Free Copper Lake Secrets by Marilyn Pappano Page A

understand.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    The trees thinned ahead, allowing the sunlight through, and the house became visible. Jones’s gaze fixed on it. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”
    Reece tried to appreciate the house from a purely architectural view. The symmetry of windows and doors was nice. The porch that stretched across the front was shady and cool in the morning, sunny and warm in the afternoon. It was a wonderful place for watching storms sweep across the river. The bright white and the crisp green paint contrasted starkly with each other, and the faded brick softened the whole effect.
    It was exactly how a plantation-era house should look.
    But where Jones saw beauty, she saw despair. In every one of those windows reaching three stories high, she saw unhappiness. Gloom. Unsettledness. Cold. It was the most unwelcoming place she’d ever been and, having grown up with Valerie, that said a lot.
    “I’m afraid I’m too biased to answer that fairly.”
    A slight figure rose from one of the rockers on the porch and faced their direction. Grandmother. It was too early for lunch, so probably a good time to talk to her. Reece had tried a couple of times the afternoon and night before, but it was just so hard to start the conversation.
    Her experience with Valerie didn’t make it any easier. Every time the word summer came from Reece’s mouth, even if it was something as innocuous as a mention of summer vacation, her mother tensed, lines appeared at the corners of her mouth and a look passed through her eyes. Here we go again.
    But Reece hadn’t tried three dozen times to get any information from Grandmother.
    “Mick and I are going back to the cottage to get to work,” Jones said, his path angling toward the back of the house.
    “Coward,” she murmured.
    “I heard that.”
    Her own steps slowed until she was barely moving. Once she realized it, she gave herself a mental shake and picked up the pace. As she walked across acres of neatly mown grass, she wondered what had possessed Grandfather to tear up the gardens that had been such a large part of Fair Winds’ legend. Surely he hadn’t resented the staff needed to care for them. And it couldn’t have been a financial decision; he’d had more money than God.
    What problem had flowers and shrubs and fountains caused that led him to destroy them?
    Long before she was ready, she reached the house. Grandmother had seated herself again, a book open on her lap. Dressed as formally as ever, she slid her gaze over Reece’s shirt, capris and sneakers, and her nose crinkled in the slightest humph, though she said nothing about Reece’s appearance.
    She gestured to the nearest chair, green wicker with a floral-patterned cushion. “Have you been getting Mr. Jones acquainted with the property, Clarice?”
    “Getting both of us acquainted with it.” Reece didn’t correct the names. That Jones preferred no Mister preceding his name and she generally answered only to Reece was of no consequence to Grandmother. She was the arbiter of what was correct and it wasn’t open to discussion.
    “You spent enough hours out there in those woods. I don’t see how you could possibly have forgotten any part of it. Of course, that was a long time ago.”
    It was as good an opening as any Reece was likely to get. Shifting enough to make the wicker creak, she tried to project a casual attitude, in both voice and posture, as she said, “There’s a lot I don’t remember about that summer.”
    “There wasn’t much to remember. You got up in the morning, played outside until mealtime and you went to bed at night. Once a week you went to town with me to shop, and on Sunday mornings we went to church.”
    “All of us?” It was hard to imagine Grandfather putting on a suit, going to church and being sociable.
    “You, Mark and I. Your grandfather believed in God. He just thought he was more likely to find Him out there—” she gestured toward the property “—than