Chesapeake Summer by Jeanette Baker Page B

She would have mustered greater enthusiasm if her aunt had done the cooking. She looked around. “Where’s Russ?”
    â€œHe should be here in a minute. Come into the kitchen and I’ll pour you a glass of iced tea.”
    â€œNo, no, no.” Gina stamped her foot. “I want Chloe to stay with me.”
    â€œNow, Gina,” her mother warned. “Chloe will be spending plenty of time with you later. Right now I’d like to talk with her. Okay?”
    Chloe stared at her mother. Was she actually negotiating with her three-year-old? If so, things had certainly changed in seventeen years.
    â€œSo,” she said when Gina was occupied with her snack and they were seated on the porch facing the water, with two glasses and a pitcher of tea on the table between them. “Do you have air-conditioning yet?”
    Libba nodded at the fans spinning at full power from both sides of the porch. “What do you think?”
    Chloe groaned. “It’s going to be a long summer.”
    â€œTell me about it.”
    Chloe changed the subject. “You look good, Mom,” she said. It was true. No one who didn’t already know the dark-eyed woman with her thick, shining hair and long, defined legs would guess her age correctly. Elizabeth Jane Hennessey was forty-one years old. She looked thirty except for the tiny lines around her eyes. “Tell me what’s going on with your job. Granddad said you’d give me the dirty details.”
    Libba smiled her wide, generous smile, the smile she’d inherited from Nola Ruth, shared with her half sister, Verna Lee, and passed down to Chloe and Gina Marie, the smile that had, on one occasion or another, reduced half the men of Marshy Hope Creek to incoherent babblers. “I have no dirty details. I’m just so glad to have you home for the summer.”
    A voice called out from behind them. “Hello, hello. I require a glass of something cold and a hug from my wife and kids, in that order.”
    Chloe laughed and stood to greet her stepfather, a tall, lean man with red-brown hair, a chiseled nose and the crystal-blue eyes of a waterman. His arms closed around her tightly. “How are you, sweetheart? Long time no see.”
    â€œI’m healthy, happy to see you’re looking good, and really hot. It takes a while to adjust to this weather all over again. How are you?” She pulled away but kept her hands on his arms.
    â€œI’m the same as you, especially the hot part.” He grinned at his wife. “Any chance of that cold drink?”
    Libba stood. “One iced tea, coming right up.”
    Gina Marie held up her sticky fingers. “Look, Daddy. I’m having peanut butter.”
    â€œI can see that. Are you finished?”
    She nodded. Russ swooped down, lifted her out of her chair and, wincing, swung her around several times before settling her on his lap. Gina was his miracle child, conceived after everyone told him it would never happen.
    Libba set the tea in front of him. He kissed her briefly on the lips and downed his tea in a single long swallow. “I stopped in for a sandwich at Perks today.”
    Chloe brightened. “How is Verna Lee?”
    â€œChipper as usual. She said she might be a little late and not to wait for her.” Russ snapped his fingers. “I ran into Blake Carlisle. Apparently, there’s some controversy over that piece of land Bailey Jones inherited.”
    â€œWhat kind of controversy?” asked Chloe.
    Gina squirmed in Russ’s arms. “Put me down, Daddy. It’s hot.”
    â€œSay please.”
    â€œPlease.”
    Russ set the little girl on her feet and waited until she left the porch for the cooler rooms of the main house.
    Libba repeated Chloe’s question. “What kind of controversy?”
    â€œThe geologist found a decomposed body. Blake called in a forensics team. If it turns out to be a homicide, the sale could be held up for as