Twice in a Lifetime (3 page)

B
efore Georgia could open her mouth to get in her next question, she heard quick, light footsteps on the stairs that led up to the deck from the beach.

“Miz Callie, I found a whelk. Wait ’til you see.” A young girl reached the top of the stairs, saw Georgia and stopped. Her heart-shaped face, lit with pleasure, closed down in an instant, turning into a polite, self-contained blank.

The girl reminded Georgia of herself as a child, running to Miz Callie with some treasure. But would she have shut down like that at the sight of a stranger? It was oddly disturbing.

“Lindsay, darlin’, how nice. Come here and let me see.” Miz Callie held out her hand to the child as she would to coax a shy kitten closer.

The little girl—seven or eight, maybe—shook her head, her blond ponytail flying, blue eyes guarded. “I’ll come back later.”

“No, no, I want you to meet my granddaughter, Georgia Lee. Why, when she was your age, I believe she loved the beach just as much as you do. Georgia, this is Lindsay.”

“Hi, Lindsay.” Some neighbor child, she supposed. “I’d love to see your shell, too.”

“Come on, sugar.” Miz Callie’s tender words had the desired effect, and the child crossed the deck to put her treasure in Miz Callie’s cupped hands. “It is a whelk. What a nice one—there’s not a chip on it.”

Georgia blinked, as if to clear her vision. For a moment she’d seen herself, her dark head bent close to Miz Callie’s white one, both of them enraptured at what her grandmother would have called one of God’s small treasures.

Only when the shell had been admired thoroughly did Miz Callie glance at Georgia again. “Georgia Lee, will you bring out a glass of lemonade for Lindsay?”

She started to rise, but the child shook her head. “No, thank you, Miz Callie. I better go.”

Miz Callie’s arm encircled the girl’s waist. “At least you can have a pecan tassie before you go. I know they’re your favorite.”

So her grandmother hadn’t known she was coming after all. The tassies were for Lindsay.

She smiled at the girl. “Do you live near here, Lindsay?” Lindsay, faced with a direct question from a stranger, turned mute. Face solemn, she pointed toward the next house down the beach, separated from Miz Callie’s by a

stretch of sea oats and stunted palmettos.

“We’ve been neighbors for a couple of months now,” Miz Callie said. “Didn’t I say? Lindsay is Matthew Harper’s daughter.”

Georgia’s assumptions lifted, swirled around as if in a kaleidoscope and settled in a new pattern. Matt Harper wasn’t just a strange attorney picked at random from the phone directory. He was a next-door neighbor, and his daughter was welcomed as warmly as if she were a grandchild, with a plate of her favorite cookies. He was far more entrenched than anyone had seen fit to tell her.

Matt welcomed the breeze off the ocean, even when it ruffled the papers he’d been working on at the table on the deck. He leaned back, frowning.

After looking through her notes, he understood what Mrs. Bodine wanted, but it would be more complicated than she probably suspected. He’d have to deal with a tangle of county, federal and state regulations, many no doubt conflicting.

And that wasn’t even counting the opposition of her family. How far were they willing to go to stop her?

He put the folder on the glass table top and weighted it down with a piece of driftwood Lindsay had brought from the beach. He’d start work on the project, and he’d fight it through for Miz Callie. But he’d like to be sure she wouldn’t call it off after a talk with Georgia.

Standing, he scanned the beach for Lindsay, not seeing her. She was responsible about staying within the bound-aries they’d set up together, which meant that if she wasn’t on the beach, she’d gone over to the Bodine house.

He trotted down the steps. He should have mentioned to Lindsay that Mrs. Bodine had a guest. Now he’d have to go over there and retrieve her under Georgia’s cool gaze.

The woman had gotten under his skin, looking at him as if he were a con man out to steal a little old lady’s treasure. Couldn’t the Bodine clan understand that this was all Miz Callie’s idea? If he didn’t do the work for her, she’d find some other attorney who would.

He couldn’t afford that. He didn’t intend to sponge off Rodney any longer, accepting the clients Rod managed to persuade to use his new colleague. He needed to bring in business of his own, and Miz Callie’s project was the first opportunity he’d had since he and Lindsay moved here.

His steps quickened across the hard-packed sand. He’d taken the chance that this move would be good for Lindsay, a fresh start for both of them. Heaven knew they needed that. The expression caught him off guard. Once he’d have been praying about this. Once he’d thought the faith Jennifer had introduced him to was strong. But when she died, he’d recognized it for what it was. Secondhand.

Nowhere near strong enough to handle a blow like that. He heard the voices as he reached the stairs to Miz

Callie’s deck. Three of them: two soft with their Southern drawl, and then his daughter’s light, quick counterpoint.

She was talking. It was a sign of how desperate he was about Lindsay’s unremitting grief that he didn’t care who she was talking to, as long as she talked. At first, after Jennifer’s death, the two of them had gone days without saying anything, until he’d realized that he had to rouse himself from the stupor of grief and make an effort for Lindsay’s sake.

He went slowly up the steps, hearing the conversation interspersed with gentle female laughter.

“So my brother and I both went under the waves after the shell he’d dropped, but I was the one who came up with it,” Georgia said as he reached the top. “Not that I’m suggesting you should do that.”

“No, don’t, please,” he said.

All three of them turned to look at him, but Miz Callie’s was the only face that relaxed into a smile. “Matthew, I thought you’d be coming along about now. Come and have some sweet tea.”

He shook his head, crossing the deck to them. There was an empty basket in the center of the table, with shells arrayed around it. His daughter was bent over two shells she seemed to be comparing, ignoring him.

“Lindsay and I need to start some dinner.”

“At least take a minute to look at our shell collection. Georgia Lee and I were teachin’ Lindsay the names of the different shells.”

“Not I,” Georgia protested, shoving back from the table. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of what you taught me.”

“You’ll have to take a refresher course, won’t you?” he said, planting his hands on the back of his daughter’s chair. “How are you at naming the shells of the Carolina coast?” Every time Georgia looked at him, she had a challenge in her eyes.

“Worse than you,” he said promptly. “You may have forgotten, but I never knew.” He patted Lindsay’s shoulder. “Come on, Lindsay. It’s time we went home.”

“Just a minute. I have to line all the shells up before I go.” He tensed, hating the habit Lindsay had developed, this need to have everything lined up just so. The child psy-chologist he’d consulted said to go along with it, that when Lindsay’s grief didn’t require her to seek control in that way, she’d lose interest. But sometimes he wanted to grab

her hands and stop her.

A desperation that was too familiar went through him. He’d never known family before Jennifer. Bouncing from one foster home to another hadn’t prepared him to be a good father. How could he do this without her?

“How about taking some of these pecan tassies along home for your dessert?” Miz Callie got to her feet, grasping the plate of cookies. “I’ll wrap them up for you.” She’d headed into the house before he could refuse.

“Don’t bother arguing,” Georgia said, apparently inter-preting his expression. “You can never defeat my grandmother’s hospitality. Bodines are noted for being stubborn.” “I’ve noticed.” Something sparked between them on the exchange—maybe an understanding on both their parts that there was a double meaning to everything they said.

She was an interesting woman. If she weren’t so determined to believe that he was some sort of legal ogre, he might enjoy getting to know her.

He realized he was looking at her left hand, pressed against the edge of the table. The white band where a ring used to be stood out like an advertisement.

He hadn’t given up wearing his wedding ring. Rodney kept pushing him to get into the dating scene, and putting the ring away was the first step. He wasn’t ready to do that. What was the point? There’d never be another Jennifer. A man didn’t get that lucky more than once in a lifetime.

The silence had stretched on too long, but surely it was as much Georgia’s responsibility as his to break it. He tapped Lindsay’s shoulder. “Come on, Lindsay. We’ll order in pizza tonight, okay?”

For a moment he thought she’d ignore him, but then Miz Callie came out with the cookies.

“Here you are.” She handed the paper plate to Lindsay. “You carry those home and have one for dessert after your supper, y’heah?”

Lindsay got up promptly, good manners surfacing. “I will. Thank you, Miz Callie.” She glanced at Georgia, but didn’t repeat her thanks. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fine, sugar.” Miz Callie touched the blond ponytail lightly.

Georgia rose. “I’ll walk down with you. I need to get something from my car.”

Miz Callie sent her a glance that said she didn’t believe a word, but she didn’t attempt to deter her. He didn’t believe it, either. Georgia had something she wanted to say to him in private.

He followed her down the steps. Lindsay hurried ahead of him along the sand, her gaze fixed on a flight of pelicans

overhead. He’d be amazed if those cookies reached home in one piece.

He took a few steps away from the stairs, Georgia moving next to him.

“I didn’t realize you lived so close.” Georgia’s gaze was fixed on his rental. “The Fosters owned that house when I was little. They had five children.”

“There are a few kids in the neighborhood now.” He watched Lindsay stop and stare at the pelicans as they swooped close to the water. “But Lindsay isn’t getting acquainted as easily as I’d hoped. Your grandmother is the only person she’s really gotten to know.”

“Miz Callie is worth as much as a gaggle of kids any day.”

“That sounds like personal experience speaking.” Maybe meeting his daughter had softened her attitude toward him.

But she looked at Lindsay, not him. “I was pretty shy as a kid. With my grandmother, there was no pressure. I could play with the other kids if I wanted to, but she never objected to my sitting in the swing with a book, or helping her make cookies in the kitchen.”

“Sounds ideal.” He spoke lightly, but he thought Georgia had revealed a lot about herself in those few words. Again he had a glimpse of someone he might enjoy getting to know, if not for the fact that she saw him as the enemy.

“I suppose that’s how my grandmother came to hire you,” Georgia said. “Getting to know you through Lindsay.” “I suppose.” He kept it noncommittal. The truce was

over already, it seemed.

“Havers and Martin have been the family’s attorneys for a couple of generations. It seems a little odd that she came to you instead.”

“Does it?” The spark of anger in her eyes amused him.

Her jaw tightened. “I don’t believe I heard exactly what it is you’re doing for my grandmother.”

“You don’t really expect me to violate my client’s confidence, do you, Ms. Bodine?”

She stopped, her fists clenching, anger out in the open now. “No.” She bit off the word. “I don’t expect anything from you, Mr. Harper.”

She spun and walked quickly back toward the beach house.

Georgia slung her suitcase on the twin bed in the little room under the eaves that had always been hers, the movement edged with the antagonism Matthew Harper had brought out—a quality she hadn’t even known she possessed. She’d spent a lifetime unable to confront people, even her own mother. Especially her own mother.

She caught sight of the pale band on her finger in her peripheral vision as she put T-shirts in a drawer. She still had to break that news to Mamma.

Oddly enough, she hadn’t had any trouble making her anger clear to Matthew Harper, maybe because she didn’t care what he thought of her. Or maybe her love for Miz Callie overrode every other instinct.

Frowning, she shoved the drawer closed. Whatever Matt had in mind, he wouldn’t be easily deterred. She’d seen that kind of type A personality in action before. In a way, Matt reminded her of James, although he didn’t have her former fiancé’s charm. James’s smile could make you think he cherished you above all others. The only time it had failed to work on her was when she’d walked out of the office, knowing things were over.

Anyway, this was about Matt, not James. The only time she’d seen any softening in Matt was when he looked

at his daughter, and even then his gaze was more worried than loving.

No, she wouldn’t be able to dissuade him. She had to find out what Miz Callie had him doing for her before she could learn if her family’s suspicions were on target.

She hadn’t gotten anywhere with her grandmother over chicken salad and Miz Callie’s featherlight biscuits. Dinner had been an elaborate game, with her grandmother determined not to talk about her plans and Georgia equally determined not to talk about her breakup.

Maybe now they could relax and get things out into the open. She took a last look around the room, windows open to the evening breeze, and then hurried down the stairs.

Miz Callie was on the deck, a citronella candle burning next to her to ward off the bugs. She looked up with a smile as Georgia came out.

“All done unpacking? Did you speak to your mamma and daddy?”

She nodded, not eager to get into what her parents had to say. They’d taken turns talking, Mamma on the extension, so that it had been like being caught between two soloists, both vying desperately to be heard.

“They’re fine,” she said, knowing Miz Callie wouldn’t believe that. She touched the shells on the glass table, still there from her grandmother’s im-promptu lesson with Lindsay. “Do you want me to put these away?”