The Broken Spine by Dorothy St. James

Author:Dorothy St. James [St. James, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Delanie refused my offer to buy her a coffee. “If I drank caffeine at this time of night, I could forget about sleeping for the next week. As it is, I’ve been having trouble enough with sleeping lately.”

“You have?” Flossie steepled her slender fingers in front of her lips. “And why is that?”

The question seemed to startle Delanie. Her hands trembled as she retrieved a lacy handkerchief from inside her bag. She didn’t do anything with the little scrap of cloth other than let her nervous fingers play with it. “There’s been too much drama in this town. Cypress was founded as a gentle farming community. Then they built the lake. Still, everyone expected to be able to live a quiet life, a life only occasionally interrupted by tourists. And now”—she waved the frilly handkerchief in the air—“it feels like soon I won’t even recognize this place. The library’s renovation is only the first step. If Marvin can actually get a few tech industries to open shop in our town, we will find ourselves losing everything that makes Cypress special.”

Flossie looked at me and nodded encouragingly.

“We agree.” I reached across the table and rested my hand over her fidgeting fingers. “We’re worried about preserving the town’s character as much as anyone. You know that. That’s why I did what I did for the library.”

“I know. I know.” She shook her head in dismay. “We fought side by side trying to change Duggar’s mind about stripping the library of its books. You told him and told him how valuable those books were to the town. I told him too.”

I waited a beat before revealing the real reason we wanted to talk to Delanie. “I know that Anne Lowery is your niece. I overheard her talking on the phone with you this afternoon. I heard her say how you’d promised to help her.”

Delanie blinked. That was her only reaction. Actually, she blinked twice. And then she sat back and smiled. “Why wouldn’t I agree to help her? She’s my favorite. Don’t tell anyone you heard me say this, but the other children my brother spawned are brainless twits. You know I have no children of my own. It’s a decision I don’t regret, but sometimes I wish Anne were mine. And I do love having her living nearby instead of all the way across the country. So yes, I made sure she met with Duggar when he traveled to Silicon Valley to promote our town. I made sure she transitioned smoothly into her new position. And I’ve been working my butt off helping her get the recognition for the hard work she’s been doing, not that I’ve been successful. The good-old-boy club is as strong as ever in this blasted place.”

“You helped her?” I squeaked. “She’s destroying the library, and you’ve been helping her?”

“No, dear. She’s been doing her job. She’s bringing new technologies to the library, which isn’t a bad thing.” She shook out her frilly handkerchief and then spread it neatly on the table.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.