Jeff turned his big blues on me. “You, too, Ashby. Promise you won’t tell Dad? He’ll never let me and you ride together again!”
Luke was first to give in. “Oh, I guess we can keep it b’tween the three of us. It’s just that I don’t like Eddie thinkin’ he can bully you an’ trespass on Overton property actin’ like it’s his.”
“Ashby?” Jeff looked at me pleadingly. “You won’t tell Dad?”
“I don’t know, Jeff. Your dad entrusted you to me. If I don’t tell him and he finds out…”
“We’ll tell him later, then,” Jeff exploded. “Just don’t tell him now. Okay, Ashby? Pul-eeze?” Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
This was about more than Jeff’s longing to ride with me. He looked truly frightened at the prospect of his father’s finding out we’d broken the rules—allowed Jeff to ride alone—even if for an emergency. This realization and Jeff’s persistence wore me down. “All right, already. For now.”
We had reached the bridge, where Jeff moved ahead to allow Luke and me to follow single-file. Letting my cousin ride ahead a bit, Luke moved astride Sasha and took the opportunity to ask guardedly, “Eddie didn’t try to hit on ya’, did he Ashby?”
“He spent the whole time telling me about…about the axe he has to grind with my uncle. Know what I mean?”
“’Fraid so.” He reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
At the stables, Luke left us and Jeff and I led the horses to the ring. It was then I noticed a strange car at the crest of the drive, a sleek green Jaguar and a smartly-dressed, distinguished-looking man who stepped from the driver’s side. Waving, he approached the riding ring. “Hello! Fine day for riding.”
I looked to Jeff to supply an identity. “It’s Dad’s lawyer. I forget his name.” He shrugged.
“Hello,” the man said again as he approached. “I’m Fred Taylor.” He hung over the fence. “You’re making me wish I wore my jodhpurs. I used to do quite a lot of riding myself, right here at Overhome. Hunter and I spent hours trailing these woods when we were not much older than young Jeff, there. You must be Ashby, down from Jersey.” His smile was dazzling.
Leading Sasha, I moved toward the fence. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Taylor.”
“On my way back from town, I decided to stop and save Hunter a trip to my office.”
I must have looked blank, for he smiled again and said, “Matters of estate, my dear.” He looked fondly at the horses. “Now, much as my heart is here, I’d best get on with my work. Is your uncle home?”
“I have no idea, Mr. Taylor,” I said. “If you’ll go up to the house, I’m sure Miss Coleville can tell you.”
Just then Abe appeared at the stable door. “Who’s that?” he rasped. “Who’s here?” His eyebrows knitted a line over his nose.
“It’s Dad’s lawyer, Abe,” Jeff told him.
Abe looked ready to blow the man’s head off. “Hrrumph. Whatta y’ want?”
The lawyer tried to calm the old man. “Just looking for Hunter, Abe.”
“I’ll take you to the house, Mr. Taylor,” Jeff offered unexpectedly. “Ashby, will you stable Sunshine for me?” When I nodded, Jeff scrambled over the fence, leading the way to the house.
Abe watched them disappear. “Hrrumph!” he snorted again. “Never could abide that struttin’ turkey.”
“Why? Mr. Taylor seems nice enough to me.”
“Becuz. It’s Fred Taylor that’s give Hunter Overton a bad name around here. If y’ ask me.”
“My uncle has a bad name?”
“Him and Taylor, haulin’ all over the countryside buyin’ up distress land, makin’ surveys and subdividin’ property, and foreclosin’ on mortgages. Folks don’t like that, y’ know? Land’s what it’s all about. Don’t nobody take kindly to sellin’ out under stress.” He shook his head. “I know it’s none a’ my bizness, but people talk. ‘Young Hunter is turnin’ out jest like his ol’ man,’ they says. ‘Jest like old Thomas Overton, robbin’ the poor to serve the rich.’” With a look of disgust, he continued. “Why, Luke told me ’bout Lawyer Taylor always wantin’ to check the account books. Luke says the guy has a lotta nerve pokin’ his head in where it’s not needed.” He frowned. “Fred’s a lot like his father, Bill. Bill Taylor was Thomas’s lawyer. I didn’t care fer him, neither.” He snorted again. “Like father, like son, so they says.”
He wandered off, muttering under his breath, but, as I wiped down the horses, I was left with new impressions of my uncle. First Eddie Mills, then Abe. Two totally different people coming from completely different angles, and both arrived at a singular conclusion—Hunter Overton, Villain. It seemed Uncle Hunter had a dual personality. He had been nothing but kind and polite to me, helpful, nice as could be. Should I trust my own impressions, or should I believe what I had heard today? I would have to think about it. It was definitely a matter for my diary.
Dear Diary, This is the most unpredictable place imaginable. Just when I think I know someone, my whole perspective changes. Monica, Hunter, and Luke. My first impressions were so totally false about each and every one. And I always prided myself on being an excellent judge of character! My aunt seems so poised, so perfectly in control, interested only in the social and the superficial, yet she’s filled with insecurity, with fears and desires for her husband and son, and she thinks I am a savior and a role model. My uncle appears to be the quintessential country gentleman, but he has a “Robbing Hood” reputation among the locals. And Eddie Mills calls him a murderer. Ah, then there is Luke. Luke, the redneck hick with the charismatic smile, is, in actuality, a pre-veterinary-med college student champing at the bit to move on with his life and get away from Overhome. Jeez! Where does this all leave me? Here, I’ve been dreaming up the settings and themes for my first book, and it’s all based on totally false characters. Reminds me of a play we studied in a college lit course. I’d have to call my romance “Three Quirky Characters in Search of a Novel.”
Sigh. In spite of my best intentions and efforts, I still know next to nothing about my roots. And, at the end of every day, I have to ask myself, do I really believe in ghosts? Who, or what, is Rosabelle? Will I ever find the answers?
For the record, Diary, though I’ve been kissed many times in my life, never have I encountered the likes of Luke Murley. The warmth, the passion, the desire he stirs up is downright scary. I like to think of myself as a woman who knows her own mind and body and who maintains absolute control of both. Now, I am not so sure. Maybe it has something to do with those damn roses.
Not a bit sleepy, and still enveloped in a cloud of romance, I decided to pull out my parents’ love letters, which I had hidden inside a small box deep between the bed springs and mattress. So well hidden were they that it took me a good five minutes to locate and extricate them, reaching blindly within the guts of the old bed. With a decisive yank, I finally retrieved the packet. Changing my radio station from country to my favorite light rock, I sat on my bed, poring over page after page of Washington’s letters to Marian, wondering all the while how she might have answered them.
I paused over one dated in May, then went back to re-read a paragraph. “I’m going to be a father! What perfect timing for us! I graduate in two weeks and then we can have the lovely wedding we’ve been planning for so long. So what if the baby is a tad ‘premature?’ I tip my glass to Spring Break. It was as productive as it was refreshing, huh? Growing up with two brothers makes me hope for a sweet little girl, but anything we team up on is bound to be the greatest! Our baby! I am proud and excited and happy all at once and I love you more than ever, if that’s possible.”
So I was ‘premature’ as they referred to it in the Victorian era. Marian in her one-entry diary had mentioned Thomas Overton’s insinuation that the child she carried might not be Washington’s. I suppose my surly old grandfather wanted to believe the worst, that Marian, or the Mills family, had manipulated the Overtons into a ‘shotgun wedding.’ Certainly, I had never considered such a pos
sibility, but for some reason, the fact that I was conceived before my parents married didn’t matter at all. Perhaps because it was clear my father’s own reaction was completely positive. Carefully, I replaced the letters in their envelopes, tied the pink ribbon in place, and returned the packet to its hiding place. I slipped into bed, thinking about the love my mother and father so obviously felt, for one another, and for me. I drifted off, wondering if love and hate exist side by side in every family, as they seem to in mine.
* * * *
The dream was very real. “Rosabelle,” I spoke into the oval mirror above the old dresser. “Rosabelle, if you’re here, give me a sign. Please. A sign, Rosabelle.” I barely breathed, looking, listening, for what I did not know. I was not surprised when the notes of the song began, falling like pebbles into a brook. “Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes.”
My eyes fixed on the reflection shifting in the pitted glass of the mirror. It was not a face, but a form—white, gray, black. It swirled and mixed, steadying at last so that I recognized a woman’s features. She wore an old-fashioned white cap. A high, white collar encircled her throat. Where her eyes would have been, two black hollows looked out blindly from a gray face.
“Rosabelle.” I was whispering now. “Whatever you want from me, whatever you have for me, I’m ready. I’m here. It’s me, Ashby. I feel your presence. I know you’re here.”
Slowly, the impression faded from the mirror until I saw only my own wide-eyed face, pale as death, looking back at me. I strained my ears, listening for the music, but it had disappeared along with the ghostly image. I felt no fear, not of roses or songs or signs. Here, in this room, I knew I was safe. Protected. Watched over by someone who had returned from a long-ago time.
The visions and images, the feelings, were still fresh in my mind when I awoke next morning. As the sun glanced through the French doors, I took a few moments to relive the dream and what it might mean, if anything. Stretching wide, my fingers touched something tucked under my pillow, something crisp and light. It was a single sheet of paper, parchment paper, almost transparent with age.
Hand-lettered in fading ink and written in a graceful, old-fashioned script was a poem:
MY LUVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE
By Robert Burns
My Luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
My Luve is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear
Til a’ the seas gang dry.
Til a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Though ’twere ten thousand mile!
A simple poem, but I read it over and over. Robert Burns, a famous Scottish poet from the distant past. If I remembered my Brit Lit, he had lived in the eighteenth century. Robert Burns who also wrote the song “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.” Burns, a poet from the Romantic Era, his theme—love. Love is red roses, melodies, and that which endures forever. It was hyperbole for sure: Love lasts until all the seas go dry and the rocks melt with the sun and the sands of life itself run out. But it was the last two lines that held me: “And I will come again, my Luve, Though ’twere ten thousand mile.”
For a long time I sat, propped on my pillows, reading and re-reading the page, until I had memorized the entire poem. The message was crystal clear: Love does not die with death, and the one who loves enough will come back, no matter the distance. I knew then what I had suspected all along without being able to put my finger on it—the warmth, the protective feelings, the flow of the music—they were evidence of a deep and abiding love. But why had I been chosen for this devotion?
Dreamily, I lay back against the headboard, knowing without question that the two were connected, the dream and the poem. When, at last, I reached to turn on my radio, I was not surprised to hear the twang of a country hoedown.
SIXTEEN
“Bonus! An afternoon off, Luke!” I was shouting into the wind. Luke maneuvered the wheel of my uncle’s ski boat as we skimmed the shining surface of Moore Mountain Lake. Luke had been teaching me how to drive the boat and we had just switched places. Piloting a boat, I decided, is much like driving a muscle car equipped with power steering and a quick throttle, but no brake. Also, there were no lines on the water way for direction—just channel markers to follow. Oh, and it’s important to learn who has the right-of-way. Jeff sprawled over the bow seats, his hair slicked back with the breeze, his face tilted to the sun.
“Your uncle insisted I deserved some time off. Must’ve thought it was important, ’cuz he himself helped me all morning. Said he wanted us t’ take Jeff out in th’ boat while he an’ your aunt play in some golf tournament. Or was it tennis?” He slung an arm over my shoulder. “Whatever. I’m just happy t’ be here knowin’ we can ski as long as we like.”
“Oh my God. Now you’ll see how klutzy I am. But learning to drive the boat, how sweet is that?” Closing my eyes, I threw back my head, enjoying the massage of sun and wind and water. John Denver’s old song ran through my mind. “You fill up my senses…” Luke, muscular and fit in his swim suit, the earthy fragrance of soap and sweat radiating from his skin, the sun-streaks in his flying hair—it was a regular banquet for my senses.
“Here we are! Best ski cove on th’ lake,” Luke slowed, then cut the motor. Not another boat or PWC in sight. “Flat ’n shiny as a mirror. Get out th’ ski rope ’n gloves, Jeff.” Luke moved toward the stern to retrieve the skis from the locker. He looked back at us. “You wanna go first?”
Jeff hopped to his tasks, easily looping the rope over a chrome pylon that stuck up from the mid-section of the craft. “Can I wakeboard?”
“Sure.” Luke slid the board over the side as Jeff stepped from the stern to the teak swim platform and then leaped into the water. “Okay! Throw me the rope!”
Winding the multi-colored rope like a lasso, Luke sent it sailing toward Jeff, who grasped the handle and held it high for Luke to see. “Got it!” He maneuvered the rope until it was taut and then yelled, “Hit it!”
From my position in the spotter’s seat, I watched, awed, as my young cousin glided from side to side, skimming the wake and landing with a light plop, only to switch directions and fly over the water again in the opposite direction.
“Was he born on a wakeboard?” I asked Luke, who was also keeping an eye on Jeff in his rear-view mirror.
“Looks like it!” Luke laughed. “Actually, th’ kids start out on a knee board or a bob-sked or somethin’ more stable ’til they get used t’ bein’ behind a big boat. From there they move up to skis and wakeboard. I’d say Jeff’s been doin’ both since he was about five.”
His ride ended, Jeff waited for Luke to circle back to get him. I helped him bring in the board, then handed him a towel. “Amazing run, Jeff,” I said. We high-fived each other.
Jeff shook his hair dry. “Luke taught me. I’m the only one at camp who can do tricks on the board. You should see Luke do a 360.”
Luke shrugged like it was no big deal, then looked at me. “You next, Ashby?”
I felt a flutter of butterflies. “Umm…how about you go first, Luke? Trust me to drive for you?”
“There’s nothin’ to pullin’ a skier. Jeff’s your spotter. I’ll let him know when I’m ready t’ get up and when I wanna drop, an’ he’ll tell you. Jeff knows all th’ signals, but y’ can also watch me in your mirror. Thumb up means go faster, down means slower. Cut th’ throat,” he demonstrated, “means I’m droppin’.” Pulling on his gloves and tightening his life vest, Luke grabbed a long slalom ski from the locker. “Just remember what y’ learned
in our drivin’ lesson. We’ll do fine.”
I nodded, hoping not to show how nervous I really was. The cove offered a long straight-away and, being mid-week, there were no other boats to maneuver around. It was as good a time as any for me to pull a skier. Besides, I wanted to see Luke in action.
“Once I’m up, run me at about 4000 RPMs. Jeff’ll let y’ know if y’ need to adjust th’ speed.” I watched Luke ready himself, pulling on gloves, adjusting his life jacket before he tossed his ski overboard and jumped in.
“Hit it!” Luke yelled. Taking a deep breath, I pushed as smoothly as I could on the throttle, accelerating gradually and feeling the weight of his body pull against the boat as he muscled his way to the surface.
Jeff turned to me from his spotter position. “A little bit faster.”
“Okay. Here goes.” Nudging the throttle up a notch, I took a quick glance in the mirror, catching Luke’s nod that meant the speed was right for him. I am sure I bit my tongue as I concentrated on the speedometer, trying to keep the RPMs steady, while steering as straight a line as possible. As we neared the curve of the cove, I signaled a left turn, remembering to maintain the throttle through the natural slow-down of the turning boat. Once settled on the back-swing straight-away, I relaxed enough to get a good look at Luke in the mirror.
I had never been up-close-and-personal to such powerful slalom skiing. Luke swept in an enormous arc across the wake and out into the smooth water on either side of the boat—back and forth—with hardly a ripple—leaning into the angle of the turn until his extended body stretched out only inches from the surface.
“Awesome!” Jeff exclaimed, with such animation, I swear his freckles jiggled all over his nose. Carved up by Luke’s ski, an enormous spout of lake water sparkled in the sun. It looked like a waterfall of a thousand prisms. “Look at that rooster tail!” Jeff crowed.
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