One Small Secret

“Is everything to your liking, gentlemen?” she asked, again with her hosteler’s smile.

“We’re going out,” was all Metz offered, as he and Keliher made their way to the front door.

“Well, let me know if there’s anything you need. I’ll be happy to recommend homes to tour—” Honor’s words were cut short by the slam of the door.

Lockey went to her and put her arms around her waist. “Who were those men, Mommy?”

Honor shook her head. “Rude Yankees,” she answered with a laugh. “Never mind them. Let’s see what we have for a snack, and then I’ll need some help picking flowers for breakfast tomorrow. Are you ready?”

Lockey nodded.

Honor took her by the hand and headed for the kitchen. On the outside she was all mom, chocolate chip cookies and fussing over homework. On the inside she was worried.

She didn’t like Larry Metz and Jack Keliher. But her opinion was formed by more than just a vague feeling. She didn’t understand why two men in suits would check into a family bed and breakfast with an oddly large black duffle bag, then leave right afterward with their awkward luggage in tow, as if they were afraid to leave it in the room. Beside the contrast with innocent little Lockey when the child bumped into them, Metz and Keliher looked ridiculous lugging that duffle all the way through the lobby. The thing was big enough to be a body bag.

Honor shuddered. Her imagination was getting the best of her. It was their business what they did with their luggage.

They were probably just disappointed with their rooms and had decided to ditch the place without telling her. That was why they were leaving so soon, and with their bag.

With any other two guests, Honor might have been miffed that they hadn’t given her the chance to correct what was bothering them, but with these two, she found she couldn’t shake the feeling of relief. She didn’t want any shady characters at her B&B. She was a single mother, running a business from her home. Vulnerability was always an issue.

Honor’s relief at the thought that the men might have gone elsewhere only increased as she watched Lockey pull out her math workbook from her backpack.

But then her stomach plummeted when she looked out the kitchen window and saw the sheriff’s car pull into the back drive.

“Doug! Great to see you. What brings you to my quiet little place?” Honor extended her hand. Through the screen door she could see Lockey at the kitchen table starting her homework.

“I’ve come to see if you’ve done married yet, girl.” Doug ignored the outstretched hand and gave her a bear hug.

He was no longer a young man and he suffered from a too-large gut and not enough exercise, but Sheriff Doug Landry was one of the best. During the sixties, when racial fire was raging through Mississippi, he’d taken the townspeople by the throat and told them to get along—that no one under his jurisdiction, black or white, was going to suffer from a random act of hatred. And just as the town had done when the Northern Army had arrived, everyone decided their place was worth saving, so there were virtually no incidents in Natchez. Even now, it was a quiet little town, although tourism, drugs and gambling had arrived, as they seemed to have everywhere.

“Come and sit. Let me make you some coffee. Then you can quiz me on my love life, and I can quiz you on the reasons for this visit.” Honor raised an eyebrow.

Doug laughed.

She showed him to a floral-cushioned seat on the back veranda. He took off his hat and laid it on the white wicker table.

“Okay, shoot,” Honor said archly when the coffee was ready.

“Girl, why hasn’t some man snapped you up? With your looks and sense of humor, how could a man resist?”

Honor chuckled. “They’ve resisted all right. Besides, you know I’m looking for a man just like you, Doug, but unfortunately, Doris isn’t making any loaners.”

He coughed through his laughter. “And that wife of mine asks about you all the time. She’s going to be madder’n a snake if I tell her I left Shaw’s Retreat without a certified acceptance of a dinner invitation. How about Wednesday?”

“I’d love to come. Have Doris call and tell me what time, and I’m there.” She sat down in the wicker seat next to him. “Now, why the visit, Doug? Is something up?”

Doug wiped his brow with the white handkerchief he kept in his breast pocket. “I’m just paying a call to let you know not to be worried about all the cars and stuff that’ll be traveling down this road after tomorrow.”

“Down this road? But this is a dead-end street. What’s going on?”

“Seems your neighbor’s come back, girl.”

Honor shook her head, bewildered. Shaw’s Retreat was a fine Gothic house built in 1850 for Natchez’s first physician, her great-great-great-grandfather. Next door to the property was the old carriage house, which had been sold during the Depression. The carriage house was now home to a nice elderly widow.

“Mrs. Bennett’s been gone? I thought I just saw her,” she said.

“‘Fraid to tell you, girl, but it’s your other neighbor who’s come back.” He pointed to the property on the other side of the house. “Blackbird Hall’s comin’ back to life as of tomorrow.”

Suddenly she wanted to wring her hands and run away like a child. With heroic effort, she glanced casually at the huge acreage that sat on the other side of Shaw’s Retreat. The road ended at the gates of Blackbird Hall, but for years Honor had taken it for granted that the road ended at Shaw’s Retreat, because Blackbird Hall had been boarded up and closed down for as many years as...well, as Lockey had been..

“You’re a thousand miles away, girl.”

Honor shot her gaze back to the sheriff. “I just can’t believe, after all this time, we’re finally going to have a neighbor over there.”

“And what a neighbor. His damned sec‘etary called me and told me that they were sending in a fair army tomorrow morning, so the owner could have dinner there by tomorrow night. That’s when I told Doris I’d better get on out here and warn you ’bout the traffic.”

She did her best to smile. “I’m glad you did. I’d really be wondering what was going on.” Her gaze slid back to the grove of moss-covered live oak trees and the old iron gate that said, in hand-forged letters, Blackbird Hall. Numbly, she walked Doug back to his squad car. After more promises of dinner, he drove off, and she was left to stare again at the grove, the fence and the weed-choked drive that led to a house she knew only too well—because it haunted her dreams almost every night.

Suddenly she felt faint, but denial ran in her blood like an antidote.

Maybe the property had been sold without her knowing about it. It could be another person entirely who was going to show up tomorrow night.

That’s right, she told herself as she went back into the kitchen and grabbed her pruning shears. It might not be him at all.

“I’m done, Mommy. Can I help you with the garden now?”

As if in a daze, Honor looked over at her daughter. Lockey gave her that grin, that beautiful heartbreaking smile, and suddenly Honor knew she was deluding herself. It had only been a matter of time, and now time was up.

Of all the wicked ironies.

He was finally coming back.

Two

In misery, Honor watched the trucks and cars go back and forth from Blackbird Hall. Doug hadn’t been kidding. It looked as if they were preparing for the president himself to visit. The cleaning crew had arrived in two full-size buses, which were even now parked in front of Shaw’s Retreat as if the National Registry house were nothing but a bus depot. Five contractors’ vans were scattered along the road, nearly blocking passage, and men streamed back and forth carrying dropcloths and tool boxes.

“Who are those people, Mommy?”

Honor spun around and faced Lockey, her heart constricting. “They’re just fixing up the place for the owner.”

“The owner? I always thought we owned that place.” The little girl looked up at her, her eyes as large and blue as cornflowers.

“No, darling,” Honor said with a painful laugh. “But I can see how you’d think that. Blackbird Hall’s been locked up a long time. That’s why it’s taking so many people to put it right again.”

“Who’s going to live there?”

“A man. A very rich man.”