them had expected.

There were people everywhere, and those who weren't just arriving or carrying purchases down the long drive to their vehicles were lounging around, watching the action or standing in clumps visiting and enjoying picnic food and drink or minding children's activities and games. Luke and Shelby Riordan were kind enough to introduce them around a bit as if they were old friends rather than strangers who happened to be renting one of their cabins for a couple of nights. They heard many different versions of the story surrounding the deceased elderly woman's estate and town trust. Each one of them gravitated to their own personal interests. Jackie spent a good deal of time chatting with Jack Sheridan, hearing about his adventures as the executor of the living trust. Penny met Muriel St. Claire, who considered herself an active part of the community.

Kelly was drawn into conversation with the cook from Jack's bar. This was very typical of the sous-chef, to gravitate to the food, even if in this case it was hot dogs.

"We're a town that caters to hunters and fishermen," the man called Preacher told her. "Once word got out that we stocked quality liquor just for them and the food was delicious and hearty, they started making it a point to drop in for at least one meal with us when they were in our area for hunting or fishing. We have hundreds of regulars we see every year."

"And your menu?" Kelly asked.

"I don't have a menu," he told her. "I plan about a week ahead, make sure I have a different breakfast, lunch and dinner special every day. There's always some leftovers, and then I like to bulk it up."

"Bulk it up?"

"They're hunters and fishermen and women--they're not looking for light meals. They're tired and cold and hungry--looking for food that sticks to their ribs. I make a lot of fresh breads, pies, cakes.... Oh, and breakfast pastry--I'm really working on the pastry."

"And the town?"

"We serve the town," he said. "Jack's is pretty much the gathering spot for a lot of them and we try to keep the costs down so they can afford it. We have a dependable group of locals and visitors just about every day. Unless it's really wet. People don't come out in the rain that much. Jack says they're busy putting buckets under the roof leaks." He grinned at her. "We're not a fancy bunch. Pretty laid-back. But I take my food seriously."

Kelly was quiet for a moment. "I would love to work in such a place," she said, almost breathlessly. "I've been carrying around my great-grandmother's recipes for years. Some of them I've fooled around with a little, but they're hard to improve. I've brought a few to the restaurant where I'm currently sous-chef, but it's dicey--I won't give them up and the head chef doesn't want to serve anything his name isn't on."

And with that, they were bonded. "I'd give anything for a great-grandmother's recipes," Preacher said. "Or a grandmother, for that matter. I taught myself to cook. I wasn't a cook when I came up here. I was a marine. I just came up here to fish with Jack and ended up staying."

"I took a vacation to the Boundary Waters a few years ago. Up in Northern Minnesota. Rugged country and so beautiful. And they had a chef on-site whose food just knocked me out!"

Preacher grinned. "Bet they got nothing on us," he said.

"Maybe not," she agreed. "We stayed at a lodge on the water. That chef didn't have a menu, either, but he surprised me every meal. He served what he wanted and lots of it. Now, I've been to Paris, but the Boundary Waters was the most indulgent, fattening trip I've ever had. And I thought about what it must be like to be that chef.... I would love to be the only chef in a kitchen where there's no yelling...."

Preacher stiffened his back and stood to his full six-foot-four-inch height. "Yelling?" he repeated.

Kelly laughed. "I guess there's no yelling in your kitchen."

He drew his heavy black brows together. "Who would yell at me?" he asked.

"Right," she said with a chuckle. "Where I work, the wait for a table is two hours if you have a reservation. If you want to sit down early, a couple hundred bucks in the maitre d's palm might help, but no guarantees. The head chef is a sociopath and the manager is a Don Juan who can't keep his hands to himself." And then she laughed again. "It's a steep climb in the kitchen."

But Preacher was frowning. "Where are you climbing to, exactly?"

"Head chef. Head chef of a restaurant that's written up in every gourmet and travel magazine in the marketplace. Eventually, my own restaurant. I've been working toward that for twelve years with very little time off. I'm going to get there. And when I get there my manager will be civil and my kitchen will be sane." Then she smiled and said, "But I do envy you. You and the chef at the Boundary Waters lodge. That's got to be the best of both worlds."

"It's a good life. But I'm no chef. I cook the best I can. That's all."

"If they're coming back year after year, you're making it work. Isn't that what it's all about? People enjoying your food?"

Preacher gave a boyish shrug and shy smile. "We're not open tonight on account of all this, but I'm cleaning and loading the barbecues before dusk and I have some venison chili in the freezer if you and your girls want to come by and do a little sampling."

She reached out and impulsively touched his arm. "Seriously?" she said, her eyes wide. "Oh, that would be fantastic!"

"Might even be a couple of stuffed trout tucked away, too--stuffed with corn bread, rolled in bread crumbs, seared in a little extra virgin and simmered in beer. And there's always pie. Hardly anyone beats my pie. In fact, come to think of it, Buck Anderson gave me a big lamb shank and there's some of that left.... It wouldn't be as good reheated, but it's still pretty fine. I don't think I ever fed a chef before. I'd do it, though. Professional courtesy."

"That would be so wonderful. I hate for you to open up the kitchen just for us, but..."

"Open up the kitchen?" he asked. "My kitchen never closes. I feed my family from that kitchen--our house is attached to the bar and we don't have any other kitchen. It's open twenty-four hours. The front door of the bar has a lock."

"Front of the house," Kelly said.

"Huh?"

"That's what we call the restaurant, the seating, where the food is served--the front of the house. The kitchen is the back of the house."

"That a fact? Well, it's simpler here--it's a kitchen or a bar or a house. And we pretty much do as we please."

Kelly laughed. "I like that."

"Have you been in Hope's old house?" Preacher asked her.

"Not yet," she admitted. "I always seem to talk to whoever is cooking before doing anything else."

"Well, I don't know that Hope was much of a cook. Never heard her mention it and never knew anyone invited to dinner. But that house has a very neat kitchen. Looks like Hope pretty much lived in it the last ten years or so. I have to stay with the grills, so let me get my wife to show you around. Paige," he called. A woman with a toddler on her hip wandered over to Preacher from a short distance away. "Paige, this here is Kelly and she's a cook like me. Can you show her Hope's kitchen?"

"Sure, John," the woman said. She stuck out her hand. "Pleasure to meet you. Did you come to Virgin River for the estate sale?"

"Actually, I came with my sister and friends just to enjoy the mountains for a day or two before going back to the city. I'm from San Francisco. I work as a chef and your husband and I were just talking food. He even offered to open up his kitchen to give us a sample of his best chili and trout."

Paige laughed and her eyes twinkled. "John likes to show off his cooking. Wait till you see this kitchen. In fact, wait till you see the house...."

"So...the woman who died," Kelly said, "she was a hermit?"

"Not at all," Paige said, leading the way up the front porch. "She was around all the time, in everyone's business, looking out for the town. She was in the bar almost every evening--she liked a shot of Jack Daniel's to go with her cigarette. But she definitely had her secrets. Even though she was present for every town event or gathering, none of us has run into a single person from Virgin River who's ever been in her house. Though lots of people have been as far as the front or back porch or garden.... Hope used to garden like a madwoman and complain about the bunnies and the deer, but she'd give away most of her vegetables."

As Paige talked, Kelly followed her through the house toward the back and finally they stepped into a massive kitchen. The appliances were old but clearly of the type to service a manor house and not a house for a single inhabitant. There was a large worktable that had a Not For Sale! sign on it in the center of the huge kitchen. There were two sinks, a six-burner stove, two ovens, two refrigerators and a large, walk-in pantry. Kelly also saw a stairway that went to a cellar. "What's down there?" she asked.

"There were mice and canned goods that expired forty years ago," Paige said. "It's pretty much an unfinished cellar with a dirt floor. This house was built long before people thought of rumpus rooms."

One end of the kitchen was for cooking while the other was for eating and contained a very large stone fireplace. There was no furniture there.

"It appeared Hope stayed here. There was a big old easy chair and ottoman along with a couple of quilts. From this spot she could look out over her backyard, see the mountains rising back there behind her property. Anytime anyone came to see her, she met them on either the front porch or back porch. As close as we can figure out, she chopped her own wood, too. She had a desk, computer, files and television here; John took the computer home to see if he can help find if there's anything on it that Jack should know--like relatives, special charity interests, lost accounts or deeds, that sort of thing." Paige pushed open a door off the kitchen to reveal what would have been maids' quarters in its day. "Even though there are like seven bedrooms in this old house, Hope lived in the kitchen."