Turner's Vision Read Free

father attended, waiting for him to finish his meeting with the reverend. A young girl sat several rows ahead, listening to another girl standing at the podium practicing a solo. Whenever the singer hit a sour note—which was almost every note—the girl in the pew would raise her hand. On one particularly bad note, Claudia couldn’t hide a giggle. Laura turned around and winked. Leave it to Laura to use the incident as a code to let her know she could trust the man seated across from her.
    But could she truly trust him to treat her as an equal partner?
    Micah steepled his fingers in front of him, his elbows propped on the arms of the chair. Crossing one leg over the other, he suddenly resembled the lord of the manor. One who would brook no interference by a mere woman.
    Well, she wasn’t about to let him just assume control over her household!
    Claudia stood. So did Micah. “Please be seated, sir. If you would care to wait, I would like to change into something a bit less comfortable.”
    With a slight nod to Henderson to keep their visitor in the parlor, she hurried up the stairs to her room. She wasn’t quite ready to turn back into the doormat she’d been for thirty-one of her thirty-two years.
    Once inside her room, she threw her robe on the four-poster bed, perched on the edge and opened Laura’s letter.
     
    Dear Claudia,
    The man delivering this letter is my husband’s oldest friend and partner. I am sending him to you because we believe you, Henderson, and the boys are in grave danger.
    Claudia, Nigel Blackwood is dead. We do not know why he killed Senator Anderson last winter, but we do know he wasn’t working alone. Please, inform Micah of all you have learned and allow him to take over the investigation.
    I could not live with myself if anything happened to any of you. As for me, I am as happy as any woman should be.
    All my love,
    Laura
     
    Claudia read it again. As happy as she was for her friend, Laura could not possibly know what she asked. All her life, Claudia had dreamed of adventure. For years her father had held her a virtual prisoner in her own home. He treated her like a possession, not a thinking, functioning human being. After his death, she continued to stay in this house, doing little of the adventuring her heart yearned to do. With Laura’s knock on her door, late that fateful night a year earlier, the resulting inquiry into the senator’s murder quite literally landed at her doorstep. Her whole life changed that night. At last, she was doing something exciting, something where she was in charge, something that made her feel alive.
    Allow him to take over the investigation .
    Now her dearest friend wanted her to hand all that over to some stranger? Some man?
    She skimmed over the letter once more. As much as she loved Laura, she wasn’t ready to quietly submit to a man again, even one Laura trusted.
    Folding the letter in half, Claudia tapped it on her chin.
    For years, she’d seen Laura’s cousin and other young women at church manipulate men for their own purposes. Surely, a man, any man, would succumb to the wiles of a woman, even her, if she acted like the right kind of woman. How difficult could it be?
    She crossed over to her armoire, ignoring the woman in the mirror. There was no need for her to examine herself, she knew exactly what she’d see reflected there—a rail-thin woman with hardly any of the round curves men seemed to crave. Her skin was tanned from time spent out-of-doors this past year, not the pale hue society held in high esteem. Her copper locks were outrageous and unmanageable, as her father always said they were.
    Hadn’t he taunted her for years about her ugliness? Long ago, she’d learned to accept that painful truth.
    In her armoire she searched through her myriad disguises. Who would she be tonight? It would take someone special to trick the stranger into revealing what he knew about the murder. She pulled out a blue gown. Eyeing it for a moment, she