A tourist tells Valerie Rankin that Gasper's Cove is the best-kept secret in the country, and for once the marketing is about to catch up with the truth. A glossy wellness retreat is opening on the island, promising to put the little Nova Scotia town on the map. But Valerie has learned that when outsiders arrive promising to fix a place that was never broken, trouble is rarely far behind. Crafting a Getawayis the fourth book in the Gasper's Cove Mysteries, a warm, funny Canadian cozy series about small-town crafters, the treasures hiding in plain sight, and the trouble that comes to visit. Here is Chapter One to get you started.

CHAPTER ONE

The woman leaned forward over the counter. She handed me a grey baby cardigan.

“For my neighbor’s granddaughter.” She looked past me to the big semicircular window and its view of the sea. “This place is the best-kept secret in the country,” she sighed. “Do you know how lucky you are?”

“I hope so,” I said. I took the small sweater and folded tissue paper over the tiny garter stitched cuffs, pearl buttons, and miniature buttonholes. “Do you mean the store? It’s been in the family for generations. We always sold tools and fishing gear. The crafts are new.” I slid the little package into the brown bag I had stenciled with Crafters’ Co-op, Gasper’s Cove, Nova Scotia. I couldn’t believe how popular these grey baby clothes were with tourists. We made them because they sold, but our older knitters couldn’t figure out why. If people don’t want pink and blue what was wrong with yellow, turquoise, or even melon they asked? Something more cheerful like the babies themselves.

My customer passed me a hundred-dollar bill. On her left hand was a stone so substantial it was set deep into the gold, no need for a pronged setting to amplify its size. On her right hand were even more shimmering stones, tokens of affection and maybe guilt, marking birthdays and anniversaries I thought. But I saw no family ring, like the ones local women wore with a birthstone for each member of the immediate clan. I felt sorry for her.

“Your store’s a hidden treasure,” the woman agreed, “but so is everything else. The coast, this island, I didn’t know places like this still existed.” She ran her fingers over the smooth contours of a hand-carved driftwood bird. “You know, I used to make things myself. Years ago,” she sounded wistful. “ I want to get back into it. Maybe the retreat will help.”

The retreat? This got my attention. I’d organized the Crafter’s first one for next month. Was this lady one of our students? I was thrilled. I’d ask her name and look her up on the list.

“I think you are going to enjoy yourself,” I said, gushing more than I intended. “August is a lovely time of year. We’ve got great workshops. Quilting, knitting, rope weaving…”

Shadow, the store cat interrupted me. She jumped up onto the counter and reached across to bat a cross-stitched bookmark onto the floor. Leaning over the edge she studied it, pivoting her beautiful ears backwards so she wouldn’t miss any of this conversation.

“August?” The woman was puzzled. “You’ve got that wrong. It’s next week. My husband’s here for meetings. I decided to show up, surprise him, and do something for myself.” The clasp on an ostrich leather handbag snapped open. “Here let me show you,” she said smoothing out a computer print-out with her fancy hands so I could read it:

Escape to beautiful Gasper’s Cove!

Learn new creative skills from local experts at a Crafter’s Retreat

Starting Monday, July 8th

Sign up for one or all of the following workshops at the historic Bluenose Inn.

Monday: North Atlantic knitting. Thrumbed mitts with Bob Willett.

Tuesday: Gifts from the sea. Woven reclaimed lobster rope wreaths with Sylvie Kulberg.

Wednesday: Quilting at the Cove. A table runner with Catherine Walker.

For further information please contact Valerie Rankin

“It sounds great doesn’t it?” My visitor’s face gleamed with retinol, excitement, and hope.

“Terrific,” I said, forcing a smile. I needed time to think. Shadow smirked and jumped down to stick handle the bookmark across the store’s hundred-year-old floorboards. “You wouldn’t want to miss something like that,” I muttered. I felt seasick. This woman was here a month early. How had that happened? What was I supposed to do?

My customer, now my student, was oblivious to my panic.

“Hey,” the woman said, snapping her glittering fingers. “I have an idea. You’re crafty,” she waved a black linen arm around the Co-op. “Why don’t you come too? Maybe they have space. Call this Valerie Rankin person and find out.

Do you know her?” I nodded.

Yes, I did.

She was me.

* * *

The customer’s name was Laura Wallace. By the time she left, I knew that her husband was Parker Wallace, head of East-West Media, and that he was in Nova Scotia to explain to small rural newspapers that his take-over was the best thing that ever happened to them, despite what anyone else might say.

I also learned from Mrs. Wallace that her husband’s meetings were to be held at the Inn, a venue I knew almost as well as I knew I was not hosting a craft retreat there next week. The Bluenose Inn was owned by my cousin Rollie Rankin and Catherine Walker, the town’s former librarian who had gone into business with Rollie to keep herself busy while she waited for him to propose.

The ramifications of the scheduling disaster washed over me in waves. Who else thought the retreat was next week, not in August? What if other students showed up at the Inn next week for workshops that didn’t exist? Who would trust someone to run classes if they couldn’t keep the dates straight?

There was only one thing to do.

This was an emergency.

As soon as Mrs. Wallace left, I called Darlene.

Darlene was a cousin on my mother’s side and my best friend. If I was in trouble, she would know how to get me out of it. She always did. Every time.

Darlene picked up on the first ring. She listened calmly while I told her what had happened.

“How do I fix this?” I asked her. “I had such big plans. It’s a huge mess.”

“Give me a second while I think,” Darlene said. This wouldn’t take long. My cousin was good on her feet. She had lots of practice from decades spent standing behind the chair in her basement beauty salon and then from the doorto-door campaigning that had made her deputy mayor.

“First, how did you miss this?” she asked. “Weren’t you keeping track of registrations?”

“I was. Sort of,” I pulled the book with the names of those who had signed up for the workshops out of a drawer. “I have it all here. The receipts from everyone who came into pay. I’m looking at it now. All the dates are for the first week in

August. Exactly when I told Catherine we’d be there.”

“That’s good,” Darlene said. “But what about this woman? You said she had something printed off the computer?”

“Yes, she did.” Then it hit me. “Oh no. The town. I sent them the information for the website. You know ‘Things to see and do in Gasper’s Cove’? Did I get that wrong?” I pulled the Co-op’s old laptop toward me and clicked on the page.

“Oh shoot,” I said. “That’s the problem. I must have made a mistake when I filled in the form. Switched the months and dates, put them in backwards. It’s dealing with tourists. I get used to the American way, date, month, and year. Not like we do it in Canada month, date, and year. I changed August 7 to July 8.

What an idiot.” I had ignored numbers my whole life. This was their revenge.

I signed in and I clicked the registration button. This was worse than I thought. “I don’t believe this. There are four women signed up for next week. What am I going to do? The Inn’s already booked for some corporate thing with this guy Parker Wallace. Plus, Catherine’s my quilting instructor, she’s going to be busy. I can’t do next week. I don’t have the teachers and I don’t have the space. But I can’t just cancel on these ladies. That will kill my reputation before I even have one.”

“Relax. So, you made a mistake. Big deal,” Darlene said. “This might be better than you think.”

“How’s that?” I asked. My cousin was an optimist. But if there was a bright side to this situation, I couldn’t see it.

“It’s obvious.” I could tell Darlene was proud of herself. “You find a way to make this next week work. Don’t worry about space, I’ll find you something in the municipal offices. Make sure this first group gives you rave reviews. That way you can advertise the next session as ‘back by popular demand.’ So popular you had to run two, not one, sessions this summer.”

No wonder Darlene had made it in politics. I knew I had been spun but it gave me a sliver of hope. The waves of anxiety were now only ripples. “You can find me a nice place?” I asked.

“A great place,” Darlene said. “I’ll pull strings. Now remind me. Teachers?

Who are they? You’ll need to get them organized too.”

“Okay. Sylvie’s making wreaths out of reclaimed lobster rope,” I began.

There was silence on the other end of the line except for the sound of meowing in the background. Darlene had a large and floating population of rescue cats. I had lost count of how many.

“Reclaimed rope?” she asked. “You mean from boats? Where does Sylvie get that?”

“From some guy with a blimp who’s mapping algae. He says it’s dumped, washed up all up the coast. He sees it from the air and goes and picks it up.” I explained. “He’s part of Sylvie’s eco network. They met at the Great Beach CleanUp. Her rope wreaths sell, much better than the ones she made out of plastic debris. Don’t knock it.”

“I won’t.” Darlene kept moving. “Who else you got? “

“Next month Catherine is doing a table runner. It’s cute, waves and little whales.” Who could teach that workshop now? “And Bob Willett is doing the knitting class. Mitts, you know the ones with the wool roving inside.”

“Right. Nothing warmer,” Darlene paused. “I didn’t know Big Bob knit.” I heard tiny pellets dropping into tin bowls. The meowing stopped.

“He does, very well. And he dyes his wool with something called rescued lichen. It’s an idea he came up with himself,” I added.

“Sounds like something he’d do,” Darlene said. In a community full of eccentrics Big Bob was respected as the master of them all. “Alright, this is the plan. I find you a space; you round up the teachers. Then let those four ladies know where to go for the workshops and tell them there has been a change of venue. But just in case I would also run out and have a word with Rollie and Catherine. Someone might show up on Monday by mistake. They need to know the town advertised something at the Inn that isn’t happening there. But get things organized first. Catherine is someone you go to with a solution, not a problem.”

“She’s not going to understand this,” I said. “Catherine doesn’t like the unexpected. She likes the alphabetical. She’ll kill me when I tell her what happened.”

“I doubt it,” Darlene said. “No one gets killed over an innocent mistake.”

Crafting a Getaway, Gasper's Cove Mysteries Book 4, is available in paperback and ebook wherever books are sold. Find it here.