by Donna McLean
Iced Tea for Two
a sparrow falls mystery #3
Donna McLean
to
Judy Howard
proofreader, advisor, friend
Copyright © 2013 Donna McLean
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the author, including all titles, the sparrow falls mystery series, a sparrow falls mystery, the sparrow image and comfycozybooks, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This story is a product of the author’s imagination.
Resemblance to actual events, places or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
cover art:
iced tea ©Vanessa – Fotolia.com
tablecloth ©Diseñador – Fotolia.com
THE SPARROW FALLS MYSTERY SERIES
Novels
A Distant Murder
Butler Did It
Iced Tea for Two
more titles coming soon
Short Stories
A Sparrow Falls Christmas
A Sparrow Falls Valentine
ONE
“The very first minute I looked into those soulful brown eyes I knew that man was going to be trouble!”
Tilda MacArdan was telling the Official Ladies Garden Club of Sparrow Falls all about the handsome brown-eyed stranger who had recently come to town. He was setting every young female heart aflutter with his devastating good looks and city charm, and he had already set out to sweep Addie McRae right off her feet, much to the dismay of the lady gardeners! Addie had previously been dating the town’s handsome, single editor of the local newspaper, Pearce Allen Simms, ever since her arrival a year earlier, and folks agreed that the pretty strawberry blond and the man with the golden brown hair were perfect for each other. Tilda pushed a trowel into the ground and rooted around for weeds as she talked about the big breakup and the new man in Addie’s life.
Frumpy little Peggy McAlister looked downcast. She knelt next to other volunteer gardeners who were working on the large oval flower bed the garden club had planted last fall, right smack in the middle of the little town’s Main Street square.
Magda Moseley used a dirty thumb to push large, outdated eyeglasses up onto her nose. “Addie and Pearce Allen made such a nice couple. I never thought I’d see the day when those two went their separate ways. Oh, I made a poem!”
Her kindly, pudgy face lit up with childlike joy but quickly fell when her caustic friend, Mrs. Delcie Needles, remarked, “Not quite Shakespeare,” sarcastically.
This lady, haughty and bossy, stated the plain fact. “Addie is a naïve young woman and this city fellow is smooth as glass. No wonder she’s fallen for him! I don’t blame her a bit, but I do not think it is wise.” She yanked up an ugly-looking weed with glee and tossed it onto the pile next to her.
“Still, it did seem that Pearce Allen and Addie were destined for each other.” Hazel, the beautician, spoke dreamily. She loved to garden on her day off almost as much as she loved to tease hair and bleach out the gray when working. “And after all they’ve been through together you’d think her head wouldn’t be turned so easily, all because of a purty face.”
“And broad shoulders!”
“And perfect teeth!”
“And dark hair!”
“And dimples!”
Peggy and Magda giggled like schoolgirls during this witty exchange. Delcie rolled her eyes at their remarks.
Hazel asked Tilda, “Where in the world did she meet him?”
“Right there in our neighborhood! A few weeks ago he moved into the old Ross place. Down the street and around the corner from my house. He’s some kind of kin to the Rosses from a long way back, a cousin once or twice removed, I think. Said he heard about the house and the town from a great-aunt I’ve never heard of, and came to town and fell in love with the place. He’s an architect who restores old houses and such like.”
“And then Addie broke up with Pearce Allen?” Hazel wanted to know all about that, too.
“Well, it was mighty sudden. Dane Donovan, that’s his name—”
Delcie grunted and repeated the words with disgust. “Dane Donovan. Sounds like a made-up name right out of a romance novel!”
Peggy sighed. “It’s a wonderful name,” she said wistfully, imagining a shirtless hunk on a galloping steed, a gaudy work of art painted in bright swirling colors just like the cover of one of her favorite paperback novels.
Tilda hid a smile. “Yes, well, anyway, Dane visited me a couple of times, wanting to know where was the best place to buy gas for the car and who has the best fresh produce in town and things like that. Just being neighborly. And one time Addie was there, and they got to talking. I thought he was a bit too much of a flirt, if you want to know the truth. I mean, I’ve seen him talk the exact same way to a few of the other young ladies in town, and he’s a wee bit too smooth toward the older ones like myself, too! But that’s just my opinion. Addie seemed to like him well enough, and he sure did light up every time he saw her.”
The spunky senior citizen paused from gardening, a hand upon one knee as she knelt on the sparse grass of the town square and waved away a gnat with the other hand. “Addie started finding excuses to drop by the old Ross place. She even took Dane some of my homemade blackberry cobbler!”
The Ladies Garden Club gasped in shocked unison. This offering of homemade dessert to a bachelor by a young lady who was practically spoken for by another man was a serious breach of southern etiquette!
“Goodness me, she must have been smitten already!” Peggy remarked.
“Sure sounds that way,” Magda agreed. Her voice was eager. “What happened then, Tilda?” she asked.
“Now I don’t know all the details, mind you. All I know for sure is that one night, just a week or so after she took him the blackberry cobbler, Addie came storming past me. I was outside in the backyard with Puddin’ and watering my flowers in the early evening, that’s the best time of day for it in this heat, and she zoomed right by me without saying a word! The look on her face was dark as a thundercloud. She stomped into her little carriage house and slammed the door. A few seconds later Pearce Allen came flying down the driveway in his truck! And he hopped out, and he didn’t say a word to me either! Went straight to Addie’s house and banged on the door with his fist, just as hard as he could. She opened it, and he went in.”
Tilda paused for breath while the other ladies held theirs, mesmerized. The weeds and flowerbeds were all but forgotten.
“I couldn’t hear a word they were saying but I knew they had to be saying something! It was still and quiet, a nervous-like mood hanging in the air, the kind of stillness before a storm breaks. Then all of a sudden Pearce Allen came tearing out of the house, and he slammed the door behind him! He took a few steps toward the truck, but then the door jerked opened and Addie was standing there in the doorway, looking madder than a wet settin’ hen! She hollered at the top of her lungs. ‘Pearce Allen Simms!’ His back was to her, and he stood real still for a minute. I thought he was about to bust. Then Pearce Allen spun around on his heels and walked back to the door. Shoo away that honeybee, Peggy, before it lands on somebody.”
The story paused for this brief emergency, and the ladies shooed the bee away and hurriedly turned back to hear the rest of the story.
“What happened then, Tilda?” Magda asked.
“Well, Addie McRae did not say one word to him, not one blessed word! And as soon as Pearce Allen got in front of her, she slammed that door right in his face!” Tilda waved a hand and giggled. “I know I shouldn’t laugh, but it struck me right funny. Him walking all the way back to the porch like that, and her not sa
ying a thing, and just shutting the door on him, like, ‘I’ll show you how to slam a door, Pearce Allen Simms!’ It’s funny what a courtin’ couple will do when they are having an argument.”
Some of the ladies giggled and murmured a few words about their own disagreements back when they were being courted by their husbands.
Tilda MacArdan brought the story to a close. “Well, I reckon that did it, for both of them. Pearce Allen left without even looking at me, and Addie never went after him or anything. As far as I know, they haven’t spoken to each other since.”
One by one, the ladies returned to their weeding. After a long silence Peggy commented, a bit apologetically, “That Dane Donovan is a nice-looking man.”
“Nice-looking doesn’t mean nice acting,” Delcie replied, her tone disapproving. “She’ll soon find out that she was better off with the Simms boy.”
Tilda agreed. “I think so too, but Addie has other ideas now, I reckon. And Dane is a nice-looking man, and that’s a fact.” She sighed. “Even so, I sure do hope Addie doesn’t get hurt. Ouch!”
Everyone turned to look at Tilda, surprised at this emphatic exclamation of pain. She held out a gloved finger upon which sat a small, pale, ugly-looking pod with sharp spikes sticking out all over it. “Sandspur,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Stuck me right through my gloves, too! Thought we got rid of all of ’em last year when Donal McDonald plowed up this bed for us.”
“Sandspurs have a way of coming back,” Peggy stated.
“You never know where a sandspur will turn up!” Magda said.
“Y’all be careful weeding,” Tilda cautioned.
The garden club murmured words of comfort for Tilda and went back to their assigned garden spot. They all worked hard for a few minutes, until Tilda again stopped abruptly. She gazed at the flower bed stretching before them. “Are my eyes playing tricks on me in this bright sunshine or do y’all see what I see?”
They paused from weeding and stared. Tiny green shoots had begun rising from the soil, rows upon rows of tulips eagerly seeking the warmth of the sun after a long, cold winter. The Ladies Garden Club had carefully prepared the large oval bed last fall and Tilda’s suggestion of three rows of pink tulips backed by three more rows of yellow tulips had been enthusiastically embraced. In the center of the bed Donal McDonald had already placed a skillfully carved wooden sign that greeted visitors with the words, “Welcome to Sparrow Falls”. There was even a tiny sparrow in its nest, carved beneath the calligraphy.
Delcie Needles was the first to spot it. “Well! Someone certainly was not paying attention last fall when the planting instructions were given!” She raised one long, bony, accusing finger, and pointed at the flowers.
Magda and Peggy exchanged nervous glances.
Among the green shoots, small buds were beginning to reveal bright petals of color. On the left side of the oval flower bed, pretty pink buds fronted the row while bright yellow buds peered out from behind them. On the right half of the bed, however, the color scheme was reversed. Yellow buds poked their heads up through the green grassy bed, and pink buds brought up the rear.
Magda’s eyes behind the thick lenses of her outdated glasses were round with surprise. “I’m sure I planted correctly. I am sure of that!”
“The flowers on this side of the bed are correct. I planted these!” Delcie was adamant and argumentative.
Women’s voices rose in accusation as everyone blamed everyone else for the mishap.
Tilda MacArdan threw down the trowel, leaped to her feet, dusted off her knees, and placed two hands upon her hips. Everyone cringed in silence, looking at the imposing figure the spry senior citizen made.
Until she burst out laughing.
Suddenly the whole garden club, even the usually fearsome Delcie Needles, dissolved into affectionate laughter. Tilda shrugged in a carefree manner. “Well, ladies, it is too late to fix the problem now. The garden club will just have to swallow our pride this time around, and we can replant the bulbs next fall. This will still be the purtiest flower bed in Sparrow Falls, even if it is kind of mixed up!”
Right about then the couple previously gossiped about was seen approaching the flower bed, arm-in-arm! Sunlight struck golden highlights from Addie’s long, strawberry blond hair, and her emerald green eyes were fastened upon the handsome man at her side. His dark head bent close to her lips, listening to every whispered word as though nothing else in the world existed.
The Ladies Garden Club sat perfectly still in an awkward silence.
Dane Donovan tilted his perfect profile back a little and laughed. The sound was warm and earthy.
Peggy and Magda tried to suppress nervous giggles.
Addie and Dane paused on the sidewalk next to the flower bed. A shy smile curved the young woman’s lips as the handsome man spoke to the senior citizens standing or sitting upon the town square. His deep voice was as smooth as silk.
“Ah, what a lovely picture you all make! A veritable Monet of soft colors bespeckled by sunlight, with the newborn flowers budding forth behind you. ‘Ladies Gardening on a Spring Morn.’ A prize to grace the walls of any art museum!” He turned to Addie, grasped her hand, and brushed it with his lips, as Peggy and Magda watched every move and sighed. “As is my own exquisite Rossetti, a natural beauty.”
“You’re quite the work of art yourself,” Delcie retorted.
Tilda hid a grin behind her floppy hat, fanning herself hurriedly. “And what are y’all up to today?” she inquired with polite interest.
“Just out for a stroll,” Addie replied. “I’m showing Dane the town!”
“A quaint town filled with charming people,” he said. “The perfect place to settle down, make a home, find a wife. . .”
Addie blushed. The young couple continued their walk, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, strolling past the garden club as though dreaming.
Tilda pursed her lips and turned back to the flower bed. She picked up the trowel and thrust it into the sandy soil.
“How is Pearce Allen taking all this?” Hazel inquired when the young folks were out of earshot.
Ms. MacArdan poked around in the flower bed a little before replying. She shook her head sorrowfully. Wisps of pale brown hair danced in the spring breeze. “Not good. Not good at all!”
“Do you think he will fight for her? A man really should fight for the woman he loves,” Peggy gushed.
Delcie snorted. “What do you think he will do, challenge Donovan to ten paces at dawn?”
The little gathering laughed. Tilda shook her head. “No, ladies, I don’t believe he will. Oh, Pearce Allen wants to win her back, all right. I can see that when he looks at her. The way he watches her, and always goes out of his way to speak to her when their paths cross. He wants her back, that’s for certain!”
“Maybe it’s too late,” Magda said in mournful tones. “Maybe that nice-looking Dane Donovan has won her heart and stole it clear out from under poor Pearce Allen Simms!”
Tilda shook her head. “I can’t say for sure. Maybe it’s not too late. Time will tell, ’specially where true love is concerned.” She paused from weeding long enough to wink at the gardeners. “And if some kindhearted ladies help the young folks along, who knows what may come of it!”
The group resumed their chore, everyone smiling and nodding in agreement. Sunshine warmed their backs as they poked and pulled weeds and odd flowers that had “come up volunteer,” as the Ladies Garden Club liked to call a stray plant that somehow ended up in their precisely planned arrangements.
“Beginning to get a little humid,” Magda murmured, wiping sweat off her forehead.
Hazel lifted a hand to scratch the tip of her nose with the back of her orange polka dot gardening glove. “Near about noontime,” she said, and they all glanced toward the sun, high in a baby blue sky.
Soft voices carried on the breeze all the way from the pharmacy across the street.
The ladies paused, their eyes turned in the same direction.
“Hannah Smith. Wonder if Mr. McGrady is still ailing after all this time?” Peggy mused.
Magda replied, “I heard that he’s purty bad off now. Not likely Hannah will be doing errands for him much longer.”
They all shook their heads sadly. Hannah Smith had been the wealthy McGrady family’s trusted housekeeper for many decades. Now Lachlan McGrady lay dying, the last of the long McGrady line that had once been among the founding members of the small town of Sparrow Falls, North Carolina.
“Is it true that nobody has been able to locate his heirs?” Hazel asked.
Tilda nodded her head and opened her lips to fill them in on all the details, but Delcie spoke loudly before the spry lady could comment.
“The twins and their mama left town right after they were born, and nobody has ever heard from them since! If you ask me, they departed this world a long time ago, too. Why wouldn’t Sarah McGrady and her children, or that good-for-nothing she married, turn up now to claim the fortune, if they were still living?”
“There could be lots of reasons!” Tilda said. “Why, maybe they went somewhere else and got good jobs and established a nice home for themselves, and they’ve already got lots and lots of money, and with the bad blood between Sarah and her daddy, well, you can’t blame her for not wanting to come back. Or maybe she left that good-for-nothing she married, he really was a scoundrel! Now what was his name, I never can recall . . . didn’t know any of his people . . . well, anyway, I’ll bet Sarah never, ever told those girls about their daddy or about her family, either. She didn’t want them to turn out all mean and stingy like the rest of the McGrady clan. I hate to speak ill of someone who’s just about dead. But that is the truth, and we all know it! The McGradys, every one of ’em right back to Kenneth McGrady himself, was just as mean and just as stingy with a penny as anybody you would ever want to meet!”