IN FOR A PENNY (The Granny Series) by Nancy Naigle, Kelsey Browning Read Free Book Online Page A

romantic if you think about it.”
    “I’m sure it will be very sweet, but have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Didn’t you tell me once that your great-great something or other brought that chest all the way from Boston in the 1850s?”
    Maggie never was an easy one to bamboozle. “Come with me,” Lillian said. “I need help unloading something from the car.”
    “I’m certain that trunk is worth more than five hundred dollars.” Maggie dug the money out of her pocket and handed it to Lillian.
    Lillian stuffed it into the top of her purse and then motioned for Maggie to follow.
    “You can’t just change the subject and make it go away, Lil. What’s going on? Please talk to me.” The hurt in Maggie’s voice was plain as daylight at noon.
    “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not losing my mind. It’s just time for that trunk to be passed on again, and Lord knows, the Summer line ends with me.” The anger and guilt still felt like boiling water rolling in a teakettle after all these years. Damned Harlan. By the time they’d figured out her eggs were farm-fresh and his swimmers were belly-up, it was too late for babies. And this, a stately old house that took more care and feeding than Harlan ever had, was her legacy. Only now she didn’t have anyone to leave it to. And really, when you got right down to it, was it a legacy or a burden?
    She shook away the thought. If she lost focus and belief now, it would all be over for good. At least now she had the money to pay for the ladder. Thank goodness he’d come to get the trunk like he said he would. It was perfect timing really.
    Maggie followed Lillian out to the car. “You drove like that?”
    The fiberglass extension ladder poked out of the back of the car like a NASA missile ready for launch. 
    Lillian waved a hand. “I didn’t go over twenty-five miles an hour and it’s only a few blocks.”
    Maggie blew a breath that pouffed her bangs up. “You could have shish- ka-bobbed someone or snagged an overhead line with that thing. You should’ve called me to bring the truck.”
    “Quit your fussing. Nothing happened.”
    Maggie marched to the trunk of the car. Half a ball of twine zigzagged between the ladder and the metal frame of the trunk. “Don't guess it was going anywhere.”
    “Darrell secured it for me.”
    Maggie whipped a knife out of her pocket and started slapping at the string. “He should have delivered the darn thing if he wanted to be helpful.” She stepped back and put her fists on her nicely rounded hips, just above her ever-present roll of silver duct tape, as the trunk flew open.
    “Hope you ate your Wheaties, Lil, because this thing probably weighs fifty pounds.”
    “Surely not,” Lillian said. “Darrell carried it on one shoulder like a sack of feed. I hope we can drag it.”
    “Why did you buy this thing to begin with?”
    “I’ve got to keep things in order around here. I can’t let this place fall down around my ears. And on top of everything else that snobby Angelina Broussard has conjured up some local historical society committee and wants to put her stamp of approval on Summer Haven provided it meets with their so-called standards.”
    “She can’t do that!” Maggie ’s mouth tightened. “Can she?”
    “I don’t know. Regardless, those limbs over the veranda need to be trimmed for starters, and that woman will be here with her committee the first week of August. It doesn’t give me much time.”
    “Don’t get all in a panic. It’s not even July. We’ve got time. Wait a minute…did you just say we’re going to trim limbs?” Maggie’s eyes went wide and sparkly.
    “Not exactly, but it’ll get done.” Lillian gave her a wink even though she didn’t feel all that playful today. “I’ve got a plan. This ladder is part of it.”
    Maggie shook her head. “Wish you’d discuss this stuff with me first. Some things are just not meant to be do-it-yourself jobs, as much as I hate to admit it.