The Inn at Hidden Run Read online

  Praise for The Inn at Hidden Run

  “With a delightful mixture of ancestral discovery and small-town charm, the characters of The Inn at Hidden Run come alive in their devotion to family roots, warmhearted kindness for their neighbors, and gentle faith. A must-read for anyone who loves exploring family origins!”

  –Jaime Jo Wright, Daphne du Maurier and Christy Award-winning author of The House on Foster Hill

  “An immersive read populated by characters as rich as the carefully crafted Colorado setting of Canyon Mines, The Inn at Hidden Run is at once a love letter to the past and a mystery. Newport smartly differentiates herself in the popular ‘time slip’ genre by rooting her story in the art of genealogy. At home with both the historical canvas of epidemic-raged, late 19th-century Memphis and her contemporary frame, Newport examines the core human desire for a sense of roots and belonging. Anyone who has ever wondered how the patches of their histories are sewn into the fabric of their lives will feel completely at home in Hidden Run.”

  –Rachel McMillan, author of Murder in the City of Liberty

  © 2019 by Olivia Newport

  Print ISBN 978-1-68322-994-0

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-64352-137-4

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-64352-138-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com

  Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1810 Barbour Drive, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com

  Our mission is to inspire the world with the life-changing message of the Bible.

  Printed in Canada.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  DEDICATION

  Remembering my parents with wonder about the generations

  that came before and delight in the generations that came after.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sad, but true. She would have to procure a new favorite coffee mug. Moving the old one from hand to hand and turning it 180 degrees only confirmed the body of data growing over the last two weeks. The crack down the wide blue stripe would imminently progress to a leak. The wobbly handle was untrustworthy with the weight of the next refill. And the promises of extraordinary adhesive products were not the solution to a receptacle of hot liquids on the way into her throat.

  “You’re not listening. Jillian Parisi-Duffy, sometimes I wish I could send you to your room like the old days.”

  “That was twenty years ago.” Jillian snatched a tissue from a box on the gray-speckled granite kitchen counter and wiped the bead of brown liquid seeping through the midpoint of one side of the mug and moved to the sink to surrender to reality. The vessel had given her a good run, but it was over. She had thought she could at least finish this cup of coffee. “Besides, I never stayed in my room. You know that. I crept out to the landing and listened to you use the telephone to call your boyfriends.”

  Nia Dunston, seven years older than Jillian and her former babysitter, swatted her shoulder with the backs of her fingers.

  “As if I didn’t know that,” Nia said. “Sometimes there wasn’t even a boy on the other end of the line. It was all show.”

  “Let’s see, there was Ricky and John—and Mario. Then you were over the moon for Jean-Luc.”

  “In my own defense, I was fifteen, and he was a tall, dark, French foreign exchange student who could already grow a beard,” Nia said. “But never mind that. I came to take you for some real coffee.”

  Jillian pointed to the elaborate café barista-quality espresso and cappuccino system gleaming across the kitchen. Beside it was a single-serve machine with a built-in frother.

  “I work at home and look after myself,” she said. “I hardly lack for real coffee.”

  “Real coffee is the kind you have out in the real world with real people,” Nia said. “If I didn’t show up every now and then to drag you out of this house, you’d never leave.”

  This was not strictly true. Jillian couldn’t rely on her father to buy groceries at appropriate intervals, and she had a weakness for double-dipped, hard-shell chocolate chip cookie dough cones at Ore the Mountain Ice Cream on Main Street. But Nia’s assessment was largely true, so Jillian didn’t offer a counterargument.

  “What’s this?” Nia tugged a blue folder from the bottom of a stack of work Jillian had left on the breakfast bar and opened it. She slid out a sheet of paper. “Does your dad know you’re taking work from another law firm?”

  Jillian lurched across the counter and snatched the folder from Nia. “First, not your business. Second, I have a system, and you’re mucking it up.”

  “Whoa. You seriously need some exposure to the real world.”

  “Fine. If it will stop you from being so nosy. Let me get my stuff.” Jillian picked up the whole stack of folders. She hated carrying a purse, but she wouldn’t leave the house without her iPhone. The case held her driver’s license, a credit card, and a debit card.

  “Run a comb through your hair,” Nia said.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Look in the mirror, girlfriend.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes but shuffled into the first-floor powder room squeezed between the kitchen and her office in the old Victorian home. Surrounding the green eyes that matched her Irish father’s was the mass of black hair that was her Italian mother’s legacy, and truth be told, most days Jillian did little to manage it. If she had a video call scheduled with a client, she made sure to tame it and put on a business-appropriate top. Otherwise, she was a wholehearted proponent of working in comfort. Her long-sleeved red T-shirt showed no evidence of breakfast droppings, and her favorite lightweight hooded blue sweater had been through the wash just two days ago, so she deemed herself presentable for an October Thursday. For now, she found a hair band in the cabinet over the sink, gathered her hair at the base of her neck, grabbed her phone and keys off her desk, and returned to the kitchen.

  “So you hired her,” Jillian said. “That’s what you said when you accused me of not listening.”

  “Well, there you go.” Nia’s wide-set gray eyes lifted in surprise, and she swung her long brown braid over her shoulder. “I did in fact hire her.”

  “Even though you know nothing about her.”

  “I know I need help at the Inn and she needs a job.”

  “I suppose there’s something algeb
raic about the way that equation settles out.” They left through the door on the side of the house that served as its main entrance, and Jillian pulled it shut. Once the home had been a double cottage, two residences sharing a center wall with mirroring floor plans. The other side of the house, just outside Jillian’s office, had a similar though less ornate entrance and porch where she sometimes worked while enjoying fresh air and mountain views. A previous owner had opened up the center of the house, making it spacious for one family. Jillian’s parents fell in love with the place when she was a toddler, and her mother turned it into a nest of love. For the last fourteen years, only Jillian and her father lived in the nest. She made sure the door locked, just as her mother always had, tugging it toward her twice for good measure.

  Anyone who thinks you ever “get over” losing someone you love, or who loves you, from this world—even into the arms of Jesus—is deluded. Jillian had decided that when she was fourteen, and so far nothing had changed her mind.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the mountains. Situated nearly at the end of Main Street, before it angled to join the old highway headed west, the house had nearly unimpeded views of the canyon that spoiled her for living anywhere else. The home’s gray-blue color, with white trim and rusty red accents, had been her mother’s choice, and when it needed repainting a couple of years ago Jillian and her dad didn’t even discuss altering the color scheme. They’d never erase this mark of her presence.

  Jillian and Nia walked toward downtown Canyon Mines, a community that stretched along the roadway that in its rough form had carried nineteenth-century gold and silver prospectors to the region and now in its modern highway iteration brought tourists, many on their way into the Rockies for skiing, mountain-climbing, hiking, camping, or family day outings.

  “You’re very analytical, you know that?” Nia set a vigorous clip for someone so short.

  Jillian matched Nia’s progress with fewer strides of her longer legs and laughed. “I’ve been told. But I make a decent living because of it.”

  “You know how much I depended on Carlotta. I hated to lose her, but she had to go look after her mother and she’s not coming back.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “She called four days ago. The move is permanent.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I’d like to have an address where I can send a note.”

  “I’ll give it to you.”

  They took a few steps in silence.

  “I can’t manage on my own,” Nia said. “I’ve tried, with Carlotta gone. I just can’t find the rhythms. Leo helps, but when he has a big job of his own, it’s hard to juggle everything. I’m exhausted every day.”

  “The Inn is at capacity every weekend and often during the week,” Jillian said. “Obviously you should hire help.”

  “I haven’t even had time to place an ad or ask around town for someone. This young woman shows up inquiring and promising she’ll work hard. Providential, don’t you think?”

  Jillian eyed her friend. “Maybe. What exactly did she tell you about herself?”

  “Her name is Meri. M-e-r-i.”

  “Sounds like it’s short for something.”

  “Probably.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “You’re the genealogist, not me. Meri Davies. She’s a graduate of University of the South.”

  “Sewanee?”

  “Is that what they call it?”

  “Because it’s in Sewanee, Tennessee,” Jillian said. “Impressive school.”

  “She double-majored in biology and chemistry. I did ask that.”

  “Mmm.”

  Nia laughed. “You’re wondering why she wants a job doing laundry and cleaning up in a bed-and-breakfast with a degree like that from any school. I’m not a complete dolt.”

  “The question is kind of hanging out there.” Jillian’s mind drifted to the menu of Ore the Mountain, but she knew Nia’s mind was set on coffee and not what she considered the poor substitute served at the ice cream parlor. It was a poor substitute. Nothing to dispute there. She yanked her attention back to Nia.

  “I don’t know the answer to that question,” Nia said. “I realize she won’t be at my right hand for six years, like Carlotta was. But I need help, and she needs a job, and it is fairly simple work. So why not?”

  “I suppose. When does she start?”

  “I left her at the desk when I went to grab you.”

  “Throwing her in the deep end?”

  “Twenty minutes at a time.” Nia nodded her head down Double Jack Street. “We’ll take a slight detour, check on things, and you can meet her before we hit the coffee shop.”

  The Inn at Hidden Run Bed-and-Breakfast was the only structure on its block, the second one off Main Street. Another Victorian—most of the structures close to the center of town proudly displayed evidence of the mining era in which the town sprang up—this one was larger and sprawling and painted in natural shades of sand and stone with spots of bright yellow. When Nia and Leo bought it, critics questioned their judgment. But the renovations were splendid, with a veranda encasing the front and two sides of the house, a fascinating web of rooms inside, a partially covered brick patio out back, and a woodworking shop in what had once been a carriage house at the rear of the property where Leo gladly gave demonstrations of his woodworking craft.

  They climbed the steps to the shaded veranda, and Jillian quelled a moment of habitual envy, even though she had two perfectly enchanting porches on her own home, and entered through the front door. This was Jillian’s favorite way in, the breathtaking view guests saw when they came into the capacious hall at the base of the sweeping oak stairs, with the library that truly was a library to one side with floor-to-ceiling books and a rolling ladder. Across the hall was the parlor with an authentic period piece serving as a reception desk. Behind it sat a young woman with warm bronze skin, blue-tinted black short hair, and studious black-framed glasses on a thin face.

  She sprang up.

  What a ball of nerves. Jillian hung back.

  “Is everything all right?” Nia asked.

  Meri nodded. “No one came in.” Relief heaved off her words.

  “You’re doing fine,” Nia said. “Remember, Leo is out back.”

  Meri nodded again.

  “I wanted to introduce you to my friend, Jillian. This is Meri.”

  Jillian stepped forward and offered a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Was that a tremble in Meri’s handshake?

  “Jillian and I are going for a quick cup of coffee,” Nia said. “We’ll be at Canary Cage Coffee, up on Main Street just around the corner. You probably drove past it coming into town. Remember that. It’s a great draw for our inn—just off Main Street and walking distance to many interesting shops.”

  Meri nodded yet again, this time scribbling notes on a small pad.

  “As I mentioned before,” Nia continued, “we’re fully booked for the next two weeks, so if anyone calls about availability in the short term, the answer is easy. After that, you check the red leather book. I still keep it the old-fashioned way for ambience. I don’t like to have a computer out here in the parlor. Even a laptop detracts from the atmosphere guests are paying good money to enjoy in the common rooms, though of course I do the real work in the office. Just open the book and look. The rates are right inside the front cover, if anyone asks about that. If you need Leo, you can push this button on the phone to put a call on hold and use the walkie-talkie to get Leo in the shop. I’ll be back soon enough.”

  Meri pressed her lips together and nodded repeatedly, writing all the while, but to Jillian she looked terrified.

  Back on Main Street, Jillian said, “You don’t think this is all a bit much for her first half hour on the job?”

  “She graduated from Sewanee with a double major. I didn’t even ask her to move a load of laundry. Besides, these days most people try booking through our website
first. We don’t even get that many calls, and no new guests will be checking in for at least two hours.”

  “You thought this through.”

  “I’m telling you, I need a break. She practically begged me for the job even though she admitted she has no experience in the industry.”

  “The industry? She said that?”

  “She did. If she wants the job, this is the job. Give me another half hour, and I’ll be ready to give her a real orientation. And of course I’d like to figure out how we can help her.”

  Help her? Jillian cranked her head for a full-on look at her friend.

  Nia raised her eyebrows. “You know there’s something there.”

  “Maybe,” Jillian said. “What makes you so sure?”

  “A person doesn’t spend four years as a counselor for at-risk inner-city middle school students without developing an intuition about these things.”

  “When are you going to take that part-time job with the Canyon Mines School District? They’ve been after you ever since you came back.”

  “Jillian. Stay on topic. Helping Meri.”

  “Nia, I’m a genealogist, as you pointed out.”

  “So we might need your dad.”

  “Wrangling a story out of someone definitely is more his style.”

  They reached Canary Cage Coffee, her father’s favorite spot in Canyon Mines. He could buy anyone a hot beverage and work his magic.

  Jillian had her nose within twelve inches of the baked goods case, weighing her options, when an elbow jostled her from behind, forcing her to shift her weight to one foot. She didn’t have to turn around.

  “Hello, Kristina. You’d better have a waffle cone in your hand.”

  “Ha. You wish. I just want ten minutes to think about something besides waffle cones and sprinkles and how many customers are going to scowl today when I say yet again that we are out of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.”

  Now Jillian turned around. “You’re out of chocolate chip cookie dough?”

  “Don’t you start,” Kris said. “Just for that, you’re buying my coffee. I’m going to go grab my couch.”