Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6) (46 page)

“Quite a change from your attitude when I first moved back to town,” I tease, not really wanting to talk about Beau and me.
 

“He’s different—more relaxed, more sure of himself. I think clearing up the whole Lindsay thing really helped. You did that for him, Gracie.”

“Yes, well, I think the far more interesting Drayton at this little get-together is Brick. And when exactly he’s going to come clean about his feelings for Millie.”

Mel raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “I know, right? And I swear to you, she’s not even pretending when she doesn’t see it. She honestly thinks he’s just being nice.”

“What are you two gossiping about over here?” Will asks, coming up behind his wife and pecking the back of her neck. He reaches for a roll and gets a swat on the back of his hand. “Ow.”

“We’re not gossiping.”

“Yeah. Try that line on someone who hasn’t known you since elementary school.”

“Turkey’s ready!” Beau calls, putting the last pieces on the largest platter we could find.

The table is covered already, with sweet potatoes, collard greens, gravy, green beans, a couple different kinds of salad, and all of the sparkling dinnerware. Amelia takes off her apron and helps Beau find a spot for the turkey while Mel wedges the potatoes and rolls onto a nearby tray for things that won’t fit.

Grant runs over and crashes into her leg, and she sits down, pulling him onto her lap. Everyone else finds a seat—Birdie choosing a spot next to Beau, who sits next to me. Mel and Will are across from us, and Will’s mother claims a seat next to her son, then takes Grant around the table to fill his plate. Lindsay does the same with Marcella, but she and Leo end up next to Mel—across from Beau almost directly, which could be interesting. Aunt Karen and Uncle Wally decided to take a trip to Turks for the holiday. I think she’s trying to avoid a breakdown and an increase in medication after what she saw on the Burleigh property.

Brick hovers until Amelia chooses a chair and then sits next to her, and once the kids are settled, I wonder if we should say grace. My grams would have done it, and even though I can’t remember the last time I went to church, it feels wrong to have our first Thanksgiving in this house and leave it unsaid.
 

To my surprise—and most of the other guests, judging by their faces—Brick clears his throat. “I’d like to say a quick prayer, if no one minds.”

We shake our heads, and Amelia gives him a small smile. “We’d like that.”

Heads bow around the table, and my cousin’s hand sneaks into mine. I lace my fingers through Beau’s on the other side, he does the same with his sister, and so on. We’re linked, all of us, and it’s strange to think that it’s all through me. The thought warms me up, and I squeeze both of their hands as Brick clears his throat a second time.

“Heavenly Father, we have so much to be thankful for that if I took the time to list everything, these good people would kill me because the turkey would get cold.” He pauses, and there are smiles around the table. I see them because I’m peeking, but it surprises me to find that Brick is not looking to see if his joke landed. “We just want you to know that we acknowledge Your benevolence and Your presence in all aspects of our lives. We’re grateful most of all that You’ve led us all to one another, because friends in this world are hard to find and to keep. Harder for some of us than others.”

Amelia’s fingers tighten around Brick’s and an unexpected wave of affection surges through me.
 

Oh my god. I’m shipping them.

“Thank you for this meal and for the people around this table, especially the ones who prepared it. Amen.”

The prayer is short and sweet and quiet proof that Beau’s brother is probably in some kind of official rehab. Amelia told me before he’d arrived today that he’d stopped drinking, so that things didn’t get too awkward. Apparently Beau and Birdie already knew because they make no comment when he passes on the bottle of wine Lindsay offers.

We eat, the quiet surrounding the sound of scraping forks and chewing telling me all I need to know about what everyone thinks about our cooking. Grams would be proud, I think, of us. Of everything we’ve accomplished, even if we did sort of have to turn our backs on our ancestor to do it.

I would never pretend Anne’s not an intricate part of our family’s past, though, even if her blood no longer runs through our veins. She still made us who we are, and there’s no going back from that, not twenty-six years in. More for Aunt Karen. So I guess Leo gets his wish. Other than having eyes a different shade of green, the release of the curse won’t change me, not too much.

Amelia is back on track, still seeing her therapist but happier than I’ve seen her since I came back to Heron Creek. Mel and Leo are free from the Middletons, too, and the Drayton siblings are taking on Allied and everything that’s happened, and is maybe still happening, in the Middle East.

Everyone around the table is smiling and happy, our futures once again bright and open with a million possibilities.

Beau squeezes my knee, a silent question in his gaze that makes me wonder what my face looks like. It’s all a bit disconcerting, the happiness. It’s what I came back here to find, but after seeing Anne and then Amelia almost dying and me breaking up with Beau, it seems like it’s been a long time coming. So long, in fact, that it’s a little hard to believe it’s really happening.

I smile, and it seems to reassure him that everything’s fine. Everything
is
fine, even if I still see ghosts and that’s probably not going to stop. If that’s the hardest thing about my life, it will be a relief. An honor, even, in a lot of ways, as long as they don’t get me into too much trouble along the way.

Yes, we’re more than fine.

I catch Leo’s eye across the table, and the expression in his blue, blue eyes reassures me. He gives me a nod, and I swear I can almost read his mind.

Believe it, Gracie. Sometimes things really do turn out right.

I look around the table, frowning a little because Dylan Travis isn’t here, even though Amelia invited him. Lindsay avoids everyone’s gazes, I still have niggling doubts over my future with Beau, which bothers me, Frank has stopped calling me back again, and Mrs. Walters is dead.

So maybe things are not quite right, exactly. But with my friends gathered around me, safe and sound, and love being offered to me at every turn, they’re
mostly
right. After the way my first six months back in Heron Creek has gone, mostly right feels pretty damn great.
 

THANK YOU!

I would like to thank you for sticking with Gracie and me through the first 6 books of this series. I hope that you’ll continue on, even now that the major storylines have been resolved - Gracie has no plans to stop helping ghosts, and the have no plans to leave her be! The next book in the series,
Not Quite Mine
, will be out on May 31
^st
, 2016, and you can
preorder it here
.
 

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Not Quite Right
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In the meantime, please check out
Secrets Don’t Make Friends
, a thriller about roommates who find themselves in an unlikely alliance after they deal (poorly) with a dead body in their midst.

There’s a sneak peek into
Not Quite Mine
on the following page, so flip and check it out!

Not Quite Mine

(A Lowcountry Mystery)

Chapter One

“Are you sure you don’t want to just let this go?” Beau asks, his big hands on my hips as he tugs me against him for another kiss.

My lips linger on his, enjoying the salty, toothpaste-y taste of his mouth and the warmth of his arms around me. We’ve had a whole, wonderful weekend without any interruptions but now it’s Monday. He needs to get to work and I can’t ignore the trembling seed of guilt in my belly any longer.
 

I pull away with a sigh, smiling into his handsome face. “I probably should let it go, but I feel badly for getting Travis fired. The least I can do is try to explain before he splits town.”

“I suppose the man deserves an apology, if nothing else.” He kisses the tip of my nose, then helps me into the coat he pulled from the closet before distracting us both. “But don’t forget that he could have avoided all of this by simply telling you the truth from the start.”

“Maybe.” I kiss him one last time and grab my purse off the floor, then twist the knob on his front door. The chill of the late-November wind washes over me, cooling the blood he heated with his skillful lips and hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I promised Amelia we could spend the evening together, just the two of us. It had been too long, and even though she’s doing so much better, I’m struggling to shake the fear of the past months and let her be.
 

My constant calls and texts started to annoy her a week ago, but I can’t help it.

“I love you, Gracie Anne.”

“Love you, too, Mr. Mayor.” I shoot him one last smile over my shoulder, then climb into my Honda.

Beau gives me a wave as I back out of the driveway, then point my car toward the house Travis rented on the other side of town. It’s early, but I need to see him before it’s time to report to the library and besides, he’s never struck me as the sort of person who indulges in sleeping late.

Then again, if we’re really related, he’s probably prone to depression when faced with the spitballs life throws at us, so maybe he’s wallowing. No one has seen him since he resigned almost a week ago, now. Amelia had gone by the day before Thanksgiving to check on him but he either hadn’t been home or had refused to answer the door.
 

I stop at Westie’s and get us both a cafe au lait and a couple of croissants. It’s the closest thing to donuts they have, and he
is
a cop. Maybe the delicious smell of pastries will convince him to stop hiding. Bearing gifts is the best way to show up when one is planning to grovel and apologize. Everyone knows that.

Beau is more annoyed than I am over Travis being in town all this time and failing to tell either Amelia or me that he came because he thought he was my half-brother. I understand the fear of being denied something you badly want—acceptance, friendship, family. Grams and Gramps had been constants in my life, but everyone else had come and gone and sure, come back. But I get it.
 

The house is on the “wrong” side of the tracks. That’s how we grew up referring to the area even though there are no actual railroad tracks near Heron Creek. Leo’s family lived nearby when we were kids, and I suppose maybe they still do—I sneak a glance toward the faded blue, single-story home a ways down the block. It’s size still confounds me. How all of those girls crammed into that place eludes me, still, but now it would just be his mother, I suppose.
 

Enough stalling, Gracie. Face the music.

I balance the coffees and bag of croissants in one hand and raise the other to knock on his front door. The rippled glass window came straight from the seventies and I can’t help but wonder why he chose to live here. The police department doesn’t pay six figures, but the money is decent for Will, so it must be a little better for the detective brought in from out of town. He could have chosen someplace nicer, or closer, and the fact that he didn’t makes me wonder if he doesn’t think he deserves those things.

Sadness pulls at my heart. Travis may or may not be related to me, but that doesn’t make too much of a difference in how I feel about betraying him with Clete.
 

Silence hangs over the early morning. The sun has barely peered over the river and a misty fog hovers over the pitted street, casting the day with an eerie feeling. Shuffling on the other side of the door convinces me he is home, and I screw up my determination. If Travis thinks he can out-stubborn me, he hasn’t gotten to know me well enough since coming to town.

“Travis, I know you’re in there. All that’s going to happen if you keep pretending your not is that I’m going to drink your coffee and eat your pastry. You might be mad, but making me fat is a little long-term as far as revenge goals, don’t you think?”

I would also be late for work, but since he’s no longer employed, I don’t bring that up.
 

A sigh works its way free when my words have no effect on the man hiding inside, and I spin around and sit, opening the bag to make good on my threats. The concrete is cold, the chill seeping right through my dress pants and transferring to my butt, but the coffee helps.

The sound of the door creaking open freezes the croissant halfway to my mouth, but then I shove it in, trying to act like I expected him to come out the whole time.

Travis sits next to me and holds out a hand. I press the second coffee into his palm without a word, then eat the rest of my pastry. He takes a couple of sips, the reaches into the paper bag between us for the second treat.

“So you are motivated by donuts. Interesting.”

He snorts. For some reason, I expected him to be more angry but he’s just…beaten. And that makes
me
angry.

“Are you just going to take this lying down, or…?” I demand.

“The crack about cops and donuts?” He shrugs. “I’ve heard them all. You’re going to have to try harder.”

I roll my eyes and brush the leftover croissant flakes from my fingers. “Not the jab. Clete.”

“What about him?”

“He’s blackmailing you into quitting your job,” I say, slowly, trying not to shake him for being obtuse.