Vintage Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball Read Free Book Online

shucking out of his leather jacket, letting the door slam behind him.
    He rubbed the cold from his hands as he strode toward the breakfast table. “Man, was that a bust. Two little kids wet their beds, and one of them threw up all over the preacher’s wife. Then this other one got a bloody nose, and two of them got lost playing hide-and-seek. We didn’t find them till midnight. ‘The wrath of the Lord is visited upon evil-doers,’ I told them first thing, and that straightened them out, you’d better believe it. Man, this looks good.” He stuffed two biscuits with ham and scraped the last of the French toast and the eggs onto his plate. “All they had for breakfast was donuts. Stale.”
    He took an enormous bite of the ham biscuit, dug into the eggs, and chewed for a moment before asking, “So what’s the tarp doing on the roof?” He looked around alertly. “I thought the guys were coming down. What’s been going on?”
    They hardly knew where to begin.
     
    ~*~
     
    Evenings on Ladybug Farm were special times. As soon as the temperature rose above forty—sometimes even sooner—the three friends would gather on the front porch with a glass of wine to watch the sunset, discuss the day, and count their blessings … or complain about them. But there was a magic to winter evenings, too, when an early dinner was done and the kitchen was cleaned, Ida Mae had retired to her basement suite and Noah to his room to do homework or, more likely, to chat on the phone with his latest girlfriend or play video games on the computer. There was always a fire in the main parlor’s walk-in fireplace, with its fan-brick surround and intricately carved mahogany mantle. When they closed the double doors, it provided enough heat to keep the room shirtsleeve cozy. Two Tiffany lamps turned down low spread a subtle golden glow across the polished heart pine floors and left the high tray ceiling with its carved plaster moldings in shadow. Cici’s two wing chairs and Lindsay’s surprisingly comfortable tapestry demi-sofa were drawn up in a semicircle around Bridget’s tufted velvet ottoman in front of the fireplace. It was there the women gathered on winter evenings with cocoa or cabernet, their slippered feet resting on the community ottoman, a tray of brownies or oatmeal cookies not far from reach.
    On the first evening of the New Year, they gathered around the fire and let the sturdy silence of the old house embrace them. They had said good-bye to Paul and Derrick after lunch and, still pleasantly stuffed from the midday repast of curried pork loin, black-eyed peas, hot buttered cornbread, and turnip greens fresh from their own garden, they toasted each other with hot chocolate and nibbled on the last of the fruitcake cookies. The rain had stopped, Ida Mae had gone to bed, and Noah was upstairs, presumably working on the essay portion of his college application.
    “I don’t know why he put it off ’til the last minute,” Lindsay said, frowning as she bit into a cookie. “Those applications should’ve been out last month.”
    “Getting the application in early doesn’t improve your chances for admission,” Bridget pointed out, absently flipping through the History of Blackwell Farms book. “He’s got twenty days.”
    “Yeah, but it does affect your chances of getting financial aid or a scholarship,” Lindsay pointed out, “which we are in desperate need of.” She frowned a little and corrected herself, “Of which we are in desperate need.”
    Cici reminded her, “He already got two scholarship offers.”
    Lindsay couldn’t prevent a small flush of pride as she admitted, “Well, that’s true.”
    She had a right to be proud. When Noah had first come to Ladybug Farm as a virtually homeless waif, his education was sporadic and his attitude sullen and suspicious. Lindsay, a schoolteacher for twenty-five years and a secret artist herself, had uncovered a surprising talent for art in the young man and had bargained art