Something Buried, Something Blue

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “You probably did. I must have forgotten.”

  She can’t help but notice that he seems relieved and that his attitude toward Parker is slightly warmer as he congratulates him on the upcoming nuptials.

  “Thank you. I’m a lucky man. How about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Divorced? Widowed?”

  “No and no.” Drew clears his throat. “Never married.”

  “Well, I highly recommend it.”

  “You’re not married yet,” Bella points out.

  “Well, no, that’s true. Who knows? Maybe Daisy and I will be absolutely miserable.” Parker laughs heartily, as if it’s the most absurd idea he’s ever heard.

  Bella wonders if he’s trying to convince himself, or her and Drew.

  “That looks heavy, Bella,” Drew says, turning to her and reaching for the bucket. “Let me carry it for you.”

  “I’ve got it. You’re already carrying your tools.”

  “It’s not a problem. I like to be balanced.” He takes it from her and they head toward the house, accompanied by a slightly sheepish-looking Parker.

  “I should have offered to carry your bucket,” he tells Bella. “I’m sorry. I’m distracted this morning.”

  “That’s understandable. It’s a big day.”

  “Well, there y’all are!” a voice calls from the porch.

  Parker’s cousin Virginia is sitting on the swing smoking a cigarette, casually dressed in a crisp white blouse with rolled-up sleeves, jeans, and movie-star tortoise-shell sunglasses.

  She’s accompanied by Frankie and Tanya, both of whom are also wearing jeans and clasping coffee mugs. Unlike Virginia, they’re looking much worse for wear this morning.

  Bella introduces Drew, who greets them politely, then quickly sets down the bucket of flowers to gently grab a small tabby kitten as it makes a fast break through the open door.

  “Hang on there, little girl. It’s not safe out here.”

  “How did she get out of my room?” Bella wonders. “I thought I left the door closed.” Locked as well, as she tries to remember to do when there are guests in the house.

  “Maybe she found the hidden passageway,” Tanya suggests. Her eyes are slightly red and her voice sounds nasal, as if she has a cold or has been crying.

  “How did you know about that?” Bella asks, not missing the fleeting eye contact between Parker and Virginia.

  “Blue Slayton told me there are tunnels that lead downstairs and outside.”

  “Not outside, just to the basement,” Bella amends.

  “I didn’t hear about any of it,” Frankie says. “That’s cool.”

  Tanya shakes her head. “I think it’s creepy.”

  “Well, I’ll bet this old house is full of creepy secrets.” Virginia’s one-syllable words stretch like warm taffy into two. “Most old houses are, especially down South where Parker and I grew up.”

  Parker responds with a loud sneeze into his shoulder. He plunks down his bucket and covers his mouth as he sneezes again.

  “Sorry,” he says, taking a white linen handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose. “Allergies.”

  “To cats or to smoke?” Frankie asks.

  “Or goldenrod?” Tanya adds.

  “Cats.” He gestures at the kitten in Drew’s arms. “They make me physically ill.”

  “Goldenrod does the same thing to me.” Tanya casts an unhappy look at the buckets. “Are all those flowers coming inside?”

  “They’re for the bouquet and reception centerpieces,” Bella tells her. “But we can leave out the goldenrod if you’re allergic to it.”

  “Or we can just do an arrangement without it for her table,” Parker says. “We need a splash of yellow with all that white. You know how particular Daisy is about her color scheme.”

  Yes, but at the expense of her guests’ well-being?

  Knowing her, probably.

  For a short time there, in light of what Parker had shared, Bella had almost forgotten how much she dislikes the woman. The self-centered Johneen would be difficult regardless of her anxiety that a jealous, and perhaps violent, ex-boyfriend might ruin her wedding.

  Remembering Odelia, she asks if her friend is here yet. No one has seen her.

  Bella sighs. “She was supposed to come at seven. We have a lot to do.”

  “Do you need help with anything?” Frankie asks. “I’m not allergic to cats or flowers.”

  Stubbing out her cigarette in her empty coffee mug, Virginia chimes in that she isn’t either, and she’ll help, too.

  “So will I, but not with the flowers,” Tanya says. “Maybe it’ll keep my mind off Dan and the baby. I’ve been up since four thirty missing them.”

  “Four thirty? After such a late night?” Bella asks.

  “I’m used to it. That’s when Emmie wakes up.”

  “Bless your heart.” Virginia gives her shoulder a languid pat. “You’ll see your little girl tomorrow. Try to enjoy the break. You deserve it. We’ll be sure to keep you right busy in the meantime, won’t we, Isabella?”

  “If you really want to help, I can definitely find something for you all to do.” Bella has to catch herself from saying y’all. Virginia’s drawl is infectious. “But first, I need to go put this little girl back upstairs. You haven’t seen any other kittens roaming around the house, have you? Because the back door doesn’t close all the way and their mom escaped early this morning when someone went out and left it open.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Tanya tells her. “I was awake, but I stayed in bed. I was too sad about missing Emmie to get up.”

  Frankie rolls her eyes. “And it wasn’t me. I just rolled out of bed now.”

  “So did I,” Virginia says. “Slept like a baby. But if I had gone out, I would have been careful to close the door all the way like you told me to last night, Isabella. I’ll bet even my sneezy old cousin doesn’t want those poor little things running away from home, do you, Parker?”

  “Of course not. And it wasn’t me, either. I slept in, too. I just got up an hour ago.”

  “You call that sleeping in?” Ryan, the maid of honor’s fiancé, materializes in the doorway. “It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

  “Then what are you doing up?” Frankie eyes him with an expression utterly lacking affection.

  Bella isn’t crazy about Ryan either, but she’s noticed that Frankie seems to judge people a bit harshly. Last night, she overheard her mocking Virginia’s accent and complaining under her breath to Tanya that the chicken was too salty.

  It was too salty. And yes, Bella was undoubtedly overtired and overly sensitive.

  Still, I can live without criticism from the guests this weekend, thank you very much. I’m sure I’ll get more than my share from the bride and groom.

  Ryan steps outside and joins the group, wearing pajama bottoms, shearling slippers, and a designer pullover. “Liz kicked me out of our room. She said my snoring was waking her up and that she needs her beauty sleep.” He glances at Drew’s toolbox. “Are you the handyman?”

  Bella opens her mouth to correct him, but Drew, looking faintly amused, responds, “You could say that.”

  “Then you need to take a look at the third-floor bathroom we’re sharing with the room across the hall.”

  “Is the shower running cold?” Bella asks. “Because it does that sometimes.”

  “No, it was plenty hot, but it’s leaking. Unless whoever else is using it isn’t bothering to turn it off all the way?”

  “That would be me. I wouldn’t dream of letting a faucet drip.” Virginia’s tone is sugary, though her expression is anything but.

  Ryan shrugs and mumbles that he was merely speculating, not accusing.

  “Of course you were. And my mama always said that old houses are like old men. They don’t just have secrets—they have old plumbing.”

  Everyone, even Ryan, chuckles at that.

  “I’
ll take a look at the bathroom,” Drew offers. “But first, I need to fix the back door.”

  He excuses himself and heads in that direction. Bella escapes with the kitten after reminding the guests to help themselves to more coffee, fruit, and pastries in the breakfast room.

  Upstairs, she finds that the door to her room is still securely closed, but the closet door is not. The panel at the back is askew, leaving a crack wide enough for a kitten to escape to the basement. To her relief, however, Chance and the rest of the litter are all accounted for.

  Now she knows how little Monday got out of the bedroom and into the basement. Bella herself was down there earlier and had left the door to the kitchen open. That must have been when the kitten snuck up onto the first floor.

  “That’s two too many close calls for today,” she tells the feline family as she moves the closet panel back into place. “You guys need to stay put for the rest of the day, okay? Just until we have the house to ourselves again. And then . . .”

  And then she’ll have to see about finding families interested in adopting kittens.

  Bella sighs. If she thought welcoming eight kittens into her household was difficult, saying goodbye to seven of them is bound to be even harder. But there’s no way they can keep them all, no matter what Max says.

  She thinks of Calla, who said she might be interested in taking one. That in turn leads her to think of Blue Slayton.

  Funny that he knew about Valley View’s network of secret tunnels. Then again, there are no secrets in the Dale, and Pandora Feeney isn’t the only busybody in their midst. With the tourists gone, even Odelia has too much time on her hands to speculate about other people’s business.

  As Bella told her mother-in-law, Lily Dale is just like any other small town. Yes, it’s an unusual place. But there’s no way—absolutely no way!—that Bella has been brainwashed into staying here.

  Somehow, she’ll have to convince Maleficent that there’s nothing to worry about.

  Wondering whether Max is awake yet, Bella heads down the hall to the train-themed room. Leona always kept it vacant in case Grant decided to show up for a visit. Now it officially belongs to Max, courtesy of Grant himself the last time he was here.

  “You can have it when you come and visit if there aren’t any other rooms open,” Max told him.

  “That’s all right, buddy. I don’t want to put you out of your bed.”

  Max shrugged. “My mom has a big bed, and she misses sleeping with someone.”

  The comment was pure innocence, and of course Max meant that he, not Grant, was the one who would share her bed, but Bella didn’t dare meet Grant’s gaze.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, sounding amused.

  Now Grant’s “I don’t want to put you out of your bed” is the phrase that rings in her ears. As much as she wants to believe it’s true, she can’t expect him to hang onto Valley View out of the goodness of his heart. She has to show him that it can be more than just a shabby little guesthouse. She can make it more, if he lets her give it a shot.

  Chances are he will, if this wedding goes as planned. What does he have to lose?

  But if anything goes drastically wrong, there’s no question that he’ll get rid of it as soon as possible. He might not even wait to sell it before kicking her out. He doesn’t even need to sell it, she reminds herself. It’s not as if he needs the money. He could just decide the place is cursed, board it up, and walk away.

  Opening the door a crack, she sees that Max is sound asleep. His glasses are on the nightstand and he’s sprawled on his back, legs tangled in the covers, one arm flung over the edge of the twin mattress.

  Sam slept in exactly the same position.

  Bella closes the door.

  Yes, she does miss sleeping with someone. But she has no intention of doing it again any time in the near future.

  She heads into the room across the hall where Frankie and Tanya are staying. She might as well make it up now, while they’re downstairs. One less task to worry about later. Two if she cleans Virginia’s temporarily vacated room as well.

  It takes only a few minutes to make the beds, straighten the room, and empty the wastebasket. Ordinarily she’d run the vacuum, too, but she doesn’t dare risk waking Johneen.

  Upstairs, the small third-floor room is flooded with sunlight. At this time of morning, the golden beam through the dormers falls short of the water stain, so it’s barely visible. She doesn’t want to think about what might happen later, when the rain starts falling.

  Virginia’s overnight bag sits open and empty on the luggage rack. A couple of garments wrapped in dry cleaners’ plastic hang from a hook on the back of the door. The rest of her clothes are presumably stashed in the bureau. Toiletries and cosmetics sit on top of it—nothing more elaborate than moisturizer, mascara, lipstick . . .

  It must be nice, Bella thinks as she catches her own reflection in the mirror, to be naturally drop-dead gorgeous.

  She herself looks windblown, and her face is ruddy. Not in a bad way, but she could probably stand to powder her nose and brush her hair before she goes back downstairs.

  Why do you care? Drew Bailey isn’t here to see you.

  He’s here to fix the door. And maybe the leaky pipe as well, though perhaps not for Bella’s benefit.

  Who could blame him if he’d taken one look at Virginia and been smitten?

  If Drew wants to flirt with her, he’s welcome to.

  It’s a ridiculous thought, really, because Bella can’t quite fathom Drew flirting with anyone. He’s much too buttoned up and serious for that . . . or is he?

  She wouldn’t mind finding out. Firsthand, though. Not by watching him in action with the likes of Parker Langley’s cousin, no matter how much Bella likes her—and no matter how grateful she is that Virginia’s around to make sure things go smoothly today.

  Again foregoing the vacuum, Bella dumps a crumpled lipstick-kissed tissue from the wastebasket and makes the bed. As she tucks in the sheets, her fingers graze something wedged between the mattress and box spring.

  Uh-oh. She never did get a chance to double-check the room for Lego bricks before Virginia came upstairs yesterday.

  But when she lifts the mattress to peer underneath, she realizes that it isn’t a stray child’s toy.

  Lying on the box spring is a very real-looking pistol.

  Her thoughts careen. The last time she saw a gun, it was aimed at her.

  This is different, though. Virginia isn’t a killer . . . is she?

  Chapter Nine

  Bella crosses the carpet from her bed to the window and back to the bed. Round trip, round trip, round trip . . .

  She’s been pacing for fifteen minutes now, wondering what she should do about the gun and realizing there’s nothing she can do.

  For all she knows, Virginia carries it for her own protection and has a permit.

  For all she knows, it isn’t even Virginia’s.

  Maybe another guest left it, or maybe it’s been there for months. Years. She’s made the bed countless times but never lifted the mattress off the box spring before. Why would she? She probably would have found it before now, though.

  But . . . well, it might be a toy—Jiffy’s toy, most likely, hidden amid the Lego bricks because Max knew Bella wouldn’t like it . . .

  Except it didn’t feel like a toy.

  She can’t stomach the thought of her son innocently playing with Lego bricks in a room with a loaded gun.

  Unless it belongs to Virginia.

  Why would she have it?

  In Bella’s world, women don’t walk around carrying pistols, but maybe in Virginia’s world, they do. To each her own.

  It’s not like there’s an official Valley View antiweaponry policy. There aren’t “No Guns” signs taped up alongside the “No Smoking” signs. For all Bella knows, plenty of armed guests have slept under this roof over the summer.

  It’s just . . .

  With all that’s gone on, she’s c
oncerned.

  Concerned . . . and suspicious.

  If there’s an uncomplicated way to ask Virginia about it, Bella hasn’t thought of it, and she shouldn’t waste any more time wondering.

  For now, she’ll have to let it go. Let it go, file it away, watch her step, and Max’s.

  Descending the stairs, she hears Virginia’s drawl in the breakfast room, telling Ryan to wipe up the coffee he sloshed over the rim of his cup.

  “And pick up those crumbs you dropped on the floor while you’re at it. This isn’t a damn barn,” she scolds him.

  “Well, listen to you. Do you always talk to strangers in that bossy way?”

  “I do when they deserve it.”

  “What are you going to do if I don’t listen?”

  “Trust me, sugar, you don’t want to find out.”

  “Trust me, maybe I do.”

  She responds with a perfunctory laugh—sharp and not the least bit flirtatious.

  Then Bella hears Ryan ask, “Whose ring is that?”

  “You mean this?”

  Unable to see them, Bella is curious.

  “Yes,” Ryan says. “Are you married?”

  “Now if I were married, would I be wearing my wedding ring around my neck on a chain?”

  “Nah. If you were married, you might as well be wearing a ball and chain.”

  “Your Liz is one lucky gal,” Virginia says dryly. “I need a smoke.”

  “Smoking will kill you.”

  “A lot of things will kill you, sugar. Choose your poison. I’ve chosen mine.” A chair scrapes, and a moment later, Bella is face-to-face with her in the doorway.

  “You look like you’ve seen a—well, around here, I guess you might expect to see a ghost, right?” Virginia chuckles. “But you look like you’ve seen something.”

  Oh, I have.

  “I’m just . . . I—I’m—”

  Why, oh why, can’t she ever be graceful under pressure?

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. Just busy.”

  “I won’t get in your way, then. Holler if you need a hand.”

  With that, Virginia heads out onto the porch, and Bella makes her way to the kitchen.

  Drew!

  She’d momentarily forgotten all about him, but there he is, kneeling in front of the closed screen door. It doesn’t seem to matter whether he’s wearing a lab coat or work boots, holding a stethoscope or screwdriver. He always manages to look capable and masculine. She is, in this particular moment, very happy he’s here.