Free Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) by T'Gracie Reese, Joe Reese Page A

instant.
    But only for an instant.
    Then they turned.
    Nina was aware of movement behind her, and she turned, too.
    Margot Gavin was standing up.

 
    CHAPTER 7: A CHRISTMAS IDYLL

    “You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do you?”             –– William Faulkner , The Sound and the Fury

    Christmas Eve had, for some time following Frank’s passing, been a difficult time for Nina. The two of them had always exchanged gifts at precisely nine PM (There was no particular reason for that time, but ritual had somehow taken root, and could not be changed). Then they had watched a film version of A Child’s Christmas in Wales , the beautiful Dylan Thomas narrative.
    For years, they’d lived in the old house on Magnolia Avenue which had a fireplace. There were only a few nights of the year cold enough to warrant a fire, but Frank insisted on building one every Christmas Eve, and so it was always there, crackling and glowing, while they drank a glass of mulled wine and sang “All Through the Night” at the film’s closing.
    The first years without him were hard every night, but that one night—that one was particularly difficult.
    It was better now though.
    She had her own place and had grown in time to enjoy making it cozy and habitable.
    The mournful growling of the sea comforted rather than depressed her; and the small artificial tree in the corner of the shack’s main room; the photographs of loved ones hanging on the walls; the various decorations that had been sent to her over the years by relatives; the Christmas cards that had come during the previous week—all of these things made her feel snug and secure in the little Nina-Cave that she had hollowed out here on this remote stretch of Mississippi sand and water, and if the new moon sparkled clear and high in the sky, as it was doing tonight, why, so much the better.
    There was a bit more of a melancholy touch than usual this particular Christmas Eve, of course, because she was now faced with the prospect of losing Margot, her best friend.
    ‘Losing?’ That was putting it a bit harshly, was it not?
    Margot was not dying.
    But she was getting married.
    She was selling Elementals: Treasures from the Earth and Sea, the shop that had become almost a second home to Nina.
    And she was, almost certainly, moving away from Bay St. Lucy to join her new husband—a psychologist of all things—in running The Candles, the dilapidated plantation that Chicago money was to transform into a retreat for writers, actors, and painters.
    The shock of hearing all this news the night of Meg and Jenny’s shower still pained her.
    That was, of course, what Margot had meant about encountering a ghost.
    An old acquaintance.
    One she knew would be looking over the plantation along with her.
    A man she had always gotten along well with, but had never…
    …well, never thought about in precisely that way.
    “And I don’t think he had ever thought of me in that way. But we were glad to see each other. It was fun to stroll about on the grounds, and laugh about how dreadfully boring the other people were, and speculate about how much it would cost to fix up this or bring in a new one of that…”
    “…and then, somehow, we both realized it was changing.”
    “So strange. I could have sworn I was—well, past all of that.”
    “I suppose one never is.”
    No.
    Nina knew, of course, that she was past all of that. There would never be another Frank.
    But Margot had never had a Frank. Not that one irreplaceable person.
    Well, now perhaps, she would have.
    Good for her.
    A bit of sadness for Nina though and another hole in her life that would have to be filled in somehow.
    But she could do it. She had filled in one hole and could find ways to fill another.
    So she was not that sad as she sat in her main room, the reading light glowing above her left shoulder, a paperback book open on her lap, and the blue cell phone sitting motionless on the small table beside