Though Carrie was not his intended focus this morning, Hayden’s gaze drifted to her often. He’d rather look at her than listen in on the good ol’ boys, as interesting as they were.
She was smart and witty and unassumingly pretty. Maybe that was why she interested him. No pretense. No airs. No effort to impress. Carrie was who she was.
Unlike him.
He sipped his coffee, swallowed hard and forced his attention back to the newcomers. Fine arts teachers, cultured ladies, eccentrics.
“Now. Mr. Winters.” Vida Jean folded her gloved hands on the tabletop. “As women with Tennessee roots as far back as the American Revolution, we officially welcome you to Honey Ridge. This is terribly exciting for us.”
Willa Dean nodded, folding her hands in exactly the same pose as her sister. “We’re huge fans.”
“Huge,” Vida Jean agreed.
“Hayden’s here to research and write his next novel,” Carrie told them.
Vida Jean turned owl eyes on the novelist. “Really? Oh, my gracious. How thrilling.”
Willa Dean pressed both hands to her heart. “Our uncle Claremont was a writer, you know.”
“Yes, he was. A wonderful writer for the Tennessean back in the fifties. We have storytelling in our blood.”
“Yes, we do, and we would dearly love to help with your research. We know a story or two.”
The old ladies exchanged glances. Then, as if some invisible agreement passed between them, one of them—Willa Dean, he thought—said, “Since you’re staying at the Peach Orchard Inn, you probably know about the kidnapped boy, Mikey.”
The other twin’s lips thinned as she pressed them together. “Julia’s little boy, though he’d be a teenager now. Bless his precious heart. He’s been gone a long time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hayden said. “Carrie told me. A tragedy.”
“I do hope you won’t write about that, Mr. Winters. Julia can’t bear it.”
Both ladies leaned forward, peering at him intently, willing him with their schoolteacher stare to do the right thing.
He wrote thrillers, murder and gore. No mother wanted to think of her child in those terms, though kidnapping was a common topic in his genre. Julia Presley was convinced Mikey was still alive and would eventually find his way home. Hayden suspected she was wrong, but who was he to dash her hope?
The new proposal would not be a child abduction story.
“No,” he said simply.
Usually anything was game, but Hayden drew the line when he was living under the woman’s roof. Julia wanted her privacy respected. He got that.
“What about all those nasty drug dealings up in the hills?” one of them asked. Vida Jean, he thought. “Somebody gets killed every few years.”
Nothing he didn’t already know from scanning the newspaper files. Drug deals were old news unless they came with a twist. Was it possible that the cat lady ran a Cambodian connection and agoraphobia was a cover for a drug ring?
Inwardly he groaned. He was stretching, straining for something, anything that would stir the muse. The only muse that stirred these days was 150 years old.
Maybe he’d chosen the wrong place. Maybe he should forget the small-town South and head to the ocean, away from the antebellum influences.
While his mind wandered, the Sweat twins chattered about the history of Honey Ridge, the scourge of illegal drugs and the time some preacher died of unnatural causes. When Hayden tuned back in, the ladies were off on another rabbit trail.
“Porter Walenta was an itinerant peddler in the thirties. Vacuum cleaners, wasn’t it, sister?”
“Vacuum cleaners. And pots and pans.” The other twin leaned in and whispered, though every ear in the place was close enough to hear. “He was a philanderer. Cheated on his wife all over the county and beyond.”
“He’d knock on a door, smile that toothy snake oil salesman grin and get himself invited in. Next thing you know, that woman had the cleanest rugs around and the messiest sheets.”
“Willa Dean! I declare.” Vida Jean looked suitably scandalized.
“Well, that’s what Virginia Washington told me.” Cheeks blushing crimson, Willa Dean warmed to her topic. “One day a farmer came in from the fields unexpectedly—his mule harness broke—and beat old Porter with a buggy whip. Messed up his handsome face and various other parts real good.”
The room erupted with laughter. Hayden exchanged amused glances with Carrie, whose cheeks were also rosy.
Vida Jean fanned her face with the plastic menu. “Lord have mercy, sister. You ought not to tell that story in mixed company.”
“Oh, don’t be prudish.”
Vida Jean sat up primly, lips pursed, unhappy with her sister’s admonishment as much as the indiscreet story.
Lynn sailed in to save the moment with a flowered teapot and two cups. “Here you go, ladies. Earl Grey.”
Around the small café, the locals resumed talking among themselves.
Itinerant salesman. Drug dealers. Nothing to jiggle the muse. Hayden struggled with the misery of pushing at his brain and coming away empty. He needed to relax, focus elsewhere and let his subconscious work on the next book. Stress and deadlines were creativity killers.
Hayden sipped his coffee and listened to the chatter around him.
Carrie ate with proper manners, left hand in her lap and back straight. It was ingrained, he could see, a natural habit she didn’t even notice but one he’d had to practice over and over again.
Carrie. He let his thoughts settle on her for a while. So pretty and fresh when she’d bounced out of her small house that morning and crossed the lawn to his rental car. She wore a skirt, one of the swirly kind that made him watch her walk.
“Lynn, dear,” one of the twins said, “do you have wilting veggies we can carry home?”
Lynn jabbed the ever-present pencil into the top of her hair. “For the Thomson boy?”
Hayden shot a surprised glance at Carrie, who widened her eyes and shrugged.
“For his critters,” the twin said. “He’s got a new one.”
Hayden’s shoulders relaxed as he considered the hideout he’d found in the woods. They weren’t asking for wilted veggies to feed the boy. They were asking for the rabbit.
“I’ll have a look-see and box up what I have.”
“So kind,” Vida Jean said. “If you have any leftover cinnamon rolls, I wouldn’t mind one for Binky. You know how he loves them.”
“Binky?” Hayden mouthed to Carrie.
“Their parrot.”
“Ah.” Somehow it didn’t surprise him at all that the old ladies owned a parrot.
When Lynn moved off toward the kitchen, he said to the twin he’d marked as Vida Jean by the tiny mole next to her nose, “Do you ladies know Brody Thomson well?”
Vida Jean removed the tea bag from her cup and gingerly placed it in her saucer. “Why, yes, we do. He’s a dear little boy.”
“He visits our Binky sometimes and even runs errands for us. Such a tender heart. Always rescuing some creature.”
“Though we despair at that father of his.”
“Awful man.”
Hayden’s fork paused in midbite. “In what way?”
Willa Dean stiffly replied, “We are not given to gossip, Mr. Winters. It is a sin.”
“A pure sin,” her sister concurred.
“However.” Willa Dean smacked her lips. “Fact is not gossip. And it is a known fact that Clinton Thomson is given to strong spirits.”
“On a regular basis.” Vida Jean huffed with indignation.
“Does he treat Brody well?”
“Can’t say I’ve heard anything to the contrary, but he treated his wife poorly.”
Willa Dean nodded emphatically. “Very poorly.
”
Hayden tensed. “What happened?”
Willa Dean’s impossible eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Most people think she left him.”
Vida Jean’s head bobbed. “But sister and I have given the situation a great deal of thought, and we are convinced she did not.”
“No?”
“No.” Willa Dean paused for effect, making eye contact with each listener. “She was murdered.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MISS VIDA JEAN, what are you talking about?” Poker turned his chair around and dragged it to Hayden’s table. “Don’t pay her no mind, Hayden. She watches too much TV.”
A mortified Willa Dean pressed a hand to her heart. “You hush, Poker Ringwald. Remember that time you swore up and down we were senile when we claimed Billy Roy Peterson broke into the golf course and played a round every single night? Isn’t that right, sister?”
“Right as rain. He said we were senile. Shame on you, Poker.”
“Then one night Officer Riley caught Billy Roy dead to rights with a golf club in one hand and one of Lynn’s cinnamon rolls in the other.”
Sugar Bo laughed. “Is that true, Poker?”
Poker scratched behind his ear. “I guess it is.”
“No guessing to it.” Vida Jean was clearly incensed. “So you listen to us, Mr. Winters. We know a thing or two about that Clinton Thomson.”
“And we think he murdered her.”
Hadn’t he wondered the same thing? “Why would you think that?”
“Woman’s intuition. We never liked that man. Did we, Vida Jean?”
“No, we didn’t. Poor Penny. She kept to herself most of the time, but we’d see her now and then. Always so shy. Nervous as a long-tailed kitty at a rocking chair convention. We’d wonder why she didn’t leave him.”
“Maybe she did.”
“She did,” Lynn said emphatically as she warmed up Hayden’s coffee. “The poor thing went home to Mama and never looked back.” To Hayden, she said, “The ladies get carried away.”
“Most people didn’t even notice she was gone.” Poker dealt a card, turned it over and groaned.
“Her leaving was their business.” The judge hoisted his coffee cup toward Lynn, indicating a need for a refill. “In my years on the bench, I saw plenty of divorces, but folks don’t have to get divorced to be apart. Troubled marriages break up, people move away and that’s that. The woman left him, and it wasn’t anyone’s business. People have a right to privacy.”
“In this town?” Shocked, Willa Dean sat up as prim and straight as a tea rose. “I think he murdered her and buried her in the backyard like in that Lifetime movie. What was the name of it, Vida Jean?”
“I don’t remember, but a backyard burial is too obvious. Like a key under the welcome mat. Anyone knows where to look.” Vida Jean frowned and shook her head. “We’ve had this discussion before. He took her somewhere back in the woods. Remember that episode of Hawaii Five-0?”
“Oh, now, Miss Vida Jean, cut that out. Movies and TV ain’t real life. Penny Thomson finally wised up and left her sorry husband. End of subject.” Poker shuffled his deck again, this time with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “Everybody knows that.”
Hayden observed the ping-pong conversation with interest.
“We say he killed her, and it’s a pure shame the police didn’t do a thing about it.”
“Nothing to investigate, ladies,” the judge said. “No evidence. No complaints. No case.”
“That’s because he was clever.”
“Y’all are not being very nice here.” Lynn’s hair quivered in magenta indignation as she slid a cinnamon roll in front of Mr. B. “Clint Thomson has lived in this town as long as I have, and other than getting three sheets to the wind like plenty of others, he’s never caused any trouble. No disrespect, ladies, but you got no business spreading tales about him.”
“Well.” Both twins pursed their lips in identical expressions of insult. One of them pushed her teacup aside. The other opened the clasp on her purse and whipped out the exact change, laid it on the table, and, with quiet dignity, the pair walked out.
Chatter followed their departure, but Hayden turned his attention to Carrie. “What do you think?”
“The twins are dear ladies, but Lynn’s right. They can get carried away.”
“You don’t buy their accusation?”
“Not at all. Things like that don’t happen in Honey Ridge. Someone would notice.”
Hayden bit down on a buttery biscuit, wondering.
Even if there wasn’t a grain of truth in the twins’ suspicions, they’d gotten the wheels turning in his head.
One way or the other, he was keeping an eye on Brody...and on his father.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Take the proverb to thy soul! Take and clasp it fast: “The mill cannot grind with the water that has passed.”
—Sarah Doudney
1867
A WEEK WENT by and Thaddeus spent such long hours at the gristmill he had little time for brooding about his cold Tennessee welcome or the Ohio home he dearly missed. A home that was no longer there.
He was grateful for the distraction William’s new family provided. Each day at noon Will ordered the work stopped, and they hiked across the fields to the farmhouse for dinner, leaving Oscar, the hired man, to serve any customers.
Thaddeus understood William’s need to rush home to the big house. His cousin was in love, and if he’d learned anything, it was that life was fragile and people were to be cherished. Will had found happiness again. Thad was determined to be glad for his cousin and his gentle bride with the iron spine. Charlotte had made him welcome and had given him his own space near the other former soldiers who’d stayed behind to work the farm.
Each night, when darkness made work impossible even in lamplight, he joined the family’s table, where he seemed to find ways to annoy the red-haired Josie whether he intended to or not. Most times he intended to.
Will teased that enough sparks flew between Josie and Thad to light a campfire, and Thad found himself looking forward to the match of wits. The fiery redhead would rather see him drawn and quartered, and when she said as much one evening in the parlor while Patience soothed them with Chopin and lamplight created a relaxing glow, he’d laughed. Her furious fire and sharp tongue amused him for some reason. At his laughter, Josie looked up from her needlework, caught his eye, and he was certain he saw a sparkle, a twinkle of humor as her cheeks grew pink and her mouth twitched.
With all the problems at the mill, sparring with Miss Josie had become the pinnacle of his very long days. He was, he mused, in a sorry state.
Josephine Portland was a vain woman, as he’d discovered the first day when he’d come into the parlor to find her gushing over her own beauty and bragging about how wonderful she looked in green. That he agreed with her assessment had no bearing on his opinion of her vanity. She spent hours sewing pretty things for herself and fawning over bits of ribbons and lace.
Men must surely dance at the end of her lead. But not him. His heart was taken, and he was wise to the false charms of a woman like Josie, amusing as she was.
On this particular noon when the sun blazed hotter than a blacksmith’s forge, Thaddeus wiped sweat from his brow and considered sending his hired man across the fields with word that he would not be at the dinner table. This morning William had remained at the farm to repair a barn door broken by the wind, a forceful storm that ushered in this cursed humidity.
After spending the better part of the morning grinding corn, a gear had broken. Add this to a host of other repairs and the steady flow of business and he fought against discouragement. He hadn’t expected the mill to need this much attention.
“Oscar!” he called to the hired man as he thr
eaded his way past the grinding stones and bins and up the stairs to the loft.
A cat meowed and trotted up the wooden steps beside him. When he paused on the landing, she rubbed against his pants leg, and he bent to scratch her ears.
“She and her kittens are doing the job.” Oscar nodded toward the gray tabby. “I saw her trot off toward the woods with a mouse a while ago.”
Keeping the rodent population at bay was essential to a mill’s operation, and cats were the solution. Every grain mill had at least one.
“Giving her the bowl of cream didn’t slow her down. Did it?” Thad asked.
Oscar protested the waste of food on a cat when she could get her meals by doing her job. Oscar protested a lot of Thad’s ideas, come to think of it. The man had worked for Edgar Portland and thought he knew more than anyone about the mill’s workings. He knew the community and Thad tried to appreciate that, but the man rubbed against the grain.
Big and brawny with a full head of black hair, Oscar Pitts was around forty years old, but his strength had not diminished with the passage of time. Though a married man, he had a leering eye toward women who came to the mill. Thad was troubled because the Portland women frequently joined the workforce when the need arose. He’d seen the way Oscar studied them, and though he had kept the observation to himself, he put a watch on the hired man.
“Old lady Beacon’s meal and grits is sacked and ready.” Arms bulging, Oscar easily lifted and poured a full sack of corn into the hopper. Powdery dust flew up to stick on sweaty skin, and the smell of ground meal was thick in their nostrils. “You needin’ me for something else, boss man?”
“I wasn’t planning to grind any more today, Oscar,” he said, eyeing the filled hopper. “Got a broke gear.”
“Want me to scoop the grain back out?”
Thad contemplated the full bin, a temptation to mice and vermin. “Leave Tabby up here as guard. Maybe I can get this gear repaired at the blacksmith shop in town—”
Before he could finish the thought, a voice called from down below. “Hello. Anybody here?”