Absolutely, Positively

of the shop.

    A year later, Molly bought out Zinnia's half of the business. The lease was up for renewal. Molly decided to move to a new location. She chose spacious, airy premises midway up a broad flight of fountain-studded steps designed to channel tourists to the waterfront. It was a perfect location for attracting both the tourist crowd and the office workers who often ate their brown bag lunches on the steps.

    Zinnia went on a long cruise.

    Jasper finally managed to take out a lucrative patent on his industrial robot systems. At Molly's suggestion he had licensed the rights to an aggressive young Oregon firm. Money had poured into the Abberwick family coffers.

    There was suddenly so much money that even Jasper and his brother could not manage to blow it all before they were killed in their man-powered aircraft experiment.

    Jasper left his daughters a sizable patent royalty income that promised to continue for years. He had left the huge headache that became known as the Abberwick Foundation to Molly.

    Tessa busied herself brewing tea for the window service bar. “Tell me more about this hot date with Trevelyan.”

    “There's nothing to tell,” Molly said. “I haven't gone out with him yet.”

    “Ruby Sweat is playing the Cave on Friday night,” Tessa said ingenuously. “You could take him there for an evening of fun and frolic.”

    “Somehow I don't think the Cave is Harry's kind of place.”

    “I still don't get it. What made you decide to date—”

    A thundering crash interrupted Tessa's question.

    Molly spun around to gaze at the closed door of her office. “Oh, no, not again.”

    She rushed forward and threw open the door. Her sister, Kelsey, looked up from the wreckage of her latest prototype device, a gadget designed to dispense ground spice. Molly could barely see her through the cloud of powdery sage.

    “What happened?” Molly demanded.

    “There was a small problem with the design,” Kelsey gasped. “Cover your nose, quick.”

    It was too late. Sage wafted through the air. Molly started to sneeze. Tears formed in her eyes. She hurried into her office and slammed the door shut behind her to prevent the spice from getting into the outer shop. She seized a tissue from the box on her desk and breathed through it while she waited for the finely ground sage to settle.

    “Sorry about this.” Kelsey sneezed into a tissue. “I was real close this time. Next time for sure.”

    Molly had heard those words a thousand times over the years. Her father and her uncle, Julius, had both used them like a litany.I was real close this time. Next time for sure . Molly had considered inscribing those words over the door of the Abberwick mansion as a sort of family motto.

    The thing was, with an Abberwick, those infamous words occasionally proved true.

    “Situation normal,” Molly muttered. She sneezed again. Her eyes watered. She sniffed loudly and yanked more tissue from the box.

    Kelsey wiped her own eyes and gave Molly an apologetic smile. The perfect grin revealed the results of several thousand dollars' worth of orthodontia, which Molly had sprung for a few years earlier. Molly briefly admired her investment. The family had not been able to afford such luxuries when she had been in her teens. The result was that Molly had two slightly crooked front teeth.

    “You okay?” Kelsey asked.

    “This will certainly clear my sinuses for the next six months.” Molly brushed sage powder off her chair and sat down. She gave the spice dispenser device a brief glance.

    The machine was composed of a series of plastic tubes and levers designed to control the release of dried and ground spice. The small motor that powered the dispenser lay in smoking ruins on the corner of the desk.

    “What went wrong?” Molly asked.

    Kelsey bent over the wreckage with the air of a police pathologist examining a dead body. “I think the ground sage somehow got sucked into the motor and clogged it.”

    “I see.” There was no point getting upset over this sort of thing, and Molly knew it. Failed experiments were a way of life for Abberwicks. She leaned back in her chair and studied her sister with a mixture of affection and resignation.

    Kelsey had definitely inherited the family genius and a talent for tinkering. She had been fiddling with things since she was five. From her dollhouses to her bicycles, nothing was safe. Molly still shuddered whenever she recalled the day she walked into Kelsey's