IN FOR A PENNY (The Granny Series) (5 page)

Chapter Five

Maggie sat in one of the six rocking chairs in a perfect row across Summer Haven’s front porch. She was elbow-deep in her twentieth garbage bag of scratcher tickets when a tow truck pulled into the circle drive. A man, in his late thirties if she had to guess, stepped out and pulled off his baseball cap. He wore coveralls and a friendly smile as wide as the embroidered name—Christopher Cartersworth—on his shirt. “Howdy there. Is Mrs. Fairview around?”

Darn it, every time she was making progress she
was interrupted. She lifted another handful of tickets from the bag and thumbed through them as she answered.
“Lillian’s gone to town. Can I help you with something?”

“Maybe.
I’m here to pick up a trunk.”

Lillian hadn’t mentioned she was having something restored. Just like Lil to fix one of the family heirlooms instead of tending to maintenance first. Maggie tossed the losing and expired tickets in the pile of others and walked down to talk to the man. “Most of the bedrooms have a trunk of some type. Do you know which one?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s pre-Civil War.”

“Sweetheart, just about everything around here is from that era.”

“I think she said it’s in the Cherokee Rose Room.”

Maggie’s breath caught. “There has to be some mistake.” Doing any restoration on an antique like that would actually decrease its value. “Lil wouldn’t have work done on that trunk.”

“I’m not working on it, ma’am. I’m buying it for my wife as an anniversary present. I don’t understand why my wife loves all that old shi…stuff, but she does. And I have a feeling she’s gonna be
real
happy when I give her this.” The smile on his face told Maggie exactly what he figured his wife would give him in return.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait until Lillian gets home because this must be a big misunderstanding.”

The hopeful expression on his face slid straight off his chin. “But my anniversary is today.”

Her heart went out to him. It really did, but she wouldn’t just hand over a piece of history out of Lil’s house. Goodness knows
, she would’ve given anything for George to have been this passionate about an anniversary gift for her. She’d always appreciated the new split-leather tool belts and wire cutters, but flowers and hand-picked furniture would’ve been nice now and then.

Maggie sighed. “Tell you what, we’ll go upstairs and take a look at it and maybe by the time we’re done she’ll be home.”

She hated to string the man along, but disappointing people always made her feel like she was being rubbed all over with sandpaper.

“I’d appreciate that.” He situated his cap back on his head.

She led him inside. “Can I offer you a cold drink?”

“That’d be nice.” He smiled, and even with the sweat and a streak of grease on his cheek, the man was attractive.

“Your wife’s a lucky woman.”
Did I say that aloud?
By the fact that the man’s eyebrows had disappeared under the bill of his cap, the answer was yes. “I mean…I didn’t mean… Oh, shoot.” How was she ever going to find romance again when she acted like such a ninny around a man? And why in the world was she even thinking about romance?

“I’ll be sure to tell her you said so.”

Maggie poured him a big glass of sweet tea and led the way to the second floor.

Summer Haven was normally meticulous, but upstairs looked like a band of Merry Maids had waged an attack on dust and dirt. The floors shined with a recent waxing and the doorknobs
had been buffed until they gleamed.

“It’s this way.” Maggie opened the door and found it as immaculate as the hallway. Nothing was even slightly askew on the highboy dresser.

A shiver cruised over Maggie’s spine. It made her think of how she’d cleaned and arranged George’s den right after he passed away. Something wasn’t right at Summer Haven.

The Jenny Lind trunk sat at the end of the bed, its rich pine rubbed to a glowing patina.
The four iron bands were studded by brass buttons. And the rare brass double lock still worked perfectly, with the original key tucked securely inside. Of all the treasures in the house, this was one of Lil’s favorites.

“My wife will flip over this.” He stared down at the trunk and lifted a shoulder. “Like I said, I don’t really get all this excitement over a bunch of wood and metal, but if it makes her happy, then I’m all for it.”

“Why don’t I take down your phone number and I’ll have Lillian call you when—”

Just then, the sound of the front door opening and closing filtered upstairs.

Good. They could clear this up now. He would go away disappointed, but at least he wouldn’t have a false sense of hope.

Maggie rushed into the hallway and called down the stairs, “Lil, can you come up to the Cherokee Rose Room for a sec?”

“Maggie Rawls!” Lil’s tone was as sharp as a diamond-edged saw blade. “What in Pete’s sake are you doing in that room?”

Lillian’s wildly swinging moods the past couple of weeks were getting on Maggie’s last nerve. If she didn’t know Lil had already gone through the change, she’d suspect PMS. Maggie didn’t appreciate
being scolded like a child, but she wasn’t going to kick up a fuss in front of this nice man. “I have a gentleman up here who says he’s supposed to pick up the Jenny Lind trunk. I already told him he’s mistaken, but he’s insistent. Can you come talk with him?”

Maggie stood there waiting for a response, but there was only silence from below.

Finally, with a weariness Maggie had never heard before, Lillian said, “It’s not a mistake. Five hundred dollars and the trunk is his to take.”

Maggie reeled back from the balustrade and glanced over her shoulder at the man who was
already scooting the trunk away from the bed.

He gave Maggie his empty tea glass and smiled. It was an apologetic expression, but not so apologetic he was going to leave without his treasure.

“I guess you knew what you were talking about after all.”

The man took a fat wad of folded cash from his pocket, peeled off five crisp one hundred dollar bills and handed them to her.

She snapped each one between her fingers as she counted them. She’d handled enough cash in the hardware store over the years to spot a fake bill with pretty good accuracy. She stepped to the window and held up each one, looking for the watermark.

“The money’s good.” He tipped the trunk up on its side. “If it makes you feel any better, ma’am, my wife will take real good care of this trunk. It’s been on her wish list for as long as I’ve known her.”

Maggie put the money in the back pocket of her khakis. “I can help you with that. Let me get one end,” she offered.

“Oh no, ma’am.
I’ve got it.”

What—you think I’m too old to help carry something?
She reluctantly stepped back and let him have at it.

He hefted the trunk and hauled it down the stairs.

It’d been quite a while since she’d seen muscles flex like that. Lord, did looking at a man young enough to be her son make her one of those…those cougars?

As he headed out the front door, Maggie stood by feeling more than a little useless and still confused. It wasn’t her trunk to protect so why did Lillian selling off family heirlooms worry Maggie so much?

The front door closed behind the young husband with a finality that shot all the way to Lillian’s toes. What was done, was done. That could certainly become her life motto.

At her small desk in the kitchen, Lillian scanned the list she’d hand-printed on a legal pad. Every letter of every word
was perfectly formed with a Faber-Castell pencil. She lifted the top page to find those letters embossed three sheets deep. She let the pages drop, then added a few more items to the list.

            
 
Make arrangements for care of Daddy’s car

             
Remove tree limbs over veranda

             
Settle up account at hardware store

There wasn’t money to hire anyone to help with that tree, and the thought of climbing that ladder she’d just bought on credit sent tendrils of exhaustion through Lillian’s arms and legs. But it didn’t matter how tired she was. So many things to
be done. So little time.

Lillian tore the list from the pad and punched holes in the side so she could add it to the binder she’d started for Maggie.

Maggie, please forgive me for this.

The thick vinyl three-ring binder held the information to everything Lillian could think of. Legal, insurance, bank accounts, warranties
and
even how to get the persnickety furnace fired up the first time of the winter season.

She pulled an envelope from between two books on the desk.

Unwinding the string from the loops on the back of the five-by-seven manila envelope seemed symbolic of her life right now, hanging on by a thread. She dumped the contents and eyed the receipts. She tugged one in particular from the pile. The
pawn slip from her ring. If she didn’t pay the pawnshop before she went away, there’d be no getting them back.

In the top corner of the list, she wrote herself a note
:
7/1 pick up b/f appt at WSPC.

The sound of Maggie’s footsteps on the stairs filtered toward Lillian, and she quickly closed the binder and tucked it back into the desk drawer, then slid the envelope of receipts back into the hiding spot.

Lillian had just hopped up from her desk when Maggie stomped into the kitchen.

“What in heaven’s name was that all about?” Maggie demanded.

“He’s a very nice man and his wife has been looking for a chest like that for years. They’re about to have their first baby. Can you imagine all those tiny clothes she’ll fold and store in there?” Lillian lifted a hand to her heart. “It’s really quite romantic if you think about it.”

“I’m sure it will be very sweet, but have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Didn’t you tell me once that your great-great something or other brought that chest all the way from Boston in the 1850s?”

Maggie never was an easy one to bamboozle. “Come with me,” Lillian said. “I need help unloading something from the car.”

“I’m certain that trunk is worth more than five hundred dollars.” Maggie dug the money out of her pocket and handed it to Lillian.

Lillian stuffed it into the top of her purse and then motioned for Maggie to follow.

“You can’t just change the subject and make it go away, Lil. What’s going on? Please talk to me.” The hurt in Maggie’s voice was plain as daylight at noon.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not losing my mind. It’s just time for that trunk to be passed on again, and Lord knows, the Summer line ends with me.” The anger and guilt still felt like boiling water rolling in a teakettle after all these years.
Damned Harlan.
By the time they’d figured out her eggs were farm-fresh and his swimmers were belly-up, it was too late for babies. And this, a stately old house that took more care and feeding than Harlan ever had, was her legacy. Only now she didn’t have anyone to leave it to. And really, when you got right down to it, was it a legacy or a burden?

She shook away the thought. If she lost focus and belief now, it would all be over for good. At least now she had the money to pay for the ladder. Thank goodness he’d come to get the trunk like he said he would. It was perfect timing really.

Maggie followed Lillian out to the car. “You drove like that?”

The fiberglass extension ladder poked out of the back of the car like a NASA missile ready for launch. 

Lillian waved a hand. “I didn’t go over twenty-five miles an hour and it’s only a few blocks.”

Maggie blew a breath that pouffed her bangs up. “You could have shish-
ka-bobbed someone or snagged an overhead line with that thing. You should’ve called me to bring the truck.”

“Quit your fussing. Nothing happened.”

Maggie marched to the trunk of the car. Half a ball of twine zigzagged between the ladder and the metal frame of the trunk. “Don't guess it was going anywhere.”

“Darrell secured it for me.”

Maggie whipped a knife out of her pocket and started slapping at the string. “He should have delivered the darn thing if he wanted to be helpful.” She stepped back and put her fists on her nicely rounded hips, just above her ever-present roll of silver duct tape, as the trunk flew open.

“Hope you ate your Wheaties, Lil, because this thing probably weighs fifty pounds.”

“Surely not,” Lillian said. “Darrell carried it on one shoulder like a sack of feed. I hope we can drag it.”

“Why did you buy this thing to begin with?”

“I’ve got to keep things in order around here. I can’t let this place fall down around my ears. And on top of everything else that snobby Angelina Broussard has conjured up some local historical society committee and wants to put her stamp of approval on Summer Haven provided it meets with their so-called standards.”