Carolina Mist (27 page)

“Why not? You have the facilities. It’s perfect. And the location is just wonderful. Why, once you get the painting done and the outside cleaned up, you can have garden parties and rebuild the dock
and have a few small boats…
”

“I don’t want to be an innkeeper. I want to be a financial analyst.”

“Well, then, that’s your choice, of course. You certainly know your own mind. I’m sorry if I stuck my two cents in, Abby,” Sunny said softly. “Since you said things were so tight, I was just trying to think of a way you could use what you have to keep going. And since you don’t seem to have much more than this house right now, it seemed like the logical place to start. But I’m sure you know what’s best for you.”

“I do.”

“Good.” Sunny smiled. “Then let’s go see what Lilly and Mrs. Matthews are up to.”

Sunny started up the steps and was halfway across the porch when she realized that Abby had not accompanied her. She looked back over her shoulder to see her cousin standing on the front lawn, gazing up at her house in deep thought. When she realized that Sunny was watching her, Abby shook her head and repeated, “I have absolutely no interest in being an innkeeper. None at all.”

Sunny just smiled and held open the door until Abby joined her in the doorway. As she led the way to the
morning room, Abby fought off the sudden vision of how welcoming the entrance hall could be with bowls of flowers from the garden gracing highly polished tables in summer and garlands of pine winding up the balusters in winter.

31

“
T
his has been so pleasant, Susannah,” Belle said with obvious satisfaction. “How lovely to have your company after all these years. And what a well-behaved young lady you have there.”

“I think she’s simply too tired to act up.” Sunny smiled and stroked the dark hair of the child curled up on her lap, a gray bunny clutched in her hands and her eyes half closed.

“Your room is ready, Sunny,” Abby told her as she came into the dining room where Belle and Sunny had sat talking around the table after a dinner of chicken pot pie, salad, and the carrot cake they had made together that afternoon. “Second door on the left past the top of the steps. The bathroom is clean, and the towels are fresh, if you can overlook the ancient fixtures and the total lack of decor. I’m afraid I haven’t done much with the baths as yet.”

“Abby, for heaven’s sake, will you stop apologizing? I think it’s wonderful that you’ve offered to put us up for a few nights. Please don’t for a second feel that you have to make excuses for the accommodations. It’s a treat to stay in so handsome a house after being in motels for the past few weeks. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

And everything had been just exactly that, Sunny assured Abby in the morning. “We slept like logs, Abby. Beds that comfy should be outlawed as promoting sloth. I could never get out of a bed like that in the morning for something as mundane as going to work. And the bath is lovely, I don’t know what you were worried about.”

“Well, the paint is peeling, and the
paper is faded…
”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Sunny scoffed, “that’s part of the charm of an old house.”

“Once Alex gets the pipes replaced and the plumbing repaired, I’ll feel a little better about offering it to guests.” She realized what she had said. “Not that I plan on having any. Guests, that is. I meant showing it to prospective buyers. For
their
guests.”

“Umm.” Sunny bit off a piece of warm buttermilk biscuit which Abby had just minutes earlier removed from the oven for breakfast. “These are heaven. I haven’t had a breakfast this good since the last time I stayed here, in 1984, it must have been. These taste just the way I remember Aunt Leila’s.”

“They should. It’s her recipe.” Abby grinned.

Sunny buttered a biscuit and placed it before Lilly. “Wait till you taste this, Sweet Pea. Do you want some jam? Abby has some
…
let’s see, cherry?”

“Sour cherry. Naomi made it,” Abby explained. “Our neighbor across the street. She’s in Belle’s old house. You’ll probably meet her later. She’s a good friend.”

Later, while Belle entertained Lilly in the morning room with stories of vacations she had taken once as a small girl to the “wilds of West Virginia to visit a maiden aunt,” Abby and Sunny took their second cups of coffee onto the back porch to enjoy the morning breeze. Before too long, they were joined by Naomi and Meredy, out for an early-morning stroll to the river.

Abby went in to get Lilly, who was close to Meredy’s age. The two little girls eyed each other shyly, albeit with great interest. Finally, Meredy asked, “I know where there’s some baby turtles. Just hatched. Wanna see?”

Lilly looked to Sunny for approval, and the children took off to the river with instructions about how far they were permitted to go ringing in their ears.

The three women gravitated toward the garden, and by ten
A.M.,
they had weeded the perennial bed (properly protected from chiggers, of course), picked out the paint colors for the bath off the bedroom Sunny had slept in, and planned Drew’s birthday celebration. By noon, Lilly and
Meredy were best friends, and Abby and Sunny had scoured the attic for something special of Thomas’s to give Drew for a birthday present. In an old trunk, they found what was reportedly the hat a very young Thomas Cassidy had worn when he accompanied Teddy Roosevelt on the ride up San Juan Hill, and they decided that the cap of gray wool felt was exactly right. By two o’clock, Lilly was playing in Meredy’s yard, and Abby and Sunny were seated in the bank vault.

“Wait till you see,” Abby said as she withdrew the black velvet cases from the box and handed them to her cousin, who was the rightful owner of a good deal of the contents of the box.

“Oh, my sweet heaven, as Gramma Sarah used to say.” Sunny whistled a long, low sigh of admiration. “These are the sapphires Serena wears in the portrait. God, Abby, they’re magnificent. Here, help me fasten the necklace. I want to feel these babies on my skin.”

Abby laughed and aided Sunny, then fished in her purse for the hand mirror she had brought for just this purpose.

“Abby, you thought of everything.” Sunny grinned. “Oh, my, Abby, did you ever see anything so blue in your life?”

“Not that color blue,” Abby conceded, and she watched as Sunny fitted the earrings to her ears and slipped the ring upon her finger. “I took one of the rings”—she pointed to the sapphires—“home with me, before I knew it had been left to you. Remind me to give it to you.”

“And last, the bracelet
…
” Sunny appeared to have barely heard. “Oh, God, but they’re handsome. Fit for a queen. Let’s see what else we have here. Ah, the amethysts
…
do you know that Aunt Leila and I shared a February birthday? Valentine’s Day, the fourteenth. She always told me that someday she’d have something special for me, because we shared that birthday. I never in a million years could have imagined all this.” Sunny nodded slowly, turning the purple stones over and over in her hands. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Belle told me that Thomas gave them to Leila on their wedding day.”

“Then that makes them all the more special, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, here.” Abby reached into the box and pulled out the last envelope. “There’s one
more, and wait till you see…”

“Oh, wow.” Sunny’s eyes widened. “Good Lord, Abby, I’ve never seen anything like this outside a museum.” Sunny lifted the gold necklace from the table and held it up to the light. “It’s the single most exquisite piece of jewelry I have ever seen in my life. Look, Ab, there’s little figures on the leaves. It’s
hard to tell what they are…
some kind of animal with a funny head, maybe?”

“I can’t tell, either.” Abby shook her head. “But it is pretty incredible.”

“Now, where,” Sunny puzzled as she fingered the long golden leaves, “would you buy something like this?”

“I don’t think it was a purchased piece.” Abby chose her words carefully. “I think Thomas discovered it on one of his forays. Belle told me that Thomas had given it to Leila as a symbol that he loved her more than the life he led before they married. I think this may have been something Thomas found
…
on the last trip he’d taken before he met her. Did you ever hear of anything so romantic?”

Sunny placed it on the table between them to study it. “Do we know where he’d gone, that last time?”

“Belle said someplace in Asia. One of the countries
that ended with a ‘
stan,’ she said once.”

“We should try to figure out which one,” Sunny said, adding reluctantly, “because maybe it should go back. It’s obviously rare and probably belongs in a museum. I love it, and I love that Aunt Leila wanted me to have it, but it really isn’t the kind of thing you keep.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Abby told her.

“Not as noble as you telling me about these things when you could so easily have kept them,” Sunny said bluntly. “Especially since you need the money right now. No one would ever have known, Abby.”

“Aunt Leila obviously wanted you to have them, and she trusted that I would give them to you,” Abby said simply.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I would like to leave it all right
where it is. At least until my divorce is finalized. It would be just like Justin to want me to sell it and throw the money into the common pot to be split up, and I have no inclination to sell or to share.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Abby shrugged. “At least you’ll know where they are and that they are safe.”

“And maybe between now and the time I decide to take them, we’ll have figured out where the necklace came from.” Sunny slipped everything back into the folders and packed the metal box. “Did Thomas leave any notes we could look at?”

“Yes, but even better
…
”

“Of course, his books!” Sunny exclaimed.

“I’ve looked through them,” Abby told her, “but there was nothing that referred to anything like this. There may be other books I haven’t found, or there may be something in his notes. You ready to leave?”

“Yes.” Sunny handed the box to Abby to put away. As she did so, the light danced from the purple stone on her right ring finger. “Oh, I forgot to take off this ring. Well, you know what? I think I’ll just take this one piece with me. I do love it.”

They stopped at Foster’s to pick up something for dinner. “The sea trout is fresh this momin’, Abby,” Young Foster assured them. “Dan Bridges caught these hisself out off the Point, brought them in by ten, all cleaned and ready to go.” After a short stroll around the center of town, they loaded their purchases into Sunny’s car and took the long way back to Cove Road, so that Sunny could drive past the town green. Abby leaned back against the soft tan leather seat and closed her eyes.

Monday was almost over, and Abby had made it through. Alex would be on his way back from Atlanta, and whatever had happened between him and Melissa over the past four days was done. She wondered if the next time she saw him, he’d be announcing his engagement. The very thought of it stabbed at her until she could barely breathe. Thank God she’d been smart enough to keep her feelings to herself. Imagine how much worse she
’d be feeling if Alex knew…

She opened her eyes as she felt the car slow down to pull into the drive.

“Looks like you have company, Abby,” Sunny told her. “Know anyone who has a red Saab convertible?”

The owner of the Saab was found in the morning room with his grandmother and two little girls who laughed as he held a piece of cookie just inches above Meri P’s nose to entice her into “dancing” halfway across the room on delicate hind legs with all the grace of a tiny ballerina. The owner of the Saab was totally charming to Sunny, whom he remembered and welcomed warmly. The owner of the Saab followed Abby into the kitchen while she prepared the fish for the oven.

“So”—he cleared his throat—“how’d things go this weekend?”

“Fine. Everything was fine,” Abby said without looking at him.
And I should be asking you that question,
she thought.

“Were you all right? I mean, were you able to work? On the bathroom, I mean. Since I hadn’t really finished up in
there…
”

“I wasn’t working on the bathroom.” She turned the dial on the oven to set the temperature. “I was working on the side bedroom.”

“I thought you finished that last week.”

“Not quite. I had a little bit more painting to do.”

He nodded as if in deep thought. “Well, I guess next weekend, I’ll finish the bath, and then you can paint in there. If you want to. Paint, that is.”

Abby put the fish into the pan and seasoned it.
Why doesn’t he just say it and get it over with?

Alex cleared his throat again, then poured a glass of water. He leaned back against the sink and sloshed the contents of the glass around absentmindedly. Finally, Abby could stand it no longer.

“Alex, you obviously have something to say to me, so would you please either say it or get out of my kitchen?”

He set the glass on the counter and folded his arms, and
indecision seemed to prod at him. Finally, he said evenly, “I was just wondering if I could stay for dinner.”

As if we would have refused to feed him,
she later grumbled to herself as she finished the cleanup in the kitchen. In her distracted state, she had sloshed soapy water onto the front of her long denim jumper and forgotten to pull up the sleeves of the T-shirt she wore under it. Exasperated with herself, she dabbed at the front of her skirt with the end of a towel.

Sunny had taken a sleepy Lilly to her bed, and Belle had gone up to her room an hour ago, but Alex had taken his coffee to the back porch, where he sat on the rocker, obviously deep in thought. After dinner, he had brought Abby’s radio downstairs, and now the sweet strains of a country tune wafted through the back window along with honeysuckle-scented breezes.

Abby poked her head out the back door. “If you’re planning on staying over, I’ll put clean sheets out for you.”

“Come sit and talk to me for a few minutes first,” he asked softly.

Warily, she came outside and paused before sitting on the step, about three feet from his chair. In the dim light, she could barely see his features, but she knew them by heart. She waited, knowing that whatever it was that he wanted to say would be said now. Abby steeled herself for the worst as she leaned against the railing. He rocked rhythmically in time with the ballad on the radio.

Finally, he said, “Do you remember my grandfather, Ab?”

“Granger? Of course.”

“Seeing that big fish at dinner made me think of all the times he took me fishing when I was little, before he got sick. Gran used to pack this huge lunch for us and make us wear straw hats to keep the sun off our faces. You’d have thought we were taking a charter out into the ocean instead of taking that little whaler of his out into the Sound.”