Good Buy Girls 05 - All Sales Final (4 page)

“Maggie, you need to make a decision about the venue for your wedding. Did you get a dress yet? What about flowers? Daffodils are lovely.”

Maggie would have said something but since her mother, Lizzie O’Brien, didn’t pause for breath it didn’t seem her input was warranted.

As her mother continued to grill her about the wedding, Maggie puttered around the house that had been her home since she had said yes to Charlie Gerber more than twenty years before.

It was small and cozy. Just right for a widowed mom and her young daughter, which was why Maggie had never moved. Well, that and the fact that making ends meet had meant living simply and cheaply without a lot of extras. The kitchen was woefully out of date as were the floors, the doors and the baths. In fact, she wondered if her love of vintage came from the fact that her home was still very much in its original state.

As she walked from the living room to the kitchen, she ran a finger over the pencil marks that had charted her daughter’s height through the years. She’d have to remember to take a picture of it for posterity’s sake. The last mark made was right before Laura left for college in Pennsylvania. How had the years passed so swiftly?

The corner of the living room where their Christmas tree always stood made her chest tighten at the thought
that they would never have their beautiful angel smile benevolently down at them from that corner again.

“Maggie, are you listening?”

“Yes, Mom,”

“Good, now about the menu . . .” Lizzie continued with her monologue.

As her mother talked, Maggie walked out to the glassed-in sunroom at the back of her house. Full of comfy wicker furniture, it overlooked her pretty little yard. A warbler was sitting on the edge of the bird bath doing his daily ablutions. She wondered if Sam would be okay with her bringing the bird bath. She knew Marshall Dillon would be happy about it, but she didn’t want him to mistake it for an all-he-could-eat bird buffet.

The large dogwood tree was in full flower. It was the same tree Laura had fallen out of when she was seven. She’d only had the wind knocked out of her but Maggie would never forget looking out the window to see her daughter lying still and pale in the yard. She put a hand on her head. She wasn’t sure where it was exactly but she knew there was a gray hair attached to that episode.

So many memories and now she was leaving to start a new life with Sam. She had never thought she’d marry again after Charlie. He had been all that was good and kind and losing him had just about killed her. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Laura, she wondered if she would ever have pulled out of her grief.

But life had had other plans for her, and Maggie was game. She was ready to start a new life with Sam. She was giddily ecstatic about it, truth to be told. She had just
never thought she could be so sad and so excited at the same time.

“Your sister wants to talk to you,” her mother said, pulling Maggie out of her reverie.

“Oh, okay, love you, Mom,” Maggie said.

“Love you, too,” her mother said. “And don’t worry. Your wedding will be lovely. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Hey, Magpie,” her sister said. She’d been calling Maggie that since they were kids.

“Hey, Sissy,” Maggie said. Her sister’s real name was Michelle, but Maggie had called her older sibling Sissy from the moment she could talk and the name had stuck.

“Hang on, I’m going out of earshot of Mom,” Sissy said.

Maggie heard a door open and close with a creak and slam. Her sister had moved to Florida several years ago, and their mother had joined her shortly after. Maggie loved them dearly and she missed them, but she knew the three of them were as close as they were because of the miles between them. Had Lizzie and Sissy continued to live in St. Stanley, Maggie was quite sure the henpecking and nagging would have driven a wedge between them.

“How are you really?” Sissy asked. “About the wedding and all?”

“I’m good,” Maggie said. “With so much going on, I don’t really have time to be anything else.”

“Are you kidding? You just bought a house,” her sister said. “You have to be freaking out.”

Maggie had no idea why her sister telling her she
had
to be feeling something made her determined not to feel
that way at all. It was like they were still teenagers and she couldn’t help her knee-jerk response.

“Well, I’m not,” she said. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“No, really,” Maggie insisted, more determined than ever to prove she was fine. “I couldn’t be happier.”

“Then why don’t you have a venue, a dress, flowers or a caterer for your wedding? Shall I go on?”

Maggie could feel her brain contract. Maybe Florida wasn’t far enough away for her mom and sister to live.

“I have plenty of time,” Maggie said. “Oh, speaking of, look at that, I have to go. I’m picking up some donations for the shop today. Love you.”

“You are not fooling me one little bit, Magpie. We’ll talk later. Love you, too,” Sissy said just before Maggie ended the call.

Maggie shoved her cell phone into her purse. She hadn’t been lying to her sister. She was picking up some donations from the Spring Gardens Assisted Care facility in the heart of town. Her old boss Doc Franklin maintained an office there to make it easier for the seniors who lived there to be able to get to him.

Because she had kept Doc’s books for him for over twenty years, Maggie knew the place and the residents well. She was on speed dial for many of them when they wanted to shop at her store or when they wanted to consign some items for a little extra money or to declutter their space.

Today, Maggie had a dual purpose. She was picking
up an Oneida silver set from Rosie Hernandez that her daughters had informed her they didn’t want even though it had been in the family for three generations.

Rosie had been so offended she had called Maggie and asked to consign it. She planned to go on a cruise with the money she made from the sale. Since it was a nearly flawless service for twelve, Maggie was pretty sure Rose was going to get her wish.

She locked up her house, trying not to think about the fact that she wouldn’t be doing that much longer, and climbed into her Volvo station wagon. She wound her way through her neighborhood and pulled into the gated estate that was Spring Gardens.

Maggie parked in the visitor’s lot and crossed the well-manicured green lawn to the entrance of the building. Maggie pushed through the massive door of the remodeled colonial and stopped by the check-in desk.

Barbara York was working the front desk, and she greeted Maggie with a smile.

“Hi, Maggie, you here to pick up Rosie’s silver?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “She called me three times yesterday. I think she is eager to sell it and book her cruise.”

“Good for her,” Barbara said. “If the young ones don’t appreciate the finer things then they don’t deserve them.”

“Agreed,” Maggie said. “I also wanted to pop in on Blue Dixon. Is he around?”

“Always,” Barbara said. “He’s holding court out by the pool.”

“Holding court?” Maggie asked.

“You’ll see,” Barbara said with a small smile.

Maggie met with Rosie and gave her a receipt for her silver, which she then loaded into her car. Once she locked the back of her Volvo, she went back into Spring Gardens, crossed the lobby and went out the far door that led to the pool. There was a water aerobics class going on and several swimmers were doing laps. But off in the far corner under a large canopy was a lounge chair surrounded by deck chairs. Sitting in the lounge chair was a man in a loud Hawaiian shirt and bright orange shorts. Blue Dixon.

He had a thick head of gray hair and a matching neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were full of mischief and he had a booming laugh that echoed out across the water when he paused in his story, clearly amused by his own wit. He gestured with his hands while he talked and the ladies in the chairs sitting around him were listening with rapt attention.

Maggie approached quietly. She had never met Blue Dixon and wanted to get his measure before she engaged him in conversation.

“And then I said to the Duke, ‘I’ll take that bet, you son of a gun, because I’m the best there’s ever been,’” he said.

“Oh, Blue, you didn’t,” a spry old gal with sparkly earrings and a very well-maintained body said.

“Oh yes, I did,” Blue said. “I was in the royal box at Ascot, what else could I do?” he asked.

The ladies all twittered about him and Maggie knew exactly what she was dealing with: a geriatric Lothario of the first order.

“Mr. Dixon?” she asked.

“That’s me.” Blue’s eyes looked her over and he grinned. “What can I do for a pretty little filly such as yourself?”

Maggie gave him her best quelling glance and let her left hand, the one Sam had put a substantial rock on, show. Blue got it right away. He looked chagrined but his smile didn’t dim, not even a little.

“You’re not my new nurse, are you?”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Masseuse?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope,” she said. She sat in the lone vacant seat, very aware of the women around them giving her the stink eye. “I’m here to talk to you about your house.”

“Business, then,” he said. He looked put out but then shrugged. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll finish up that story later.”

“During cocktail hour?” the woman with the sparkly earrings suggested with a wink.

“You know it,” he said.

Maggie watched as the ladies left, casting looks of longing over their shoulders as they went.

“You have quite the cushy situation here,” Maggie said.

“I can’t complain,” Blue said. “The one nice thing about getting old is the ratio of women to men is most definitely in a man’s favor.”

“It’s nice to see you sharing yourself so generously,” Maggie teased him.

“I do what I can,” he said and spread his hands wide. “Since you know my name, may I inquire what yours might be?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Maggie Gerber. My fiancé Sam Collins and I are buying your house,” she said.

She extended her hand and Blue returned her handshake with a solid squeeze and comfortable warmth.

“How about that?” Blue said. “So, you really are going to buy the old place? Marcy has been trying to sell it for almost five years. We’ve had a few people close to buying it, but they always back out.”

“Have they ever told you why?” Maggie asked.

“Usually, it was something about how they didn’t like the vibe of the house. Of course this was always after the inspection and after I had fixed whatever they didn’t like. You did see the kitchen, right?”

“Oh yes,” Maggie said. “I love vintage kitchens. It’s perfect.”

Blue grinned at her. “Well, maybe you’re just destined to be the next resident.”

“I hope so,” Maggie said. “I just have one question for you.”

“What’s that?” Blue asked.

“Did any of your relatives ever mention if maybe, well, if the house was haunted?” Maggie asked.

Chapter 4

“‘Haunted’?” Blue asked. “As in a ghost?”

“Well, I don’t know if I would say a ghost,” Maggie hedged. “But maybe a presence.”

“A ghost presence?” Blue asked.

“Well, yes,” Maggie said.

“The last two people to live there were my cousins Ida and Imogene,” Blue said. “They never said anything about a ghost. Boy, howdy, do you think it’s one of them or both of them?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said.

“Well, you’d know if it was Imogene, she always wore her hair in a top knot, very Kate Hepburn with the turtlenecks and the slacks,” he said. “Ida was more about the flouncy dresses.”

Maggie smiled. “I remember, but the presence wasn’t exactly corporeal.”

“Must have been Ida then, she always was the flightier of the two, having that artistic temperament and all,” he said.

“I couldn’t say if the presence I felt—well, more accurately, that my cat felt—was artistic or not,” Maggie said.

“Wait. Hold the phone,” Blue said. He held up a thin, blue-veined hand with a diamond-encrusted pinky ring. “Your cat felt a presence.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. She squirmed under his exasperated glare. “Marshall Dillon is very sensitive.”

“How did he react?”

“He was hissing and yowling,” Maggie said. “He got shut in the basement and when he came out his fur was standing on end.”

“Maybe he just saw a snake or a rat,” Blue said. He sounded disappointed.

“Are you telling me there are snakes and rats in the house?” Maggie asked.

Blue’s eyes went wide as if he’d just remembered he was trying to sell the house to Maggie.

“No, no,” he said. “I’m just speculating, you know, throwing out nonsense.”

“Uh-huh,” Maggie said.

“So, did you hear anything unusual?” Blue asked. “Or did you feel anything otherworldly?”

Maggie thought back to the moment she had felt a chill pass right through her. She had thought it was a draft but maybe it had been more.

“Aha!” Blue pointed at her. “You did feel something.”

“A draft,” Maggie said. “It was just a cold spot.”

“But there weren’t any doors or windows open, am I right?” Blue asked.