First Impressions (Edenton 1)

Minnie didn’t ask who else had called; she didn’t care. “Mr. Runkel isn’t by any chance still living, is he?”

“Yes, he is. He works at the local carpet store. Would you like to have the number?”

“Yes, I would,” she said, smiling at the phone. “I’d like that very much.” Minutes later, Minnie hung up, then she called Eden’s house. Minnie and the rest of Arundel knew that Eden’s pregnant daughter was staying with her.

“Is Eden Palmer there?” Minnie said in her most businesslike voice. “I have the information she requested.”

“Information?” asked a sleepy Melissa. “She’s not—”

Minnie cut her off. “I have the information she requested about her daughter’s father.”

“Her…?” Melissa asked slowly, coming awake. “Father? I don’t understand. She doesn’t know who the father is.”

“I can only give the information about the father of her child to Ms. Eden Palmer herself. Are you Ms. Palmer?”

There was a hesitation on the phone, then the voice changed. “Yes, I’m Ms. Palmer. You can give the information to me.”

“Do you have a pen and paper to write down the address and phone number?” Minnie heard a drawer being opened.

“Yes,” Melissa said. “Go ahead.”

Chapter Twenty

EDEN couldn’t sleep. She’d tried everything she could think of, but, still, she couldn’t sleep. The over-the-counter pills had done nothing. She’d had two glasses of wine. She’d watched one of those sci-fi movies about giant ants attacking a town full of overly-made-up people, but that hadn’t put her to sleep either. Even the manuscript about the Jack the Ripper–like killer hadn’t made her sleepy.

She wanted sleep more than anything in the world. She’d like to get into bed, close her eyes, and…What? Never wake up?

No, that was too dramatic, but at the moment, she felt as though her life had gone from being wonderful to horrible. Odd, she thought, that having her house ransacked and being locked in a cellar hadn’t upset her much, but now she was truly miserable.

She’d left Minnie’s office with her shoulders back, and her head high. She was innocent and Minnie was crazy. It was simple, wasn’t it? And Eden was a hundred percent in the right, wasn’t she?

So why was she feeling so bad?

She’d gone to the grocery, taking her time to choose foods that she knew her daughter loved. This will be all right, Eden told herself as she put lemons in a bag. Maybe she’d lost Brad, but it was better to find out that he was so jealous and unforgiving before she got serious about him. As she chose broccoli, she thought that her sympathy should go to Brad’s wife. Maybe she’d had a reason to be unfaithful.

But Eden knew she was lying to herself. For a moment tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away.

It will be okay, she told herself. She had her house and her garden—and maybe she was going to have her daughter and grandchild living with her. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? She’d buy a big play set, one of those redwood things with a climbing wall. No, that would be too dangerous.

Maybe this time she’d be able to give the child a good childhood. No day care centers such as Melissa’d had. Yes, Eden told herself, she was being given a second chance. Melissa would, of course, get a job, and she’d leave the baby with Eden, so she’d get to raise a second child.

Eden conjured a vision of a lovely afternoon in the garden with her grandson, but unbidden to her came a TV commercial for a cruise line. A handsome couple, older, were standing at the rail of a cruise ship, arms about each other and looking at the sunset. There was another scene of dinners with wine and dancing. A couple laughing together. No children anywhere.

“Ow!” Eden said. She had an artichoke in her hand and had been clutching it so tightly the spines on the tip of the leaves had nearly punctured her skin.

Again, she blinked away tears of self-pity. She finished the grocery shopping, then drove home.

Melissa was sitting in the living room, and when she saw her mother, for a second, there was a look of anger on her face that almost made Eden’s heart stop. But in the next second, the look was gone, replaced by a false cheerfulness that Eden almost found worse than the anger.

“Did you get the fish?” Melissa asked, heaving herself out of the chair.

“Yes,” Eden said softly. “Melissa, has something happened?”

“Absolutely nothing. Why don’t we make dinner together? Like we used to do when I was a child?”

Her daughter’s tone was making Eden’s hair stand on end. She put her hand on Melissa’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Melissa said, shrugging away from her mother’s touch.