AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That you do, woman,” Beau said with a thick Scottish brogue and kissed her.
I turned to Ian. “Do we sound that corny?”
“Always, lass,” he said heavy on the brogue and with a wink.
I chuckled then looked to Amy and Beau. “Let’s talk murder.”
I detailed what my dad and I had discussed as we ate.
“Can drugs be completely ruled out?” Beau asked.
“I suppose there’s always that chance,” I said. “Drugs and lies do go together.”
“That’s what Betty Carson said,” Amy said, after finishing a spoonful of creamy tomato and basil soup. “She told me that looking back she was amazed at all the lies her husband had told her and how easily she had accepted them. Until someone can prove differently, she says she believes him responsible for their daughter’s death.”
“Lies come easily to some people,” Ian said. “It’s easier than most people think to fall prey to a smooth talker. I learned too late my old agent had that skill, but then I heard what I wanted to hear and didn’t bother to look deeper into things.”
“I almost fell into that trap with my dad’s return. I got these grand ideas in my head when he talked about family and that we might actually get to be a real family,” Amy admitted. “I’m grateful to Betty Carson for being honest with me. It made me open my eyes and see the truth about my dad… that he’d never be the dad I wished he’d be.”
“Then Pete Carson could have been lying,” Beau said. “Rita could have been killed due to drugs and Travis killed and buried so the blame would be laid on him.”
“It still doesn’t explain the unidentified bones,” I said. “I think those bones are the key to solving this mystery.”
Ian and I rendezvoused in the bedroom after watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. We’d been so busy we hadn’t had a chance to enjoy our favorite pastime watching old suspense movies as often as we had. So right after a light supper, Ian got a fire going and I opened a bottle of wine, and we melted into the couch together under a blanket to watch a movie we both loved. It’s a classic neither of us will ever tire of watching.
The rendezvous was everything and more I had anticipated, and we fell asleep wrapped around each other. Around three, I woke as if someone poked me, my eyes popping open. Ian and I were turned away from each other, unusual for us since we often woke wrapped around each other.
I could tell I wasn’t going to fall back asleep, so I slipped out of bed, slipped into my warm slippers and hurried into my flannel bathrobe and headed to the library to grab my aunt’s two journals. Then after getting a fire going, I curled up on the couch.
“Don’t even think of it, Mo,” I said, and he turned away from my bedroom ready to join Ian in bed since he knew the door wouldn’t be locked with me out here. “Park it, buddy.”
Resolved to his fate, he collapsed his big body in front of where I sat on the couch.
I glanced through the pages before reading them, scanning the dates, wanting to read them in chronological order. I saw that my aunt didn’t write in them every day but then her writings told of a busy life, endless fittings and practices on the runway, meetings, parties, names that now lived in history. Then it changed.
I met the most wonderful and handsomest man today by sheer accident. He’s a reporter from Scotland. It had been his job during the war, reporting the news he was allowed to report and recording the news he wasn’t allowed to report. We lost time talking. He was so easy to talk with and his smile could steal a woman’s heart.
Unfortunately, he’s married but then as they say, ‘all the good ones are taken.’
I can’t seem to get him off my mind. His gorgeous face and smile are embedded in my memory and when I close my eyes I see him there. And his brogue only added to his appeal, though it was not heavy enough where I could not understand him.
We talked as if we were old friends reuniting after being separated too long. I could tell he felt the same by the way he looked at me. I have learned a lot about men since entering the world of modeling and much of it is not to my liking. So, I am familiar with a man’s look and I could tell he was attracted to me, but then many are, yet somehow it felt different with him. His look wasn’t sexual, it was… dare I say… love at first sight.
I always thought that silly. How could you love someone at first sight, but now I wonder for I find I wish to see him again and again. However, that is not possible since he is married. Strange, but I felt as if my heart broke when we said goodbye. And now thinking about him, I have tears in my eyes.
