Page 23 of The Secret of Emerald Cottage

Chapter Fourteen

“Are you sure you don’t want me to fix you breakfast first?” Brec asked, thinking his aunt should have nourishment before facing the desecration of her husband’s domain. “You know, eggs Benedict or my cinnamon pumpkin French toast? I can even be talked into making my special baked egg Danish with kimchi and bacon or my espresso waffles with mocha drizzle that you so adore because I have the ingredients.” He paused at the door of her bedroom with her in his arms, grateful Molly had her dressed and ready to go.

“Nope.” Lips clamped in that mulish bent he remembered all too well, she folded stiff arms across a multi-colored floral print blouse that almost blinded him, which Molly had coupled with white capris and his aunt’s beloved Keds. “Got a hankerin’ for your trifle, sonny. Dreamed of it all night, as a matter of fact, so that’s what I’ll be havin’ for breakfast. But not till I see Harold’s office. Which,” she said with a searing blue gaze and a lift of her pointed chin, “I’d already seen if you people had left my crutches by my bed like I asked.”

Molly hustled ahead down the hall to stand before Uncle Hal’s office, turning to face them with hands on her hips. “Trifle is not breakfast, Miss Lilly, especially for someone who needs to build up their strength. And the doctor would rather you let that ankle heal a few days before you tackle crutches,” she said with that Nurse Ratched look in her eyes that Brec learned not to sass back, “so we’re only following orders. Besides, you have the bell to ring if you need us at any time.”

“Cain’t walk on a blasted bell,” she muttered, “but I sure in the devil can eat trifle any bloomin’ time I want, and ain’t nobody gonna stop me.”

“Now, Aunt Lilly, Molly is right, trifle is dessert, not breakfast,” Brec began, but his aunt shushed him after Molly opened the door to Uncle Hal’s office, a lump bobbing in her ropey throat as he carried her in. Molly pulled the chair out for Brec to set Miss Lilly down.

The poor thing sank into the folds of the leather chair like she was made of sand, blue-veined hands slowly caressing the arms like it was Uncle Hal himself. “Don’t know why I avoid coming in here,” she whispered, “always feel closer to him when I do.” She blinked quickly, but not before Brec saw the sudden sheen in her eyes. With the barest quiver in her fingers, she gently skimmed them along the top of the polished desk. “Maybe that’s why. Because it’s so hard to walk back out again and face the fact that he’s gone.”

Hoping to get her mind off of the melancholy, Brec nodded to the various pictures he’d rehung on the walls minus their glass. “I plan to replace most of the frames since all the glass broke, but at least they’re up and hanging for now.” He picked up the wedding picture of his aunt and uncle from the edge of the desk where it had always sat as long as he could remember. “This is the only frame still intact, glass and all, Aunt Lilly, as if Uncle Hal personally protected it.”

She reached for it with a tender smile, eyes misting up again. “It was a wedding gift from his mother, so I’m sure she spent a fortune on it. They don’t make many things like they used to, you know.”

“No, ma’am, they don’t.” Brec gently retrieved the wedding picture and placed it back on the corner of the desk. “Nor many men like Uncle Hal either. He was a special person”—he gently squeezed her shoulder— “just like his wife.”

Molly rounded the desk to open the top, right-hand drawer. “So, Miss Lilly, can you tell if anything was taken from the desk drawers?”

“I doubt it,” she said, rifling through with little interest. “Nothing to steal unless you need tape or staples.” She grunted as she flicked through the rest of the drawers, finally nodding to the bill box piled high in the corner with a twist of a smile. “Or they wanted to pay my bills, which isn’t likely.”

Her frail frame rose and sank with a heavy sigh as she gave a jerky nod over her shoulder. “Nope, the only thing of value is in that there credenza, and you already assured me that no coins were missing from their slots.” She peered up at Molly and Brec beneath papery thin eyelids all but bereft of lashes. “Any problem gettin’ in? ’Cause that button tends to stick since I seldom use it.”

Brec cuffed the back of his neck with a smile. “Well, I have to admit, Aunt Lilly, for a few daunting seconds, I thought you might be hallucinating since the button refused to budge—”

“But apparently your great nephew is as stubborn as you are,” Molly interrupted with a smirk in Brec’s direction, “because I thought he was going to break his hand pushing that swirly center for longer than the three seconds you mentioned. His face was as white as his thumb.”

“Uh, yeah, definitely more than three seconds.” Brec rubbed his thumb with a crooked smile, thinking Uncle Hal was pure genius how he’d rigged that hiding place. “But everything was safe and sound as far as we could tell, although there were a few loose doubloons that look like they were just tossed in there.”

Aunt Lilly’s hoarse chuckle echoed in the small room. “That’s because they were. Cat found several of those last year a-diggin’ in my garden, all buried there, I suspect, by ferocious pirates.” A sparkle lit in her eyes as she gave a nod to one of the framed pictures Brec had replaced on the credenza, the one of his dad as a boy during a fishing tournament with Uncle Hal and his friends.

Brec picked it up, mouth compressed as he stared at his father like he’d done a hundred times before, until one edge of his lips finally zagged up. “I suppose these are the ‘ferocious pirates’ you’re referring to?”

“None other,” Aunt Lilly said with a look of affection, extending a hand to take the framed photo from Brec. A glaze appeared in her eyes as always when she stared at Uncle Hal’s picture, taken following a fishing tournament with Uncle Hal’s friends and their boys. “They were a rowdy bunch, as I recall, far more prone to mischief than either you or Chase in their day, especially when they were twelve and thirteen, which is when this was taken. Only time I ever saw Harold lose his temper with ’em was when they’d sneak coins from his office drawer to play pirates, losing several before Harold finally resorted to his hiding places.”

“Ah-hah!” Molly moved around to the back of Miss Lilly’s chair alongside Brec, both of them peeking at the picture over her shoulder. “So, these are the infamous ‘Lads of Lake Loon’, eh? Which one is Pastor Pritchett?”

“This one right here,” Aunt Lilly said, pointing a bony finger at a freckle-faced boy with red hair, long since faded in the picture. “He was a bit of a stinker, so I always told him he reminded me of Huckleberry Finn, which started the other boys a-callin’ him Huck, which he hated, of course.” Her finger slowly skimmed over to Brec’s dad, Blaine McGill, whose dark hair and light blue eyes were so like Brec’s own. “Of course, this was the biggest troublemaker right here because he had a true knack for wrapping Harold around his little finger, and charmin’ the socks off of me and females in general, just like his son.”

Molly bumped Brec’s shoulder with her own, her smile more than a little smug. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He nudged her back with a half-lidded smile. “Because you have trust issues?”

She arched a cocky brow despite the hint of a blush dusting her cheeks. “Can you blame me?” Diverting with a squat next to his aunt, she squinted hard at the picture, finally tapping a finger on a handsome tow-headed boy with a mischievous grin. “This is Alan Murray, I bet.”

“How do you know Alan Murray?” Brec asked, brows scrunched in surprise.

“Duh.” Molly peered up with a smart-aleck look with which Brec was becoming all too familiar. “His picture is only all over the news as being on the President’s long list for the Supreme Court, Soccer Boy.” She turned away, nose in the air. “Besides, Chase told me.”

“Ah, yes, the Honorable Judge Murray,” Aunt Lilly said with true fondness, “son-in-law to my best friend, Muriel, and quite an impressive coin collector himself, I understand.” Her gaze softened as she gently stroked Alan’s picture, as if petting his head. “Alan was one of the boys along with your dad who would listen to Harold talk about his precious coins ad nauseam, saving me from hours of ear-bendin’ of my own.” A wispy chuckle feathered her lips as she angled to give Brec a wink. “My, oh my, how I missed those boys when they went off to college.”

Brec grinned, remembering how often—and long—Uncle Hal could go on and on about his coins.

“And who are the other three ‘Lads’?” Molly asked.

Aunt Lilly pointed to a tall, gangly boy who almost seemed awkward, his smile considerably more sober than the others. “That’s Roy Lambert, the only one who lived on the lake full-time back then and still does, as a matter of fact, although he’s no more than a hermit nowadays.” She slid her finger to the next one, a bulky boy with dark hair. “And that’s his best friend, Pete Benson. The two of them were thick as thieves.”