The Darlings by Vera Jane Cook

Author:Vera Jane Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, family drama, family saga, womens fiction, gay fiction, american south, women fiction, lgbt fiction, lesbian series
Publisher: Indies United Publishing House, LLC

Leah was the first thing Rhonda saw when she opened her eyes. She reached out her hand and pulled Leah close.

“Good morning, darlin’,” she said.

Leah bent to kiss her cheek. “Dickie Darling has been to see me,” she said.

“Dickie? What did he want?”

“He asked me if I had an antique gun.”

Rhonda sat up and reached for her coffee. “What did you tell him?”

“That I did not have an antique gun.”

Rhonda sipped the coffee and sat back. “Don’t worry,” Rhonda said. “We’re safe. There is no antique gun.” She looked into Leah’s eyes, her own wide and unblinking. Then she smiled.

Leah looked at her over the rim of her cup. “My daughter is on Fletcher’s case, a ‘cold’ case she calls it. She’ll solve it. She’s incredibly good at what she does.”

“Yes, she’s been to see me.”

Now it was Leah’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “And?”

Rhonda put her cup down and brought Leah back into her arms. “It’s all going to be perfectly fine. It can’t be solved. Witnesses?”

Leah shrugged her shoulders. They sat sipping their coffee for a while and then Leah moved to the chair opposite the bed.

“He’s still in love with me, you know.”

“Who is still in love with you? Certainly not Walter.”

Leah laughed. “No, Dickie Darling.”

“Oh, the cross-dresser, your old beau.”

“Very old beau, but I think he believes he’s protecting me from something.”

Rhonda put her coffee down and stretched out her arms. “Good. He owes you for never blabbing about his idiosyncrasies to anyone.”

“Except you.” Leah smiled. “Oh, yes, and Ginger.”

“I wish we could live together and to hell with rumor and conjecture. It’s as if we were ugly. Just two poor celibate creatures who can’t attract men.”

Leah stood up and returned to the bed. “We could live together if we moved somewhere else, where no one knows us, where no one would murder us for being queer as frost flowers.”

Rhonda laughed and took her hand. “We have Charleston.”

“We don’t live in Charleston,” Leah said. “We just visit there. I want to live somewhere together.”

“We have set up a house in Charleston.”

“The whole town thinks we’re gay, I’m sure.”

“They don’t even know what the word means, except in terms of ‘happy.’ So, they think we’re happy, do they?”

Leah’s eyes were sad, filmy the way they got when she was about to cry. She looked away.

“Leah, I can’t sell this house,” Rhonda said. “It’s my history. Charleston will have to do. We have a life there, be it part-time or not, it’s still a life.”’

“I’m not asking you to sell this house, but we could let someone live in it. Let Grayson have it.”

Rhonda laughed. “I would like nothing more than to give this house to Grayson so her family could get out of that rickety old shack they live in, but the historical society of the South’s most historic homes would have me murdered. They would kill me if I let a family of Negros live in one of the South’s most coveted historical plantations.”

Leah laughed. “You can afford to keep it maintained and we could live somewhere else.

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