A Charmed Place Read Online Free
Author: Antoinette Stockenberg
dozen dogs at a time for the summer folks. And you always cleaned up after. Very nice. Children today, well, they're not the same."
Mrs. Roiters cast a longing glance in the general direction of the coffee cake, then sighed and stood up. " So when do you think would be a good time?'' she asked Maddie.
"To—?"
"Take a walk over to the lighthouse," said the irrepressible woman. "If you truly don't want me to come with you, I suppose you can just give him my card and plead my case for me. Tell him I only need half an hour. An hour at most. Maybe two. No, better not say two."
From the back of the rush-seated chair she unhooked her purse, then fished around in it. The card that she handed Maddie said
The Sandy Point Crier
Trixie Roiters, Editor & Publisher
All the News That's Fit to Print—
And Some That Isn't
"He's here to write a tell-all memoir, you know," she told Maddie in an undertone. "I understand that Ted Turner, among others, is going to be taking it on the chin. And Mr. Hawke will have something very interesting to say about Walter Cronkite ... "
Maddie was agape. "Who on earth is telling you all this?"
Mrs. Roiters flicked a wrist at Maddie and said, "That's confidential, dear; you know that."
A smile, a hug, and she was off, leaving an amazed Maddie to wonder whether Sandy Point had been infiltrated by the C.I.A.
Who was the source of all the gossip? Who knew both about her past with Daniel Hawke and the chapter headings of his memoirs, for pity's sake? Maddie racked her brain, trying to remember who could have seen her, a college freshman, clamming on the beach in front of the lighthouse those two or three times.
Jimmy Gordon saw her. She remembered envying the local quahogger as he waved, then raked in quahogs by the bushel from his work skiff while she poked laboriously at every airhole on the beach, struggling to gather a decent quota so that her dad could make chowder for the Labor Day picnic.
Would Jimmy even have noticed when Dan Hawke first wandered down from the lighthouse during a break from whitewashing it, saw her Lowell College sweatshirt, and chatted her up?
Jimmy wouldn't have noticed. Jimmy wouldn't have cared. And Jimmy certainly wouldn't have remembered if he had.
Who else? The Lawsons? They were relentless busybodies and they had a view of the lighthouse. The Tilleys ... the Nichols ... the Wrights. Those were the only families still around from back then, and Maddie was willing to bet a whole bushel and a peck of clams that they'd seen nothing then, and had said nothing now.
Could Dan have told his sister—if that's who she was—about Maddie and him and the disastrous event at Lowell College ? It didn't seem likely; he guarded his personal life fiercely. Once, anyway.
Unless ... was he trying to get some buzz going about the memoirs he was planning to write? In that case, he'd be more than happy to give Trixie Roiters an interview for her community rag. And Mrs. Roiters wouldn't need Maddie at all.
She sat back down and reread the card.
All the News That's Fit to Print—
And Some That Isn't
Too much. Because of Dan Hawke, Maddie had stopped watching CNN. Now she'd have to stop reading the charming, silly, folksy Crier as well. She broke off a corner of coffee cake and popped it into her mouth.
It still tasted like Tu m s.
Chapter 3
By noon the rain had let up; by one, the sun was out. It was hard not to be happy in Rosedale Cottage when the windows were thrown open to the garden, and Maddie found herself humming a tune as she put on a hat and went wandering through her perennials, snipping and pruning and inhaling deeply from old world roses that tumbled over the knee-high picket fence.
The heavy work—the weeding, the mulching, the early spring pruning—had already been done, compliments of a maniacal neighbor with too small a yard of his own to keep himself busy. All that remained for Maddie to do, basically, was to enjoy one of the prettiest gardens in
Mrs. Roiters cast a longing glance in the general direction of the coffee cake, then sighed and stood up. " So when do you think would be a good time?'' she asked Maddie.
"To—?"
"Take a walk over to the lighthouse," said the irrepressible woman. "If you truly don't want me to come with you, I suppose you can just give him my card and plead my case for me. Tell him I only need half an hour. An hour at most. Maybe two. No, better not say two."
From the back of the rush-seated chair she unhooked her purse, then fished around in it. The card that she handed Maddie said
The Sandy Point Crier
Trixie Roiters, Editor & Publisher
All the News That's Fit to Print—
And Some That Isn't
"He's here to write a tell-all memoir, you know," she told Maddie in an undertone. "I understand that Ted Turner, among others, is going to be taking it on the chin. And Mr. Hawke will have something very interesting to say about Walter Cronkite ... "
Maddie was agape. "Who on earth is telling you all this?"
Mrs. Roiters flicked a wrist at Maddie and said, "That's confidential, dear; you know that."
A smile, a hug, and she was off, leaving an amazed Maddie to wonder whether Sandy Point had been infiltrated by the C.I.A.
Who was the source of all the gossip? Who knew both about her past with Daniel Hawke and the chapter headings of his memoirs, for pity's sake? Maddie racked her brain, trying to remember who could have seen her, a college freshman, clamming on the beach in front of the lighthouse those two or three times.
Jimmy Gordon saw her. She remembered envying the local quahogger as he waved, then raked in quahogs by the bushel from his work skiff while she poked laboriously at every airhole on the beach, struggling to gather a decent quota so that her dad could make chowder for the Labor Day picnic.
Would Jimmy even have noticed when Dan Hawke first wandered down from the lighthouse during a break from whitewashing it, saw her Lowell College sweatshirt, and chatted her up?
Jimmy wouldn't have noticed. Jimmy wouldn't have cared. And Jimmy certainly wouldn't have remembered if he had.
Who else? The Lawsons? They were relentless busybodies and they had a view of the lighthouse. The Tilleys ... the Nichols ... the Wrights. Those were the only families still around from back then, and Maddie was willing to bet a whole bushel and a peck of clams that they'd seen nothing then, and had said nothing now.
Could Dan have told his sister—if that's who she was—about Maddie and him and the disastrous event at Lowell College ? It didn't seem likely; he guarded his personal life fiercely. Once, anyway.
Unless ... was he trying to get some buzz going about the memoirs he was planning to write? In that case, he'd be more than happy to give Trixie Roiters an interview for her community rag. And Mrs. Roiters wouldn't need Maddie at all.
She sat back down and reread the card.
All the News That's Fit to Print—
And Some That Isn't
Too much. Because of Dan Hawke, Maddie had stopped watching CNN. Now she'd have to stop reading the charming, silly, folksy Crier as well. She broke off a corner of coffee cake and popped it into her mouth.
It still tasted like Tu m s.
Chapter 3
By noon the rain had let up; by one, the sun was out. It was hard not to be happy in Rosedale Cottage when the windows were thrown open to the garden, and Maddie found herself humming a tune as she put on a hat and went wandering through her perennials, snipping and pruning and inhaling deeply from old world roses that tumbled over the knee-high picket fence.
The heavy work—the weeding, the mulching, the early spring pruning—had already been done, compliments of a maniacal neighbor with too small a yard of his own to keep himself busy. All that remained for Maddie to do, basically, was to enjoy one of the prettiest gardens in
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