Killer Reunion (26 page)

“Shh. Just open it and tell me if you like them.”

She tore into the box and yanked out a pair of hooker heels. Tammy had chosen well. They were the perfect Marietta shoes—leopard-print uppers with snakeskin on the two-inch platform soles and the six-inch heels, accented with silver studs and chains.

Marietta let out an orgasmic squeal and an accompanying groan, the kind that Savannah had heard only in porn films. “Ohhh!” she shrieked, making such a scene that everyone, including Gran, turned to see what was going on.

Tammy laughed and said, “I see she likes her shoes.”

“A job well done, sugar,” Savannah told her.

Granny sniffed. “I'd say they're perfect for our Miss Mari, considering her leaning toward all things floozy. But if I see those monstrosities at any social functions in this town, I'm disowning you for sure.”

Dirk leaned over and said to Savannah, “She'll never be able to walk on those things.”

Savannah whispered back, “She won't have to. With shoes like that, she'll be on her back, heels pointed toward the ceiling.”

Gran stood and announced in a loud, authoritative voice, “Y'all gather round. I've got something to say, and I want everybody to listen up.”

All chattering stopped, and those who had walked away from the table returned to their matriarch's side.

“As y'all know,” Gran continued, “on my birthday, I make some sort of a daring change. This started on my eightieth, when I got my ears pierced. On my eighty-first, I bought myself a bright red swimsuit. Last year I took up wearing those big, shoulder-duster earrings.”

She pointed to the flashy sparklers that dangled from her earlobes to her collar, and everyone cheered.

“But this year,” she said, “I'm gonna top 'em all. And I'm happy that you're with me here today for my big announcement.”

Savannah watched her grandmother, her bright blue eyes shimmering with the pure joy of living.

When I get to be that age, let me be like her . . . so positive, happy, and excited about life
, she silently prayed. Then she laughed at herself.
What the heck. Let me be like her at
my
age.

“About twenty years ago,” Gran was saying, “my oldest granddaughter left this place and traveled all the way to the other side of this great country of ours, in search of a better life for herself. She was, and still is, the bravest, strongest woman I've ever been blessed to know.”

Instantly, Savannah felt tears welling up in her eyes, a constriction in her throat, and a lightness in her soul as it took wing.

Dirk reached over, grasped her hand, and squeezed it.

“And by doing so, she set a fine example for us all. So . . .” Gran paused and looked at her loved ones, each in turn. “After giving it much thought and prayer, I'm going to do the same thing. Tomorrow morning I'm turning my house here over to Alma, and I'm packing my bags and moving to California. In a world where there's beaches, life's too short not to live on one of 'em.”

The West Coast crowd erupted in a joyous roar. The Georgia group sat in stunned silence.

“I'll miss every one of you that I leave behind,” Gran said. “But with me out there in sunny California, you'll have another reason to pay a visit. Come out and we'll go see the Mouse together.”

She turned to Tammy, who was hugging Savannah. Both women were crying. “And you, young lady,” Gran said, “are gonna need a good, reliable babysitter. 'Cause after that little ankle biter of yours arrives, you're gonna want to get back to your sleuthin', and it ain't always convenient to have a youngun with you when you're breakin' into houses and such.”

She turned to Savannah and Dirk. “I won't ask you to share your roof with me. Wouldn't want it myself, bein' independent like I am. But as soon as Waycross and Tammy tie the knot and he moves into her house, I'd be happy to buy your house trailer off you, Dirk.”

Dirk started shaking his head. “Oh, Gran, it's not fit for a lady. It's all rusty and—”

“Don't say another word, grandson. By the time I get done with it, you won't recognize it. It'll have a red- and yellow-striped awning, for one thing, and flower boxes hangin' off every winder. Though if you don't mind, I'd like to move it to a fancy senior citizens' park on the beach.”

Savannah sat speechless with joy as she listened to her husband and her grandmother discuss the ways and means of fulfilling Granny's dreams. And she wondered at the strangeness of this journey back to her roots.

Before, when she left Georgia, she had carried a number of heart-heavy burdens with her and had left behind her grandmother, the one thing in the world she loved best.

Now, all these years later, she was once again walking out of her past, her feet rooted in the present, her face to the future.

This time she would leave those sorrows and hindrances behind and take Gran with her into the sunlight.

And what could be better than that?

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2016 by G.A. McKevett and Kensington Publishing Corporation

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2015958937

 

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0078-0
ISBN-10: 1-4967-0078-3

First Kensington Hardcover Edition: April 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4967-0078-0

First Kensington Electronic Edition: April 2016