How Secrets Die Read Online Free Page B

gestured him into a chair. “I’ll put your coffee refill in a to-go cup, but for now sit down and visit like a normal person.”
    â€œ Denke , Anna.” He slid easily into the Pennsylvania Dutch expression he’d heard all his life. “You scold me as much as my mother does.”
    â€œI don’t scold,” Mom said. “I just suggest.”
    â€œOver and over,” he teased. He glanced toward the door at the sound of the bell and stiffened. Kate Beaumont had just come in.
    She spotted him and stopped midstride, making him think that she was fighting the inclination to turn around and walk back out again.
    His lips twitched. She probably didn’t know how obvious she was. Perversely, he rose, nodding to her and forcing her to recognize him. “Ms. Beaumont, it’s nice to see you again. Come and meet my mother.”
    If anyone had a talent for making people thaw, it was Ellen Whiting. He’d be fascinated to see how long Kate held out against her.
    Kate approached somewhat unwillingly, he thought.
    â€œKate Beaumont, Ellen Whiting.”
    His mother held out her hand. “So nice to meet you, Kate. Won’t you join us?”
    Before Kate had a chance to respond, Jamie burst into the conversation. “Hi, I’m Jamie Whiting. Not James, cause that’s my grandpa’s name. Sometimes Grammy calls him Jimmy to tease him, but she always calls me Jamie. Does anybody call you Katie?”
    Kate looked a bit stunned at Jamie’s conversational style, but she managed to make a recovery. “Hi, Jamie. No, nobody calls me Katie. Just Kate, okay?”
    â€œOkay. Grammy says you should always call people what they want to be called, because nicknames can hurt people’s feelings. Aren’t you going to sit down?”
    Under the pressure of that wide, innocent blue gaze, Kate sat in a chair, but she perched on the edge of it, as if ready to make a quick retreat.
    Mac reached across to hand Jamie another napkin. “Maybe if you’d slow down a bit, somebody else could talk.”
    Jamie just grinned at him, but he subsided.
    â€œMom, Kate’s brother was Jason Reilley. You remember—the young man who passed away last year.” He glanced at Jamie, but his nephew was deeply engaged in eating the last crumb of his treat.
    His mother’s eyes filled with quick sympathy. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. That was just tragic. You must miss him terribly.”
    As usual, his mother had moved straight to the heart, and he saw Kate’s lips tremble for an instant. “Yes,” she murmured. “I do miss him.”
    â€œLosing someone is never easy, but I always think it’s especially hard when it’s a young person.” His mother clasped Kate’s hand. “Naturally you must have wanted to see where he lived.”
    Funny. He’d assumed she’d wanted to see where her brother had died, but Mom jumped to the opposite conclusion. And she must be right, judging by the way Kate was looking at her—with a kind of startled surprise at meeting understanding from a stranger.
    His mother never stayed a stranger with anyone for long. In a few minutes she’d elicited the fact that Kate had lost her job with a Baltimore newspaper in a series of cutbacks.
    â€œI’m not the only one.” She shrugged off an expression of sympathy. “People seem to rely on the internet for their news these days, not the daily paper.”
    â€œLaurel Ridge must be the exception, then.” He decided it was time he got back into the conversation. “We still have to have our daily dose of the Laurel Ridge Standard , don’t we?”
    Mom chuckled. “How else would we know what was going on in town? The grapevine is good, but we have to see some things in print to believe them.”
    â€œMyself, I’d say gossip is more interesting.” Anna appeared, setting a mug of coffee in front of Kate without