turned away and shoved a box of Rice Krispies onto a pantry shelf. "I'll let you know if and when I do."
He could sense her trying to decide whether or not she wanted to continue this conversation, which, he suspected, might be as difficult for her as it was for him.
The thing to do, he decided, was to shut up, get the rest of her damn groceries put away, then get the hell out of here before he ended up spilling his guts.
Which he hadn't done to anyone.
Not his shrink, not his dad, not even Quinn or Shane, whose lives had also been inexorably changed by that debacle on the mountaintop.
He picked up the trio of little plastic boxes. "What are these for?"
"I heard mice in the attic last night."
"Not so unusual, given that you're right on the swamp. So, I guess you've decided to make pets out of them? Maybe put them in a little cage with a wheel to run on?"
"No." She folded her arms, looking less fragile than she had a moment ago. "I intend to capture them with that peanut butter I bought, then move them to the marsh."
"After which they'll probably beat you back to the house."
"That's my problem. I don't want to kill them if I don't have to."
"Then maybe you ought to think about getting yourself a cat. Let him do the job."
She shuddered at that idea. "I don't want to kill them," she repeated.
Which, Zach figured, made sense. She'd undoubtedly had more experience with death than most civilians.
"Your choice."
"Exactly," she agreed. "May I ask a question?"
Fucking terrific. Wouldn't you know she wasn't going to let the damn subject drop?
Zach's mind was scrambling to come up with an escape route when the front doorbell chimed.
Saved by the bell , he thought as a cooling wave of relief swept over him.
Chapter Eighteen
Although the original house had blown away in a hurricane and a second had been burned by Union troops during the war, the land on which Whispering Pines stood had been in the Honeycutt family since the seventeen hundreds. There'd been a time when the Honeycutts had owned Nate's ancestors.
Once freed, most of his people had stayed on to work the fields, as they had since being dragged to this country in chains.
They'd had a hardscrabble life, but Nate Senior had risen above his humble roots to become the first Spencer to graduate from high school, the first to go to college, and one of the first black men anywhere in the South to become the law that so many Southern people of color had once feared. Often with good reason.
Even after desegregation, a lot of black people continued to resent the way things had been during the years when cotton was king. And later, during those deadly Jim Crow years. According to some of the old tales Nate had overheard during family reunions, the Spencer family had definitely harbored its share of bitterness.
Then Nate Senior had got himself drafted, landed in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, and by his third tour in 'Nam had figured out that life tended to be a lot easier and you stayed a lot saner if you dealt with the present and looked toward the future, rather than dwelling on a past you couldn't do anything about.
Something Nate had figured out for himself during a deadly posting in Somalia during his Marine days.
Whispering Pines may have been built in the late eighteen hundreds, but it definitely maintained the look of more-prosperous, and indolent (at least indolent for the white folks), antebellum times. In fact, there were those who insisted on calling it Little Swannsea, because it resembled the home of the Swanns, who were cousins to the Honeycutts.
But where Swannsea boasted twenty-seven two-story Doric columns on three sides of the gleaming white house, Whispering Pines had settled for eight onestory pillars in the front. Swannsea had two sets of front steps; Whispering Pines, one. Swannsea, eight chimneys, Whispering Pines, three.
And then, of course, there was the damn golf course development Brad Sumner was
He could sense her trying to decide whether or not she wanted to continue this conversation, which, he suspected, might be as difficult for her as it was for him.
The thing to do, he decided, was to shut up, get the rest of her damn groceries put away, then get the hell out of here before he ended up spilling his guts.
Which he hadn't done to anyone.
Not his shrink, not his dad, not even Quinn or Shane, whose lives had also been inexorably changed by that debacle on the mountaintop.
He picked up the trio of little plastic boxes. "What are these for?"
"I heard mice in the attic last night."
"Not so unusual, given that you're right on the swamp. So, I guess you've decided to make pets out of them? Maybe put them in a little cage with a wheel to run on?"
"No." She folded her arms, looking less fragile than she had a moment ago. "I intend to capture them with that peanut butter I bought, then move them to the marsh."
"After which they'll probably beat you back to the house."
"That's my problem. I don't want to kill them if I don't have to."
"Then maybe you ought to think about getting yourself a cat. Let him do the job."
She shuddered at that idea. "I don't want to kill them," she repeated.
Which, Zach figured, made sense. She'd undoubtedly had more experience with death than most civilians.
"Your choice."
"Exactly," she agreed. "May I ask a question?"
Fucking terrific. Wouldn't you know she wasn't going to let the damn subject drop?
Zach's mind was scrambling to come up with an escape route when the front doorbell chimed.
Saved by the bell , he thought as a cooling wave of relief swept over him.
Chapter Eighteen
Although the original house had blown away in a hurricane and a second had been burned by Union troops during the war, the land on which Whispering Pines stood had been in the Honeycutt family since the seventeen hundreds. There'd been a time when the Honeycutts had owned Nate's ancestors.
Once freed, most of his people had stayed on to work the fields, as they had since being dragged to this country in chains.
They'd had a hardscrabble life, but Nate Senior had risen above his humble roots to become the first Spencer to graduate from high school, the first to go to college, and one of the first black men anywhere in the South to become the law that so many Southern people of color had once feared. Often with good reason.
Even after desegregation, a lot of black people continued to resent the way things had been during the years when cotton was king. And later, during those deadly Jim Crow years. According to some of the old tales Nate had overheard during family reunions, the Spencer family had definitely harbored its share of bitterness.
Then Nate Senior had got himself drafted, landed in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, and by his third tour in 'Nam had figured out that life tended to be a lot easier and you stayed a lot saner if you dealt with the present and looked toward the future, rather than dwelling on a past you couldn't do anything about.
Something Nate had figured out for himself during a deadly posting in Somalia during his Marine days.
Whispering Pines may have been built in the late eighteen hundreds, but it definitely maintained the look of more-prosperous, and indolent (at least indolent for the white folks), antebellum times. In fact, there were those who insisted on calling it Little Swannsea, because it resembled the home of the Swanns, who were cousins to the Honeycutts.
But where Swannsea boasted twenty-seven two-story Doric columns on three sides of the gleaming white house, Whispering Pines had settled for eight onestory pillars in the front. Swannsea had two sets of front steps; Whispering Pines, one. Swannsea, eight chimneys, Whispering Pines, three.
And then, of course, there was the damn golf course development Brad Sumner was
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