Death of a Highland Heavyweight by Jayne E. Self

Author:Jayne E. Self
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: christian fiction
ISBN: 978-1-61116-196-0
Publisher: Pelican Book Group
Published: 2012-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

****

Geoff and I walked to the rocks beyond the end of the beach and stopped at Hunter Hall as we retraced our steps home.

It was dusk. I couldn’t put off talking to Carrie. We scooted around the house to the front door without being seen. An unknown green pickup was parked beside the curb.

Carrie answered the door so quickly that she must have been in the front room, though no lights brightened the windows. She sounded out of breath. Or angry.

I unconsciously stepped back a pace and came up hard against Geoff’s chest. “Is this a bad time?”

She pushed her flowing hair out of her eyes. “It’s been a long day, Gailynn. Is this important?”

I self-consciously flipped my ponytail over my shoulder, hoping I did not look as intimidated as I felt. “I left several messages for you.”

“I’m aware of that. I just wasn’t ready to see anyone.”

Fair enough. But this couldn’t wait. “It’s less than a week until Hum Harbour Daze, so I’ve made an executive decision about the parade marshal.”

She hadn’t turned on the entrance light. With only the hall lights behind her, I couldn’t make out her expression.

I felt Geoff’s hand on my shoulder. “Maybe, Carrie, if you asked us inside, we could sit and talk this through?”

“Is there something that needs talking through? I thought Gailynn said she’d made the decision.”

“But in respect to you, and Claude, and your feelings, she is seeking your confirmation before making it public.”

Carrie tossed her hair. “Look, Gailynn, if I thought you needed me to hold your hand through this, I would never have asked you to step up. If the job’s too hard, say so. I admit this is a painful time for me. But if the Steering Committee needs me, I’ll come back. Hum Harbour Daze has been the major local event for nearly a century, and I won’t leave it to implode on my watch.”

“It’s not imploding. And it’ll survive perfectly well without a parade marshal. For this year, at least.”

Carrie sucked in her breath. “Excuse me?”

“The committee’s decided, in honor and respect for your late husband, we will not select an alternate parade marshal. Claude is irreplaceable. And we won’t even try.”

Carrie fished a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes. “The committee decided that?”

With my input. “Yes.”

“They really didn’t choose Danny?”

Geoff assumed his empathetic, doctor face. “Would that have been so hard for you?”

“Impossible.” Her lower lip started to tremble. “That man has been the bane, bane of our lives for so long, that it rips my heart, rips it right out, to imagine him benefitting from my tragedy.”

“No one is benefitting from this, Carrie,” Geoff said.

She blew her nose into the tissue. “I’d really like to be alone.”

She made me feel like an absolute heel. Obviously, she was just trying to hang on to her last shreds of composure, and here I was forcing Hum Harbour Daze concerns down her throat. “I’m sorry, Carrie. I just wanted you to hear the committee’s decision from me and not on the radio or something.

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