Mariner's Compass by Earlene Fowler Read Free Book Online Page A

so I can inherit that house. It has to be worth at least two hundred thousand dollars. Maybe more.”
    “If it’s paid off.”
    “I’m sure it is, or Amanda would have told me.” I started throwing jeans, underwear, and T-shirts into my bag. Remembering the funeral I was going to have to plan and attend, -I added a plain cotton navy dress and a pair of pumps. Then I tossed in a couple of flannel shirts, since it was always ten to fifteen degrees colder in Morro Bay than San Celina. “Come with me to the house and look through it. Like I said, it’s in a perfectly nice neighborhood. Good locks on the doors. I even met one of my neighbors. He’s a fireman.”
    Gabe leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. “Oh, wonderful. I feel so much better about your safety now.”
    I laughed at his superior expression and grabbed my flannel-lined Levi’s jacket. “C’mon, I thought there was some kind of brotherhood between cops and firemen.”
    “I have the utmost respect for firemen. They manage to get full-time pay and benefits for a part-time job. You have to admire anyone who can pull off a scam like that. Not to mention they’re usually darn good contractors. But then, they have all that spare time to work on it.”
    I laughed and zipped up my bag. “I’m going to tell Barry you said that.” Barry Dolenz was San Celina’s fire chief and an occasional racquetball partner of Gabe’s.
    “I’ve told him that a million times. He doesn’t argue because he knows I’m right.”
    Before I could answer we heard an Arkansas drawl call out, “Knock, knock” from the front screen door.
    “In the bedroom,” I called back.
    Scout stood up when Emory entered the room, but no threatening sound came from his throat.
    My cousin stopped short when he saw the dog. “How do you do?” he said politely, crouching and holding out his hand. Scout walked over and sniffed it cautiously, then allowed his head to be stroked.
    “Why didn’t he growl at him?” Gabe asked.
    “Maybe it has to do with how fast you were moving toward me,” I said.
    “Off to claim your inheritance?” my cousin asked me, glancing down at my bulging bag, then smiling at Gabe. “Guess you’ll be singing the empty bed blues for a few weeks, Chief. Join the club.”
    I gave Emory a warning look that only made him grin wider.
    Gabe, arms still crossed, grunted irritably.
    “He wants me to let the government have it all,” I said.
    “Cousin Gabe, I declare, is what she says true?”
    Gabe faced my cousin, his hands outstretched. “There’s something not right about this whole thing, Emory.” He jerked a thumb at me. “Would you talk some sense into her?”
    Gabe knew that if he won Emory over, that would be a big boost to his side. Emory and I had been close since childhood, our friendship deepening when he stayed with my family the summer his mother died. I was twelve, on the verge of adolescence and hating it with all my stubborn tomboy heart. He was eleven, a skinny, bespectacled egghead terrified of all animals except fictional ones. I taught him to ride, gather cattle, look for kittens in the barn, wrestle with dogs, and fend off the bullies who liked to steal his glasses. He read me The Red Pony and Huckleberry Finn , explaining what they really meant, taught me all twelve verses of a salty sea chantey he learned at Sugartree Baptist church camp the summer before, didn’t laugh at my blossoming figure, and showed me how to be quiet and listen to my own thoughts. Hiking in the woods all summer, we’d talked of our mothers—mine had died when I was six—what we remembered about them, how much we missed them. Things we didn’t tell the grown-ups. He knew me like no other person in the world, and Gabe respected that.
    “Gabe,” Emory said, “you might not believe this, but I’m here to tell you that my sweet little cousin takes everything you say and feel into deep and loving consideration, but she also has a contrary streak the