Moorehouse Legacy: Beauty and the Black Sheep Part 5

No.

The protest didn't come from her head. It came from her heart. And the strength of it flooded through her body, making her hands shake.

There had to be a way to make it work. There just had to be. She refused to sell the only thing left of her parents, of her family. She had worked hard all of her adult life to keep White Caps. She wasn't going to stop now just because the stakes seemed more stacked than ever against her.

She thought of Nate. A fine French chef. Maybe he could, as he put it, get some a.s.ses back in those chairs. And she could run some specials on the Lincoln room in the newspapers around the area. There was always Labor Day to look forward to. They already had three rooms booked and usually they had a full house. And hadn't she read in the paper the other day that tourism was on the upswing after a couple of hard years?

The tide was going to turn in their favor and it would be a d.a.m.n shame to quit just before things got better. She only had to have a little faith.

Frankie checked her watch and picked up her purse. She needed to go into town to make a deposit before the bank closed at noon and there were a few odds and ends she had to pick up. As soon as she got back, she was going to take care of the lawn. It always seemed as if the moment she finished pushing that arthritic mower around, she had to start on the acres of gra.s.s all over again. She'd asked George to do it once but it had looked like a s.h.a.g carpet when he was finished. It was easier to do the job by herself than try and talk him through the process a second time.

She pa.s.sed through the kitchen, where Nate was working over the stove, and called upstairs. "Joy, I'm heading into town, you need anything?"

"Can Grand-Em and I come?"

Frankie was tempted to say no. She wanted to get back before the vegetable delivery came and going anywhere with their grandmother was a production.

Joy appeared at the top of the stairs. "Please?"

"Okay, but hurry." Frankie wondered what the big deal was as she glanced over at Nate. "That smells good. What are you making?"

"Stock. I'm putting what's left of that chicken to good use." He turned back to a cutting board and started in on an onion. Half of the thing was reduced to a pile of perfectly cut little squares in moments. The other half he cut in long shreds. "Hey, I told the tow truck I called to move Lucille here, okay? I've got to figure out what's wrong with her."

And he fixes cars, she thought. As well as names them.

"Fine with me. You can put her in the barn out back."

"Thanks." He picked up the fluffy white melange, threw it in the pot and stirred.

When Joy came downstairs with their grandmother, Frankie got a load of Grand-Em's outfit for the day. It was a lavender satin gown, and though the thing must have been fifty years old, it still looked beautiful. Somehow, Joy managed to keep all the old gowns in good shape, spending hours with a needle patching and st.i.tching them back together, year after year. G.o.d only knew where she got the patience.

"You need anything?" Frankie asked Nate.

He looked up and grinned. "Nothing you can buy me."

With a wink thrown to Joy, he went back to his work.

As they left, Frankie's mouth was set. She wasn't sure what she resented more, his harmless flirtation or her reaction to it.

They headed out into the sunshine to her old maroon Honda. Grand-Em, who was used to being chauffeured, was eased in the back seat and Joy sat beside her. During the drive along Lake Road, the old woman narrated landmarks, commenting on the houses she'd gone to parties in years ago. It was the same patter every time, the same names, the same dates. The speech seemed to have a calming effect on her, as if the old familiarity pulled her mind together temporarily, and Joy responded at the right intervals while Frankie drove.

Downtown, such as it was, was built around a square of lawn that had four thick-trunked maples at each of the corners. In the center, there was a six-sided white gazebo that was a point of pride to residents. Big enough to house the twenty-piece orchestra that played there twice a summer, it was mostly used by tourists as a backdrop for pictures. Glowing in the morning sun, it stood out against the green lawn like a silvery cage.

The Lake Road split in two around the gazebo, rejoining on the far side. Fronting the streets, were the local bank, Adirondack Trust Savings, a drugstore known as Pills, the post office and Mickey's Groceries. There were also some touristy shops that sold Adirondack-style trinkets, as well as a few antique stores that hiked their prices up by a factor of ten in the months between May and September. Barclay's Liquors and the Hair Stoppe were on the far end.

"I'm going into the bank and the post office," Frankie said, parallel parking into an open s.p.a.ce. "Why don't you two wait here?"

"Sure," Joy murmured while craning her neck around and looking at the cars parked on either side of the road. With all the Independence weekend visitors, they were a fancier lot than the local traffic. The Jaguars, Mercedes and Audis signified that the owners of the mansions were back in residence.

As Frankie got out, she wondered who her sister was searching for.

He would be up this weekend, Joy thought. He always came for the Fourth of July.Grayson Bennett drove a black BMW 645Ci. Or at least that had been what he'd come in last year. Two years ago, he'd had a big, dark red Mercedes. Before that, it had been a Porsche. His first car had been an Alfa Romeo convertible.

For a woman who didn't care about the automotive industry in the slightest, Joy knew a h.e.l.l of a lot about cars, thanks to him.

There were a few people walking the clean, pale sidewalks and she sifted through them. Gray was easy to pick out of the crowd. He was tall, imposing and he didn't walk places, he marched. He also tended to wear sungla.s.ses, dark ones that played off his black hair and made him look even more intense.

She realized that Gray would be thirty-six this year. His birthday bash, held every year at the Bennett estate, was one of the highlights of the social season although it wasn't as if she or Frankie were invited. The Moorehouses had once mixed with the Bennetts regularly, back in Grand-Em's day, but with the declining fortunes of Joy's family, the two had ceased moving in the same circles.

That didn't mean she couldn't picture a different scenario, however.

A favorite daydream of hers was to imagine going to that party, dressed beautifully, floating among his guests until he noticed her and saw her as she really was. As a woman, not some child. He would take her into his arms and kiss her and then they would go off somewhere quiet together.

In real life, their encounters were a lot less romantic. In the summer months, if she saw him around town, she'd plant herself in his path. He would stop and she'd hold her breath, willing him to remember her name. He always did. He'd smile down at her and sometimes even take off his sungla.s.ses as he asked about her family.

From the left, she saw a BMW approach and she leaned forward. It was the wrong kind.

As she settled back against the seat, letting Grand-Em natter on about the opening of the town library back in 1936, she couldn't ignore how one-sided her attraction was.

She looked down at her bare ring finger. If she kept up the teenage fantasy, she knew she was on the winding trail to spinsterhood. She'd probably end up weird Auntie Joy who'd never married and smelled like mothb.a.l.l.s and denatured perfume.

Now there was a picture.

If they could only leave White Caps and move somewhere with more people her own age, she might be able to get Gray Bennett off her mind. Maybe it wasn't his fantastic good looks or his dark, s.e.xy voice or those pale blue eyes.

Maybe it was just a lack of viable alternatives.

"Did you know that my fourth great-grandfather built that gazebo?" Grand-Em inquired. She wasn't looking for an answer. It was an invitation for a prompting.

"Really. Tell me about it," Joy murmured, putting her hand down in her lap.

"It was in 1849. There had been a terrible winter that year and the old one had collapsed because of the snow. Great Grand Pa-Pa declared the structure unsafe...."

Grand-Em spoke with a proper intonation, her words carefully considered as if they were a gift to the listener and therefore must be chosen with respect and affection. And Joy usually found them fascinating. She loved listening to the old stories, particularly about the b.a.l.l.s and the clothes.

But not today.

After nearly a decade of pining for a man she couldn't have, Joy was struck with how pathetic her attraction to Gray was. Pinning hopeless dreams on a fantasy was like feeding yourself with chocolate. A great short-term buzz with no lasting value.

It really was time to give up. The focus on Gray had gotten her nowhere except to the edge of obsession. And the fantasy, like her, was getting old.

Joy stared out at the crowd. Where was he- "I beg your pardon," Grand-Em remarked. "But the gazebo is out the other window. Whatever are you looking for?"

"The man I want to marry," Joy muttered, turning her head so Grand-Em would continue. "As crazy as that sounds."

"You are engaged?"

Joy shook her head, thinking that was never going to happen. "Please continue, Grand-Em. You were saying about the gazebo?"

Grand-Em nodded and started to talk again.

Moments later, Frankie jogged up to the car. She put the mail on the pa.s.senger seat in front and tossed over a little white paper bag that read Thomas Pills Rx.

"We're doing the gazebo story now?" she said, starting the car.

Joy nodded and thought maybe she'd ask Frankie for some advice. She sure could use some perspective.

Frankie threw the car in gear, did an illegal U-turn and bolted for home. "Listen, if you can handle lunch service, I'm going to do the lawn and water the window boxes. We had a cancellation for next weekend which means we'll only have one couple. One. Can you believe it? G.o.d, we used to be packed."

Or maybe she'd just keep to herself, Joy thought.

"Oh, hey, you'll never believe who I ran into."

Grand-Em coughed loudly, aware that another conversation was interrupting her story. Frankie ignored the signal, so Joy turned and patted her grandmother's hand. The last thing they needed was for her to get hyper, which was what could happen when her narratives were cut off.

"It's okay," Joy said gently. "Keep going."

Grand-Em smiled and started to talk again.

"Gray Bennett," Frankie said.

Joy flipped her head around. "What did you say?"

"Gray Bennett. I saw him in the post office. He's up for the weekend and said he was thinking about staying all summer."

Joy's heart started kicking in her chest. "Really? The whole summer?"

Grand-Em coughed again.

"Yeah." Frankie darted out around a car and splashed back into the right lane as they went up Yellow-belly Hill.

Joy stared out the window, trying to tamp down on her excitement and losing the battle. "Er-how did he look?"

"Oh, you know, Gray. He always looks good."

Yes, she knew that. All too well. But she wanted to know everything. How long his hair was, was he wearing shorts, did he look happy?

G.o.d, did he have a ring on his finger?

She grimaced, thinking she would surely have read about it if he'd gotten married. The wedding of someone like him would make it into the papers.

"He asked about you, by the way."

Joy froze. "Really?"

Frankie nodded and then started saying something about the plumber.

As Joy looked out of the window, the sounds of her sister and her grandmother talking at the same time filled the inside of the car. Trapping her.

But when she began to think about Gray, she started to smile.

Chapter Five.

F rankie wiped her arm across her forehead, bent forward at a steeper angle and pushed the mower harder. The blades whirled and gra.s.s was kicked up in a green flurry until it covered her running shoes. If she went fast enough, she could probably finish the side- and lake-facing portions of the three-acre lawn by the afternoon.

"Frankie!"She lifted her head and saw Joy in a window.

"Phone! It's Mike Roy."

Frankie stopped pushing as her mind jumped to conclusions. Why was her banker calling her in the middle of a holiday weekend?

"Frankie?"

"Coming."

Leaving the mower where it was, she was heading for the back door when Stu pulled up with his truck full of vegetables.

"I'll be with you in a minute," she called out.

He nodded, lit up a cigarette and seemed perfectly happy to wait.

As she steamed through the kitchen, Nate looked up from the stove. "The vegetables here?"

She nodded. "I'll be out in a-"

"Great," he said, heading for the door.

Frankie paused, wanting to reel him back in. As a homeowner indebted up to her eyeb.a.l.l.s, however, her banker took precedence.

In her office, she straightened her clothes before picking up the receiver, telling herself Mike Roy wouldn't be able to hear the fact that she was sweaty and disheveled. She grabbed the phone and imagined him telling her he was foreclosing on the mortgage. And selling White Caps to a real estate developer who was going to run two hundred condos with hot tubs up the mountain.

"Hi, Mike," she said. "What's up?"

Have you turned into a shark after five years of being a lamb?

"I was wondering if I can bring someone by to visit White Caps. He's in town over the weekend and I'm showing him around. I can't very well leave out the place where Lincoln slept."

She let out her breath with relief. "Of course, bring him over anytime. We have a guest in Abe's room but I'll ask whether he'd mind if you put your head in."

"Great."

There was a pause. Her stomach clenched. "Listen, Mike, about the mortgage payments. I'd like to come in and show you my plan for covering what I owe."