My mouth dropped open. I stared at the Jenkins twins then glanced at Mom. She looked as startled as I felt. What a novel idea! And, why not? In fact, I could see the reasoning behind it. How nice it would be to have Melanie close by. I wanted to get better acquainted with her, and surely I could help with the baby.
Spontaneously, we all started to clap and offer congratulations.
“Wait, wait! Before we go any further, I want to say something,” Trace said.
Getting up from his chair, he strode to the fireplace and stood beside Miss Georgia and Miss Carolina, facing us.
“I want to apologize to you all. I’m going to church Sunday and apologize to the whole congregation. In effect, I lied to you. I passed myself off as my father, a preacher. I ask you all to forgive me.”
“Of course you’re forgiven,” called Jackson. “You may not be ordained, but anybody who can liven up our congregation like you did deserves to be forgiven. I kind of like clapping my hands in time to the music. I hope you’ll stay.”
Trace shook his head. “No, I can’t stay. My sister will be well taken care of. She loves these two women, Miss Georgia and Miss Carolina and, as a matter of fact, so do I. I love you all.”
He glanced at me as he spoke. Returning his smile, I felt a welcome warmth. Trace was a dear person, a friend, but that’s all he would ever be. He was not, nor would he ever be, Jake. I did not feel devastated that he would be leaving. He would never be happy in a small town like Levi.
Grant re-crossed his legs, smoothed his mustache, and cleared his throat.
“You’ll find another pastor,” Trace said, “an honest one, this time, and I’ll go back to Atlanta and do what I like to do best, continue with my music. ‘Thank you’ seems very weak, but thanks, all of you, for accepting me without question. Levi, Oklahoma, will always be special to me.”
In between hugs and handshakes and a general happy hubbub, Grant’s phone rang.
He listened for a moment and said, “I’ll be there, Jim.”
Turning to me, he said, “Sorry, Darcy,” then planted a kiss on my cheek and moved toward the door.
Mom sighed. “The life of a lawman.”
I nodded. “He will never change.”
~ The End ~
About the Author
It may seem strange to some that a mild-mannered kindergarten teacher would become an author of cozy mysteries, but it’s actually a good fit. A teacher is a word crafter. So is a writer. A teacher wants the efforts of her labor to have a positive outcome. So does a writer. A teacher prays and hopes that each student has a positive take-away from her work. A writer hopes that for her readers too. A teacher would like each of the children in her classroom to achieve a satisfying life. Although she can’t control that, as a writer she can control the way her books conclude!
A native Oklahoman, Blanche has a deep familiarity with the Sooner state, so it’s the logical setting for her books. Her Cherokee heritage and feeling at home in the rural settings of Oklahoma are vividly woven into the background fabric of her books. Her other published cozies include The Cemetery Club, Grave Shift, and Best Left Buried; books one, two, and three in the Darcy & Flora cozy mysteries, and Moonlight Can Be Murder, book one in the Ned McNeil cozy mystery series.
Don’t miss the rest of the
Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery series!
Goshen Cemetery lay quiet and peaceful under a benevolent spring sky. Darcy Campbell and her mother, Flora Tucker, had no inkling that in a few moments, the scene would change and they would face a horror on the ground and a threat from above, beyond their imaginations.
Becoming entangled in a centuries-old legend, being targeted by a group of ruthless men, and discovering a long-lost love were not in Darcy's plans when she returned to her birth place, Levi, Oklahoma. She merely wanted to soak up the peace of her mother's home and try to heal the wounds left from her husband's death. Fate, however, had other plans for Darcy and Flora.
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Free! The Cemetery Club
* * *
Before the long nightmare ended, Darcy would often wish her mother had not opened that letter from an unknown woman. But, she did open it and shared it with her daughter, plunging both Darcy Campbell and Flora Tucker into a tale of an unsolved mystery, a web of secrets, and the discovery of an unsuspected traitor.
In tracking down clues about the disappearance of a young woman, Darcy and Flora leave their hometown of Levi, Oklahoma, and drive to Amarillo, Texas, then back again. Following leads that have long been covered, both women find more than one surprise including some discoveries about themselves.
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Free! Grave Shift
* * *
Darcy Campbell might have expected life in a small Oklahoma town nestled in the beautiful Ozark foothills to be as idyllic as the scenery. That, however, is not what she finds when she returns to her hometown of Levi after the death of her husband.
One autumn morning, Darcy and her mother, Flora Tucker, are enjoying a cup of coffee in their hundred-year-old farmhouse when Darcy gets an urgent telephone call. The contractor who is digging the foundation for their new home insists that Darcy drop everything and come to the building site as quickly as she can. He has found a mysterious object deep in a hand-dug well and he needs Darcy's help in retrieving it.
The ancient, crumbling package pulled from the well contains two items that are as shocking as they are inscrutable. In trying to decipher the meaning of these long-buried objects, Darcy and Flora discover a dark secret from their family's past.
A kidnapping, a brush with death, and a stranger's greed add to the mix. The era of World War I becomes enmeshed with the present day as Darcy and Flora unravel a tangled web of deceit that has ensnared their family.
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* * *
Here’s the first in the
Ned McNeil Cozy Mystery series
By Blanche Day Manos!
Nettie "Ned" McNeil cannot imagine why her Uncle Javin feels that he is in danger, but she loads her suitcases into her car, leaves Atlanta and her late husband, and makes the long trek to Ednalee, Oklahoma to help out. When she arrives, Uncle Javin's white Victorian house is strangely dark and silent. Inside she finds him lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
So begin her first moments back in her old home town, where the mystery of Uncle Javin's violent death pulls at Ned. But his mysterious murderer seems to always be just a few steps ahead of her search. How can she protect her own life as she pursues a killer who will stop at nothing to guard a deadly secret?
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