Carolina Mist (12 page)

15

B
elle was a bundle of emotions at the dinner table, to
rn
between the delight of once again presiding over a beautiful holiday feast, the joy of having her grandson and Abby reunited as she had so carefully plotted, and the distraction of Melissa’s unexpected—and unwanted—presence.

That Melissa made no effort to hide the fact that she had her sights on Alex disturbed Belle to her core. The woman was brash and obvious, anyone could see that. Why wasn’t she home with her own family, instead of here, intruding on Belle’s holiday?

Alex and Abby were supposed to have fallen into each other’s arms, found each other again. Then she, Belle, could live here, happily ever after, surrounded by the warmth of love that comes only when you are securely fixed in the bosom of your family. She intended for Abby to become family, just as she and Leila had long dreamed, and to be surrounded by a swarm of great-grandchildren before too long. Who was this Melissa person to threaten her dreams, her security, her future?

“Now, Marisa,” Belle addressed her from the head of the table, “what do you think of our little town?”

“It’s Melissa, Miz Matthews.” Melissa smiled charmingly as she accepted the plate of salad from Abby’s hands.

“Oh, of course.” Belle shook her head slightly, as if to imply that she was a bit absentminded.

“And to answer your question, it’s positively adorable. Just like what you’d read about in the travel magazines. You know, those articles about those little places tucked away off some side road. Those little, undiscovered villages that time seems to have forgotten.” Melissa fairly gushed—the sweet Southern belle at her best. “It’d be just delightful here in the
summer, I’m sure, with the water so close and all the big tall trees. I do hope Alex’ll bring me back next summer. If y’all’ll have me, of course.”

Belle ignored the ploy for a return invitation and smiled at her grandson. “Alexander, do pour a little of that lovely wine into my glass.”

“Abby?” he offered without looking at her. “More wine?”

“Not just yet, thank you.”

There was a terseness to their voices, some underlying tension that was barely discernible, but Belle had not missed it.
Oh, dear.
She sighed anxiously.

“Alexander, you hadn’t told me that you’d be bringing a friend along with you today.” Belle decided to get to the bottom of this
woman’s presence the easy way.

“Oh, I hope it’s not an intrusion.” Melissa feigned a concerned expression. Belle pretended not to have heard.

“Well, we’re both sort of stuck in Hampton this week, working on a case, and since there are depositions scheduled for tomorrow, I thought it would be nicer for Melissa to spend Christmas here rather than alone in her hotel room.”

Abby removed the salad plates, fighting the urge to allow the last bit of dressing to slide from Melissa’s plate onto her black crepe lap.

“And tell me again what you are doing in Hampton, darlin’? I thought you said you were wor
king in Boston. Or Baltimore…
someplace that started with a B. Though Hampton’s so much nicer. So much closer.” Belle smiled gently. Melissa wasn’t the only one who could play the Southern belle.

“The firm has opened a temporary office in Hampton to handle a rather sizable case that requires a lot of work. It was easier and less expensive to simply rent office space there temporarily and send a few attorneys in to handle the work than to have us traveling back and forth.”

“And what is this big case?” Belle sipped at her wine.

“Maybe you heard about the Alden Boatyards fire?”

“Was that the one where so many people were trapped in
the warehouse and couldn’t get out? So many were burned?” Abby asked as she placed the platter of perfectly golden turkey on the table.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Our firm represents the manufacturer of the heater that was involved.”

“Alexander, would you carve?” Belle motioned for Abby to pass the ivory-handled knife and fork to Alex.

Abby repositioned the platter in front of him, and he took the carving knife from her hand.

“It’s been a long time since I did this,” he mused. “I remember Gran and Leila giving me lessons one time on a roast chicken. I must have been all of ten. I couldn’t hold the bird still and cut it at the same time.”

“I remember that.” Abby laughed. “It was Belle’s birthday, and Leila had such a fine dinner party for her and her friends.”

“And we had to get all dressed up, and you had to serve hors-d’oeuvres to all the little old ladies.” He half-smiled at Abby for the first time since they had exchanged words in the kitchen.

“And as soon as they began eating, we snuck out and ran down to the cove
…
”

“And I pulled off that tie and pitched it off the dock.” He chuckled, and the memory seemed slowly to erase the traces of the earlier tension from his face.

“And are you a lawyer also, Alissa?” Belle smoothed her napkin onto her lap and attempted to divert Melissa’s attention from the giggling duo at the end of the table.

“It’s
Melissa,
”
the woman corrected Belle, more firmly this time, “and yes, I am. My daddy started the firm in Atlanta with one of his brothers about thirty years ago. We now have offices in five cities throughout the South,” she announced with a good deal of family pride. “Alex is one of the few Yankees Daddy ever hired. Daddy thinks he shows enormous promise.” She smiled ever so sweetly as she added, “And so do I. He’s just a
tiger.”
She wrinkled her pert little nose and winked in Abby’s direction. “In
court,
that is, of course.”

Abby concentrated on cutting the thin slice of white
meat, which was beginning to take on the form of Melissa’s little heart-shaped face. Abby gave it an extra stab, right about where that pouty little mouth would be.

“Carrots, anyone?” she asked.

“Why, yes, dear.” Belle accepted the porcelain bowl. “Isn’t this just the loveliest dinner? Abigail is simply the most wonderful cook.”

“Everything is excellent, Abby.” This from Alex, who was submerged behind a stack of carefully seasoned green beans. “Makes me think of all the Sunday dinners we had, right here in this room. No one cooked like Leila.”

“Well, I was very fortunate to have had her as a mentor in the kitchen.” Abby smiled at him from across the table. “And lucky to have found her old recipes in the pantry.”

“My, you cook like a pro, bake scones from scratch, and make home repairs, too,” Melissa drawled. “Why, you’ll just make the
cutest
little housewife for one of these local boys.”

Abby choked. “Excuse me,” she said as she rose from her chair and headed for the kitchen.

“Are you all right, dear?” Belle asked with some concern.

“I’m fine. I just need to check a few things in the kitchen.”

We’ll start,
she grumbled silently as she swung the kitchen door wide,
with my blood pressure. Then we'll move on to my temper.
She took a glass and filled it with water, counting the sips until she reached twenty. She simply could not afford to let Melissa’s condescending attitude rattle her.

Alex was still happily eating away as Abby reseated herself at the table.

“Well, isn’t this nice to be together on Christmas,” Belle said. “Though, of course, it isn’t quite the same without Leila.”

“Gran, I think we need to talk about that. About Leila.” Alex added a small pile of new potatoes—his third—to his plate.

“There’s really very little to say, dear. She is dead, you know.” Belle squirmed, not anxious to have the conversation turn to unpleasant reality just yet.

“I understand that, Gran. I’d like to know when and how.” He put his fork down quietly.

“It was September the first, dear,” Belle sighed. “Leila always made breakfast—she did all the cooking, of course—and on that morning, she just never came downstairs. I had her tea all ready and waiting for her, as I always did, but she simply did not come down.”

Belle related her tale with the same mix of bewilderment and fear that she must have felt that day some months earlier.

“Well, when she hadn’t m
ade so much as a peep by eight-
thirty, I went back up. And there she was, sleeping soundly. At least, I thought she was sleeping. And knowing how Leila hated to oversleep, I thought to wake her. But she was gone, you see?” Belle spread her hands out before her, as if awaiting an answer. When none came, she continued.

“I tried everything to rouse her, you understand. When she wouldn’t wake up, I came down here and called Naomi. Well, she was over here in a shot, bless her heart. Took one look at Leila and said, ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, Miz Matthews. Miz Cassidy has passed on in her sleep!’ ” Belle’s hand hovered over her heart as if to stop its fluttering. “Now, of course, it had never occurred to me that Leila would be dead. I mean, it was so unlike her to stay in bed so long, but
dead
…
”

“I’m sure that was just the most ghastly shock.” Melissa sought to be a part of the drama.

“Gran, why didn’t you call me?” Alex asked gently.

“I wasn’t really sure just where you were,” she hedged.

“Come on, Gran. I was in Boston. You knew that.”

“I must have forgotten.” Belle dabbed her napkin to her lips. “I’m almost ninety years old, Alexander. One does tend to become forgetful about things.”

Abby suppressed a giggle as she gathered up the dinner plates. Belle could probably tell you exactly what she wore on her very first day of school, right down to the color of her hair ribbons. Her attempts at playing the doddering old woman were laughable.

“Well, then, I will leave my business card with Abby, so that you won’t have that excuse should another crisis arise,” Alex was saying, and Abby looked over her shoulder in surprise as he did so. Good grief, was he buying into Belle’s act? “But I still don’t understand why Abby wasn’t here with you all that time.”

“Abby was in Philadelphia, Alexander, though I didn’t know that at the time. Leila’s lawyer tracked her down.”

“What were you doing in Philadelphia?” He turned his attention to Abby.

“I was working for an investment firm,” she told him.

“Doing what, exactly?” He leaned back in his chair.

“Investment counse
ling.” She tried to appear blasé
. “Vice president of new accounts.”

Melissa’s flat smile seemed to insinuate,
Of course you were, dear. And I’m Mother Teresa.
“Now, why would you leave a position like that to come all the way down to this quaint little town?” Melissa’s eyes narrowed.

“The company was taken over in a merger,” Abby reluctantly admitted.

“And you were let go.” Melissa pointed out the obvious with a smile.

“Yes.”

“But now you have this handsome old house, in this sweet little town, and Miz Matthews to keep you company,” Melissa cooed, happy to take advantage of the opportunity to pour a little salt into the wound she had just forced open. “Who could ask for anything more? Why, I’ll bet the social life around here just leaves you breathless.”

“Why, actually, it does.” Abby squared her jaw and glowered across the table. “Just last week, we were as busy as a couple of beavers. Let’s see, now, on Friday night, we had the lighting of the tree down on the town green. Cocoa and cookies for everyone back at the Primrose Cafe, of course. Then, on Saturday, we had the church Christmas pageant, couldn’t have missed that. Now, mind, all this follows on the heels of a month of revelry—the church bazaar, the ham supper at the firehouse—did I leave
anything out? Oh, the Christmas house tour two Sundays ago. No one who’s
anyone
in Primrose misses the house tour.”

“It’s all just as I remembered it,” Alex said wistfully. Abby and Melissa both turned to stare at him.

“That’s what I loved best about Primrose. All those wonderful community events that made life so special here,” he told them. “I sure have missed it. It sure is good to be back.”

Belle took a sip of wine, hiding her pleasure behind the rim of the glass. Things were looking up.

Melissa rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“Alex, could you give me a hand with clearing the table?” Abby asked sweetly.

“Of course.” He stood up, lifting the turkey platter with one hand.

“Abby,” he said when they’d gone into the kitchen, “I still don’t understand why Gran was alone here so long.”

“Alex, I didn’t know Leila had died until I got the letter from Tillman in October,” she told him. “Then it took me a while to get some things settled up there.”

She couldn’t bring herself to admit that she’d spent six weeks in a frenzy of job hunting.

“And that’s when you found that Gran was living here?”

“That’s right. Just as you found out when you showed up today,” she said as they passed back into the dining room.

“I see.” He nodded slowly, putting it all together, offering Abby a smile of apology for his earlier accusations of granny abandonment. “But, Gran, I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about Leila. All those times I called
…
”