The Secrets of Rosa Lee

by Jodi Thomas

  “Nothing,” he said. “This was my gift to you. You take your time about unlocking your doors. I’ve just spent too many years closed away. I want to know I allowed someone in even if it may be the first and only time in my life. I allowed you in.”

  She circled her fingers around the keys. “Thank you.”

  He closed his eyes thinking this idea hadn’t seemed near as crazy when he’d thought of it. Maybe he should have just written her a letter saying how special he thought she was and how he wanted her to feel comfortable around him and not worry that she might say the wrong thing or ask something too personal. She wasn’t the type to laugh at him behind his back, but he wouldn’t blame her if she did. A set of keys! What kind of gift is that?

  Her lips brushing his surprised him. He opened his eyes as she leaned forward again and kissed him lightly.

  “Anything else you have to say, Sloan?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, come a little closer. There’s something I’d like to teach you.”

  For the next several minutes, he kissed her. Either he was getting rusty, or she was a fast learner because Sloan finally broke the kiss and swore that kissing her was about as good as kissing gets. Everything about the professor surprised him. Why shouldn’t this?

  “You wouldn’t want to change back into those cute flannel pajamas, would you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s time for bed.”

  “That was my thinking exactly,” he grinned.

  “No. I mean it’s late.”

  “I know. It’s time for me to go.”

  “Right.”

  The good news, he thought, was that she didn’t look any happier about it than he did. He stood, offering his hand to her. “Before you toss me out in the cold, I want to tell you about an idea I have. When the Rogers sisters were looking through your new gardening book, I remembered the line from Miss Carter’s poem. The roses in a book are ever bright.”

  Sidney whispered, “Look among roses ever bright for the key to unlocking the secrets of Rosa Lee. But what book? Where? All the books she had were donated to the library.”

  He nodded. “What time can you get away tomorrow? I’ll pick you up and we’ll visit the library.”

  “But Miss Carter said she had hundreds of books on gardening.”

  He tugged on his boots. “Then we’ve got our work cut out for us. I’ll be waiting when you get out of class. It might not be a bad idea to call the committee and ask if they could help us out before the big meeting tomorrow. Maybe some of them could meet us at the library. Ada May and Beth Ann know all about roses so they’d probably be the most help. We might not find anything, but if we did, you’d all know it before you vote.”

  When they stood at the door, she asked, “Why are you doing all this, Sloan? Why help me find out about the house and Rosa Lee? Don’t you realize that if I find something it might sway my vote toward not letting the town sell the house?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t you tell why I’m helping you, Sidney?”

  She shook her head, not accepting his answer.

  “From the first time I saw you, I’ve been crazy about you. I should probably play it cool, but I’ve spent too much of my life playing my hand too close to the chest. You matter to me whether you believe it or not. I meant what I said about those keys.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m helping you because it matters to you. I’ll help you any way I can.”

  Sidney crossed her arms, accepting the challenge. “All right. Who were those men you talked to in the parking lot of Randi’s bar this morning?”

  “How’d—” He stopped and faced her square. “They were local men I hired to keep me informed about what’s going on concerning the bidding on the Altman land. One works for Talon Graham, but he’s hoping to get on with us. The other has lived here for generations and knows pretty much everyone in town. His last name is Hamm, I think. He must be kin to that crazy old man I’ve almost rear-ended twice.”

  She nodded. “Fair enough. But you could have asked me about the bids.”

  He fought the urge to touch her. “What’s between us has nothing to do with my job. I’ll never take advantage of that. I told you that from the first. As far as I’m concerned my business is with the mayor, no one else.”

  She had to admit he’d kept his word so far.

  He put on his hat and buttoned up his coat. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get out of class tomorrow.”

  She touched his arm and waited for him to lean down so she could brush her lips against his. “Be careful driving tonight.”

  He grinned. “I’m growing on you, Professor.”

  She laughed. “That you are.”

  She was still smiling when she met him the next morning. As he drove to the library, she told him the sisters were already looking through Rosa Lee’s old books. Billy, Lora and Micah had plans, but they’d said they’d join them as soon as they could get away.

  “I’ve been thinking about the part of the poem that goes, Gone in thirty-four, a love forgotten nevermore. She must be talking about Fuller dying, but he died late in thirty-three.”

  Sloan pulled into the library parking lot. “Maybe it didn’t rhyme with more so she changed the date?”

  “A man might do that, but a woman never would.”

  “A man would have remembered the secret and passed it on, not made up a rhyme.”

  She didn’t argue as they walked to the library. Today was the day, she thought. The day she’d promised to let the mayor know what would be done with the Altman house. In a few hours they’d all meet and vote. She had no idea how it would go. Sidney wasn’t even sure how she’d vote.

  “Sloan?” she asked as they walked toward the tiny library that had been added on to the back of the courthouse. “Where were you yesterday?”

  “I went over to Wichita Falls to get a new windshield put in. I stopped by for a visit with Miss Carter. I’d mentioned that I might come back and I thought yesterday would be a good time.” He hesitated. “I also spent a few hours after lunch talking to my boss who is working on a site near Midland. He wants me there as soon as I’m finished here.”

  Sidney didn’t want to think about Sloan going on to the next job. They were just getting to know one another. But she couldn’t help but wonder how many times he’d said goodbye before he had time to form a bond. “Did Miss Carter tell you any more about Rosa Lee?” she asked, shoving thoughts of him leaving aside.

  “Not really. Only that the old doctor who treated Henry and then Rosa Lee has a widow who is still alive. She talked on and on about how the old doc thought Henry was a fine man. Said he’d never met a man who walked his religion the way Henry Altman did. I don’t see that could be much help to you.”

  “Seems strange that, if he were religious, Rosa Lee wouldn’t have had a wake and a funeral for him.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want it.” Sloan opened the library door.

  “Maybe she was such a recluse she couldn’t go through with it. With no other family, when he died she was all alone. Surely she had a priest come in.”

  Sloan shook his head. “Miss Carter said Rosa Lee had nothing that she knew of.”

  The Rogers sisters waved, drawing Sidney’s attention. They were at a massive table surrounded by gardening books.

  “I guess it’s time we go to work.” Sloan winked at Sidney, then joined the sisters.

  All four thumbed through book after book looking for anything written in the margins.

  Nothing.

  After a while, Sidney’s eyes began to blur. Time was running out. At three, they’d meet at the old house and vote. She glanced at the clock. Three more hours. It wasn’t the house that drew her, but the secret. She felt as if Rosa Lee had kept something secret all her life and now, for some reason, was trying to tell her. If the house fell, the secret might forever be lost. She had to find it.

  She leaned over to Sloan. “Have you got your phone?”

  He handed her his cell without asking questions.

&
nbsp; She dialed the mayor’s number and leaned back, waiting.

  On the fourth ring, the mayor picked up.

  “This is Professor Dickerson, Mayor. I’d like to let you know the committee will not be making their final decision on the house until tomorrow.”

  She held the phone away from her ear. Sloan looked up hearing the complaining from across the table.

  “All right,” she said when he paused. “We’ll vote at nine o’clock in the morning. Have everyone who is interested in the outcome at the house. We’ll vote and announce our recommendation.”

  She paused, listened, then added, “I’m aware of that…yes…see you in the morning.”

  Sidney handed Sloan back his phone. “I guess I’m off the mayor’s Christmas list.”

  “What did he feel he needed to make you aware of?” Sloan asked.

  “That only two people have filed letters about the historical importance of the house. One was mine. The other was old Mr. Hamm. He claims he’d never remember how to find Cemetery Road if the house wasn’t there to remind him.”

  “You thought more people would care, didn’t you?” He hit her problem with a bull’s-eye.

  “I did. Yet I seem to be the only one. I’m sure whoever buys the land will put up a sign for Old Man Hamm. Not that he’ll read it any more than he does the stop signs around town.”

  Sloan’s big hand covered hers. “Did you ever think that maybe this house holds your history and not the town’s? The walls are whispering to you, not future generations from Clifton Creek.”

  “You believe she was my grandmother?”

  He winked at her. “I just found a book you might want to take a look at.” He passed her a small book entitled The Portland Rose. “Page fifty-seven.”

  Sidney held her breath as she opened the book. She knew before she found the page he’d named that there would be a picture of a small red-pink rose spotted with white. The Marbree rose.

  For a moment she just looked at the picture of the rose her mother had been named after. Her mother had never mentioned where her name came from, but Minnie had planted Portland roses in the garden of every house she’d lived in. Most of the time the zone wasn’t right and the shrub died, but once, when they’d had a courtyard, it had thrived.

  “One more clue,” Sloan whispered from close behind her. “One more link between your family and Rosa Lee. How many do you need, Sidney, to believe?”

  Sidney brushed her thumb across the rose and felt the imprint in the paper. She turned the page and saw writing in the margin of the next page. Beneath the wooden rose. RL.

  Sidney shook her head. “I don’t remember a wooden rose.”

  “We’ll go look. There’s bound to be one in the woodwork of that house somewhere.”

  Ada May and Beth Ann agreed it was time for another search, providing they all stop for lunch first.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Lora dragged herself into work Wednesday morning bundled up like an Eskimo and trying to rub her headache away. She was getting too old for this, she decided. After Sidney’s party, Billy and she had stayed up half the night talking in his dorm room. They’d watched the snow fall outside his window and listened to the noises of dorm life. She hadn’t told so many stories about herself since she’d been a teenager at slumber parties.

  He’d finally fallen asleep on the futon that doubled as his bed and she’d driven home trying to figure out why she liked being around him so much. He was a good listener. She talked his ears off. Anyone would think they had nothing in common, unless you counted the committee. But she could be herself around him. He was there as a friend right when she needed one. He didn’t seem to want anything from her and he never tried to make her into someone else.

  That was it, she thought. He liked her just the way she was and no one had ever done that before.

  “Morning,” Lora said as she passed the center desk in the showroom of her father’s dealership. “Going to be a slow day, I’m guessing.” No one wanted to buy a car on snowy days.

  Dora Smithee smiled as she was paid to do. “Your father left a message that he wants to see you when you come in. And—” she leaned over the counter and added in a whisper “—that good-looking Mr. Hunk is back in your office looking ever so fine and holding flowers. Everyone says he’ll be our governor in twenty years. If you play your cards right you could be sitting beside him in the governor’s mansion.”

  Lora groaned. “Thanks for the warning.” Dora’s definition of character involved a sentence that always had something to do with how a man filled out his jeans. To her, looking deeper meant checking out how much cash he carried. The woman had been test-driven more than any car on the lot.

  Lora pulled off her sunglasses and stared through the glass wall at Talon Graham propped on the corner of her desk. She’d hoped not to have to face him again. At least not until after the vote. She knew what he wanted and, despite his protests, it wasn’t her. He was far more interested in the pending deal with the mayor.

  He flashed her a perfect smile as she stepped into her glass-walled office. “Morning, honey.” Talon grinned.

  “What is this obsession men have with pet names?” she mumbled as she passed him and stored her purse behind her desk.

  He looked downright sensitive. “I’m terribly sorry if I offended you. I thought we knew each other well enough for endearments.”

  Not in this lifetime, Lora thought as she rolled her eyes. “How can I help you today, Talon?”

  He handed her the flowers, the most expensive spray the grocer carried. “I just had to come by and say how deeply sorry I am about the other night. I’ve been under a lot of pressure from the office in Austin to wrap up the Altman deal and I guess I tried to drink my troubles away. I hope I didn’t talk too much about business.”

  He’d only had two topics, business and sex, as she remembered. “I’ve told you before, Talon, I can’t talk with you about how the committee plans to vote. First of all, I don’t know and second, it wouldn’t be ethical.” Her actions with Billy at the truck stop Sunday morning surely made it plain there wouldn’t be any sex between her and Mr. Hunk.

  Now, he looked hurt. The man was a chameleon. “How can you even think I’m here because of that? I wouldn’t play you like that land man from Houston is playing the professor. Every time I see him in town, he’s either near the house, or someone on the committee. I’d never do that.”

  For once, he had her attention. “Are you talking about Sloan McCormick?” She knew Sloan was in oil, but she’d never thought that he might just be using the professor.

  Talon smiled. “He’s smooth, isn’t he? I’ll bet that old maid has no idea what hit her. I almost feel sorry for him. He may have to sleep with her to get the vote he wants out of your committee, but if I know Sloan McCormick, he’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Lora didn’t like what he was implying. Sloan seemed a straight-up guy. She hadn’t noticed him trying to talk Sidney into anything. And the professor was no starry-eyed girl. She’d keep her head about her. “What makes you think he’s playing her?”

  Talon smiled that perfect smile she was learning to hate. “It’s his job, Lora. Part of the game. You’ve been in the big leagues before. You know. Deals get done in more places than boardrooms. Business is a game and you do whatever you have to do to win.”

  That was it, she thought. She did know. Never, not for one moment, had she believed that Talon was interested in her. Even the flowers he’d brought and sent to the house were simply a business expense. It occurred to her that he’d finally realized he couldn’t play her so his next move would be to make sure Sloan, his competition, made no progress with the chairman. Classic strategy for the game. But Sloan had fooled her, Lora thought. She’d believed he truly cared about the professor. Part of her still believed it, or wanted to anyway. She had to give McCormick credit, he was either telling the truth, or he was the best at playing people she’d ever seen.

  Kicking Talon out of her o
ffice took about as much effort as emptying the trash. Lora thought of tossing the flowers as well, but decided to give them to Dora at the front desk. She even wrote Dora’s name on the card and claimed Talon was only delivering them for a friend. Maybe the mystery man who sometimes sent Dora daisies would think the woman had another suitor.

  “Your father still wants to see you,” Dora said after she gushed over the flowers.

  “Tell him I’m going to the library,” Lora yelled on her way out.

  Dora shrugged as if expecting the answer. She probably figured as long as Lora worked for her father, she had job security as the messenger.

  Lora drove twice the speed limit to the library, but couldn’t find any of the committee. She asked at the desk and wasn’t surprised to learn that the librarian on duty had heard every word. She even knew all their names, except Sloan, whom she referred to as “the noncardholder.”

  “They’re meeting Reverend Parker for lunch at the downtown café and then they plan to go search for something at the Altman place.” The librarian thought a moment. “I’m sorry, that’s all I heard. Someone phoned and I had to step into my office.”

  “That’s great.” Lora headed for the door thinking Clifton Creek’s librarian could go straight into the FBI without further training. “Do you happen to know if they found what they were looking for here?”

  She nodded once. “I believe they did. Professor Dickerson checked out one book on Portland roses.”

  When Lora left the library, she wasn’t surprised to see Talon Graham’s car parked across the street. He’d leaned back in his seat as if taking a nap, but she knew he was watching her. When she pulled out of the parking place, she noticed he also started his engine. He must have nothing else to do before he learned of the vote, so he might as well follow her and see what trouble he’d stirred up by telling her about Sloan McCormick. Only Lora decided not to play the game anymore.

  Three blocks later, they took the last two spaces left in front of the café, but he made no effort to go in. As she walked to the door, she noticed Billy carefully climbing out of his car. He still had on his worn leather jacket, but his clothes now looked more like he belonged in college than on the streets. Lora knew he hadn’t had time to shop, so he must be wearing his Sunday best: tailored khaki pants and a white button-down shirt.