by Kelly Lane
Like everyone always did.
So, on that stifling September morning—overtired, nursing a sore stubbed toe, aggravated with my nagging boss, and seeing nothing but mountains of dirty laundry ahead of me—I’d nearly reached the end of my string. Plus, on top of it all, there’d been the unexpected stress of the day before. Dex Codman and his Boston cronies had just shown up at Knox Plantation, completely out of the blue.
After all those years.
And right after serving them their first dinner at the plantation, I’d had a big blowout with Dex in front of everyone during the after-dinner olive oil tasting party. Later that night in my one-room cottage behind the big house, I’d actually been so upset about the scene I’d made with Dex that I’d downed a couple of glasses of wine before bed, to help me sleep. A chronic insomniac, I rarely slept, anyway. Especially that summer. And I rarely drank alcohol . . . certainly not alone. However, with the shock and stress of Dex and the others staying on at the plantation, I’d recognized that it would take something extra to get me to sleep. That’s where the wine had come in.
And for once, it’d worked.
The wine, combined with the allergy pill I’d taken earlier, had done the trick. I’d slept like a baby, only awakening one time in the middle of the night, after a weird dream—but then, I always had weird dreams.
In the dream, somewhere in the dark of night, a half-naked man with two heads was singing and dancing, mocking and chanting obscenities at me, while trying to pull off my clothes. He laughed raucously. Then suddenly, I found myself underwater. The same man was tightly holding my wrist, and he was pulling me down . . . down, deeper into the dark water as I struggled and gasped for air. Then again, the dream switched gears. It was still night, and a growling black bear was chasing me through the woods, gnashing his teeth and clawing at me. The man was still calling my name. I couldn’t see him. And I couldn’t find my way out of the dark and scary woods. Terrified, I felt a bear claw tearing though my clothes. There was wet slobber on my shoulder as I still tried to get away. But I was paralyzed and couldn’t seem to move, let alone run. I heard the man laughing. Then I felt the beast breathing and slobbering on my cheek, growling in my ear. I was sure that I was about to die . . .
That’s when I’d jumped up, awakening with a start, only to realize the attacking bear had actually been my little black dog, Dolly, licking me on the face. She’d been in my cottage with me, up on my grandma Knox’s antique four-poster bed.
After that, Dolly’d jumped down to the floor before skittering to the screen door, whimpering.
Probably some critter outside, I’d thought, still groggy with sleep.
Dolly hadn’t even bothered to wait for me to get out of bed. Pulling the screen door open with her paw, she’d let herself out of my cottage and onto the stoop outside. Exhausted and barely conscious, I’d put my head back down on the pillow, meaning to get up and let Dolly back in after a moment or two, after my heart stopped pounding and I’d sorted through my dream. Instead, I’d fallen right back to sleep, dead to the world.
Miracles do happen . . .
Several hours later that Saturday morning, as I sipped my cool glass of water in the big house kitchen while the blasted bed linens tumbled in the washing machine, Daphne stopped mid-sentence and sighed. She crossed her arms.
“Eva, are you even listening to me? I do declare, y’all look like ten miles of bad road today.”
Above the farmhouse sink, the curtains at the kitchen window puffed in the warm breeze. I peeped outside, taking in Daphne’s riot of flowers blooming in the garden. I caught a heady whiff of sweet-scented Gertrude Jekyll roses, tall, purple bearded irises, and gargantuan, snow-white Casa Blanca lilies as they bobbed in the breeze. Across the green lawn, birds chattered in a live oak tree laden with Spanish moss. I’d managed to avoid Dex and the others that morning while they were out on some sort of nature walk. Still, I thought, it was only a matter of time before I’d run into them. Or worse, if the twins didn’t show up, I’d have to serve Dex and his Boston buddies. Again.
I need to get away.
I set the glass of water down in the sink.
“Eva? Hello? Are y’all paying me any mind?” Daphne tapped her foot as I turned to face her. Her bracelet jingled as she crossed her arms. “Gracious to goodness, y’all are about as useless as tits on a boar today, Eva.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Y’all are no help to me at all like this. I’m sure the twins will be here soon, so, I’m ordering you to take the afternoon off.”
I laughed. Only Daphne could imagine she’d need to “order” me to take a summer afternoon off.
“Hooray! Thanks, Daph,” I said. “Except now, I kinda feel bad about all the despicable things I’ve thought about you this summer.” I grinned.
Daphne threw her hands up, looking positively scandalized. The door from the dining room swung open.
“Woo-wee! It’s hotter than the Devil’s armpit in here!”
Precious Darling, who worked as our “temporary” chef at Knox Plantation—when she wasn’t working as estate manager for the Gatsby-esque Greatwoods Plantation next door—clomped into the kitchen. Well over six feet tall, Precious was built like an Amazon warrior maiden. She had beautiful coppery skin, with matching short-cropped hair, and always wore Louboutin shoes and designer duds, even when she worked in the kitchen. Best of all, Precious was a spectacular cook.
“Miss Daphne, you got somethin’ you need me to do before I head back to Greatwoods?”
Per Daphne’s orders, Precious proceeded to pack me a picnic lunch in an old willow basket.
“I’m tryin’ out new recipes for the guests,” Precious said later, handing me the stuffed picnic basket. “You’re my guinea pig.”
“Great!” I cried, eagerly snagging the load. “Thanks, Precious.”
“My pleasure, Sunshine.”
I hauled the big basket out the kitchen door, down the back porch steps, through Daphne’s cutting garden, and across several acres of lawn behind the big house, heading toward my cottage. High above me, big cottony clouds floated in a sultry late-summer breeze, blocking and releasing a blazing hot sun.
It’s a perfect day to spend down at the pond, I thought.
More importantly, the free afternoon was an opportune time for me to figure out what the heck I was going to do about Dex.
Why, oh why, after all these years, has Dex suddenly shown up in Abundance?
I agonized about having to come clean about what had happened between us all those years ago.
Crap.
Dolly greeted me with licks and wags as I yanked open the flimsy screen door to my cottage—a pre–Civil War cook’s quarters that Daphne’d renovated and furnished with old family pieces right before I’d moved back home earlier that summer. Without air-conditioning, the place was too hot and stuffy inside to keep it closed up during summertime. I always left the main door open, and used just the screen door.
“Hi, Dolly!”
I reached down and patted my pup as she shot past me, leaping over the stoop into the yard.
Quickly, I changed clothes, throwing my soiled stuff on the four-poster bed and pulling on my one-piece swimsuit and a pair of cutoffs. I tied my strawberry-blonde hair in a ponytail, shoved my feet into a pair of flip-flops, and plopped a big, floppy straw hat on my head before throwing into the basket a tube of sunscreen, a mystery paperback, and my vintage Jackie O–style sunglasses—a gift from Daphne; her style, not mine. As an afterthought, I grabbed the local paper, the Abundance Record, sitting on my grandmother’s old Sheridan dresser near the door.
Then, Dolly and I headed out back, passing another one of Daphne’s perennial gardens behind the cottage. We moseyed down the grassy green knoll toward the pond where we made our way around the watering hole.
Conk-la-ree! A red-winged blackbird trilled.
Skitte
ring ahead of me, Dolly chased a squirrel through the tall grasses around the edge of the pond. Then about halfway around the pond, she came to an ancient olive tree. The squirrel scooted up the great, grizzled, twisted olive tree trunk and was soon hidden from view by ribbons of slender sage green leaves cascading from gnarled branches. Barking wildly, Dolly started scrambling up the tree.
“Dolly! No!”
I hurried over, giggling at the sight of my little pup actually hoisting herself up the tree.
“Stop, Dolly!”
By the time I’d finally managed to pull her down, Dolly’d already made it nearly three feet up the tree trunk.
“No squirrels,” I said, holding back giggles as I scolded my naughty pup.
Still eagerly waiting for the squirrel to make an appearance, Dolly sat at my feet, whimpering as she looked up at the old olive tree.
Daddy’d told me once that the tree must’ve been at least three or four hundred years old—most likely planted by Spanish missionaries who’d long ago inhabited what’s now the southeastern United States. Still, the single olive tree at our place had always been a bit of a mystery. As far as anyone knew, there were no other signs in Abundance that missions ever existed in our little corner of Georgia’s wire grass country, a place where—unless you farmed or worked at the local chemical plant or the prison on the far side of town—up until recent times there’d never been much reason to stick around.
Except for a few awe-inspiring mansions and estates built during the Gilded Age by wealthy Northerners who wanted lush winter getaways and hunting retreats, Abundance was mostly known for its run-down farms, big, nasty swamps, and untamed forests.
Of course, along with those untamed forests came trees. And with those trees came loggers and logging. The area was chock-full of longleaf pines—those tall, straight trees that grow for hundreds of years and make perfect telephone poles. Loggers loved them, while tree huggers harped about saving the ancient pines, which sounded nice until it came to putting food on the table . . . For most folks in the area, that hadn’t always been easy.
Since the railroad went bust after the boom times of the Gilded Age, except for hunters and a few crooks hiding from the law, almost no one came to Abundance, at least during all the years I’d been raised there. For most of my life, Abundance County had pretty much been at death’s door.
Then the Internet happened.
Sometime during the eighteen years I’d lived up in New England, a few local folks had fixed up some ramshackle Victorian shops and buildings downtown. Then they’d advertised on the Internet. Some adventurous tourists had shown up, and word had spread about Abundance’s “cute,” “unspoiled” little village. More new businesses had opened. And instead of driving forty-five minutes to the nearest big-box store in the next county, even local folks in Abundance had begun to shop locally. Garden club members had volunteered to maintain plantings on the tree-lined village boulevard. More locals had renovated more downtown Victorians. And more village shops, guest inns, and local businesses had opened, followed by more shoppers and more tourists. Before everyone knew it, the village had become chock-full of new businesses. Shops. Restaurants. Professional services. There were handmade signs. Striped awnings. Cute window displays. New brick sidewalks. Flower boxes. And outside the village, wildlife tours and a host of agritourist destinations had sprouted up throughout the county.
Abundance had made a comeback, of sorts. Or, perhaps more accurately, a start-up.
In fact, the old olive tree near our pond had been the inspiration for Daddy’s new olive oil business. After being hard-hit by the recession, Daddy’s traditional peach and blueberry crops hadn’t been selling; he needed to save the farm that’d been in our family for six generations. Daddy knew there was a huge international market for olive oil, and the United States had tapped into no more than two percent of that worldwide market. So he took out one big, last loan and gave growing olive trees a try. With the help of his right-hand gal, my middle sister, Pep—a mechanical genius—Daddy’s new olive oils quickly became a hit. They’d even won some awards.
More recently, Daddy moved into a small, private retreat nestled in some woods on the plantation. Then after her messy divorce in Atlanta, my oldest sister, Daphne, and her five kids moved back home into the big house. She fixed up the place with money she’d wrangled from her cheating ex-husband. Daphne and the kids moved up to the third floor so paying guests could stay in the second-floor bedrooms. After some well-placed ads and a couple of articles I wrote about Daphne’s new hospitality business hit the public—I’d had a little PR business up in Boston—suddenly, Knox Plantation became a hot spot for foodies, nature-lovers, history buffs, and agritourists.
That is, until I moved back home and the dead bodies started piling up.
After two murders and another man found dead from natural causes at our place, just since I’d returned home that summer, the Knox family was getting plenty of publicity . . . more than our share, I’d say. And I’d been the one tripping over and falling into each and every dead person . . . quite literally. Sheriff Buck Tanner had even called me a “magnet for disaster.”
So, just when things were finally quieting down and I’d been feeling that all the dead bodies and badness from earlier that summer were finally behind us, suddenly, I had to deal with him.
Dex.
“At least Dex isn’t dead, Dolly,” I said, like a smart aleck.
Conk-la-ree!
I reached up and plucked an olive from the ancient tree. Not much bigger than a marble, apple green in color with dashes of bruised purple, the oval-shaped stone fruit felt firm when I squeezed it between my fingers. It’d be another few weeks before this fruit, like the olives growing on Daddy’s young Arbequina, Arbosana, and Koroneiki trees planted on the one-hundred-acre orchard on the other side of the farm, would be ready for harvest. I tossed the olive into the tall weeds. Pretty to look at, it was too bitter to eat without pickling it first or making it into an oil or paste. Even birds wouldn’t eat the tart fruit.
Cheer-up, cheer-up cheer-ree!
A robin sang from somewhere up in the yard, its melodious call distinct from the twitters and warbles of the finches and sparrows around me.
I turned and headed toward the low pier jutting over the pond, slogging through knee-high grasses, sedges, and weeds. Frogs ker-plunked from the muddy bank into the water. About ten feet ahead of me, Dolly stopped, barely visible in the grasses. She looked back over her shoulder and yipped. Then with her tail wagging over her back, she jumped up and onto the rickety wooden pier, galloping down to the end of the planks where a small wooden dinghy bobbed in the water.
I smiled.
As a kid, I’d spent countless afternoons in that little boat, painted white on the inside and fire-engine red on the outside, rowing around the pond, fishing, sunning, and swimming.
Good memories.
Dolly looked down at the water, ready to jump.
“No! No! Dolly! Don’t jump!”
Dolly scratched and whimpered at the end of the pier.
“No!”
I rushed through the weeds toward the pier as the big basket banged against my legs.
She whimpered again, this time digging and scratching at the wooden planks.
“Dolly! I said, no!”
She sat and waited.
Hoisting the basket, I hopped up from the grass onto the wooden planks of the pier and followed Dolly to the end. I set the basket down and rubbed my pup.
“Good girl, Dolly.” I planted a kiss atop her head. Her wavy fur felt smooth as satin.
Reaching inside the basket, I pulled out the ginormous ham hock that Precious had packed, just for Dolly. Before I could give it to her, Dolly jumped up and stole the big bone from my hand. Racing back down the pier, she tossed the bone into the air then pounced on it as it clattered on the wooden planks.
“Don’t go far, Dolly!”
I unfolded a red-checkered tablecloth and set out the contents of the basket. Precious had prepared a cold plate of bourbon and ginger barbecued chicken sliced atop her limey summer pasta salad—a concoction of bow tie pasta, apples, celery, grapes, parsley, and her roasted sweet, salty, ’n spicy pecans, all drenched in a ridiculously delicious lime vinaigrette. As a side, Precious had prepared corn pudding, and for dessert, she’d added a huge wedge of chocolate olive oil cake with scrumptious mascarpone frosting. Of course, every dish was prepared with our Knox Liquid Gold Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Also, there were some strawberries and a cooler of iced lemonade to wash it all down. It was a feast fit for a queen. More than enough to quell a jag of nervous eating while I figured out what the heck I was going to do about my problem guests.
First, I’m going to relax and enjoy my feast, I thought. I’ve earned it.
Settling in at the end of the pier, under the protective shade of my floppy hat, I listened to the birds in the yard and the smack of the little red dinghy as it bobbed in the water and bumped the pier while Dolly gnashed at her bone on the wooden planks behind me. I savored each and every morsel of my mouthwatering meal.
Thirty or more minutes later, there wasn’t a bite left to eat. I sighed happily as I packed up the spoils of my picnic and covered the basket. Then, reality sank back in . . .
My little voice inside was screaming. I needed to deal with Dex.
Not yet.
I grabbed the newspaper and scanned the headlines: “Twiggs Shoots Self, Dies While Cleaning Firearm”; “Naturalists Celebrate Abundance Peeps Week with Parade”; “Teen Flips Auto at Benderman’s Curve”; “Real Estate Board Reports Surge in Local Property Sales”; “Nursing Home Volunteers Make Kindness a Priority”; “Clatterbuck Benefit Raises Thousands”; “Anonymous Benefactor Donates Rescue Boat to Fire Department”; “High School Cross-Country Team Stomps Competitors”; “Library Posts New Hours” . . . the usual stuff.