The Presence

by Charlene Neil

  Back of the Book

  Kayleigh Gibbs’s marriage falls apart, prompting her to flee with her daughter across the country for a new life. She opens her own veterinary practice, and eventually they move into an old, secluded farmhouse in Hoekwil.

  At her best friend’s housewarming party Kayleigh meets the beautiful and enchanting Rebecca Steward. Rebecca is instantly drawn to Kayleigh but is still recovering from a breakup—her girlfriend left her for a man. Afraid of a repeat performance with Kayleigh, she refuses to acknowledge her growing feelings, preferring instead to develop a platonic friendship.

  When inexplicable things start happening in the farmhouse, a terrified Kayleigh turns to Rebecca for reassurance. As the women try to unravel the mystery of the house, Kayleigh finds herself developing feelings for Rebecca. Despite her best intentions, Rebecca discovers she is falling in love with Kayleigh.

  Will Rebecca and Kayleigh be able to not only figure out the strange happenings at the house but their own insecurities? Can the past tear them apart and keep reign over the house or will love conquer the presence?

  The Presence

  © April 2015 by Charlene Neil

  Affinity E-Book Press NZ LTD.

  Canterbury, New Zealand

  1st Edition

  ISBN: ePUB: 978-1-927328-64-4

  ISBN: PDF: 978-1-927328-65-1

  ISBN: PRC: 978-1-927328-66-8

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author and publisher. Please note that piracy of copyrighted materials violate the author’s rights and is illegal.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Editor: Nat Burns

  Proof Editor: Alexis Smith

  Cover Design: Irish Dragon Designs

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone at Affinity eBook Press for publishing my story. If not for all of you, I would still be an aspiring author. I have learned a lot from you and will be forever grateful for that.

  Dedication

  To my children, thank you for always supporting me and my decisions, no matter what my crazy head came up with.

  To my mother, for always believing in me.

  To my father, for always pushing me a step forward.

  To my sister, for being my best friend.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  About the Author

  Other Affinity eBooks

  Prologue

  1901, The Anglo Boer War, South Africa

  “Papa…Papa…Papa!”

  The voice echoed from far in the distance, starting low and growing louder, as Catherine woke slowly from a deep sleep. Arising in the mornings was harder each day since her husband, Joshua, left to fight in the war. Life wasn’t the same without his arms around her when she awoke and without his soothing voice when she needed comfort.

  Catherine had a daughter to think of, however. Exhausted, she yawned and dragged her heavy body out of bed, and went to the window. She pulled the curtain aside. A dark and gloomy sky greeted her, matching her mood. She glared down at Carrey, her four-year-old daughter, who was standing in the front yard. She tried to focus her eyes on the clock by her bedside table. Six-thirty in the morning.

  “Papaaaaaaaa!” Carrey called out again. It sounded as if she’d squeezed the final bit of air out of her lungs.

  Catherine grabbed her robe. She wrapped it around her bare shoulders and shuddered. Her thin gown offered little protection from the cold. She turned too fast and kicked her toe into the sharp edge of the bedroom door.

  “Ow….” She limped down the hallway. “Carrey!”

  She raged breathlessly on her way down the stairs with only the echo of silence greeting her. She skipped every second step in order to descend as fast as she could, groaning every time she put weight on the throbbing toe.

  She opened the front door and shoved the screen door aside. When she let it go, the loud bang against the rotted wooden doorframe echoed loudly. There was no one else for miles of their farm in Hoekwil, but sound travelled far in the frosty space of nothingness. The icy chill whipped her long light-brown hair around her face. She gasped at the sudden hit of freezing cold, and the frosty air burned down her throat. She took Carrey by the wrist and pulled her inside to the kitchen where it was warmer. And more protected. Catherine feared that if the British soldiers were in the vicinity, their lives would be at stake.

  The instant they set foot inside the house, the weekly newspaper on the table caught her eye. Catherine dreaded the published list of perished soldiers. She knew the army would have sent her a telegram if anything had happened to her husband, but it was possible the telegram was delayed. The nausea that she felt every week at opening the newspaper maneuvered its way up her gullet. Joshua. She hadn’t had the stomach to open the newspaper yet, even though it had arrived the day before.

  She tried to refocus on her daughter and crouched down to Carrey’s height. “What were you doing outside by yourself, especially at this time of the morning, little missy?”

  “I’m waiting for Papa.” Carrey spoke very well for her age.

  “You know it isn’t safe out there all by yourself. How many times must Mama tell you that?” Catherine had heard so many gruesome stories of the English soldiers taking women and children to concentration camps where they received no food or water and were beaten and neglected. Hair stood up at the back of her neck at the very thought of that happening to her only daughter. For this reason, they had lived in concealment since Joshua went to fight in the war. At night, they’d not lit a single candle and had closed all the curtains just in case somebody was passing through.

  “But I thought I saw Papa out there, Mama. I went outside to show him the way home. I don’t think he saw me, though. He was too far away. But he looked like the man in the photo you showed me.” Carrey’s hair was much darker than her mother’s and long, all the way down to her tiny waist. Long dark lashes decorated her big green eyes. She had her father’s mouth and hair, but her eyes were Catherine’s.

  “Honey, how do you know he looks like Papa if he’s so far away?”

  Before Carrey could say anything, movement out of the corner of Catherine’s eye caught her attention. She craned her neck to look in the direction of the door. The door that was still wide open. Fear clenched her heart like a fist. The man who stood there was not Joshua.

  Chapter 1


  Present day, Sedgefield, South Africa

  By three that afternoon, it felt like every pet owner in Sedgefield had needed Kayleigh Gibbs’s veterinarian assistance for a medical emergency. By the time Kayleigh left to collect her eight-year-old daughter from school, she was exhausted but not complaining about the influx of patients. Since opening her practice, business had been slow.

  She spun her black Jeep Wrangler out of its parking space before another worried pet owner could have the chance to spot her.

  She understood the slow start of her practice. Carl Jones, just down the road, had been the only veterinarian in town for years and it seemed that most people did not accept the change of vet readily. When the townsfolk saw she was up-to-date with her equipment and techniques, they slowly started to accept her and bring her more business. Dr. Jones could hardly see anymore, and Kayleigh secretly dreaded the day he would remove an animal’s bladder instead of its uterus.

  The wind felt cool on her face. Kayleigh loved driving in the Jeep with the top down. It made her feel free. She switched from the radio to the current CD in the shuttle and selected her favorite song. A rhythmic beat flowed through the sound system, and she pumped up the volume.

  As she drove, she thought of the lack of young people, let alone men, in this town. Kayleigh wasn’t interested in men, really, and she’d had her fair share of bad experiences, enough to know men didn’t know how to make her happy. She’d never felt the butterflies and so-called spark she’d heard about in the conversations she’d endured in school and university.

  If true to herself, she realized she enjoyed her freedom. Besides, having a man around would tip the scales, and cause a disturbance in her perfect equilibrium.

  Sarah was already standing by the gate when Kayleigh pulled into the schoolyard. Sarah placed her foot on the huge back wheel and hopped into the Jeep without opening the door.

  “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Hi, sweetness. How was your day?”

  “Awesome! We had a party in class because it was Zia’s birthday. We ate cake and sweets and drank soda.”

  “Great. A sugar rush. Plus caffeine.” Kayleigh shook her head.

  All the way home, Sarah controlled the music in the car. She loved singing along to “The Girl Next Door,” a song by a local group, which she played twice before they reached home.

  “Lunch box and juice bottle in the sink. Schoolbag in your room,” Kayleigh called out to Sarah as soon as they entered the house. Sarah had the annoying habit of dumping her schoolbag on the couch.

  “All right, Mom.” Sarah sighed loudly before she did as she was told.

  “Homework?”

  “Nope. I finished all my homework in class.”

  Kayleigh studied Sarah. “Homework is for home. Like it says. Home. Work.”

  “The teacher said it was all right. She was done with class and told us to do our homework. Then we could have the whole weekend off.” Sarah sang the final three words as she spun around on one foot.

  Kayleigh grabbed The Edge, the local newspaper, and slumped onto the nearest breakfast nook stool. Her feet were killing her from all the running around today. She leaned over the counter and gazed through the rental listings. She felt her cell vibrate in her back pocket. Retrieving it, she looked at the caller ID before flipping it open.

  “Hello, Bag,” she said to her best friend, Lindsay Norris.

  “Quit calling me that. I’ll undo my wife’s leash and let her attack you.”

  “You know you earned that nickname in college.” Kayleigh smiled.

  “So I had about five bags when I moved into the dorm room, big bloody deal. You didn’t seem to mind borrowing most of my clothes.”

  Kayleigh laughed. “More like twenty bags, Bag.”

  Lindsay chuckled. “Moving on. Are we still on for tonight?”

  “Most definitely. Babysitter’s arranged. The works.”

  “I got the tequila, you bring the beers and the oranges. You know tequila tastes better with oranges than with lemons,” Lindsay said.

  “I do know and I will. How many people are coming?”

  “Not too many, just a few of Judy’s college mates and an old friend from high school. The poor chick recently relocated here from Cape Town, and she doesn’t know a single soul. Lord knows why she moved to this small town.”

  “Any attractive guys?” Kayleigh asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Sure, there’s Bennie and Paul. Queens. You might like them.”

  Kayleigh giggled. “Perfect. See you later, Bag.”

  “Stop it.”

  After ending the call, she returned to reading the newspaper. “Two-bedroom apartments, six-month contracts, needs some work, blah blah blah....”

  All of them were the same, and Kayleigh wanted a long-term lease. Besides, the prices were sky-high. She knew the owners never extended the short leases because of the town’s proximity to the sea. The owners made a fortune renting to the December influx of holiday comers and kept their houses open for that purpose. She’d be damned if she would move again anytime soon.

  The wind blew in through the open window and lifted the bottom corner of the newspaper. She placed her elbow over the paper to keep it still. Her long brown hair hung loosely over her shoulders and brushed against the top of the newspaper. With a swift movement of her right hand, she flicked her hair over her shoulder as she reached the lower part of the newspaper. With a loud and frustrated sigh, she moved her elbow to look at the rest of the page, when a listing in the bottom corner caught her attention.

  “Four-bedroom house on large farm to let. Hoekwil.” The rental was half what she was currently paying on her lease. “Wow. What a bargain.”

  She’d been looking to get a bigger place before she and Sarah got cabin fever. Without taking her eyes off the advertisement, Kayleigh grabbed her cell phone and dialed the number of her estate agent, Graham.

  Chapter 2

  1895—Hoekwil, South Africa

  The day Catherine Jones met Joshua Botha was the best day of her life. She’d met Joshua, an Afrikaner farmer’s son after the usual Sunday church service. His face was pale, enveloped by a thick shrub of dark hair. He looked so handsome in his black suit, and when he spoke to her, she nearly choked on her coffee. When he greeted her in Afrikaans, she struggled to respond since she’d only arrived from England a year ago. There had never been the time or the need to learn the language. Besides, her parents would’ve had a stroke if they discovered that she was interested in learning Afrikaans.

  “Ek is Joshua, aangename kennis. En jy is?”

  “Ek is... uhm... I’m sorry. I don’t really speak Afrikaans. My name is Catherine. How do you do?” Catherine extended her right hand, which he took gracefully and kissed with the lightest of touches, as soft as a butterfly wing.

  Joshua smiled up at her when she blushed at the touch of his lips on the back of her hand. He continued the conversation in broken English, but they managed to communicate very well. Whenever he was unsure of a word, he would utter it in Afrikaans, and if she understood his meaning, she would translate the word to English. As they spoke, they learned much about one another and that they had quite a lot in common

  Catherine was quite eager to see Joshua again, and when he asked her to tea, she accepted immediately. He invited her to his house, where the servants prepared scones with fresh cream. At twenty and still living with her parents, lying to them and telling them she was visiting friends, wasn’t easy the first few times. They trusted her and had no idea she was seeing a Boer. The conflict between the Boers and the British in the late 1800’s was bordering on war. Her parents would never allow their daughter to even interact with an Afrikaans-speaking settler, let alone be courted by one.

  After a mere month of secretly dating, Joshua and Catherine sat in the field one afternoon, on his farm, enjoying a picnic while watching the sunset behind the distant mountains. Joshua looked dreamily at Catherine. “I love you.”

  Catherine gasped in
surprise and reached for his hand. “I love you, too. With all my heart.”

  “Will you be my wife?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes as she flung herself into his arms. “Yes!” she cried. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

  “You make me so happy.” Joshua held onto her for a long while. “What do you think your father is going to say?” His English had improved a lot since he‘d been with Catherine. He didn’t stutter much anymore when he spoke to her.

  “My father will probably disown me, but I love you, Joshua, and I want to be with you, whether I have my father’s blessing or not.”

  †

  “Father, we love one another,” Catherine pleaded.

  Her father boiled with anger. “No daughter of mine will marry one of your kind.” He glared at Joshua.

  Joshua swallowed hard. “Sir, I own a farm which I inherited from my parents. I am well off financially, and I promise to take good care of your daughter.”