The Heart Remembers Read Online Free PDF

doorway, flushed from her exertions in the warm kitchen, but neat and composed, every graying hair in place.
    â€œSupper is ready,” she announced curtly, and turned to go, leaving them to follow her.
    The dining room, like all the rooms in the big, old-fashioned house, was large and shabby. The oval table was of mahogany; the cloth itself of fine damask, but old and carefully darned. The china was museum stuff and there was an old silver bowl filled with giant pansies in the center.
    A tall, ancient Negro woman, her skin ebony-satin beneath a snowy-white turban, her crisply fresh percale dress starched so stiffly that it, and the snowy apron tied about her lean middle, rustled as she walked, stood beside the enormous mahogany sideboard, her eyes lively with a faintly hostile curiosity as Jim and Shelley took their places. Selena sat stiffly erect at the head of the table.
    â€œShelley, this is Mam’ Cleo, our friend, boss and household mentor,” said Jim, smiling warmly at the old woman as she passed the plates Selena was deftly serving. “Mam’ Cleo, Miss Shelley is going to reopen the newspaper office here. Think you could find somebody to help her get her house cleaned up?”
    Mam’ Cleo stiffened and her dark eyes swung to Shelley with a suddenly sharpened scrutiny that absurdly enough made Shelley a little uncomfortable.
    â€œIn
dat
house, Mist’ Jim? Is yo’ funnin’? Ain’ nobody gwine go in dat house lessen dey
has
to—an’ I dunno nobody whut
have
to,” said Mam’ Cleo sternly, and stalked out, her duties for the time being completed.
    Shelley shivered a little and tried to mask theshiver with a laugh. “Apparently Mam’ Cleo doesn’t think much of my new-old home.”
    Selena was staring at Shelley with an intentness that added to Shelley’s uncomfortable feeling, and this was not lessened when Selena leaned forward suddenly and demanded harshly,
“Who are you?”
    Shelley’s hands gripped each other beneath the edge of the table. Here was the question she had dreaded and known she must face all these years. She had thought she was braced for it, and yet when it came, as she had known inevitably that it must, she almost found herself caught off-guard.
    â€œI’m Shelley Kimbrough, Miss Durand. Didn’t your nephew tell you?” she managed quietly.
    â€œWhy did you come here? Why did you buy the
Journal?
Why did you come to Harbour Pines at all? And what can you possibly hope to find here?” The questions poured from Selena’s trembling lips with a shaken fury that made Jim rise and go to stand beside her, trying to soothe her, his eyes worried and anxious.
    â€œWell, I wanted a place where the winters were mild,” Shelley marshalled all her arguments, trying to speak lightly, casually, as though Selena’s agitation had not set her own heart to pounding with frightened excitement. “I wanted a place where living expenses were not too high; a place that wasn’t
too
close to a county seat that had a paper that would offer me unbeatable competition; a place that was small and friendly and not crowded. So when I wrote to a real estate firm in Atlanta and described what I wanted, they sent me a list of several places they thought might interest me. And the price quoted for the
Harbour Pines Journal
came so near the exact amount I felt I could afford to invest that I decided on it. And now that I’m here, I feel I’ve made a wise choice and that I’m going to like it.”
    She met Selena’s wide, harried eyes straightly andprided herself that she had offered her explanation logically and pleasantly, in a manner that must surely allay whatever were Selena’s fears. As though, Shelley told herself with secret bitter triumph, she couldn’t understand Selena’s fears!
    At last Selena relaxed a little and drew a long shuddering breath and motioned Jim back to his seat