goals, Tory had been wrong. She hadn’t found out a single thing about Lila or the disappearance of the dolphin in the three days she’d been there.
She leaned against the back porch post, sketch pad on her lap. The lawn, greening again after summer’s heat, stretched under live oaks draped with Spanish moss that looked like swags of gray-green lace. Bronze and yellow chrysanthemums spilled over the flower beds along the walks.
Jenny lazed away a Saturday afternoon, pushing herself back and forth in a wooden plank swing suspended from a sturdy branch. Her sneakers scraped the ground with each arc, and her curls bounced.
Tory looked from the child to the sketch that had grown under her fingers. Jenny swung on the page, face lifted to the breeze she was creating.
“That’s good, that is.”
Tory glanced up. Miz Becky, the woman who ran Twin Oaks and apparently everyone in it, settled in the bentwood rocker.
“Thanks.” Tory flexed her fingers and stretched, lifting damp hair off her neck. Even in fall, the air was sultry here. “I can’t sit without doodling.”
Miz Becky’s smile warmed her elegant, austere face. With her hair covered by a colorful scarf wound into a turban, she looked like royalty. “Know what you mean about that.” She lifted the strainer of fresh green beans. “I got to keep my hands busy, too.”
It was the first time she’d been alone with Miz Becky, her first opportunity to ask her about Lila Caldwell if she wanted.
“How’re those windows at the church coming along?” Miz Becky asked.
“Not bad.” Tory wrapped her arms around her knees, wishing she could find a tactful way to broach the subject. “The repairs are moving along. Unfortunately, the new window isn’t.”
The woman popped the ends off the beans with a decisive snap. “Why’s that?”
“I really need to find out more about Mrs. Caldwell’s life if I’m going to come up with a design to honor her. So far—”
“So far Adam’s not talking.” Mix Becky tossed a handful of beans into a sweetgrass basket.
“That’s about the size of it.” She thought of the darkness that crossed Adam’s open, friendly face whenever the topic was raised. “I don’t want to intrude on his grief, but I’m afraid I’ll have to.”
“Grief?” Miz Becky seemed to consider the word. “I’m not so sure that’s what’s keeping him close-mouthed about her.”
Tory glanced up, startled. That almost sounded as if…
Before she could respond, Jenny ran toward them.
“Miz Tory, could we go for a walk on the beach?” The child hopped onto the first step and balanced on one foot. “Please?” She gave Tory the smile that was so like her father’s. “I can’t go by myself.”
She couldn’t resist that smile. “If Miz Becky says it’s okay.”
“Get along.” Miz Becky flapped a hand at them. She held Tory’s gaze for an instant. “Just might answer a few questions for you.”
Was the woman suggesting that Jenny could be a source of information? Adam would definitely disapprove of that.
Jenny grasped Tory’s hand and tugged her off the step. “Come on. I’ll race you.”
Grabbing the sketch pad, Tory followed. She wouldn’t ask the child. If Jenny volunteered anything, that was different.
They crossed the lawn. Jenny skipped ahead of her down the path toward the beach. Palmettos and pines lined it, casting dense shadows littered with oversize pinecones and palmetto fans stripped by the wind.
They emerged from tree shadows into bright, clear light, the ocean stretching blue, then gray, then blending into the sky at the horizon. Tory tilted her head back, inhaling the tang of salt and fish and seaweed washed up by the tide and baking in the sun. It filled her with an irrational sense of well-being, nostalgic for a time she could barely remember.
Jenny trotted across beige sand and hopped onto a fallen log, bleached white by the sea. She patted the smooth space next to her. “Sit here, Miz Tory. I want to talk to you.”
Smiling at the serious turn of phrase, Tory sat. The log was smooth, sun-warmed, a little sandy. “About what?”
“My mother,” Jenny said promptly. “I want to talk about my mother.”
“Listen, Jenny, I don’t think your daddy would like that.”
Jenny’s frown resembled her father’s, too. “The window you’re making is for my mommy. I can tell you lots of things that will help.” She pointed to the small purple and white flowers blooming close to the ground among the sea oats in the dunes. “See those?”
“Beach morning glories, aren’t they?” She hadn’t expected to, but she remembered the tiny, trumpet-shaped flowers from those early childhood holidays when her father was alive and the family summered on Tybee Island. Her fingers automatically picked up the pencil.
“Those were my mommy’s favorite flowers.” Jenny said it firmly, as if to refute argument.
“They’re very pretty.” Beach morning glories began to grow on the paper under her hand.
“I remember lots of things.” A frown clouded her small face. “Like how Mommy smelled, and what she liked to eat. And—”
“What are you doing?”
Tory’s heart jolted into overdrive. Adam stood at the end of the path, glaring. There wasn’t any doubt that his sharp question was aimed at her.
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