Girls of Summer Page 5

  On Christmas Eve, Savvy recruited relatives Charlotte had not seen since she was twelve years old to reacquaint her with their Southern ways. Countless cousins, coupled with an inordinate amount of gravies, fried vegetables, and heavy meats left her with a desire to hide behind the loveseat she’d favored as a five-year-old when her parents would be in the heat of a typical Tuesday evening shouting match. She’d resisted the urge to disappear and opted for drawing on the art of mindless chit-chat, a craft she’d perfected through decades of cocktail parties, fundraisers, and art shows. As much as she had dreaded the party, the evening was a beautiful event—one she was certain Savvy could have accomplished with little input. But their aunt insisted both she and Georgie be present for the set-up and tear-down of the Christmas party. And now, the looming New Year’s Eve bash.

  Charlotte rolled and sat up, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed. A wave of nausea crashed through her body, making her thankful she had avoided the macaroni and cheese Georgie had waiting for her when she returned home yesterday evening from her stay at Memorial Hospital. She glanced over her shoulder at the clock. She had one hour to pull herself together and be ready for a day of Savvy, Georgie, and the unending exuberance the two ladies exuded. Charlotte’s feet hit the ground. Game on.

  ~*~

  Charlotte’s guttural groan wafted over Georgie tiptoeing down the hallway. With a sigh, Georgie opened the cabinet above the sink. Neat rows of main house cast-off coffee mugs stood like striped soldiers ready for their next mission. Reaching for two mugs, she slid them next to the coffee maker. The gurgle of the machine ricocheted off the walls of the cramped, galley style kitchen in the guest house. But Georgie couldn’t focus on the deep, bold flavors. She rubbed her temple, wishing she had an answer for how to reach Call-Me-Charlotte. For how to fulfill this near compulsive need to protect her sister. The sister who had zero inclination to share any of her worries or pains with Georgie. And Charlotte had more than a single serving of pain. Pain draped around her sister like a vintage wrap-dress. Pain that had little to do with her concussion.

  Since their father’s death, the two relative strangers began sharing one of the former plantation outbuildings that had been transformed into a guest cottage. Their living arrangement was courtesy of Daddy. A very blatant stipulation in his will.

  His two daughters needed to live and work together for one calendar year to fully gain access to their inheritance. Georgie didn’t care about the money or the company. Fulfilling Daddy’s last wish was the main reason she was percolating coffee for two, as well as fending off verbal strikes bright and early. But if she were honest, her daddy’s last wish was not too far from the long ago buried hope of her own.

  When she was small, she desperately wanted a relationship with Charlotte, her glamorous, older half-sister from New York City. She used to imagine late night phone chats and Sunday dinners after church. When she was barely a girl, Georgie created an entire imaginary world just for her and her older sister. By nine years old, she locked away her fantasy sister when the real one dismissed her with little more than a nod at her mother’s funeral. After returning to the family home for the wake, Georgie retreated to her favored hiding spot, a nook behind the love seat in the main salon, unwilling to allow Charlotte to witness the pain she’d caused. She hid until she heard her sister walk out the front door and out of her life. Until a few weeks ago.

  Georgie was now a twenty-four-year-old woman, but she wanted to honor her father’s last request. He longed for his daughters to know each other; to be friends, not just blood relations. And, as with so many aspects of her relationship with her father, he made his wish into a challenge: live with each other for one year and gain a fortune neither daughter could spend in two lifetimes.

  Success was fundamental to her father. Daddy taught her from a young age the skill and tenacity required to win games and contests of all kinds. From baseball to board games, Bentley Dixon instilled a love of winning in his youngest daughter that drove her to victory, even when she didn’t want to play.

  With a tentative sip of her coffee, she glanced down the hall toward Charlotte’s bedroom. “Daddy,” she said. “This might be one game I can’t win.”

  10

  Two hours later, Charlotte and Georgie faced each other in silence. Their mutual quiet underscored the melody of party preparations. Seated on the wide benches flanking the original kitchen table of the main house, they wrapped silverware in neat packages made of linen. The pile of silverware-and-napkin burritos was already on the high side of fifty with an endless basket of loose antique forks, spoons, and knives waiting to be swaddled in the decades old fine squares.

  Charlotte plunked another tight package onto the growing pile and tried to drown the chatter of Aunt Savvy and Savvy’s best friend, Mary Ellen, or Mellie as she was known by her friends. The two directed the catering staff to create an elaborate tasting menu complete with a full array of Low Country delicacies, including oyster casserole, shrimp and grits, and lobster Savannah.

  Savvy and Mellie laughed and worked together in a choreographed dance longer than fifty years in the making. Charlotte’s heart twisted with a strange tug, and she dropped her focus back to the silverware and cloth. The menial task was a welcome distraction to her pounding head. Despite the searing pain, her mind couldn’t help swiping through flashes of her “accident” enhanced by the bombshell Remy had shared upon her return home.

  After further audit, Remy had discovered a definitive link between her mother and the inexplicable money transfers flowing through the gallery’s accounts. Based on Remy’s find, the evidence pointed to her mother stealing money from the gallery and Charlotte’s own pockets. Remy feared Mama was laundering money through the gallery but had not yet found proof. Charlotte had thought so as well and she didn’t have to think too hard to guess for whom her mother was willing to risk breaking the law, but could Mama also be willing to order her daughter’s death? Her mother was many horrible things, but a murderer? No, Charlotte couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that of her.

  The clank of silver against silver drew her out of her worry and back to the task at hand.

  “You’re doing a nice job,” Georgie’s voice was slow and softly southern.

  Snatching loose silverware sets from the basket, Charlotte plastered a smile across her lips. “Well, I’m sure my BA in Art History and my MBA are being used to the fullest by twisting ancient forks and knives into bundles so hordes of relatives I can’t keep track of with the best family tree can stuff their faces.”

  “Hush, Charlie!” Savvy snapped. Her aunt’s fiery nature was the polar opposite of Georgie’s sugary sweetness. “You better watch that tone, young lady. I don’t care how hurt you are. I’ll not have your sassing while you’re sitting at the breakfast table of generations of great Southern ladies and gentlemen. Not even a concussion is an excuse for rudeness.”

  Charlotte dropped the silver she was wrapping. It clattered on the table. “Yes, ma’am.” Best not to correct her aunt for the hundredth time that her name was Charlotte.

  Aunt Savvy nodded. In her early sixties, although she only admitted to forty-nine, Savannah Boudreaux was five-feet-two inches in heels. Her perfectly coiffed, white blonde hair was teased into a bob just under her chin, and her face showed barely a wrinkle beneath her expertly applied cosmetics. She was the widow of the town’s beloved veterinarian and sister to Charlotte and Georgie’s father, making her royalty in Beaufort County. After Georgie’s mother, Delia, passed, Savvy and her then-living husband, moved into the house to help Savvy’s brother raise her niece. She was a perfect surrogate mother to Georgie, but Charlotte often felt as if Savvy missed her calling as a drill sergeant.

  Savvy’s ruby red lips stretched into a wide grin as she slid onto the bench beside Charlotte. “Girls, these look fabulous. I can’t thank you enough for helping Mellie and me pull this little party together.” Savvy’s voice slowed to Georgie’s Carolina pace drawing out the word party to pawh
-tee. “We are so far behind with all of the cooking. We just never would’ve gotten to a little detail like wrapping the silver. And y’know how hard it is to balance a plate of shrimp ’n grits with loose silver in your hand.” Her stiffly sprayed bob barely moved as her head shook in a shiver at the apparent horror of a guest having to simultaneously handle both food and silverware.

  Georgie gently laid her latest wrapped bundle into the stack and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Used to be Daddy’s biggest point of contention at a party. He said he loved the silver all wrapped up tight so he could stuff it in his pocket and keep his hands free so that he could plate up all the food.” A shadow crossed low over Georgie’s eyes, a lone tear streaked down her cheek.

  Savvy slid her hand across the table and squeezed Georgie’s fingers.

  Charlotte dropped her gaze as her own vision blurred. She couldn’t put a name to the myriad of emotions she had experienced over the last forty-five days, but sadness over joyful memories of her father definitely wasn’t one of them. Beyond baseball, most of her memories of her father centered on the front door and it closing behind him.

  Grabbing a handful of silver and a stack of linen, she refocused on her task. Busy hands were critical for surviving the rest of the year. Busy hands made for a quiet mind and a quiet mind equaled a silent mouth. Busy hands. Quiet mind. Silent mouth. She needed the trifecta to accomplish her goal and earn the much-needed money waiting for her next November. Without the money and the answers she hoped Remy would continue to uncover, she wasn’t sure she could return to New York. And she would never truly be free.

  The weight of the room and the mix of nostalgia laced sorrow made breathing difficult for Charlotte, causing her head to scream for relief. She desperately wanted to run outside to suck in the crisp, late December air. She needed to escape from this place.

  She’d loved Colin’s Fancy when she was a child. It was idyllic; filled with sticky summer days and baseball filled nights. But the joy she felt ceased when her mother dragged her out of this house and the quirky traditions when she was barely six years old. If her father hadn’t insisted on annual visits each summer until she was a teen, she probably wouldn’t have any memories of the plantation or the communities that treaded on the edges of the property.

  Not all her memories of Colin’s Fancy were tainted by her mother’s abrupt exit. There was her fourth birthday when she’d read her first book aloud to her father. The Christmas when she was three and they walked through the front door after the midnight service to find Santa had delivered dozens of presents. The 4th of July when she was twelve and Tyrone Jolley had leaned forward under the weeping willow and awkwardly smacked his lips to hers for her first real on-the-lips kiss while fireworks exploded over the river. And she had her memories of Delia.

  Her stepmother had treated Charlotte as if she were her own daughter. Delia had loved her unconditionally, established boundaries, and enforced discipline—three things her own mother could never give. No, not all memories of this house and this place were sullied, just most of them.

  Colin’s Fancy was the echo of her parents’ fights meshed with the image of Delia’s body, decaying with cancer and ultimately, mangled and lifeless after an unexpected car accident. Her heart twisted as she remembered her longing to live here with Delia, her Momma D. But her mother’s stranglehold on her choices and her father’s decision to focus on his business rather than his daughter had kept her from the woman she loved most. She thought of how excited she was when she finally had a baby sister, and then how angry she became when she knew she needed to exclude herself from her dream family. Yep, this place was a regular parade of mixed memories, good and bad. She lifted another set of silverware and made quick work of tightening another bundle.

  Savvy patted her hand. “That’s my girl. Do you remember wrapping silver when you were maybe four or five years old?”

  Charlotte didn’t respond. Savvy had been playing the do you remember when… game for the past six weeks, and each time Charlotte lost.

  “Oh, you were so cute. All of that dark hair twisted in braids. You came bopping into the kitchen and Mellie and I were prepping for….Mel what were we making when Charlie first helped with the silver?”

  “Charlotte…” Charlotte said with a sigh.

  Mellie wiped her hands on a black-and-white dishtowel. Her dark brown eyes sparkled with a long-ago memory that seemed to flit to the front of her mind. Her skin was a shade darker than burnt caramel without a single line or blemish. With the exception of a few extra pounds, she looked just as Charlotte remembered.

  She slid in beside Georgie. “Well, I believe that was an Easter dinner. My Gerald was stationed in Japan, and Bent had invited me and my boys to stay in the guest house y’all are bunking in now. Anastasia was in New York visiting your grandparents, but your daddy insisted you stay for the egg hunt.”

  Charlotte’s stomach rolled and twisted at the mention of her mother. Any story involving her mother and Colin’s Fancy couldn’t be good. She loved the woman, but Charlotte rarely liked her mother.

  Savvy laced her arm through Charlotte’s and squeezed. “Oh, I remember now. You came toddling down dragging that old raggedy doll and asking if you could help. You were so sweet, missing your momma and tired of waiting for your daddy at the front door.” Mellie shook her head. “Both my boys were sitting right here, twisting and rolling away, clanking silver like they weren’t priceless antiques. You pulled yourself up on the seat next to Wilson and grabbed a pile of silver and started rolling. You didn’t say much, just listened to my boys talk about baseball and the new coach. You had to sit on your knees just to have both arms above the table, but you beamed bright enough for boats in the bay to make it all the way up the Beaufort River.”

  Savvy nodded. “You were the cutest little thing. I just knew you’d grow up to be a true Southern stunner. Too bad you went and ruined that glorious dark hair.” She patted Charlotte’s head, ran fingers through ombre locks, and pursed her lips. “You could be so much prettier if you just tried a little. Don’t you think your hair’s a little contrary?”

  Georgie giggled. “Aunt Savvy, I love Charlotte’s look.”

  Mellie smiled. “I agree. Not all women can pull off that hairstyle.”

  “Hmph,” Savvy shook her head as she scooted out of the booth and began chastising one of the sous chefs hired for the party.

  Georgie’s giggles grew and she rested her cheek on Mellie’s shoulder. “Oh, Mellie, I think you just won an argument with Aunt Savvy.”

  Mellie patted her cheek. “Well, I don’t know about that…”

  The chimes announcing a new visitor interrupted the conversation.

  “That’s probably one of the boys bringing the extra glasses. You two girls keep chatting. Does my old heart good to see the two of you together. Your daddy is grinning from ear to ear in heaven right now.” She shuffled out of the seat and disappeared through the doorway.

  Charlotte lifted her gaze to Georgie and stared into crystal blue eyes identical to her own. Her heart twisted. “Georgie…umm…”

  Georgie shrugged. “It’s OK.”

  Charlotte wasn’t sure what was OK, but she felt a shift in her; a shift into something hazy and unclear.

  Muffled voices echoed through the entryway and filtered into the kitchen, growing louder with each second. One voice was an octave deeper than Mellie’s southern drawl.

  Dropping her unwrapped silver, Georgie shot up from the table and raced to the entryway. “Mac!”

  Charlotte felt her insides tumble to her knees and her shoulders drop ten inches at the mention of her father’s right-hand man. Mac “I’m-Too-Handsome-for-My-Own-Good” Taylor.

  Mac Taylor was the man her father had entrusted with his business, his baseball team, and his daughters’ lives. For better or worse, he was her warden, her keeper, and her oligarch for the next eleven months. She wanted to hate him and his dictatorial ways, but in the hospital, he had been her savior.

  Th
e memory of the FBI agents’ interrogation stung her bruised and battered mind. Her frame involuntarily shook at the thought of the cycle of questions from Agent Murphy and his steely gaze that made her want to divulge every secret she ever had, beginning with the candy she stole from her Babushka’s pocketbook when she was eight to the entire ordeal with her gallery and her mother’s likely criminal activity. And yet, one glance into Mac Taylor’s soft, chocolate brown gaze gave her the strength she needed to remain resolutely vague.

  She couldn’t deny her inexplicable attraction to him, and a month ago she would have rather jumped into a vat of vinegar after shaving her legs than admit he was kind. But after the other night her heart had softened towards him. And yet, anything less than business formal with Mr. Taylor was a disaster in waiting. She would learn to control the butterflies in her stomach which started when he spoke, entered a room, or his name was mentioned. A little discipline and hard work, and she would be able to be in a room with the handsome lawyer without a single shuffle from her butterfly army. She could do it. She just needed to focus on anything other than the all systems meltdown she experienced when she was within a ten foot radius of the man.

  She shifted her attention to her wrapping, forcibly ignoring the gushing Georgie. Silver clanked as she drove her hand into the basket and snatched a handful of cutlery, dropping them onto the wooden surface with a dull clunk. She wished Mac would have stayed away. Why did he need to meddle in her already overcomplicated family? Didn’t he have one of his own? Did he have any idea what his mere presence was doing to her fragile control?

  The sweet chatter of her sister churned her stomach. Georgie treated him as if he walked on water. But he wasn’t that special. He was just a man. A man with a chiseled jaw, dark hair graying at the temples, and eyes the color of espresso. Yep, just a man.

  She barely noticed him.