An Angel to Die For (30 page)

“Zorah? Are you saying you suspected your own aunt of murder?”

I reminded her about the incident with the shovel. “She admitted she wanted to hit him, Mom.”

“Who wouldn’t? But what happened to the shovel? Did the police test it for prints?”

“No, and they wouldn’t find any if they did.” I looked straight ahead.

“And why not? Prentice, you didn’t?”

“Oh, but I did. Went straight to Aunt Zorah’s tool-shed, and there it was—right where that rat Maynard Griggs had planted it. Meant to incriminate her to throw the police off his own trial, only I didn’t know that then.”

“Did you really think Zorah put it there?” I could tell my mother was making an effort to keep her voice even.

“It was
Dad’s shovell
Remember that little crack in the handle? What was I supposed to think? I wiped the handle clean and hosed off the metal part. Last I saw, it was sticking out of a sack of manure in our shed.”

“Prentice, you destroyed evidence. That was probably the murder weapon.” Now Mom’s voice really did crack.

“I know,” I said. “But after what happened with Uncle Faris, it seemed Aunt Zorah deserved a break. I’m not proud of what I did.”

I waited for Mom to speak. “I am,” she said quietly.

“I guess we’ll never know what makes Aunt Zorah tick,” I said. “I can’t imagine what made her do what she did today—and in front of all those people. You know how proud she is. She didn’t have to humble herself like that.”

“Says an angel told her to,” Mom said.

“An angel?”

“That’s what she told me. Said she came to her in a dream, and Zorah knew then what she had to do.”

My mother smiled. “I wonder if it’s the same one Ola saw.”

I didn’t doubt it for a minute.

Mom was going to spend a few days with Aunt Zorah to help soothe her fractured id, so I left the two of them in town and drove back to Smokerise with Joey. It was the first time I’d been responsible for the baby
on my own, and I was a little nervous . . . well, okay, I was scared silly about it. What if he got sick? Wouldn’t eat? What if he cried for Mom, for Ola—anybody but me?

Mom had fed and changed Joey at Aunt Zorah’s and he’d dropped off to sleep in his car seat. Now I lifted him, all pink and warm against my shoulder, and carried him inside, dreading the cold, empty house. What on earth was I thinking? Was I really going to do this: Chance a new business venture with Dottie with few clients and very little capital? And I knew absolutely nothing about babies!

I hesitated on the bottom step, took a deep breath, and shifted the baby in my arms, feeling his soft hair brush my cheek. If I planned to begin my new life with Joey at Smokerise, I’d have to learn to deal with whatever came my way. And I might as well start tonight.

It was already dark outside but I was glad to see a light in the kitchen. At least the house wouldn’t seem so gloomy.

I was surprised to find the back door unlocked, and for a moment fear held me paralyzed until I saw the fire dancing low on the hearth and knew who had put it there. Augusta, eyes half-closed in contentment, circled the kitchen, swaying in rhythm with the cat as a partner to a tune I recognized as the “Jersey Bounce.”

I inhaled deeply. Something smelled wonderful. In all the excitement of my aunt’s so-called press conference, I hadn’t had time to eat and my stomach was unforgiving.

“Supper in twenty minutes,” Augusta said with a feather-touch of her fingers to Joey’s sleeping face. She wore her ginger-gold hair tied back with a vivid green ribbon and blew a kiss as she twirled past. Noodles nodded wide-eyed over her shoulder and kept time with her tail.

I snuggled Joey into his waiting crib upstairs and tucked the blanket around him. The puffy stuffed rabbit, an early Easter gift from Ola, grinned from the foot of his bed.

We were home.

There were two messages on my answering machine. The first was from Dottie who was excited over a definite “maybe” from a small construction company outside Atlanta. The second was from Rob. Four words:
I do, you know
. It wasn’t enough.

Augusta had set the small drop-leaf table in the den with Mom’s white damask bridge cloth and my great-grandmother Scott’s dainty rose-patterned china. She served a vegetable casserole I knew I’d never see the likes of again, no matter how hard I tried, with crusty French bread, pears, and cheese. The wine was light and dry with a slight citrus flavor, and I’d never seen my mother’s five-dollar garage sale stemware look as elegant.

Augusta touched her glass to mine. “To choices,” she said.

“To choices,” I echoed, lifting my glass in salute. But still I asked, “What choices?”

“Yours. Choices made and those yet unmade.”

“You mean the
right
choices?” I asked, and Augusta seemed to study the gleam of firelight on her wineglass.

“Sometimes—many times—there aren’t any right or wrong choices. It’s how you live with the ones you make.” She lifted her eyes to mine. “Your aunt made a choice today. You made one tonight.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“About Rob. Yes. I think I’ve known it all along.”

“And would Joey’s uncle have anything to do with it?” I saw amusement in her eyes.

I couldn’t deny the attraction, and I sensed that Pug Gaines felt it too, but it was too soon. Much too soon.

“He cares about Joey,” I said, “and I think he might care about me.” It warmed me thinking of Pug’s smile when he looked at the baby, the tenderness in his eyes, and I experienced a glow that had nothing to do with Augusta’s presence.

“It seems the two of you have reached an agreement about the child. His future.”

“He believes I should be the one to raise Joey. Pug’s mother died several years ago, and his father—well, you saw his father.”

“But there are other family members to consider,” Augusta reminded me.

“A brother and younger sister, and there will have to be a family conference, of course, with both sides, but Pug seems to think they’ll want to do what’s best
for Joey. Naturally I plan to take legal steps to adopt him as soon as things are settled.”

“So it’s definite then? You’ll stay on here at Smoke-rise?”

I nodded. “There’s no reason I can’t work out of an office here, and with Pug and his uncle leasing the land for their nursery, he’ll be able to be a part of Joey’s life almost as much as I will.”

“And a part of yours.” Augusta sipped daintily from her wineglass and looked smug.

“I hope so,” I said. There’s no use lying to Augusta.

“Either way, Prentice Dobson, you’re going to be all right.” She reached across the small table and touched my cheek, and I knew what I’d suspected all evening. Augusta Goodnight wouldn’t be here in the morning.

Part of me wanted to cry like a child, to beg her not to leave me, but I was Joey’s mama now, or hoped to be, and I had a business to help run. I would be much too busy to cry.

Soon after, on a sunny April morning, I took Joey to that gentle walled hillside where his mother lay and found her resting place covered in a tangle of wildflowers as glorious as spring itself. The angel stone that marked her grave now wore an expression of someone who knew a pleasant secret, and I knew Augusta had been there. Just as she is there in the jump-up aroma of morning coffee, the smooth dark richness of chocolate,
and all the music that makes my feet glad and my heart beat faster.

And when Queen Anne’s lace nods in the meadow and honeysuckle fills the air with its sweetness, she will be there as well.