Seated on the floor, Sylvie was busy stitching a final row of seed pearls around the hem of an ivory satin wedding dress. The commotion outside, unusual to say the least, enticed her to abandon her project. Her rustic log cabin, nestled into the base of the Great Smoky Mountains, didn’t exactly sit on a highly trafficked street. Not that any street in her sleepy hamlet of Briarwood, North Carolina, could be called highly trafficked, she thought fondly. But because her family reminded her often enough that a woman living alone on the fringe of a forest couldn’t be too careful, she’d better spare a moment to investigate. Sylvie didn’t expect anyone with a child for a fitting today. Nor was it garbage collection day. Russ Peabody’s grandson sometimes rode with him in the truck. Checking her watch, Sylvie saw she had at least an hour before Oscar, the Great Pyrenees belonging to Anita Moore, was scheduled to be dropped off for grooming. Her Mutt Mobile, as she’d named her mobile pet-grooming service, was Sylvie’s second job; the first had always been making wedding gowns.
