Free If Onions Could Spring Leeks by Paige Shelton Page B

weren’t all that important. I hadn’t had much choice but to talk to the ghost who seemed so real to me from the first moment I’d met him. I wondered if Dad had—or has since—smelled the woodsmoke, but there was no way to ask that question without causing him to have a million more.
    â€œBetts!” Mom said as I came through the front door. The kitchen was a straight shot to the back of the house. She could see me when I came in as she stood at the sink washing something. “You’re here—I’m so glad. Come join us and have something to eat. There’s still some left.”
    I heard laughter, but I couldn’t see Teddy and Opie until I reached the kitchen.
    â€œSmells great in here,” I said, my stomach waking up voraciously.
    â€œHave a seat,” Mom said as she nodded at the table at the far end of the room. Mom was tall, thin, blond, and very pretty. She was one of those women whose features got better as she got older. Even though she’d always been thin, her face had been pleasantly round when she was younger. As she’d hit hermid-fifties, her facial features had sharpened, giving her a regal look. She’d gone from cute to beautiful. I looked nothing like her so I didn’t plan on such an outcome for my middle age. I looked like Gram, but though she wasn’t beautiful in the ways my mom was, I liked the way she’d aged, too. I got some lucky genes.
    And so had Teddy. He looked more like Mom than Dad, but his male version had caused more heartbreak and heartache than one small town and a big sister in Missouri should have to suffer.
    He’d never had a serious girlfriend. Until Opie—Ophelia Buford. Opie was older than Teddy. She was my age. The relationship between she and Teddy had caught everyone off guard. There had never been any indication that the two of them were attracted to each other, but one day they were together. Happily. Sappily. Awfully. Together.
    For a short time, I’d thought it was disloyal of my brother to date the woman who’d made my life so miserable during our growing-up years. But then I’d watched them together and even I couldn’t deny that they were a good couple. However, their “coupling” still got under my skin.
    â€œBetts, how ya doin’, sis’?” Teddy said as he stood and gave me a hug.
    â€œI’m fine. That’s quite a greeting.” I hugged back with almost as much enthusiasm as he’d put into it.
    â€œIt’s good to see you,” he said. “I heard about Derek and I’m sorry.”
    I looked into his eyes. Nope, he didn’t know I’d been hit over the head either. So far, so good on keeping that secret.
    â€œThanks. I’m sorry, too. Not a good way to go.”
    â€œHi, Betts,” Opie said from the table. I would have thoughtit phony and suspicious if she’d gotten up to hug me. She knew that.
    â€œOpie, how are you?”
    â€œWell. You? Sorry about what you went through yesterday.” Opie looked good. She was a pretty woman anyway; curvy and blond. She typically wore a thick coat of makeup, but lately that had been mellower. She looked very happy and so did Teddy.
    Who was I to judge who my brother dated?
    â€œThanks. I’m fine.”
    â€œCome sit and have some of your mother’s wonderful casserole,” Opie said, sincerity lining her words. I pushed away the encroaching suspicion.
    I pulled up a chair and hurriedly scooped out some of the casserole and plopped it onto a plate.
    â€œI bet it was one of Derek’s wives,” Opie said after I’d had a bite or two. I was sitting right next to her, but she leaned a little closer to me.
    â€œWhich one?” I said around the egg, ham, and potato concoction that was one of mom’s few recipes. She wasn’t the best cook, but she tried. And Dad hadn’t gotten his mother’s cooking abilities, so Teddy and I had always