Death on the Family Tree by Patricia Sprinkle Page B

right for me ,” until her father had gone out and sent him home.
    He hadn’t called the next morning before she left for Agnes Scott, so they hadn’t said goodbye. He had called her two nights later, after he got to college, but he had sounded more belligerent than contrite, so she’d hung up on him. Several times. After that, he didn’t call again. She had nursed her anger until it subsided into a bruised and hurting heart. After a couple of months, she had permitted her roommate to fix her up, but the date was a disaster, so she didn’t repeat the experience until Christmas, when she met Tom.
    Looking at Hasty now, she wondered: if Agnes Scott had been closer to Kenyon, or if her father hadn’t decided to move the family to Atlanta that same fall, would she and Hasty have eventually made up? Instead, they had never seen each other again.
    Now he looked down at her with a surprised look that wasn’t particularly flattering. “When did you get sophisticated and beautiful?”
    “When did you get so tactful?” But he had improved, too. She could see traces of the gangly boy he had been—the same square jaw, the same hazel eyes behind glasses that were now bifocals. However, he had filled out into an attractive bulk and the silver that threaded his black curls gave him a distinguished look. Unbidden, a memory of winding those curls through her fingers while she kissed him rose before her. She felt her fingers clench and heat rose in her cheeks. What on earth was the matter with her? She was a happily married woman.
    “You’re teaching history at Emory?” she asked to cover her confusion. “I had no idea you were in Atlanta. Besides, you hated history.” His father had been an expert on the Age of Expansion and one of the shining lights of the new history department when Florida International University was founded in the seventies, but history used to be Hasty’s worst subject.
    His lopsided grin and loose shrug hadn’t changed at all. “I discovered in college that it wasn’t history I hated, it was Dad ramming it down my throat. I got hooked on the Vandals, Goths, and Celts. All that ravishing and rape.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
    “You never did master a leer,” she informed him, “but if you know about Celts, you are just what I need.”
    “I can’t remember anybody ever having that reaction to Celts. You intrigue me. Want to have lunch?”
    She hesitated. “I was going up to the Coach House, and it’s pretty much all women.”
    “I don’t object to women.” Seeing her look, he added, “But I have learned to respect them. Besides, isn’t this your birthday?” Part of what used to astonish her about Hasty was his memory for trivia. She nodded. “Then you mustn’t eat alone. Come on, my treat.”
    She wasn’t in the habit of eating lunch with men, but she couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, and after all, he was an old friend. So she fell into step beside him and hurried to keep up. He still had the quick nervous stride that had earned him his nickname.
    He also still had a propensity to lecture. “Did you know that this restaurant and gift shop are housed in a garage the Inman family built on their estate to house a collection of racing cars? The mansion, completed in 1928, was left to the Atlanta Historical Society on Mrs. Inman’s death in the nineteen sixties, and the society built the history center on the grounds. They opened the Swan House to the public, and created the restaurant in the garage to generate income.”
    Katharine had memorized all those facts back when she became a docent, but she had neither the breath nor the inclination to tell him. His long legs were taking the steep incline much faster than hers. When he saw she was falling behind, he put out a hand and she took it without thinking. Holding Hasty’s hand felt so familiar that she didn’t realize she hadn’t let go until they started in the door and met two of her friends. She dropped his hand at once,