Beckett's Convenient Bride. Dixie Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ it was Carson’s turn. Unlike Lance’s heiress, who had moved east from Texas, Carson’s heiress had originated in Virginia, daughter of a high profile trial lawyer named Christopher Dixon and one Elizabeth Chandler Dixon, both deceased; granddaughter of a retired judge known as old Cast Iron Dixon and a wealthy socialite with the unusual name of Flavia. Both maternal grandparents deceased.

      The Chandlers were thinning out, it seemed.

      “Well, thank the Lord for small mercies,” Kit Dixon muttered under her breath, screwing the cap back on her India Ink drawing pen. The two jerks who’d been arguing so loudly on the other side of the church had evidently decided to make peace—or at least to move their argument to more appropriate surroundings.

      One of the reasons she liked this old cemetery so much was the peacefulness. It was little more than a wooded knoll in a sea of marsh grass, home only to countless birds and small animals.

      Kit hated anger, hated arguments. Always had. Even after all these years, loud, angry voices still made her stomach ache.

      As quiet once again descended over the surroundings, she leaned against a mossy tombstone and gazed out over the cypress trees, the wind-twisted scrub oaks and a cluster of cedars. Chalky white marble gravestones of all shapes and sizes stood out against the dark foliage. Small ones with lambs on top—tall ones with angels. The lambs were her favorites.

      It was perfect. She could easily visualize ghosts rising like smoke from the ancient graves. Now that the last sketch was done, she was ready to bring her watercolors. Atmosphere was far more important than getting a perfect drawing. During that fleeting time before nightfall she could sweep in the values and the muted colors—fifteen or twenty minutes for each illustration, and she’d be finished. After that she’d give the manuscript one last polish, hand it over to be typed, and Gretchen’s Ghost would be finished. It wasn’t even due at her publisher until the first of April.

      Brushing the leaves and dried grass from her seat, Kit paused to touch a leaning marker, worn far too smooth to read. “Who are you?” she wondered aloud. “If I knew your name, I’d use it in my next story.”

      She often used names she found on tombstones or on mailboxes, mixing first names and last. It gave her a sense of being connected to the past. And although she hated to admit it, she desperately needed to feel connected to someone—to something solid. She wondered sometimes if everyone felt that way, especially as they grew older.

      But then, most people she knew had someone, somewhere.

      Kit had someone. She had her paternal grandparents. She would probably even put in an appearance at their fiftieth anniversary party. She made a habit of dropping in unannounced every few months, partly out of a sense of duty, but mostly because it irritated her grandfather so. She would stay for half an hour and then leave. Leaving was the best part of all, because she could.

      And because she knew it drove her grandfather wild. It wasn’t his granddaughter he wanted, it was what she represented—the last link with his only son. And she ought to feel sorry for him, she really should, only she couldn’t. She knew him too well.

      So maybe she’d skip the party and get herself a dog.

      Maybe she’d get a dog and take it to the party.

      Or maybe she’d invite Keefer, the surf-bum she’d shared a house with last summer. It would serve him right. Her grandfather, not Keefer, who wouldn’t have been impressed if she’d told him she was a royal princess. Three things impressed Keefer. Good grass, big surf and big bazongas.

      Kit didn’t have big bazongas. She practically didn’t have any at all, not that it mattered. An author-illustrator of two published children’s books with another one almost finished, her first book, Claire the Loon, had been optioned for television. When she’d first been notified, she hadn’t believed it. When it had sunk in, she’d walked three feet off the ground for a week.

      Of course nothing had come of it so far. Odds were, nothing ever would. She’d been told by her agent not to get her hopes up, as far more books were optioned than ever made the final cut, so other than treating herself to a mammogram, an eye exam and half a gallon of Tin Roof Sundae ice cream, she hadn’t spent a penny of the option advance. It was in the bank earning a pathetic rate of interest.

      Her real bread and butter, not to mention her rent and her art supplies, came from waiting tables. It was the perfect job. In season, the tips were easily enough to live on, yet the hours allowed her plenty of time to write. As there were usually job openings all up and down the Outer Banks in season, she was able to pick up and move as often as she liked if she needed a fresh locale.

      That was just one more thing her grandparents disapproved of. No permanent address. They called her lifestyle immature, among several less flattering things. Perhaps it was. More likely it was her own brand of claustrophobia. Whatever it was called, she had a deep-seated need to prove her independence, and for the last seven years she’d been doing just that.

      Not the way her mother had, with alcohol and lovers. Her grandparents never failed to remind her of her mother’s twin weaknesses at every opportunity. Both, Kit was convinced, were a result of being married to a man who had all the warmth of an empty igloo. The irony was that Kit had just enough of her father in her—not his cruelty, but his steely determination—to defy her grandparents and build a life for herself. And although she felt justly proud of her small publishing accomplishments, there was no room in her pragmatic, hardworking, self-supporting lifestyle for artistic temperament.

      Okay, so she enjoyed being able to dress any old way she pleased. So she liked old cemeteries. After working eight hours a day in a noisy restaurant, with clattering cutlery and people constantly making demands, she found old burial grounds restful.

      Besides, it came under the heading of research. Both her published books had been ghost stories, involving pirates and shipwrecked sailors as well as children and animals. It was her thing. Her bag, as Keefer would say. Start with a quirky animal personality, throw in a large helping of local history and a dash of fantasy, and voilà. Gretchen’s Ghost was going to be her best yet.

      After repacking her backpack, checking to see that she’d left nothing behind, Kit headed for the parking lot on the other side of the church. She had just reached the old wrought-iron gate when the stillness was rent by the sound of a single gunshot.

      Startled, she froze and waited. A hunter? In March? At this time of evening? Wasn’t that illegal?

      Besides, who would hunt in a place like this?

      When she heard the sound of someone speeding away she let out the breath she’d been holding. That’s what it had been—an engine backfiring. That funny whining sound it had made when it was racing off probably meant it needed tuning.

      Admittedly, one of the occupational hazards of being a writer of fiction, especially fiction that edged over into fantasy, was that a single backfire could instantly become a pirate landing or an invasion from another planet.

      The church was used only for summer revival meetings, but the security light was still in service. Now the pink glow shone down on the graveled parking lot, empty except for Ladybug, her orange-and-black, hand-detailed VW. So much for the invasion from Mars, she thought ruefully as she dodged a patch of weeds.

      She was nearly halfway to her car when she spotted what appeared to be either a shadow or an even larger clump of weeds.

      Not a shadow. There was nothing nearby to cast such an oddly shaped shadow. And not weeds, СКАЧАТЬ