Lakeside Sweetheart. Lenora Worth
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Название: Lakeside Sweetheart
Автор: Lenora Worth
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Love Inspired
isbn: 9781474054614
isbn:
She gave him a mock scowl, her wrinkles folding against each other, her gray hair as straw-like as her hat. “Since when have you not been hankering for something to eat? I declare, I don’t know how you stay so fit.”
“I pick up limbs and trash all the time,” he said with a deadpan expression.
“Yes, you do. And you ride that bicycle and carry that board thing out to the water.” She moseyed over to the table and fluffed her yellow muumuu. “You swim and fish and surf and jog all over the place. When do you rest, Preacher?”
“I’ll rest when I die.”
She shook her head. “Oh, I doubt that. The Lord will put you straight to work when you reach the Pearly Gates.”
They both laughed at that notion. Then she pulled out the still-warm corn fritters that were her specialty. Part hush puppy and part corn bread, the fat mushy balls were filled with real corn nuggets and tasted like nectar to Rory.
“So good,” he said. “I think I’ll be able to finish this mess before lunch, thanks to you.”
Mrs. Fitzgerald chewed on her food and studied the water. “Nice sermon yesterday. I think you impressed that newcomer.”
Miss Fanny, as she liked to be called, took impish pleasure in stirring the pot.
Rory played coy. “We had a newcomer?”
The older woman playfully slapped his arm. “I saw you looking at her. And I’m pretty sure she was looking back.”
“Don’t you have cataracts?”
“Not since that fancy eye doctor up on 98 did some sort of surgery on me. I can see a feather caught in a limb up in that tree yonder.”
He glanced at the tree and squinted. “Feathers are a bit different from watching me and making assumptions.”
“I know what I see,” she replied on a prim note. “It’s springtime. Love is in the air.”
“Well, aren’t you the poet.”
“I used to be, you know.”
“You? A poet?” Miss Fanny was full of surprises.
“Me.” She pointed to the houses lining the lake. “See that Craftsman cottage with the blue shutters?”
He nodded and grabbed another fritter. “The one near your house that’s in need of serious repair?”
She lived in a small Cape Cod style two-storied house across from the church.
“That’s the one. I used to run around with the woman who lived there. We were artists. She dabbled in mixed media and men. I dabbled in poetry and one long and loving marriage.”
“You don’t say?” He’d heard about how much Miss Fanny loved her husband, but she was already a widow when he met her. “So what happened to your friend? That house has been vacant since I’ve been here.”
“That was her home at one time, but after she remarried, it became a vacation home. The last man she married also had a home in Birmingham, Alabama, and they used to travel back and forth. But...she died recently.” Fanny took off her hat and gave him a direct stare. “That woman you’re pretending you didn’t notice in church yesterday, that’s her daughter. She’s come back here to fix up and sell the house.” Putting her hat back on, she added, “Vanessa hated her mother. And I might as well tell you she’s not too fond of preachers either.”
Rory stood up to stare over at the rambling one-story house with the blue shutters. Well, the shutters used to be blue. Now they were a peeling, weathered blue-gray mess. The whole place wore a facade of neglect even though the neighbors kept the yard mowed and the flower beds pruned and trimmed, as a courtesy and in keeping with the pretty factor that Millbrook Lake prided itself on.
So that was the house Vanessa had mentioned the other day. And Miss Fanny had been a friend to her deceased mother.
“I’ve often thought someone needed to buy that place and fix it up,” he said. “So that’s where Vanessa Donovan used to live?”
And now she was back.
“Her mother lived there for years, but Vanessa only lived there for a couple of years after Cora and Richard got married and moved here. She finished high school and then she left. To my knowledge, this is the first time she’s been back.”
Rory thought about how long the house had sat vacant. “But somebody kept up with the place. I mean, it’s still full of furniture and belongings.”
Miss Fanny sat staring across at the house. “Cora, Vanessa’s mother, went to a nursing home in Alabama near where her last husband had property, right before you came to town. After Vanessa graduated high school, Richard and Cora split their time between Birmingham and here. Then after he died, Cora came back here. But she got sick and that ended, so she moved to a retirement home that had around-the-clock nursing. We all tried to keep the house ready for her to come back, but she never recovered from her first stroke. She had another massive one about a month ago and died. Buried in Alabama beside the one man she truly loved.” Miss Fanny’s shrug was eloquent. “Maybe because he left her a ton of money. She never talked much about the men in her life, but Richard was very special to her.”
Suddenly, Rory understood a lot of things. “So Vanessa came back to...settle things?”
“That’s an understatement,” Miss Fanny replied. “The girl inherited the house and probably some money and other property, too. But I’m thinking she won’t want to live here. She’ll probably sell out and leave again.” Miss Fanny leaned close. “Vanessa loved her mother’s last husband, Richard Tucker. He was like a true father to her after so many other men, but Vanessa and Cora did not see eye-to-eye about anything. Too many bad memories.”
Rory thought about the woman he’d first noticed in church last Sunday. Afraid and unsure and wound as tight as fishing line on a reel. Yeah, he could see a lot of settling things needed to occur.
And he had to ask. “Why does Vanessa dislike preachers, Miss Fanny?”
Miss Fanny got up and adjusted her hat. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Rory closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Which husband was it?”
“Number three,” Miss Fanny said without missing a beat. “Vanessa was around thirteen or fourteen, I think, when her mother married a minister from Atlanta. They moved here since she already had this house. He served a church out on the highway for a couple of years. Neither his assignment nor the marriage lasted. But while he was here, he tried to reform Vanessa but in the worst sort of way.”
Giving Rory a pointed glance, she started pushing her walker toward the street, Rory following while he СКАЧАТЬ