Read Online Chesapeake Summer by Jeanette Baker - Free Book Online

“Blake, if you’re not busy, I’ve got a big ol’ box in the trunk of my car that needs to be mailed out at the post office.”
    â€œNot a problem, Miz Hobbs.” He stood and reached for his hat. “I’ll take it over for you. Was there anything else you needed?”
    â€œThat’ll be all, I guess.”
    â€œYou just let me know and I’ll be there.”
    Agnes Hobbs slipped her tongue inside her dentures, lifting them off her gums, easing the soreness. Then she dropped them back into place again. “You’re a good boy, Blake. I always did like you.”
    He took her arm and led her back out to her car. “Thank you kindly, Miz Hobbs. I appreciate that. I was wondering if Ellie Mae knows you took the car this time.”
    â€œI didn’t tell her, if that’s what you mean. Why should I have to tell her when it’s my own car I’m driving?”
    â€œWell, the thing is, Miz Hobbs, you don’t have a license and Ellie worries about you. She’s afraid you’ll hurt yourself. You wouldn’t want to worry her, now, would you?”
    The old woman pursed her lips. “I guess not.”
    â€œWhy don’t you sit right here on this bench in the shade and let me call her for you. That way she’ll know you’re in good hands.”
    â€œI always did like you, Blake,” she repeated, patting his hand. “You’re a good boy.”
    â€œThank you, ma’am. I’ll be right back.”
    The call was over in a minute, with Ellie Mae instructing him to do whatever was necessary to prevent her mother-in-law from driving until she could get there.
    Blake set the phone down in its cradle and sighed. Sometimes he found himself wishing for a real crime now and then to keep from getting rusty.
    Ellie Mae Hobbs drove up just as he was leaving the post office with Agnes. Gratefully, he excused himself, answered the mobile call from his deputy, and proceeded with his original plan to lunch at Perks and indulge his fantasies by flirting with Verna Lee Fontaine.
    She was talking on the phone and didn’t see him, a circumstance that allowed him to look at her for as long as he wanted without embarrassing himself. Blake swallowed. There was no one like Verna Lee. Quite simply, she took the eye in a way that made it seem as if no one else was in the room. Her particular combination of lush, primitive beauty and refined manners was like nothing he’d ever experienced. She was tall, with full breasts and long, lovely, caramel-colored legs, exposed from the knee down through a slit in her skirt. Her hair, wildly curly and secured on top of her head with a chopstick, was the exact tawny-gold of her eyes, and her smile reminded him of those island women on the travel posters beckoning him to places he’d never been. She was a good fifteen years older than him. It didn’t bother him a bit. He liked older women especially when they looked liked Verna Lee. He felt safe knowing she didn’t take him seriously.
    Blake knew she’d been married a long time ago in California. He’d heard the gossip four years back when it came out that she and Libba Jane Delacourte were half sisters through their mother, Nola Ruth. Libba’s daddy was Cole Delacourte, descendant of a fine old southern family. Verna Lee didn’t know anything about her father, except that he was a black man.
    She hung up the phone, saw him standing just inside the door and smiled her aloha smile. “I was just thinking it was time for you to come in.”
    â€œChasing after the criminals here in Marshy Hope Creek gives a man an appetite. You got any of those pickles I like?”
    â€œYou bet. What’ll it be? The usual?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” He slid into a table and looked around. Perks was a combination health food store and café. Two deep blue couches sat across from each other with a low chest in between. Small wooden