Read Season of Secrets for Free Online Page B

shouldn’t have said in front of you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Margo doesn’t matter. But Phil and James—”
    He stopped. No use going over it again. No use remembering when the three of them had been the three musketeers, back in their Citadel days. He’d thought the bonds they’d formed then were strong enough to survive anything. Obviously he’d been wrong.
    â€œPhillips is still your friend. He’s just not brave enough to stand up to Margo. He never has been.”
    â€œMaybe.” He’d grant her Phil, and his patent knuckling under to the woman he’d married. But…“James thinks I killed Annabel.” He checked the stairwell, but Court was still safely out of hearing, rummaging in the attic.
    Dinah started to say something. Then she closed her mouth. It didn’t matter. Her expressive face said it for her.
    â€œYou think I should have been prepared for that. You tried to warn me.”
    â€œI thought it might be awkward. I didn’t expect outright rudeness.”
    She sounded as primly shocked as Aunt Kate might have, and he couldn’t suppress a smile.
    â€œYou don’t need to laugh at me,” she said tartly. “They were all brought up to know better.”
    â€œNext you’ll say that their mothers would be ashamed of them.”
    â€œWell, they would.” She snapped the words, but her lips twitched a little. “Oh, all right. We’re hopelessly old-fashioned here. I suppose James has been in politics too long to have much sense left. And besides, you know how he felt about Annabel.”
    That startled him. “Do I?”
    She blinked. “Everyone knows he was crazy about her.”
    â€œI didn’t.” Had he been hopelessly stupid about his own wife? “How did Annabel feel about him?”
    â€œOh, Marc.” Dinah’s eyes filled with dismay. “Don’t think that. It never meant anything. Just a crush on his part.”
    â€œAnd Annabel?” Dinah wanted him to let it go, but he couldn’t.
    â€œAnnabel never had eyes for anyone but you. She just—I think she was flattered by James’s attention. That was all. Honestly.”
    She looked so upset at having told him that he didn’t have the heart to ask anything else. But he filed it away for further thought.
    He bent to pick up the stack of boxes. “We may as well take these to the family room. If I know my son, he’ll drag everything out, but he won’t be as good about putting things away.”
    Dinah went ahead of him to open the door to whatwould be the back parlor in most Charleston homes. They’d always used it as a family room, and he and Court had managed to bring down most of the furniture that belonged here. By tacit agreement, they’d avoided the front parlor, the room where Annabel died.
    â€œCourt looks so much like you. Looking at him must be like looking at a photo of you at that age.”
    He set the boxes down on the wooden coffee table that had been a barn door before an enterprising Charleston artisan had transformed it. “Funny. I was thinking that I saw a little of Annabel in his face when he looked down from the stairs.”
    â€œI know.” Her voice softened, and he realized he hadn’t done a good enough job of hiding his feelings. “I see it, too—just certain flashes of expression.”
    He sank onto the brown leather couch and frowned absently at the tree they’d set up in the corner. He’d told Court it would be too big for the room. The top brushed the ceiling, and he’d have to trim it before the treetop angel would fit.
    â€œMaybe it’s because we’re back here. My memory of Annabel had become a kind of still photo, and she was never that.”
    â€œNo, she wasn’t.” Dinah perched on the coffee table, her heart-shaped face pensive. “I’ve never known anyone as full of life as she was.