Part 23 (1/2)

I love you, Sarah Booth.

Please wear this symbol of our love.

Graf.

How clever of him to send the ring in a way that allowed me to accept or reject it without the pressure of him standing--or kneeling on one knee as I felt he would--in front of me. There was a deep traditionalist streak in Graf, yet he'd pushed it aside to consider my nature, my fears.

He knew me well enough to realize that I would have to think about this moment, about what I was promising, and about how this would change who I was--in my eyes as well as in the community I loved.

I slipped the ring on my finger. It was a perfect fit. In every way.

Jitty's words from last night came back to haunt me. If I wore this ring, I had to commit to allowing myself to soften, to trust Graf enough to let him be strong. While I might chafe at the idea of playing a role, I had to accept the wisdom of Jitty's advice. A good relations.h.i.+p required consideration of the needs of ”the other.”

My cell phone broke the moment.

”Sarah Booth, the biscuits come out of the oven in five minutes. Don't you make me eat cold biscuits.” Tinkie's voice sounded better than I could remember.

”I wouldn't dream of that.” I ran down the steps and jumped into my car.

Good for her word, Tinkie had breakfast on the table when I walked in. Crisp bacon, hot biscuits with b.u.t.ter and mayhaw jelly, fresh coffee, and grits.

”This is delicious,” I told her. We were both eating fast. ”If I slowed down, I could taste it better.”

”No time for slackers,” Tinkie said. ”Tammy has a client to read for at eight, so we're on a tight schedule.”

I shoved half a biscuit in my mouth and grinned at her.

”The ring is beautiful,” she said, her total attention on her grits. When she finally looked at me, there was only happiness in her expression. ”Of all the guys in your life, Sarah Booth, Graf wouldn't have been my pick until I saw the two of you together in Costa Rica. The man adores you.”

”I can't believe I've accepted an engagement ring.” Just like that. The ring slipped onto my finger and now I felt as if it had always been there.

”Have you set a date?”

The idea floored me. Engaged was one thing. Married, with all the trappings of an official ceremony, was something else. ”No. We haven't even talked about one.”

She laughed. ”Don't worry, once Cece recovers, she and I will take over all the wedding plans. It will be spectacular.”

That was a troubling word. ”Maybe we could just go for intimate and lovely.”

”That, too.”

Now wasn't the time to argue with Tinkie about the size, shape, or tone of a wedding far in the future, so I let it slide. ”Have you met Beaucoup or Peyton?” Both of the CDC workers had been in and out of the hospital, but Doc had handled pa.s.sing information to Tinkie.

She ground pepper on her grits. ”Mr. Fidellas stopped by yesterday while he was at the hospital. He's a handsome guy and said some nice things about you.” She checked to see if I was taking the bait. When I gave her only a bland look, she continued. ”He asked some questions about offsh.o.r.e banking accounts. I told him to talk to Harold.”

”Did he say why he asked?”

She pa.s.sed the salt and pepper to me. ”Some angle his partner was working, I think.”

”Yes, Beaucoup.” Obviously Coleman was sharing everything with her. ”So what do you think of her?”

”Bonnie Louise--I refuse to call her that vulgar nickname--stopped by the first day she got here. You know, I remember her family well. It was so hard on Oscar to put them off their land. They'd been on that acreage for generations.”

The biscuit I held in my mouth turned as dense as concrete. ”Oscar put them off their land?”

”Didn't you know?”

I slowly shook my head. ”I didn't. Beau--Bonnie--said she was from Sunflower County, but I don't recall where. From the way she talked about leaving the land, I a.s.sumed boll weevils or drought or too much rain had ruined their crop and bad times got tougher.”

”The weather was a part of it, but it was a combination of bad decisions and miserable luck, just like what's going on around the country now. Bad loans, poor judgment, and not reading the tiny-tiny print have gotten a lot of people in trouble. But Oscar has never done business that way. The McRaes had a straight-up loan. Her family got in over their heads and they lost everything, but she doesn't appear to hold a grudge or any hard feelings. She's asked about Oscar several times.”

I b.u.t.tered my second biscuit. I had no evidence against Beaucoup for any wrongdoing. But my gut told me there was more to her than met the eye. Now that I knew her history, I had an inkling of her agenda. How biblical would it be for an heir of a foreclosure victim to somehow poison the banker responsible for the loss of the family farm?

”What's wrong, Sarah Booth?”

”I feel sick.” It was true. The revelation of Beaucoup's background had given me such a violent mental twist that it made me nauseated. I rose unsteadily from her kitchen table.

”I'll be right back.” I ran to the bathroom and knelt beside the toilet. Sleep or no sleep, I had to make an appointment with Doc. This was getting to be ridiculous.

”Sarah Booth, are you okay?” Tinkie called.

I rinsed out my mouth and studied my reflection. As I lifted my hand to straighten my hair, the light caught in the diamond and flashed sparkles around the room. I felt like a kid with the best present in the world. ”I'm one hundred percent fine. Let's roll,” I said as I walked to the front door.

22.

I dropped Tinkie at the hospital and headed to the chancery clerk's office. Land records were sometimes snarled, but Attila proved his warrior spirit when he attacked the paper trail that led to a time when Bonnie Louise and her family farmed a tract of land in the northeastern corner of Sunflower County.

The deeds were cut-and-dried. Mr. McRae defaulted on his mortgage, and the property was sold at auction from the court house steps on December 23. Talk about rotten timing. Oscar, acting for the bank, oversaw the foreclosure and sale. No doubt a horrible Christmas for the McRae family and for Oscar.

Bonnie Louise McRae had one h.e.l.luva motive to hold a grudge against Oscar.

In a plot designed by a mastermind--if my suspicions were correct--Beaucoup was also the primary element in identifying Oscar's peculiar, and potentially fatal, illness. A conflict of interest, I would say.

It was possible I'd terribly underestimated the gray matter between Beaucoup's ears. Her bodacious bubble b.u.t.t, the way she cooed in Coleman's ear, and her b.i.t.c.hy att.i.tude had perfectly distracted me from what lay beneath the exterior.

”Ms. Delaney, are you ill?” Attila asked.

”No. I'm okay.” The record room was stuffy, and I was light-headed from the blast of reality that had rocked my world, but I was fine.

”High interest rates forced a lot of folks off the land, just like now,” Attila said. ”I wasn't chancery clerk then, but I remember this event. Mr. McRae brought his family to the court house for the auction. They stood and watched, the children crying and clinging to their father's leg, begging him not to let someone take their home.” His finger ruffled the pages of the deed book. ”Oscar was almost as upset as the McRae family, but he had a job to do.”

”Not a job I'd want.” My imagination supplied me with plenty of visuals.

”Back then, banks were particular about who they lent to. Folks had to meet criteria to qualify for a loan. What happened wasn't anyone's fault. Farming is a gamble, you know that.”

”Do you recall what went wrong with the McRaes?” Where did a family go once they'd been evicted from their home?