in their lives—the one unchanging point. To think that she’d been dissatisfied all that time…She couldn’t get her mind around it.
“But you and Grandfather always seemed so happy together.”
“Darlin’, of course we were happy. I purely loved Richmond Bodine to distraction.” Miz Callie’s smile eased the tension that was tying Georgia in knots. “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about society in general. You can’t imagine how often I wanted to do somethin’ odd, just to shake everyone up.”
That feeling she did get. “I always wanted to walk into dancing class in jeans, just to see what would happen.”
Laughing, her grandmother took her hand again. “So we’re more alike than you thought.”
“I’m honored,” she said. “But, Miz Callie, bringing a homeless person back to the house—that could be dangerous.”
“That poor old man.” Her face crinkled in sorrow. “Georgia Lee, that man fought bravely for his country in World War II, and there he was living on the street. I declare, it made my blood boil. Yes, I brought him home, but I called Lola Wentworth—you remember Lola. Her mother, Alma Sue, was a great friend of mine—and she came over and met us. We gave that poor old soul a good meal, and then Lola was able to get him into a decent living situation.”
Georgia untangled the digressions into Lola’s heritage and realized that the woman must be in social work of some kind. It sounded as if Miz Callie’s actions, if unusual, had at least been sensible.
“Did you tell all this to my daddy?”
“I did not.” Miz Callie’s lips pressed together in a firm line. “He never asked, just started lecturing me as if I were a child.”
Her head began to throb. If she’d been hauled home from Atlanta just because her parents and grandmother couldn’t sit down and talk things through…
It couldn’t be that simple. They hadn’t even touched on Miz Callie’s move to the cottage, or the rumors of her plans for the property she owned on remote, uninhabited Jones Island, just up the coast.
Or, most of all, how Matthew Harper fit into this.
Chapter Two
Before Georgia could open her mouth to get in her next question, she heard quick, light footsteps on the stairs that led up to the deck from the beach.
“Miz Callie, I found a whelk. Wait ’til you see.” A young girl reached the top of the stairs, saw Georgia and stopped. Her heart-shaped face, lit with pleasure, closed down in an instant, turning into a polite, self-contained blank.
The girl reminded Georgia of herself as a child, running to Miz Callie with some treasure. But would she have shut down like that at the sight of a stranger? It was oddly disturbing.
“Lindsay, darlin’, how nice. Come here and let me see.” Miz Callie held out her hand to the child as she would to coax a shy kitten closer.
The little girl—seven or eight, maybe—shook her head, her blond ponytail flying, blue eyes guarded. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, no, I want you to meet my granddaughter, Georgia Lee. Why, when she was your age, I believe she loved the beach just as much as you do. Georgia, this is Lindsay.”
“Hi, Lindsay.” Some neighbor child, she supposed. “I’d love to see your shell, too.”
“Come on, sugar.” Miz Callie’s tender words had the desired effect, and the child crossed the deck to put her treasure in Miz Callie’s cupped hands. “It is a whelk. What a nice one—there’s not a chip on it.”
Georgia blinked, as if to clear her vision. For a moment she’d seen herself, her dark head bent close to Miz Callie’s white one, both of them enraptured at what her grandmother would have called one of God’s small treasures.
Only when the shell had been admired thoroughly did Miz Callie glance at Georgia again. “Georgia Lee, will you bring out a glass of lemonade for Lindsay?”
She started to rise, but the child shook her head. “No, thank you, Miz Callie. I better go.”
Miz Callie’s arm encircled the girl’s waist. “At least you can have a pecan tassie before you go. I know they’re your favorite.”
So her grandmother hadn’t known she was coming after all. The tassies were for Lindsay.
She smiled at the girl. “Do you live near here, Lindsay?”
Lindsay, faced with a direct question from a stranger, turned mute. Face solemn, she pointed toward the next house down the beach, separated from Miz Callie’s by a stretch of sea oats and stunted palmettos.
“We’ve been neighbors for a couple of months now,” Miz Callie said. “Didn’t I say? Lindsay is Matthew Harper’s daughter.”
Georgia’s assumptions lifted, swirled around as if in a kaleidoscope and settled in a new pattern. Matt Harper wasn’t just a strange attorney picked at random from the phone directory. He was a next-door neighbor, and his daughter was welcomed as warmly as if she were a grandchild, with a plate of her favorite cookies. He was far more entrenched than anyone had seen fit to tell her.
Matt welcomed the breeze off the ocean, even when it ruffled the papers he’d been working on at the table on the deck. He leaned back, frowning.
After looking through her notes, he understood what Mrs. Bodine wanted, but it would be more complicated than she probably suspected. He’d have to deal with a tangle of county, federal and state regulations, many no doubt conflicting.
And that wasn’t even counting the opposition of her family. How far were they willing to go to stop her?
He put the folder on the glass table top and weighted it down with a piece of driftwood Lindsay had brought from the beach. He’d start work on the project, and he’d fight it through for Miz Callie. But he’d like to be sure she wouldn’t call it off after a talk with Georgia.
Standing, he scanned the beach for Lindsay, not seeing her. She was responsible about staying within the boundaries they’d set up together, which meant that if she wasn’t on the beach, she’d gone over to the Bodine house.
He trotted down the steps. He should have mentioned to Lindsay that Mrs. Bodine had a guest. Now he’d have to go over there and retrieve her under Georgia’s cool gaze.
The woman had gotten under his skin, looking at him as if he were a con man out to steal a little old lady’s treasure. Couldn’t the Bodine clan understand that this was all Miz Callie’s idea? If he didn’t do the work for her, she’d find some other attorney who would.
He couldn’t afford that. He didn’t intend to sponge off Rodney any longer, accepting the clients Rod managed to persuade to use his new colleague. He needed to bring in business of his own, and Miz Callie’s project was the first opportunity he’d had since he and Lindsay moved here.
His steps quickened across the hard-packed sand. He’d taken the chance that this move would be good for Lindsay, a fresh start for both of them. Heaven knew they needed that.
The
