Mrs. Jefferson, I've been meaning to get in touch with you."
Charlotte just bet he had. Probably with another of his lame excuses. "I'm sorry to trouble you again, but seeing that you've been unable to keep your appointment with me - "
"That was what I planned to discuss with you. Would this afternoon be convenient?"
The indignation that had been bolstered by her friends' well-meaning advice was suddenly unnecessary. "This afternoon would be fine," she muttered, feeling deflated and, truth to tell, a little disappointed. She'd been ready to blast him; she'd even worked out some very effective remarks about family duty on the drive home. Now she wouldn't be able to use them.
"I imagine it's a bit disconcerting to be sleeping with a gun under your bed."
Charlotte heard the teasing in his voice and decided to ignore it. "Actually, I moved the gun to my underwear drawer." She didn't mention that she'd wrapped it in an old girdle.
"Your underwear drawer?" he repeated.
Again, she'd amused him, but this time she couldn't fathom why. That was a clever hiding place in her opinion. No one breaking into the house, if they got past her overprotective cat, would think to search for anything of significance in a drawer of cotton panties. Anything that was the least bit important in Charlotte's house invariably ended up there. Her savings passbook was tucked inside her support panty hose. No thief was going to catch her off guard.
"What time will you be here?" she wanted to know.
"Is around four okay?"
"That would be perfect." Charlotte gave him directions to her home and they ended the conversation. Then, because she wanted to be hospitable, she baked cookies. The recipe had been given to her three years ago at a seniors' potluck and it always went over well. Men, especially, seemed to like these cookies, which were thick with chocolate chips, coconut and pecans.
She'd just finished scraping the last of the batch from the cookie sheet when the doorbell rang. Charlotte hurried toward the front door, picking up Harry to keep him from escaping. Her cat purred in her ear as she turned open the three locks. The last one had been installed only recently. Charlotte wasn't going to make a thief's job easy for him, no sir. She couldn't afford one of those fancy security systems, but she had her own safeguards.
The man who stood on the other side of the threshold was a good six feet tall with a small paunch. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, blue jeans with a brown jacket and a string tie.
"Mrs. Jefferson?"
"Yes. You must be Cliff Harding." She unlocked the screen door and held it open for him. "Come in, please."
He stepped into her modest home and sniffed appreciatively. "You been baking cookies?"
"I just wanted to be neighborly," she said, inviting him to take a seat on her sofa. She was ready. The silver service was set up, the pot filled with fresh coffee. The service was used only on rare occasions, but she wanted to make a good impression on Tom's grandson. The cookies were still warm from the oven.
Charlotte noticed that she didn't need to urge Cliff to help himself. She sat down across from him.
"How much do you know about your grandfather?" she asked, pouring for them both.
Cliff leaned forward and accepted the delicate china cup. "Only what my father told me." This was said with a scowl. "And frankly, it wasn't complimentary. Tom Harding was a scoundrel and a womanizer."
"That I wouldn't know. I only knew him during the last few months of his life."
"Were you aware that he abandoned his family in order to pursue his film career? My grandmother and father lived on charity and died in poverty while Tom Houston, The Yodeling Cowboy, lived the high life. If I have no interest in his effects, I'm sure you can understand why."
Charlotte found it difficult to think badly of Tom. This wasn't the man she knew. "By the time I met Tom, he'd suffered a stroke and had lost his ability to speak."
"You said he requested to be transferred to Cedar Cove?"
"That's my understanding." Charlotte reached for a cookie. She should avoid the unneeded calories, but these were simply too good to ignore.
"Do you think I was the reason?"
"I'm positive." Charlotte didn't doubt it for a moment. "What you said about your grandfather may very well be true. I can't possibly know, nor is it important that I do. But I can tell you about