Smoky Mountain Reunion. Lynnette Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ backseat. Still shaking his head, the driver restarted the engine and resumed their course.

      “Would you like something to drink?” Nola opened the limo’s small refrigerator.

      “Awesome.” The boy sat forward, his eyes wide. “Is this your car?”

      “I rented it at the airport. Soda, juice or water?”

      He pointed to a can of soda. “Have you got food, too?”

      At the touch of her fingers, a sliding panel above the refrigerator revealed crackers, nuts, chips and candy. “Be my guest.”

      “Oh, wow.” He took a bag of chips and scooted back against the seat, munching and sipping. “Where are you from?”

      Nola settled into the corner with a bottle of water. “Boston.”

      Garrett nodded. “I’ve been there. My mom and dad went to college in Boston. We used to visit sometimes.” He stopped chewing, and his gaze turned inward. “She died.”

      “I’m sorry.” Losing a parent was hard, Nola knew from experience—she’d lost both of hers before she was eight years old. But he’d get over it, just as she had.

      His shoulders lifted with a deep breath. “My mom liked animals a lot. They have a good zoo in Boston. Have you been there?”

      “No, I haven’t.”

      His brown eyes reproached her. “Why not? They have a great zoo in New York, too. And the one in Washington, D.C.—have you been there?” When she shook her head, he stared at her in shock. “Why not? Don’t you like zoos?”

      “I—I just never think of going, I guess.” She’d been to the Boston zoo once on a school field trip, she remembered. And gotten in trouble for climbing into the giraffe enclosure on a dare. The animals hadn’t cared, but the chaperones had been furious.

      “What do you do for fun?”

      “I…” She had to stop and think. “I read and…and do word puzzles.” If you could call the New York Times crossword a mere puzzle.

      “That’s all? Don’t you go out with your friends or anything?”

      “I have a lot of work to do.” She didn’t want to admit how few people she could call “friend.”

      Shaking his head, Garrett ploughed into the bag for more chips. “My dad says the same thing. We used to have people over all the time, before…” He sighed again. “He doesn’t feel much like seeing anyone these days. Says he’s tired.”

      Nola didn’t know what to say, but Garrett didn’t seem to require a response, although he did ask politely for another bag of chips. He’d hardly stopped chewing long enough to breathe before the car emerged from the shady forest into bright afternoon sunlight. Just ahead, the road split to form a circular driveway leading up to the front door of the Victorian mansion that housed the Hawkridge School.

      Nola chuckled. “I’d forgotten. It looks like a castle, doesn’t it?”

      Garrett nodded and swallowed at the same time. “Some of the girls call it Hawkwarts. You know, like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books?”

      “There is a resemblance.” Built by railroad magnate Howard Ridgely in the late nineteenth century, the brick-and-stone house possessed its share of pointed turrets, plus acres of diamond-paned glass in its casement windows and hundreds of feet of iron railing around its porches and balconies. The overall effect should have been forbidding, like the setting for a gothic novel.

      But instead, after twelve years away, Nola had the strange impression that she’d been on a long, difficult journey and had now, finally, come home again.

      The car stopped beside the entrance. As Nola stepped onto the cobblestone driveway, girls’ voices floated through the open doorway from the main hall, competing with the sounds of birds twittering in the trees.

      Garrett scrambled out behind Nola and went immediately to the rear of the car. “I need to get Homer to some water.”

      Lifting the lid of the trunk, the driver said, “I’ll bring your bags in, Ms. Shannon. Just have someone tell me where I should put them.”

      She turned to him and extended her hand. “I will. Thank you for everything. You’ve been a good sport.”

      He grinned. “Hey, it’s not my suitcase that turtle’s been traveling in.”

      Nola rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

      Garrett started up the steps, but then hesitated and turned back to wave at the driver. “Thank you for the ride,” he said, his cheeks flushed. “Me and Homer woulda had a long walk.”

      The driver returned a two-fingered salute. “No problem.”

      Nola joined Garrett on the steps. “Where do you think you’ll find your father?”

      “In his office or at a meeting or something.” The boy picked up Nola’s case and climbed the remainder of the stone stairs, leaning a little to the side with the weight of the turtle. “He said he’d be done about four o’clock.”

      “That gives you at least an hour to wait.” As they stepped inside, the tall case clock by the door began to play the Westminster chimes, a sequence as familiar to Nola as her own breath. The huge entry hall—fifty feet square, according to the Hawkridge Student’s Manual—had always been an afternoon gathering place for students, and nothing had changed there, either. Singles, pairs and groups of girls sat cross-legged on the black-and-white marble floor tiles, leaned against mahogany-paneled walls or perched on the steps of the circular staircase with its wrought-iron banister, studying and gossiping, arguing and laughing, as they’d done for more than forty years.

      To the casual observer, the scene suggested a very expensive, very elegant private school for girls. But Agatha Ridgely, Howard Ridgely’s only child, had dedicated the estate and her fortune to a special cause. For most of these students, the Hawkridge School was the last resort, a final chance to turn their lives around before their behavioral problems—and the criminal-justice system—took over.

      Having rung the chimes, the clock gave three sonorous strikes—marking the time for Nola’s appointment with the headmistress. Before the last note died away, a door on the right side of the hall opened. The woman who stepped out smiled as the entry hall instantly went silent.

      “It’s okay,” she said, her voice low but clear. “I won’t start cracking the whip until Monday morning at eight.”

      Judging by their laughter, the girls did not feel particularly threatened.

      When she saw Nola, the other woman quickly crossed the floor. She wore a white shirt, dark blue slacks and sensible shoes, but her colorful sweater was decorated with cartoon characters—a crazy rabbit and his roadrunner pal, plus a wise-cracking duck and a bald little man with a rifle.

      Her smooth skin revealed she was younger than she’d first appeared. Her chestnut-brown hair, combed back to fell in waves over her shoulders, showed not a single strand of gray.

      “Nola, there you are! Welcome СКАЧАТЬ