Authors: Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Tori shot a look at Georgina before furrowing her brows at Leona. “Plastic?”
“That’s right, dear. Plastic. Clothes should be
purchased
, not made. Unless your name is Armani or Vera Wang.”
Margaret Louise glided up behind Georgina and Tori, her breath short and labored. “I’m sorry I’m late. Jake Junior had a late soccer game this evening. I tried to slip out a few minutes early but Lulu had a little problem she wanted to discuss.”
The fourth of Margaret Louise’s seven grandchildren, Lulu held a special place in Tori’s heart thanks to her sweetly innocent outlook on life and her deep passion for books and reading. One mention of the little girl in conjunction with a problem sent her internal radar pinging. “Is Lulu okay?” Tori asked as Georgina excused herself to join the others in the study.
Tugging Tori to her side, Margaret Louise chuckled. “Yes, Victoria, your Lulu is fine. She just wanted to know if I could help her with a little project.”
“What kind of project?”
“She asked me not to tell anyone . . . especially you.” Margaret Louise motioned toward the study with her left hand, her right holding tight to a large sack. “Shall we?”
Nodding, Tori fell in step behind Leona’s twin sister, the woman’s words replaying in her thoughts. “Especially
me
? Wait. I don’t understand. . . .”
Ignoring Tori, Margaret Louise strode across the room and claimed a spot on the sofa beside Dixie Dunn. “So what did I miss? Is someone trying to replicate a Vera Wang design?”
Leona snorted.
Georgina rolled her eyes.
Tori un-pouted her lip. “When you say a surprise, Margaret Louise . . . what kind of surprise are you talking about?”
“I got a wonderful surprise in the mail today.” Beatrice looked up from the sewing machine she’d been hunched over and beamed.
“Something from your folks in England?” Dixie asked.
Beatrice shook her head, the hum of the machine coming to a halt as she paused all progress on her vest. “No . . .”
“Tickets to go home for a visit?” Georgina guessed.
The nanny’s grin grew still wider. “No . . . But I’ll give you a hint. It’s something people receive when they celebrate an anniversary or a birth—”
Leona peered over her glasses. “That really doesn’t help because, depending on the anniversary, it could cover a wide range. Frankly it doesn’t get good until the twelfth . . . and then it depends on the quality of the silk.”
Beatrice’s eyebrows furrowed.
“And even at that, I’d bypass silk at the twelfth and gold at the fiftieth. Diamonds don’t come into play until the sixtieth.”
Margaret Louise’s trademark hearty laugh echoed around the room. “That would mean you’d have to get
married
, Twin.”
“For the rest of you . . . yes. For me”—Leona lowered her travel magazine to her lap and brought her hand to the base of her neck—“exquisite grooming and a well-timed bat of my eyelashes brings treasures my way.”
Slapping a hand to her forehead, Margaret Louise shook her head.
“I can almost hear Rose’s retort right now,” Debbie drawled.
Rose.
Settling into a chair beneath the bay window, Tori set her bag on the floor at her feet as Beatrice’s machine resumed its quiet hum. “I’m worried about her.”
“Make that two of us,” Dixie stated as she looped her needle and thread underneath the shirt collar she was working on and pulled it through the fabric. “I called her about tonight’s meeting but she said she was tired.”
“Maybe she was,” Leona offered as she picked her magazine back off her lap and started flipping the pages once again. “She’s old . . . and she’s ornery. She
needs
her sleep.”
“Leona!” Margaret Louise admonished through clenched teeth.
“It’s not good to clench your teeth like that, dear sweet sister of mine. First and foremost, it’s not good for your teeth. Second, it lends a masculine quality to your face that is most unbecoming.”
One by one, five sets of eyes trained on Leona while Tori simply laughed. Leave it to Leona to defuse—or create—tension in a room.
“Margaret Louise’s face is just fine, Leona. In fact, it’s when she clenches her teeth like that that she looks most like you,” Dixie quipped as she continued to work on the collar of her latest project.
Leona’s mouth gaped open. “Like
me
?”
Margaret Louise nodded, a mischievous glint to her eyes. “That’s what the woman said, Twin.”
Leona’s mouth snapped shut.
“That was very good, Dixie,” Georgina said as her throaty laugh rang out. “Rose would be so very proud.”
Seizing the opportunity to get the conversation back on track, Tori leaned forward. “From what I’ve seen, Rose took Kenny—”
Beatrice’s machine stopped. “Kenny?”
“
Murdock
!” Dixie and Georgina hissed in unison.
Tori cast a look of amusement in Leona’s direction before resuming her train of thought. “From what I’ve seen, Rose took Kenny on as a pet project a long, long time ago.”
“And he flourished in a way he never would have had it not been for her.”
Acknowledging Dixie’s loyalty with a smile, Tori continued. “She believed in him. She encouraged him. She nudged him when she had to, sat back and celebrated his successes when they happened. Having him accused of murder—”
“Technically he’s not been accused yet, though it won’t be long,” Georgina interjected from her spot beside Debbie.
“Either way, having something you’ve believed in for that long suddenly blow up in your face has to be rather defeating.” Tori met Dixie’s avid gaze once again. “Don’t you agree?”
“
Devastating
would be a better choice of words.” Dixie grabbed a pincushion from the end table beside her seat and poked the tip of her needle inside. “It’s like what happened to me with the library. I spent the bulk of my adult life nurturing it only to have it ripped away because three men, sitting on a board, decided I was old.”
“Walked right into that one, dear,” Leona murmured from behind her magazine.
“Not now, Dixie.”
“Why not, Georgina?” Dixie asked, her face flushed with indignation. “Maybe it makes you uncomfortable to hear. And maybe retiring me was the right thing to do.”
A hush fell over the room as six pairs of eyes focused on the town’s former librarian.
“Did . . . did you just say Victoria’s hiring may have been a good thing?” Margaret Louise asked in disbelief, her words echoing the ones firing through Tori’s head.
Dixie’s shoulders rose and fell beneath her thin white button-down sweater. “In hindsight, yes . . . now that I’ve seen the wonderful things she’s done there.” The elderly woman inhaled deeply, her gaze resting briefly on Tori before resuming their journey around the room. “But, at the time, it was as if the ground was ripped out from beneath my feet. Everything I counted on . . . and even lived for at times . . . was gone.”
“And Rose has spent her life fighting for Kenny . . .” Georgina said, her words trailing off.
“Fighting for him to be valued and seen and treasured.” Dixie pulled her needle from the pincushion and returned to her collar, the meaning behind her words leaving them all in silence.
It was Debbie who finally spoke. “Then what do we do? What do we do to pick Rose up off the ground again?”
“I could bring her a few dinners. She loves my sweet potato pie and my beef stew.”
“And I could add to Margaret Louise’s contribution with a few desserts. Rose has a thing for chocolate.” Debbie placed a strip of red fleece on top of a strip of navy blue fleece and starting cutting. “In fact, I think she’s most partial to chocolate mousse.”
“That’s what happens when you get old. You prefer to eat soft things.” Leona turned the page of her magazine and then looked out at the group as a gasp spread around the room like fire. “Oh, lighten up, would you?”
Georgina bristled in her chair. “And you, Leona? What will
you
do for Rose?”
Leona tapped her chin with a pearl-colored fingertip. “Well . . . I suppose I could—I know! I could try to find her a man.”
Dixie rolled her eyes.
“I could bring Luke by for a visit. He’ll be going to kindergarten next year. Maybe she’d enjoy coaching him on what to expect.” Beatrice’s soft British accent restored a sense of calm to the room. “It might help her feel needed.”
“At least someone is on the right track.” Laying her project on her lap, Dixie looked from one circle member to the next. “Rose needs a sense of purpose, something to help keep her mind off the thing she
can’t
change in favor of something she
can
. Like talking to Luke, as Beatrice said . . .”
A flush of pleasure spread across the nanny’s face before she ducked behind her sewing machine once again.
“We could get her involved in your project, Victoria,” Margaret Louise suggested. “It would lessen the number of hats and scarves you have to make and give her something to do at the same time.
Dixie nodded. “She’s certainly a beautiful seamstress.”
“I do need help,” Tori said as she looked down at the latest hat she was working on. “Lots of it.”
“And there’s the collection bin, too,” Debbie said, only to shake her head as the last word left her lips. “Then again, I’m not sure how she’d do with a hammer and nails.”
“Curtis has that covered.”
Tori turned her attention to Leona. “Curtis?”
The woman peered over her glasses. “Didn’t I tell you, dear? Age doesn’t make a difference.”
Tori felt her mouth beginning to open and stopped it midway. “You’re not saying . . .”
Leona dropped her magazine into her lap. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
She stared at her friend.
“What? What did I miss?” Georgina asked, her voice taking on the gossip pitch they all knew well. “Who is Curtis?”
Without taking her eyes off Leona’s unreadable face, Tori addressed Georgina’s questions. “Curtis is the drifter who was hired by Martha Jane. He’s what? Maybe thirty-five at best? And, if I’m hearing Leona correctly, she’s captured him in her lair.”
Five sets of eyes joined Tori’s.
After a long pause, Leona lifted her magazine once again. “He has excellent taste, what can I say?”
“He’s thirty-five?” Georgina repeated, her voice one of shock and awe mixed together.
The right corner of Leona’s mouth quivered.
“Is he good-looking?” Beatrice asked.
“Exquisite.” Leona flipped a page.
“And you’ve—” Dixie cut herself short. “Actually, I don’t want to know. I really don’t.”
“Imagination is usually better anyway,” Margaret Louise offered as she gazed up at the ceiling.
“Not in this case.” Leona flipped another page and then another. “Imagination can only go so far.”
Six mouths dropped open.
Tori’s was the first to recover. “So what does
May
have to do with the collection booth, Ms.
December
?”
Leona lowered her magazine and pinned Tori with a stare while Margaret Louise snorted back a laugh.
“December?”
“December,” Dixie repeated with a grin.
Laughter ballooned around the room, only to be cut short by Leona’s audible huff of displeasure. “My dear sweet sister told me about what happened to the collection booth in the storm and how Milo was looking for someone to help him rebuild it. I asked
Curtis
if he’d consider helping.”
“And?”
Leona turned her stare on Georgina. “He said yes.”
“At least the carpetbaggers are making themselves useful this time around.”
“Carpetbaggers?” Beatrice asked. “That’s not a term I’m familiar with, Dixie.”
“It’s what we called northerners who traveled south to exploit our misfortune following the Civil War,” the elderly woman explained. “They made their wealth from our suffering.”
“And this Curtis bloke is one of these . . . these carpetbaggers?”
Tori stepped off the sidelines and joined the conversation. “No. They’re simply here to—”
“Take advantage of people who are suffering,” Dixie quipped. “They come with little and leave with our money.”
“And, in some cases, our possessions.” Georgina compared spool colors before deciding on the perfect yellow for the piece of fleece she’d quietly taken from Tori’s bag. “I remember about five years ago, after Gus, a parade of carpetbaggers swept into town, fixing roofs, replacing shingles, cutting trees, and stealing car parts.”
“Stealing car parts?” Tori asked.
Georgina nodded. “Car after car around town stopped working. Eventually we figured it out . . . but not before that particular band of drifters was long gone.”
“Well, I don’t know about Curtis for sure, but Doug—the guy who is helping out at Rose’s house—is from Mississippi, not the north.”
“Curtis is from Tennessee.” Leona set her magazine on the chair and folded her hands in her lap. “But, really, the term
carpetbagger
has become a catchall for drifter types more than it is a commentary on where a person is from.”
Beatrice paused as she seemed to consider the explanation she’d been given. “What is this Curtis fellow doing now that Martha Jane is dead?”
The nanny’s question resonated throughout the room, causing six sets of eyes to cast their way onto Leona once again.
“Adelaide Walker hired him on.”
“Who’s Adelaide Walker?” Tori asked.
“The elderly woman who lives on the other side of Martha Jane.” Leona picked at a piece of lint on her black slacks before looking up. “She thought he was a hard worker.”
Georgina set her fabric and thread on the table beside her and stood. “Sounds like it if he’s willing to volunteer his time and expertise in helping restore our collection booth.” She strode toward the archway that led into the hallway and then stopped. “Dessert, anyone?”
Debbie, Dixie, Beatrice, and Margaret Louise rose to their feet and headed in the direction Georgina had gone, their hushed conversation peppered with laughter and happiness.
Tori eyed Leona. “Aren’t you going to have dessert?”
Looking down at her sterling silver link watch, Leona waved Tori off. “You go ahead, dear. I’m meeting my dessert in forty-five minutes.”