Death Threads Read Online Free PDF Page A

glee. “A box of truffles to whoever that is.”
    “You are not off the hook, Leona. Not by a long shot.” She stood, walked around the coffee table, and headed toward the front door. Grasping the knob, she looked back over her shoulder at the woman in her living room—a woman who looked as if she’d been handed a winning lottery ticket. “This is a temporary reprieve. Nothing more.”
    “I’ve been thinking, dear. Perhaps I do have a sickly friend who needs me after all.”
    “I’m not buying that one, Leona. I’ve heard your take on the sickly, and Florence Nightingale you’re not.” With a turn of her wrist she pulled the front door open, her cheeks rising skyward as Leona’s accidental knight in shining armor came into view—all six foot one of him. “Milo, hi! What a wonderful surprise.”
    “Hi, yourself.” Flashing the shy smile she loved more with each passing day, Milo held up a stack of DVDs with one hand and a splay of theater-sized candy boxes with the other. “I was hoping maybe we could watch a movie or something.”
    “That sounds wonderful but . . .” She nibbled her lower lip inward as she tilted her head to study him, her gaze playing across the burnished brown hair he kept short on the sides yet a little longer on top. “Leona finally showed up and we’re just now getting started on her sewing lesson.”
    “A lesson we can put on hold, dear.” Leona breezed past Tori and gestured the young widower inside. “You’ve both put in long hours at work this week and now it’s time to relax—together.”
    “Leona, it’s just a button for crying out loud.” Tori folded her arms across her chest. “It’ll only take us thirty minutes.”
    “I could just sit outside here and wait. It’s a beautiful night—”
    “You’ll do no such thing, Milo Wentworth. You’ll come in now.” Leona reached her arms onto the porch and yanked Milo inside, smiling sweetly at Tori as he acquiesced and stepped into the house. “We’ll do buttons tomorrow.”
    “I work tomorrow,” Tori protested.
    “Then we’ll do buttons on Sunday.”
    Tori’s left eyebrow rose upward. “Sunday is Re-Founder’s Day, Leona. It’s all anyone’s talked about at our circle meetings for weeks now, remember?”
    “It’s all Rose has been talking about,” Leona corrected with a well-timed eye roll.
    “It’s all Rose and Georgina and Dixie have talked about, too. And don’t forget your sister. Margaret Louise has been working on her recipe for the cook-off for weeks now.”
    Waving off Tori’s words, Leona simply shook her head. “The others might be looking forward to the festival, dear, but it’s Rose who’s gaga about it. To hear that woman talk, Sweet Briar is the Cinderella of southern towns.”
    “It kind of is,” Milo interjected quietly. “This place was incinerated by the Yankees during the Civil War. And now look at it—it’s thriving and has been for many, many years. It’s almost hard to believe, really.”
    Shrugging, Leona crossed the living room and retrieved her clutch from the floor beside the armchair. “I guess Sunday is out for buttons, too, then. Such a shame.”
    Glancing apologetically at Milo with his stack of movies and boxes of candy, Tori joined Leona in the middle of the room. “We still have now.”
    “No, dear. This wonderfully special gentleman has traveled miles to see you!”
    “Blocks,” Tori corrected in amusement.
    “Don’t belittle his efforts, dear. That undermines his manhood,” Leona whispered from the corner of her mouth. To both, she said, “He’s traveled all the way across town to spend some time with you, dear. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with that.” Leona grasped the clutch with her long, delicate fingers. “The buttons can wait.”
    “Why do I feel as if I’m being used as a scapegoat?” Milo asked, the sparkle of amusement in his eyes belying the seriousness of his face.
    “Because you are,” Tori said as her disapproving gaze