Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt Read Free

towering elms. Judy pulled to a stop next to Andrew’s enormous motorhome and climbed the stone steps to the back door. She smelled eggs, sausage, and biscuits as soon as she set foot inside the manor, but when a glance through the kitchen door revealed only stacks of dirty dishes in the sink, a cluttered countertop, and an unswept floor, she continued down the hall to the front foyer, where she found Sarah, Sylvia, and Summer setting up for camper registration. As the three members of the faculty who lived in the manor, they were usually the first to arrive at any Elm Creek Quilters’ gathering at the manor, but not always. Some evenings Summer rushed in late for evening programs after a dinner date with her boyfriend, Jeremy, and for the past few weeks, the usually punctual Sarah had dragged herself downstairs for morning meetings, barely on time and looking a little green. If Judy didn’t know her friend so well, she’d worry that Sarah was hung over, the way she clutched her stomach and nibbled on only a few dry crackers for breakfast. She had apparently given up coffee, too, but surely the effects of caffeine withdrawal would have faded by now and couldn’t account for her rough mornings.
    This morning Sarah seemed her usual, cheerful self as she glanced up from her work and threw Judy a grin. “Thank goodness, another pair of hands.”
    “Where do you need me?” Judy asked. “Should I start in the kitchen?”
    “Absolutely not,” said Sarah. “Let the delinquents clean up the mess. That’s their job.”
    “Delinquents” was a harsher term than Judy would have used for the three young men who had worked for them all summer, but she couldn’t deny that they deserved it. Earlier that spring, in an act of bewildering cruelty, the three seniors from Waterford High School had broken into, robbed, and vandalized Bonnie Markham’s quilt shop. So thorough were they in their destruction that Bonnie was forced to close the shop for weeks. When she reopened for a going-out-of-business sale, she barely earned enough to pay off her outstanding debts. After Bonnie lost her lease, Sylvia proposed opening a new quilt shop in Elm Creek Manor, but Bonnie had yet to act on the proposal. At first Judy thought her friend was merely waiting for the insurance check, but the funds had sat untouched in her savings account for several weeks now, collecting interest. Perhaps Bonnie realized any other shop would be a poor imitation of the business she had built from the ground up. Perhaps she was saving the insurance money for another, yet undiscovered dream.
    After the boys had been caught and forced to face up to their crime, Bonnie—dear, compassionate, forgiving Bonnie—had asked the judge for leniency. The boys had never been in trouble before, and all three had intended to start college in the fall. She couldn’t bear to think that their future prospects were ruined because of one very bad mistake.
    “They threw those futures away when they broke into your shop,” said the judge, who had expected Bonnie to demand justice and restitution. Impressed by her pleas, he relented and sentenced the boys to probation and community service, which they would serve at Elm Creek Manor. He would consider the terms fulfilled after the boys earned back every cent they had cost Bonnie.
    “But that will take years,” burst out Mary Beth, mother to one of the offenders. “Anyway, her insurance will pay for everything.”
    The judge regarded Mary Beth over the rims of his glasses. “What an astonishing sense of entitlement given the circumstances. I’m beginning to see why your son is here today. If it takes years, so be it. They can come back every summer and every school holiday until the debt is paid.”
    Mary Beth had had the good sense to look chagrined and she uttered not another word of protest. Bonnie was satisfied with the decision, and Sylvia had readily agreed to her part in seeing to it that the young men fulfilled their