Stargazey Nights by Shelley Noble

Author:Shelley Noble
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

CAB DELIBERATED ABOUT DRIVING TO Crispin House. It wasn’t that far, but the fall had been dry, and if he walked, he risked arriving with dust-­covered shoes, which he didn’t think Miss Millie, whom he remembered as slightly eccentric, would appreciate.

But he had a lot to think about, and the walk would help clear his head. He dressed in slacks and shirtsleeves, added a tie at the last minute, and hoped to hell they hadn’t expected him to were a jacket for lunch. He’d only brought his funeral suit, and he had no desire to put it back on anytime soon. He wore his good shoes. He set out at a quarter to one, with the shoe buff cloth from his room’s amenities basket in his pocket.

Cab walked down the road and onto the drive that ran beneath a canopy of moss-­dripping trees. It was like stepping back into a time tunnel, he thought, as the sun was blocked out and the air grew chill. Minutes later, it spit him out at the other end of the drive and Crispin House.

Crispin House was a huge, neo-­Italianate mansion on the point of land that gave the small town its name. At one time, the Crispin family had owned pretty much all the waterfront property on both sides of the point.

It must have been glorious back in its heyday, but now it would barely pass as shabby-­genteel. It was desperately in need of a coat of paint. The porch was dotted with buckets, which, considering they were upended, must denote rotten floorboards. It needed help, and Cab’s hands itched to begin repairs.

But it would be totally rude to even mention the sorry state the house had fallen into. Better just to pretend not to notice.

He went up the steps rather cautiously. Rang the ancient bell, listened to it echo hollowly from inside the house. He could almost imagine a black house slave answering the door and was relieved that it turned out to be Beau.

“Come on in, the girls are in the parlor.”

The girls? For a second, Cab was at a loss, then realized Beau must be talking about his sisters, Millie and the other one, the one who’d left Stargazey as a teenager. Had Beau mentioned her name?

Beau ushered him through a wide archway into a huge parlor, filled with antiques.

A sofa and love seat faced each other in the middle of the room, with two chairs completing the square. Two women sat facing each other.

“Here’s Cabot,” Beau announced.

Both women turned toward the door.

Cab recognized Miss Millie immediately. Older, yes, but with that same not-­quite-­here aura about her, as if she were channeling a Southern belle, or a character from a Tennessee Williams play. She was dainty, with fine white hair pulled back from her face.

But it was the other one that grabbed Cab’s attention. She was more like Beau, lanky and tall, slightly rawboned, with a head of wild gray-­white curls.

“Why, how you’ve grown,” Millie said, interrupting Cab’s inspection of her sister.

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