The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

were the ultimate source of a town’s validation.
    In addition to the Walkers’ real estate holdings around the Square, the family occupied a choice portion of the burial grounds, too. Their headstones were grouped in the high northeast corner of the cemetery, so the dearly departed Walkers didn’t have to worry about runoff from someone else’s plot.
    Lacy found Jessica there, next to a big bald cypress. Tired from the slog uphill, she sat down on the lush spring grass and leaned on the backside of the truly enormous WALKER headstone. Absorbed heat from the granite leached into her. A vision of Jessica doing handsprings for the length of the gym scrolled across her mind. Pretty, popular, and incredibly limber, Jessica had been captain of the cheerleading squad.
    Lacy had played clarinet in the pep band. It was the only group she ever joined and even there, she was just one of the woodwinds. Nothing special.
    If she could have traded places with anyone back in high school, it would have been Jessica Walker.
    Until Jess drove her new car into Lake Jewel a week after her eighteenth birthday. With that sobering thought, Lacy decided maybe her problems weren’t all that dire. At least, not at the moment.
    Coldwater Cove had a way of slowing the world down. The earth sort of wobbled as it decelerated. Lacy decided no one would miss her if she stepped off that spinning ball for a bit. Her eyelids drooped shut, and she winked out, but she didn’t get to nap long.
    Low voices woke her.
    â€œI’m telling you, she moved back home.”
    I’m right here. I can hear you, Lacy wanted to say. Don’t talk about me like I’m not on the other side of this honking big headstone.
    â€œIn with her parents?”
    The first person must have nodded because a brief silence was followed by a low whistle. “I never would have thought it. She really left him, huh?”
    Bradford’s the one who left, not me. They must be talking about someone else.
    Lacy knew eavesdropping wasn’t polite, but this was Coldwater Cove. Everyone was always in everyone else’s business. She shifted her weight to one hip so she could listen more comfortably.
    â€œWas it an affair, you think?”
    â€œWhat else? I sure wouldn’t kick Danny Scott out of bed for eating crackers.”
    Danny Scott. My Daniel?
    â€œCome on, Georgina. Maybe it was Anne who had the affair.”
    â€œNo, stupe. If it was her, she wouldn’t be moving in with her parents. She’d be shacking up with whoever she’s . . . well, you know.”
    â€œSadly, I don’t. I haven’t you know’d in a long time.”
    The pair erupted in laughter. Then the one named Georgina announced that she had a tee time to make and left, but the other stayed on. Lacy heard the scrape of a trowel on a clay pot.
    Someone was tending Jessica Walker’s grave.
    Getting out of this situation was going to be a good trick. Doing it without letting the person on the other side of the headstone know she’d been snooping on their conversation would be even better. It didn’t help that all Lacy could think about was the fact that the ring on Daniel’s left hand might not mean as much as she’d thought.
    Of course, separated was still married. Lacy wasn’t about to be cast as some sort of home wrecker. That would make her no better than the thoroughly hateable Ramona. But if Lacy wasn’t ready to become as detestable as her traitorous office assistant, she needed to remind her wayward stomach. It did residual flip-flops whenever she thought about Danny Scott.
    The gardener showed no sign of leaving, so Lacy decided to brazen it out. She yawned loudly and stood. Peering around the headstone—it was far too imposing a monument to peer over—she found Jessica Walker’s fraternal twin sister, Heather, fitting a pot of yellow tulips into the brass vase next to the stone.
    â€œOh!” Heather