Home address: Miami. She would never have guessed it. The two looked like they’d just stepped out of a New York Checker cab.
“Boo!”
Honor jumped, then turned around and hugged the eight-year-old girl who’d come up behind her. She’d been so engrossed in her thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed Lockey sneak up on her.
“What’re you doing, Mom?” Lockey asked as she plunked down her backpack onto the antique mahogany sideboard that served as the B&B’s reservation desk.
“Not much. How was school?” Honor swept her hand across Lockey’s brow. The girl smiled and hugged her again.
Everyone said mother and daughter were like clones, both blond, blue-eyed, petite. But Honor saw another in her daughter, especially when the child smiled. Lockey’s grin would start at the right corner and grow from there. After more than eight years away from that grin, Honor still remembered, and the memory of it could pierce her heart.
“Barton Phelps is still teasing me, even after Ms. Gibbons told him not to,” Lockey said with all the fabulous drama of a second-grader. “I hate him, Mommy. I really do. I’m sorry.”
Honor melted, as she always did with her daughter. “Look, it just sounds like Barton Phelps is a little boy with a crush on you, love. I’d just forget him. He’ll go away if you ignore him.”
Lockey looked at her mom in horror. “You mean he likes me? Yeeek!” She ran around the foyer, shaking her hands in disgust.
Honor laughed. But the fun was cut short the second Lockey ran into the black-suited form of Larry Metz and his companion, who appeared at the rear entrance.
Lockey took a step back as if by instinct. On the same impulse, Honor pulled her daughter to the reservation desk and stepped in front of her.
“Is everything to your liking, gentlemen?” she asked, again with her hosteler’s smile.
“We’re going out,” was all Metz offered, as he and Keliher made their way to the front door.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything you need. I’ll be happy to recommend homes to tour—” Honor’s words were cut short by the slam of the door.
Lockey went to her and put her arms around her waist. “Who were those men, Mommy?”
Honor shook her head. “Rude Yankees,” she answered with a laugh. “Never mind them. Let’s see what we have for a snack, and then I’ll need some help picking flowers for breakfast tomorrow. Are you ready?”
Lockey nodded.
Honor took her by the hand and headed for the kitchen. On the outside she was all mom, chocolate chip cookies and fussing over homework. On the inside she was worried.
She didn’t like Larry Metz and Jack Keliher. But her opinion was formed by more than just a vague feeling. She didn’t understand why two men in suits would check into a family bed and breakfast with an oddly large black duffle bag, then leave right afterward with their awkward luggage in tow, as if they were afraid to leave it in the room. Beside the contrast with innocent little Lockey when the child bumped into them, Metz and Keliher looked ridiculous lugging that duffle all the way through the lobby. The thing was big enough to be a body bag.
Honor shuddered. Her imagination was getting the best of her. It was their business what they did with their luggage.
They were probably just disappointed with their rooms and had decided to ditch the place without telling her. That was why they were leaving so soon, and with their bag.
With any other two guests, Honor might have been miffed that they hadn’t given her the chance to correct what was bothering them, but with these two, she found she couldn’t shake the feeling of relief. She didn’t want any shady characters at her B&B. She was a single mother, running a business from her home. Vulnerability was always an issue.
Honor’s relief at the thought that the men might have gone elsewhere only increased as she watched Lockey pull out her math workbook from her backpack.
But then her stomach plummeted when she looked out the kitchen window and saw the sheriff’s car pull into the back drive.
“Doug! Great to see you. What brings you to my quiet little place?” Honor extended her hand. Through the screen door she could see Lockey at the kitchen table starting her homework.
“I’ve come to see if you’ve done married yet, girl.” Doug ignored the outstretched hand and gave her a bear hug.
He was no longer a young man and he suffered from a too-large gut and not enough exercise, but Sheriff Doug Landry was one of the best. During the sixties, when racial fire was raging through Mississippi, he’d taken the townspeople by the throat and told them to get along—that no one under his jurisdiction, black or white, was going to suffer from a random act of hatred. And just as the town had done when the Northern Army had arrived, everyone decided their place was worth saving, so there were virtually no incidents in Natchez. Even now, it was a quiet little town, although tourism, drugs and gambling had arrived, as they seemed to have everywhere.
“Come and sit. Let me make you some coffee. Then you can quiz me on my love life, and I can quiz you on the reasons for this visit.” Honor raised an eyebrow.
Doug laughed.
She showed him to a floral-cushioned seat on the back veranda. He took off his hat and laid it on the white wicker table.
“Okay, shoot,” Honor said archly when the coffee was ready.
“Girl, why hasn’t some man snapped you up? With your looks and sense of humor, how could a man resist?”
Honor chuckled. “They’ve resisted all right. Besides, you know I’m looking for a man just like you, Doug, but unfortunately, Doris isn’t making any loaners.”
He coughed through his laughter. “And that wife of mine asks about you all the time. She’s going to be madder’n a snake if I tell her I left Shaw’s Retreat without a certified acceptance of a dinner invitation. How about Wednesday?”
“I’d love to come. Have Doris call and tell me what time, and I’m there.” She sat down in the wicker seat next to him. “Now, why the visit, Doug? Is something up?”
Doug wiped his brow with the white handkerchief he kept in his breast pocket. “I’m just paying a call to let you know not to be worried about all the cars and stuff that’ll be traveling down this road after tomorrow.”
“Down this road? But this is a dead-end street. What’s going on?”
“Seems your neighbor’s come back, girl.”
Honor shook her head, bewildered. Shaw’s Retreat was a fine Gothic house built in 1850 for Natchez’s first physician, her great-great-great-grandfather. Next door to the property was the old carriage house, which had been sold during the Depression. The carriage house was now home to a nice elderly widow.
“Mrs. Bennett’s been gone? I thought I just saw her,” she said.
“‘Fraid to tell you, girl, but it’s your other neighbor who’s come back.” He pointed to the property on the other side of the house. “Blackbird Hall’s comin’ back to life as of tomorrow.”
Suddenly she wanted to wring her hands and run away like a child. With heroic effort, she glanced casually at the huge acreage that sat on the other side of Shaw’s Retreat. The road ended at the gates of Blackbird Hall, but for years Honor had taken it for granted that the road ended at Shaw’s Retreat, because Blackbird Hall had been boarded up and closed down for as many years as...well, as Lockey had been..
“You’re a thousand miles away, girl.”
Honor shot her gaze back to the sheriff. “I just can’t believe, after all this time, we’re finally going to have a neighbor over there.”
“And what a neighbor. His damned sec‘etary