Cardwell Christmas Crime Scene & Secret of Deadman's Coulee by B.J. Daniels

Author:B.J. Daniels [Daniels, B.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488025501
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

Lila Bailey busied herself arranging the food as it arrived from local residents. She had to keep busy or she knew she would lose her mind. The thought shook her, considering that her mother, Nina Mae, had literally lost hers and was now in the nursing home in Whitehorse.

The only way Lila could cope was not to allow herself even the thought that her oldest daughter wasn’t coming back. Eve could take care of herself. Eve was the strong one. Eve was a survivor. Even as upset as she’d been yesterday.

Lila had to believe that. If she gave in to doubts, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold herself together and for Lila, losing control had always been her greatest fear.

More food arrived. She arranged it on the extra tables the men had set up for her. Everyone pitched in when needed. She recalled with shame how the town had offered help when they heard Chester had left her.

Her face flamed at the pity she’d seen in their faces. No one believed Chester would be back. And she was sure they’d all speculated on why Chester had left her.

Well, let their tongues wag. She had turned down their help. She’d pay hell before she’d take their pity. She’d show them all. Lila Cross Bailey didn’t need anyone. Never had.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She furtively wiped them away. The last thing she’d do was let one person in this community see her cry.

Not that there was much left. There were only a half-dozen houses still standing, most of them empty, in what had once been a thriving homestead town a hundred years ago.

Amid the weeds, abandoned houses and what was left of the foundations of homes long gone was Titus and Pearl Cavanaugh’s big white three-story house at the far end of the street. Next to it was the smaller house where Titus’s mother, Bertie, had lived before she’d become so sick she had to go into Whitehorse to the nursing home.

A couple of blocks behind the community center and near the creek stood the old abandoned Cherry house, which kids still said was haunted. Lila was eleven when she heard what sounded like a baby crying in the empty old Victorian house. She still got goose bumps when she thought about it.

At the opposite end of town was Geraldine Shaw’s clapboard house, a large red barn behind it.

Overlooking the town was the Whitehorse Cemetery, where residents had been buried from the time the original homesteaders settled here. The most recent grave belonged to Abigail Ames, Pearl Cavanaugh’s mother. Next to the cemetery was the fairgrounds where community summer events took place.

As Lila looked up, a tumbleweed cartwheeled across Main Street. Like many small towns across eastern Montana, both Old Town and Whitehorse were dying, the young people leaving, the old people heading for the cemetery on the hill.

The young people left for better jobs or to go to school and never return, glad to have escaped the hard life of farming or ranching such austere county.

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