by Meg Benjamin
On the other hand, she’d rushed into a marriage with a man who didn’t love her against her mother’s advice. That particular issue still loomed large.
Greta squinted at Nadia’s lavender flowers. “How long do they have to sit there?”
“A few hours. The scent intensifies as the flowers dry.”
“And then what?”
Nadia shrugged. “And then I pack them into jars and fill the jars with olive oil. What are you going to do now?”
Greta glanced down at the collection of bowls on the counter. “I need to mix up some milk and water and vanilla. Then I beat some egg whites into the butter and sugar. Then I put it all together, mix it up, and bake it in the pan with the rose geranium leaves.”
“Fascinating,” Nadia said dryly. “What I meant was what are you going to do about telling your mother?”
“Oh.” Greta shrugged. “Well. I need to do that, I guess.” Guts up, Greta.
Nadia nodded. “I would recommend that you do it sooner rather than later.”
Greta closed her eyes. “I know. I will.”
“Would you like to use my phone?” Nadia gave her a bright smile.
Greta shook her head. “I’ll use my own.”
“Do it now.”
“I’m in the middle of something.” Greta narrowed her eyes.
“Nothing that can’t wait a few minutes. You need to face this, dear. And you need to do it now.”
“All right, all right,” Greta grumbled. It didn’t help anything that Nadia was absolutely right.
Her phone was upstairs in her room. Maybe someone would waylay her on the stairs before she found it.
Unfortunately, all the potential waylayers seemed to have moved on to other things. She reached her room without seeing anything or anyone unexpected. Her phone sat where she’d left it on the nightstand. She picked it up, turning it on for the first time in two days.
The first thing she saw was the voice mail icon. She’d ignored it when she’d called Josh. Now she clicked on the icon and looked at the list. Four messages were from her mother. One was from a number in Texas that she assumed wanted to sell her something.
One was from Ryan.
She blinked. Why would Ryan want to talk to her? He’d managed to say little enough during the entire divorce debacle. Why would he want to talk now that it was over?
She took a deep breath and clicked on the first of her mother’s messages.
“Greta,” her mother’s voice snapped in her ear. “Where are you? Why did you leave without telling me? Call me as soon as you get this.”
The second was more of the same, although her mother’s voice sounded slightly more anxious. Greta felt a brief pang of guilt. Of course she’s anxious. Did you expect her not to notice? You know this counts as another screwup, right?
She flipped through the last two, listening to her mother’s voice rise. It was message four that made her clutch the phone so tightly her fingers hurt. “Oh Greta, why didn’t you tell me? What on earth happened? You’ve been separated and divorced and you didn’t even mention it? What were you thinking?”
Greta licked her lips. What had she been thinking exactly? That time would stand still until she got around to explaining everything to her mother? That her mother wouldn’t call her ex-husband when she didn’t realize he was an ex? She closed her eyes for a moment. Definitely another screwup, Greta.
She took a deep breath, then clicked on Ryan’s message. “Greta.” Her ex-husband sounded faintly annoyed. “Where are you? Your mother is trying to reach you.” There was a long pause and she thought the message was over. Then she heard Ryan’s voice again. “Are you all right?” He sounded concerned. More concerned than he’d sounded when they got the final decree.
Well, crap. Her mother was furious, and her ex-husband was annoyed. What was she supposed to do now?
Call them, of course. Except she had a cake to finish. Decision-free zone.
Chapter Nine
Sophie had to admit it—Hayley Stone really had changed. Or at least she’d changed her outfit. Her red top and black slacks were a lot more serious than the outfits she used to wear, most of which featured safety pins in picturesque formations. Of course, the fact that Hayley had let her hair go back to its natural blonde rather than the jet black she’d worn in high school, added to the fact that her eyes no longer looked like they’d been outlined in crayon, definitely helped.
Hayley rested her notebook on her knee, listening carefully—and patiently—as Sophie filled in the details, with Owen supplying the occasional bit of support. Sophie had to hand it to her. Not everyone was so patient with Owen. She began to feel a lot more sympathetic toward Hayley than she had when she’d first arrived.
They finally finished explaining everything, and Hayley glanced down at her notes, pushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” she said carefully. “Greta drove off after the wedding.” She paused briefly, keeping her gaze resolutely on her notebook, and her face flushed.
The wedding. The disaster. Right. Carry on, Officer.
“She sent you a text that said ‘I’m all right, don’t worry’. And you haven’t heard from her since. Is that the gist of it?” She raised her gray eyes again, glancing first at Sophie and then at Owen.
“Yes,” Owen said.
Hayley’s forehead furrowed in a frown. Crap. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything here I can act on. There’s really no evidence of foul play. Is there any particular reason you’re concerned aside from not hearing more from her?”
“She left all her things here,” Sophie said in a rush. “She left wearing that ridiculous bridesmaid outfit, with nothing else except her purse.”
Hayley nodded. “I can see how that would be worrying. But…” She paused again.
“But?” Sophie prompted stonily.
“But Greta was always sort of…impulsive. As I recall. Couldn’t it be that she just decided to go visit someone? Or take a couple of days to decompress?” Hayley gave her a guarded smile.
Sophie gritted her teeth. Of course, that’s what everybody in town would think. Greta the flake. Takes off and leaves her mother to worry without even thinking about it. Which was pretty much what had happened, after all.
“She just got divorced,” Owen blurted. “She didn’t tell Sophie.”
Sophie closed her eyes for a moment. She hadn’t really intended to tell anyone about the divorce. Not until she’d had a chance to talk to Greta about it first. She didn’t especially want the news to spread around Promise Harbor before she had all the details.
Hayley nodded slowly. “Well, that could be a reason for her to want to take some time off to think, couldn’t it?” She gave Sophie another faint, sympathetic smile. “I mean, if I were to come up with a reason for her to take off, having her marriage break up would be a good one.”
Sophie blew out a breath. She really hated being pitied by a former student. Particularly one who was friends with Gavin Montgomery, the wedding-wrecking snake. “That’s true, but she could also have had an accident. Or worse. I just want to make sure she’s all right.” Much to her annoyance, her voice wobbled on the last two words. Lord, she hated that sympathetic look in Hayley’s eyes.
“I understand. Has Greta’s ex-husband heard from her?”
Sophie blew out a breath. “I don’t think so.”
“Is there any reason to believe it was a bad breakup?”
A drip of ice coursed down Sophie’s backbone. Ryan? Ridiculous! “If you’re implying that he could be involved in her disappearance—”
“I’m just trying to cover all the bases, Mrs. Brewster. If you’ll give me his name and number, I can give him a call and see if there are any other places Greta might have gone that he knows of.”
“Of course,” Sophie said stiffly. She dug Ryan’s number out of her cell phone address book. She’d have to delete it now.
“In the meantime I’ll check the accident reports and
do a little calling around to make sure no unidentified accident victims have shown up at any of the hospitals in the area.” She gave Sophie another of those reassuring smiles. “For what it’s worth, we probably would have heard about anything like that by now. The fact that we haven’t is really good news.”
Oh yeah, really good news. Sophie managed not to snarl.
“That’s good,” Owen said quickly. “That’s great. Thank you.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out.” Hayley pushed herself to her feet. “If you should hear anything from Greta…”
“I’ll certainly call you.” Sophie gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks.”
She watched Hayley stride back to her truck, parked in the driveway where all the neighbors could see it and probably call one another ASAP. Something else going on with the Brewsters. Hayley Stone stopping by.
Why couldn’t Greta have gone into something steady like the Promise Harbor Police Department? Instead of rushing off to cooking school and then rushing off to marry Ryan McBain? Why did Greta keep rushing off, period?
“Sophie.” Owen stepped next to her, his hand on her shoulder. “She’s all right. Like Hayley said, she probably took off to think.”
Sophie closed her eyes and counted to ten. She wasn’t sure if the fact her daughter had absconded without a thought about telling her mother what she was doing was much of a comfort. And now that Hayley knew, she had no doubt the rest of the town would find out soon enough. Mabel Standish, the police dispatcher, was a human public address system.
Poor Sophie. First her son loses his bride, then her daughter loses her husband and runs away. What’s wrong with that family anyway?
Sophie felt a brief pinch of guilt. What would you have done if Greta had told you she wanted to leave? Probably ordered her to stay. And talk to the neighbors and the gossips and everybody else in town. Just like she’d tried to order Josh to go after Allie and save the wedding. And she wasn’t sure he’d listened to her either, given that he also didn’t seem to be around town right now. According to one of the men at the fire station, he’d taken off with his former girlfriend, Devon.
None of this is their fault. Both of them just got caught up in…events.
Her chest felt tight suddenly. “Nothing,” she muttered. “There is nothing wrong with my children. They’re both perfect!”
“Sophie?” Owen sounded concerned.
“My children are perfect,” she said flatly. “They are absolutely wonderful. And I won’t let anybody say anything different.” Not even me.
“Okay.” Owen had moved from concerned to wary.
“I’m just…” She blew out a breath. “I’ve been so concerned about what everybody would think, I forgot about what I think. And I think my children are wonderful.”
“They are. Allie too.” He shrugged. “Sorry, Sophie.”
Sophie sighed. “It’s not your fault they didn’t want to get married, and it’s not my fault either. It’s just something that happened.” She sighed again, harder this time. “Of course, now we’re stuck with the fallout while the children get to run away. Lucky them.”
Owen frowned. “Why?”
Sophie shook her head. Sometimes Owen had trouble following the line of a conversation. Maybe she should backtrack. “Well, I mean, we’re here and they’re gone…”
“No.” Owen smiled slowly. “Why stick around while they run away? Can’t we run away too?”
Sophie blinked. He couldn’t possibly mean… “What do you mean?”
“New resort I heard about—Greenbush Island. Nice place. We could spend a few days there. Get a massage, play some golf. We get back, and everything’s blown over.”
Oh my. “I couldn’t. Really. Not now. There’s so much…”
“Stuff you have to do?” Owen’s eyebrows went up. “Do you want to do it?”
A moment of silence stretched between them.
“Let me think about it,” she said softly. “It might work.”
Owen gave her another slow smile that made him almost handsome. “There you go.”
Greta sat on her bed, staring down at her phone. She knew what she needed to do. Why was it so hard to do it?
She took a deep breath and then punched in the numbers for her mother’s cell phone. With luck, she’d have enough charge left in her own phone for this conversation. With even more luck, she’d only have enough to last through the first few set of reproaches her mother would give.
Please, Mom, just get it over with.
The phone rang three times and then cut to voice mail. Thank you, Jesus! She wasn’t sure why her mother wouldn’t be answering her phone, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Hi Mom,” she said cheerily. “Just wanted to let you know I’m staying at a hotel up the road for a couple of days. They needed a cook. Don’t worry, please. I’ll be home by the end of the week. Promise.”
She turned the phone off quickly. Save the charge. Right, Greta, that’s why you’re not giving her a chance to call back.
“Greta?”
She glanced up. Hyacinth stood in the hallway, peering timidly into her room.
“Hi, Hyacinth.” She tossed the phone onto her bed, pushing herself to her feet. “What can I do for you?”
“Would you like to meet Carolina now?”
Greta frowned, glancing at the clock next to the bed. “Well, I’ve got a cake in the oven, but I’ve got a little time to spare. Will it take more than ten minutes or so?”
Hyacinth shook her head.
“Okay, then, let’s go. I’d love to meet Carolina.” Whoever or whatever she might be.
Hyacinth bounced down the stairs in front of her, humming. Greta felt a little like humming herself. Leaving her mother a message had taken a huge load off her mind. For a moment, Ryan’s hushed Are you all right? floated through her memory, but she ignored it. Her mother’s feelings were worth being concerned about. Ryan’s definitely weren’t. Let him worry.
Hyacinth threw open the back door and started down the path toward the garden shed. Greta had to increase her speed a little to keep up. At the door to the shed, Hyacinth paused briefly. “Just a sec. I’ve got some food to give her.” She ducked back toward the side of the shed, emerging with a plastic bag full of lettuce leaves. “It’s just the outer leaves,” she said quickly. “We don’t eat them anyway.”
“Right.” So Carolina was an animal that ate vegetables. Greta’s jaw tensed. Please don’t let it be something really disgusting.
Hyacinth opened the shed door and stepped inside.
At first the contrast of darkness with dazzling sunshine made it difficult to see, but once Greta’s eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she noticed a collection of garden tools leaning against the walls, a half bag of fertilizer at the side, some plastic pots in the corner.
And a large glass aquarium at the back of the room closest to one of the small windows. Sunshine from the window poured onto the contents of the aquarium—a shadowy accumulation of castle spires and gravel. And one medium-sized turtle.
Greta stepped closer, squinting so that she could see better. The turtle was about six inches long. It raised its head as Hyacinth stepped near, showing its yellow-splotched black throat. Its black shell formed a high dome behind its head, the yellow splotched scales echoing the splotches on its feet and neck.
Greta blew out a breath. “A box turtle.”
Hyacinth nodded enthusiastically. “An Eastern box turtle. Terrapene carolina. That’s why I named it Carolina. Isn’t it pretty?”
Greta knelt down for a better look. Pretty wasn’t exactly the word she’d have used. “It’s a nice-looking turtle. How long have you had it?”
“I just found her day before yesterday.” Hyacinth knelt beside her.
“I thought you said you didn’t keep animals after you’d identified them.” Greta glanced back.
Hyacinth licked her lips. Greta had a feeling she was blushing, although it was hard to tell in the darkness o
f the shed.
“I caught a turtle once when I was little,” Greta said slowly. “My dad let me keep it for a couple of days, but then he told me to set it free. He said it would get sick and die if I kept it.” Also, of course, he wasn’t crazy about having it in the downstairs bathroom. But it had still been a legitimate point.
“It’s endangered,” Hyacinth said quickly. “I can’t let it go. It might get hurt.”
Greta blinked. She didn’t know much about endangered species, but she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to keep them in aquariums in your garden shed. “But my dad was right—I think turtles need to be free. I mean, being in an aquarium can’t be the right kind of life for an animal like this. Plus it really isn’t good for her.”
Hyacinth stuck out her lower lip. Suddenly she looked very much like a nine-year-old and a little like her grandmother. “If I turn her loose, she might get run over by a car. Or a farmer might mow her nest. There are all those dangers out there, things that could kill her. I’m keeping this one safe.”
Greta nodded slowly. “I can see that. But she probably won’t do well in the aquarium either. You wouldn’t want to do anything that would hurt her, would you?” She didn’t like to think about how Hyacinth might react if the turtle died, which it was quite likely to do if Greta was any judge. Bad enough if a pet died on its own. Even worse if it died because the child had done something wrong.
Hyacinth looked away. “I know how to take care of her. I looked it up on Grandma’s computer. I won’t do anything to hurt Carolina.”
Greta chewed on her lip. “Sure, but…”
“What about your cake?” Hyacinth said quickly. “Isn’t it almost done?”
Greta pushed herself to her feet. “Probably. Thank you for showing me Carolina.”
Hyacinth nodded. “You’re welcome,” she muttered, focusing on Greta’s toes.
“Would you like to help me frost the cake?” Greta asked a little desperately.
