Twice in a Lifetime. Marta Perry

was like old times, moving around the kitchen with her grandmother. In moments they’d assembled a tray with glasses, the pitcher of tea, a sprig of mint and a plate of Miz Callie’s famous pecan tassies.

      Georgia’s mouth watered at the sight of the rich, sweet tarts. Her favorite. But her grandmother hadn’t known she was coming, had she?

      She’d ask, but Miz Callie was already heading out to the deck off the living room, picking up the battered sun hat she wore outside. Carrying the tray, Georgia followed.

      She stepped through the sliding glass door and inhaled the salty scent of sea air. The breeze from the water caressed her skin as it tossed the sea oats that grew thickly on the dunes.

      “I love it here.” The words came without thought as the endless expanse of sea and sky filled her with a sense of well-being.

      Miz Callie gave her characteristic short nod. “Then you understand how I feel.” She sat down, reaching out to take Georgia’s hand and draw her to the chair next to her. “Stay here at the beach house while you’re home, won’t you? I’d love to have you.”

      She hadn’t really thought about where she’d stay on this rushed visit, but she could combat whatever Matthew Harper was planning better if she were on the spot.

      “I’d love to. I’m sure the folks won’t mind.”

      That was a positive step forward. Now if she could get Miz Callie talking about what the family called her odd behavior…

      “You want to tell me what happened to your engagement ring?” Her grandmother’s soft voice interrupted her thoughts.

      Her gaze flew from Miz Callie to her ring finger. “You noticed.” Her mother hadn’t, when she’d stopped briefly at the house, and that had been a relief.

      “Of course I did, the minute I saw you. What happened with you and James, darlin’?”

      One part of her wanted to spill the whole sorry mess into her grandmother’s sympathetic ear, the way she would have poured out her problems when she was ten. But she was a grown woman now, and maybe she should act like one.

      “It was nothing very dramatic.” Wasn’t it? A shaft of pain went through her. It hadn’t been dramatic only because she lacked the courage to make a scene. “We both realized we’d made a mistake.”

      She could still see James’s face—his amazement that she’d object to his stealing her work, jeopardizing her job and lying about it. The irrevocable differences between them had been shown up as if by lightning.

      She forced his image from her mind. “Better now than later, right?”

      “That’s certain.” Her grandmother’s clear blue eyes said that she knew there was more. “Still, if you want to talk about it…”

      “I know where to come.” She pressed Miz Callie’s hand.

      “Does your mamma know?”

      Georgia shook her head. “I’m not looking forward to that. The day I told her I was engaged was the first time she felt proud of me since I learned to tie my own shoes.”

      “Oh, sugar, that’s not true.” Miz Callie looked concerned. “You and your mother don’t always see eye to eye about what your life should be like, but she loves you.”

      The point wasn’t that they didn’t love each other. She’d just never managed to be the daughter her mother wanted. “I know. I’ll tell her.”

      Just not right away. It was enough that she knew her love life was a disaster. Somebody ought to put up poles and orange tape around her to warn others, the way the turtle ladies did around the loggerhead turtle nests on the beach.

      “Enough of my sad story,” she said. “Tell me what’s happening with you.”

      Her grandmother’s eyebrows lifted. “Don’t you already know, Georgia Lee? Didn’t the family send for you? Tell you that you had to come talk some sense into your foolish old grandmother?”

      It was so near to what the family had said that for a moment she couldn’t speak. She took a deep breath and sent up a wordless prayer.

      “They love you. They don’t understand, and they’re worried.”

      “If they don’t understand something, they should ask me instead of jumping to conclusions.” Miz Callie’s voice was as sharp as she’d ever heard it.

      Georgia’s heart sank. She was used to her father and uncles overreacting to things. But for Miz Callie to take offense—the chasm between them must be bad.

      “I’m asking, Miz Callie. They’re saying you’re giving away things from the Charleston house. That you brought a derelict home for dinner. That you’re talking about living here in the cottage year-round all by yourself. Don’t you understand how that worries them? You’ve never done anything like that before.”

      “Exactly.” Miz Callie leaned back, tipping her battered straw sun hat forward. “I’m seventy-five years old, Georgia Lee, and I’ve spent my whole life doing exactly what other people think I should. I decided it was high time I tried living the way I feel I should.”

      For a moment Georgia couldn’t speak again. Miz Callie was the rock in their lives—the one unchanging point. To think that she’d been dissatisfied all that time…She couldn’t get her mind around it.

      “But you and Grandfather always seemed so happy together.”

      “Darlin’, of course we were happy. I purely loved Richmond Bodine to distraction.” Miz Callie’s smile eased the tension that was tying Georgia in knots. “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about society in general. You can’t imagine how often I wanted to do somethin’ odd, just to shake everyone up.”

      That feeling she did get. “I always wanted to walk into dancing class in jeans, just to see what would happen.”

      Laughing, her grandmother took her hand again. “So we’re more alike than you thought.”

      “I’m honored,” she said. “But, Miz Callie, bringing a homeless person back to the house—that could be dangerous.”

      “That poor old man.” Her face crinkled in sorrow. “Georgia Lee, that man fought bravely for his country in World War II, and there he was living on the street. I declare, it made my blood boil. Yes, I brought him home, but I called Lola Wentworth—you remember Lola. Her mother, Alma Sue, was a great friend of mine—and she came over and met us. We gave that poor old soul a good meal, and then Lola was able to get him into a decent living situation.”

      Georgia untangled the digressions into Lola’s heritage and realized that the woman must be in social work of some kind. It sounded as if Miz Callie’s actions, if unusual, had at least been sensible.

      “Did you tell all this to my daddy?”

      “I did not.” Miz Callie’s lips pressed together in a firm line. “He never asked, just started lecturing me as if I were a child.”

      Her head began to throb. If she’d been hauled home from Atlanta just because her parents and grandmother couldn’t sit down and talk things through…

      It couldn’t be that simple. They hadn’t even touched on Miz Callie’s move to the cottage, or the rumors of her plans for the property she owned on remote, uninhabited Jones Island, just up the coast.

      Or, most of all, how Matthew Harper fit into this.

      Chapter Two

      Before Georgia could open her mouth to get in her next question, she heard quick, light footsteps on the stairs that led up to the deck from the beach.

      “Miz Callie, I found a whelk. Wait ’til you see.” A young girl reached the top of the stairs, saw Georgia and stopped. Her heart-shaped face, lit with pleasure, closed down