The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love by Joan A. Medlicott

Author:Joan A. Medlicott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

On a hot day in July, a nervous and excited Hannah drove with trepidation to the airport south of Asheville, an hour away, to pick up her grandsons. On that same day Amelia, in a tizzy, sat in the living room trying to decide which one of her photographs to submit for judging to the photographic show that Mike had arranged at a small private gallery in Asheville. None of the twenty photographs propped on the living room couch, on chairs, on the mantel and along the walls seemed good enough. Mike said she was her own worst enemy. In more ways than one, she thought.

Grace bustled about the kitchen baking cherry pies and sugar cookies that she would send to Mike with Amelia, but she was thinking about Bob Richardson. Gone eleven days. It seemed like months. She really liked him. She liked his deep baritone voice, his gentleness with Tyler, his smile, and his big square hands with the tiny spouts of hair on the knuckles. In their brief times together they had chatted about Tyler, but he had also asked where she was from. She had told him a little about Dentry and her family. Still his presence in the library was disorienting; it took concentration to stay focused on Tyler.

Her hands smothered in flour, Grace stared at the two mounds of dough, one waiting to be rolled into piecrust on the butcher block section of the countertop, the other to be flattened and cut for cookies. Good Lord, she thought, have I got a crush on Bob Richardson? Nonsense. At my age? She poked her hip, leaving a white smudge on her slacks. “Imagine such a thing,” she muttered, reaching for the rolling pin. The dough succumbed to the pressure of the rolling pin under her hands, growing rounder, wider, and thinner as she pressed and rolled. Lifting the thin slab of dough, Grace eased it gently into a pie pan and carefully fluted the edge. Then she stamped out cookie dough into giraffe- and cat-shapes and arranged them on a cookie sheet and slipped them into the oven.

Her thoughts returned to Bob. What did she know about him? He was seventy, well preserved, had been career military. A good listener. He had come up from Florida to be with his family. That was all she knew.

Holding the pie pan at eye level, Grace rotated it slowly. The fluted edge must be even all around. As she set the pan down on the table, her elbow hit the rolling pin, which clattered to the floor, spun wildly about before rolling under the round kitchen table. The phone rang while she was on her knees retrieving it, and Grace smacked her head as she struggled out from under the table.

From somewhere in the house Amelia picked up the phone.

“Hello. Is Grace Singleton there?”

The voice was deep, composed, confident, and oddly familiar. It reminded Amelia of someone, but she couldn’t place the speaker. “Just a moment,” she replied. “I’ll get her.

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