Putty in Her Hands

by Lynn Shurr

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Lynn Shurr

  Putty in Her Hands

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Lynn Shurr’s Other Books

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Keeping the shotgun muzzle low,

  he paused to observe the miscreant for a moment. Light build, small shoulders, slim hips, snug jeans that didn’t sag under the weight of a low-slung tool belt, tanned arms, strong but not muscular, and best of all a thick fall of dark hair showing glints of red beneath the hot sun—not a dude at all. Remy Broussard was about to scare the shit out of a girl who appeared to be boarding up, not tearing down.

  She finished driving in the last nail of the highest board, slung her hammer back into its loop, turned, and froze as Remy raised his shotgun to hip level and twanged in old-timey western cowboy style, “You’re trespassin’ on my property, little lady.”

  He expected her rather grubby hands to shoot into the air in surrender. Instead, they came to rest on either hip, one on the head of the hammer, the other on the crook of a crowbar. For a woman that he topped by at least six inches, she had a rather commanding voice. “I didn’t see any signs, so not trespassing. As you can see, I’ve been boarding up the place after a short visit to satisfy my curiosity. Nothing stolen. No harm, no foul. You can go inside and see for yourself. I’ll be leaving now if you lower your weapon and clear the pathway.” She took a few steps forward and unholstered the hammer. Looked like they had an old-fashioned standoff.

  Praise for Lynn Shurr

  “Shurr is a wonderful storyteller.”

  ~The Romance Studio

  *

  “Very easy read, well written, combined with conflict, believable plots and secondary characters that make the story come alive.”

  ~Jane Lange, Romances, Reads and Reviews

  *

  “Lynn Shurr breathes life into the characters and allows each turn of the page to lead up to a pleasurable ending.”

  ~Cherokee, Coffee Time Romance and More

  *

  “I love the picture the author paints of the town and the way of life, and the characters are strong and interesting. Great read of this summer and for the beach.”

  ~Joan Conning Afman, author

  *

  “Lynn Shurr stories have that distinctive Louisiana flavor…and make you eager for another taste.”

  ~J. L. Salter, author

  Putty in

  Her Hands

  by

  Lynn Shurr

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Putty in Her Hands

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Carla Hostetter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2018

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1919-3

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1920-9

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For Sona Domburian,

  builder of wonderful libraries,

  who gave me the kernel of a plot for this book.

  Look how it grew!

  Lynn Shurr’s Other Books

  available at The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  The Sinners Series:

  Goals for a Sinner

  Wish for a Sinner

  Kicks for a Sinner

  Paradise for a Sinner

  Love Letter for a Sinner

  *

  A Sinner’s Legacy Series:

  Son of a Sinner

  She’s a Sinner

  Sister of a Sinner

  Never a Sinner

  *

  The Mardi Gras Series:

  Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball

  Mardi Gras Madness

  Courir de Mardi Gras

  *

  The Roses Series:

  The Convent Rose

  A Wild Red Rose

  Always Yellow Roses

  *

  Single Titles:

  A Trashy Affair

  An Ashy Affair

  A Will of her Own

  Chapter One

  They called her the Bayou Queen. Once she stood, stately and beautiful, facing the bank of the river, welcoming all who came her way. Renowned for her elegant teas and grand balls, she played hostess to the best of people. But, the steamboats stopped coming to her landing. The railroad passed her by. Yet, she survived in style until the Great Depression reduced her to penury. Then, she grew shabby and took in whoever would pay her now modest price. The food she served was hearty but cheap. Traveling salesmen and bachelors frequently stayed in her domain as well as soldiers from two world wars on their way to the front. When that second war ended, the surge of automobiles all but ran her over. The interstate highway swung wide around her precincts, and motels gathered at their exits. Some people said she still had good bones like all fine ladies, but her charm dimmed considerably and finally shut down altogether.

  ****

  Dressed in jeans tucked into high-laced work boots, Julia Rossi approached the Bayou Queen with caution. She carried a hammer and a small sack of nails on her tool belt, though neither would do much good if she stumbled across a water moccasin hiding in the heavy brush surrounding the old hotel. The blackberry brambles and green briars impeding her progress made Julia regret wearing her royal blue company T-shirt instead of a long-sleeved shirt, hot as it might have been on this early May day in Louisiana. The thorns scratched her arms, drew blood, and attracted mosquitoes from the dense shade of nearby live oaks. Really, she should have cut her hair short ye
ars ago, but it was a vanity, thick, black and glossy as the tail of a show horse and endowed with natural red highlights sometimes revealed by the sun. Instead, she drew her locks up into a ponytail and shoved them through the loop in her work cap to keep the hair off her neck and out of the way. Despite that, sweat trickled down her back.

  Finally, the faint path Julia followed ended at the plain, unassuming rear door of a shed-like addition to the once magnificent building. Her last owners had shown some respect to the aged beauty by hammering stout boards over the door before decamping to Florida and running out on their property taxes several years in arrears. All the ground floor windows she could see through the overgrowth were similarly barred to keep out the vandals, the vagrants, the drug users prone to taking advantage of abandoned buildings. Julia would never have known the Bayou Queen existed, set back from the road and screened by the live oaks and all the trash trees that had sprung up among them over the years if she hadn’t been lured by two of most talkative doyennes of Chapelle, Louisiana to share a pastry tray at Pommier’s Bakery one rainy afternoon while she and her uncles waited for their plasterwork to dry at Alleman Plantation.

  She’d stopped in for a black coffee and ended up with au lait and a pecan pie tart on her plate after the being summoned to sit at the table occupied by the two overweight matrons, each with her white hair dyed an identical champagne blonde and tight, permed curls hair-sprayed into submission. Sisters obviously, they introduced themselves as Patricia Broussard and Pamela Vice, “Please call us Patty and Pammy.” Julia knew her Southern etiquette well enough to put a Miss in front of both names when she addressed them despite their overt friendliness. Within a few minutes, they’d managed to work in their status as the wife of a former three-time mayor before term limits were voted in, and the widow of a prominent bank president.

  “We hear your company is doing such marvelous work out at Alleman. How wonderful Gaylord Getty can afford to restore the place to its former glory on his proceeds as an artist—though I don’t make much sense of his work which always seems so distorted to me, maybe even perverted, but I can’t really tell. I hear the gay in Gaylord describes him perfectly. Is that true?” Miss Pammy inquired with a raise of her plucked and penciled eyebrows.

  “I really couldn’t say. Mr. Getty is staying in his New York loft while the renovation is ongoing. He relays his instructions through Marvin Holcomb, the caretaker.”

  Miss Patty put her pudgy hands in the air and let the wrists go limp. “Well, we already know about Marv. He should not have been allowed to teach in the public schools.”

  Julia pretended to miss the implication and did not take the barb baited with old gossip. “Mr. Holcomb has been very helpful. He has a good eye for design.”

  “Don’t they all?” Pammy sank her dentures into a pillowy beignet adrift in powdered sugar. “How long will you be staying in Chapelle?”

  Julia considered it part of her job to keep an ear out for new business possibilities. Well-connected women like these were a good source no matter how annoying. “Until the work is done, unless we get another contract in the area. You seem like ladies who would know people who might need restoration work done on their homes.”

  “Oh, we know people,” both women agreed. “The only building that comes to mind right off the top of my head is the old Bayou Queen Hotel, but once my grandson, Remy, gets hold of it, that place is a gone pecan. He’s all about modern,” Miss Patty said. “His daddy let him go to architecture school in Chicago and now he has Yankee notions. However, he did come home to start his business. Remy is an eligible bachelor. About time he settled down with a good wife. I think you two would have a lot in common.”

  Julia wondered if she’d qualify for bride-to-be if she’d worn her work clothes instead of a light blue summer dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, and the sandals on her feet showing off pearl polished toenails while she explored the town. Maybe, Remy was as gay as Marv, and his deluded grandmother refused to admit it.

  “Our great-grandmama held her wedding reception at the Bayou Queen in the 1920’s. We have photographs. What a grand place it was: four stories tall, the highest building in town, and the first to have air-conditioning, a crystal chandelier in the lobby to beat all. The second story ballroom…just magnificent. Then, the Crash and the Depression,” Pammy said with a sigh as if she’d personally endured both. “The Queen hit the skids after that.”

  Interest piqued, Julia asked where the hotel stood and received excellent if somewhat localized directions. On the way out of town by the bayou road—just past where the old fruit stand used to be on the right, but before the historical marker where a Confederate camp once existed, they told her. She insisted on paying for their pastry tray and met little resistance. On her way back to Alleman, she made note of a patch of gravel and the faint pathway on the bayou side just past the rundown fruit stand buried beneath wisteria vines.

  Yesterday’s rain had ceased, leaving behind oppressive humidity. They set up drum fans in the plantation home to move the air, but plaster could not be rushed. The brown coat simply had to cure before adding the finishing layer. She’d left her uncles Sal and Sam in the motorhome running its A/C off the generator while they watched a ballgame and knocked back some cold brews. Now Julia, dressed appropriately for exploring, stood before the treasure trove called the Bayou Queen and pried off the boards that prevented her entry with a crowbar drawn from her tool belt. That job done, she pulled a high-powered flashlight from another loop and aimed it at the interior.

  Nothing much to see but a very old-fashioned kitchen with rusty appliances dating back to the thirties. She moved quickly into the next room, traversing a large open space until she stood before a grand staircase. Overhead, an ornate plaster medallion of fruit and flowers still possessed a stout iron hook in its center that once supported the legendary chandelier. Julia rubbed some of the dust from the handrail to the second floor and shone her light upon it. Mahogany, certainly, in need of repair and polish, but the real deal. She turned her eyes to the bleak floor covered by green linoleum with a thick layer of dead insects, and used her bar to lift a loose corner. Marble lay beneath, the luxury flooring of the nineteenth century. Did she dare ascend the staircase? The steps seemed stout enough, but you never knew in old buildings. She weighed in at one-twenty-five and had a reputation for being light on her feet, compared to her uncles for sure. Gingerly, she tested a few of the treads, then raced to the second floor without mishap.

  Three sets of large double doors marked the ballroom. One stood halfway open beckoning her to enter. She scuffed her boot across the layer of dust and fallen debris—parquet floors—and above them, the source of the chunks of plaster laying everywhere: a coffered ceiling, the equivalent of today’s dropped ceilings but much more attractive, consisting of squares and rosette medallions matching the pattern of the inlaid wood beneath her feet. A few of the medallions still held traces of gilding. She spotted four with hooks for chandeliers. Three large arched windows would have illuminated the space if they hadn’t been heavily shuttered and provided some cross ventilation on hot summer nights before modern cooling came into existence.

  Closing her eyes, Julia imagined what the place must have resembled in its heyday. Her uncles said she had imagination, and she did. Dancing women swirled by, first in hoop skirts, then in bustled gowns, and finally in the loose styles of the 1920’s. Maybe injured soldiers billeted here for a while, sleeping in row upon row of cots. Perhaps, doughboys played poker and rolled dice across the parquet floors while waiting for transport to the distant railway station. She’d have to hit the library and do more research on the history of the Bayou Queen. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save her from destruction, if she could appeal to the city council to save what should be an historical landmark for Chapelle. Enough speculation. She had real work to do. Before leaving, Julia checked out two narrow staircases at either end of the hall leading to the third-floor guestrooms, but decided not to chance furthe
r exploration alone. She descended the main stairs and followed her tracks in the dust through the ancient kitchen and out the rear door.

  Selecting the lowest board, she hammered it back into place. On to the next and the next. Julia Rossi would not leave the Queen vulnerable to those who preyed on old buildings, not even that modern-minded Remy Broussard.

  Chapter Two

  Remington Broussard parked behind the gray pickup truck with the toolbox in its bed. Dusty and dented, it revealed itself as a working truck—probably the kind used to haul away marble mantels or whatever else the old Queen had left to offer. Some people liked antique appliances, not him. He’d owned the crumbling hotel for all of two hours and already she was causing him problems in the form of looters. The building might not have much left to salvage, but what it did belonged to him.

  Remy took the shotgun from the rack behind the seat. He always had a varmint gun with him when he checked out overgrown sites to deal with the occasional snake, rabid raccoon, coy dog, nesting alligator, or trespasser. As of last week, the latest crop of new high school grads was on the loose, looking for ways to pass the time until college started, if they weren’t desperately applying for jobs. Why not deface the Queen with spray paint or attempt to break a few windows on the upper levels? He needed to post the property with the No Trespassing signs he’d picked up in town sooner rather than later.