Driftwood Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

and stretched. “Times be changing. Might be you should be taking a walk around sometime soon, see what is, not what was.”
    â€œI just might do that.”
    â€œDo you good.” Ruby nodded and walked over to the counter, where she helped herself to a cup of hot water from the carafe she set out every morning for those few early birds who preferred tea. She made her selection from the tea bags she’d put out in a little basket.
    â€œWhat sort of day do we have today, Gigi?” Lis asked once she’d emptied the boxes.
    â€œWhy don’t you go on out and see for yourself?” Ruby took her tea to the old round table under the window on the right side of the room and sat in one of the four ancient wooden chairs. She opened a newspaper and, settling herself, told Lis, “Be a lull here till around nine or so. You go on, now. I have some news that needs reading.”
    â€œI won’t be long.” Lis headed for the side door and stepped outside.
    The sun had risen just enough to warm the sand and sparkle off the scrubby tufts of grass. Lis walked around to the back of the building, heading for the path that led over the dune, but she was stopped in her tracks when she approached the back porch. Where previously the floorboards had sagged andthe supports had leaned precariously and the roof had threatened to collapse, there was an entirely new structure, top to bottom.
    â€œHow . . . ?” she wondered aloud.
    She stepped tentatively onto the first step, found it solid as rock, and climbed the next two to the porch, which was similarly solid. The wood had yet to be painted, but there wasn’t a rotted board to be seen and the supports actually seemed to be holding up the roof. Funny Gigi hadn’t mentioned it.
    Lis stood on the new floorboards and leaned against the new railing and surveyed the island from the slightly elevated vantage. She paused, her gaze darting across the property from left to right and back again.
    Something wasn’t right. Something was missing. It took her but a moment to realize what that some­thing was.
    She all but flew back into the store.
    â€œGigi, where is Uncle Eb’s boat?” Lis asked.
    â€œHmmm?” Ruby looked up from the newspaper. “Oh. The boat. Alec has it down to the marina.”
    â€œWhy?” Lis took a seat at the table across from Ruby. “Why does Alec have our boat?”
    â€œI guess because it be his now,” Ruby said calmly.
    â€œHe bought it?”
    â€œSort of.”
    â€œWhat does that mean? Either he bought it or he didn’t.”
    â€œWell, no money changed hands”—Ruby folded the section of the paper she’d been reading—“but he paid all the same.”
    â€œHow much?”
    Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “Now, how do you suppose that might be yours to know? Last I heard, that boat be mine. Came to me through my Harold, left to him by his brother Eben. Don’t remember Harold’s will saying nothing ’bout Ruby and Lisbeth .”
    â€œGigi, that was a skipjack . One of the old ones from back in Grandpap’s day. It was worth a lot of money.”
    â€œYou thinking I be too much a fool to know what that old hull was and how much it be worth?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think you’re foolish, but . . .”
    â€œNo buts. You think I can do for me or you don’t.”
    â€œOf course I think you can take care of yourself,” Lis said softly, “but sometimes when we trust someone too much, they can take advantage of us.”
    Ruby glared.
    â€œGirl, I am one hundred years and three months on this earth. If I can’t tell the true from the false, you might as well set me to my rest right now.”
    â€œThe new porch . . .”
    Ruby opened her paper and focused her attention on the page in front of her, signaling that the conversation was over.
    Lis watched in silence for a few moments,