Annette Blair

by Holy Scoundrel

  She didn’t feel the cuts causing her feet to bleed. She didn’t feel the pain running up her legs. All she knew was she had a couple more flights to go. She tried to suck in a breath of air but could only manage a small gasp. He was closer now. She could feel him right behind her.

  The door to the garage was so close. She could see it now. She had to reach it. He closed in on her. She could hear him breathing. She willed her legs to move faster. He reached out his arm to grab her….

  CHAPTER ONE

  McKenna looked around and saw nothing but black, four-plank fences and green grass for as far as she could see. Daffodils were playing peek-a-boo with the bright morning sun. She looked down at the GPS in her cherry red BMW M6. Only five more miles until her destination. Bringing her eyes back up to the narrow country road, Kenna gasped and hit her brakes as hard as she could.

  The stabilization in her car kicked in and kept it from fishtailing off the road. She fought for control of the car as her brakes locked. A massive horse was standing in the middle of the road, calmly watching her scrambling for control over her car. She rested her head against the steering wheel and let out a shaky breath when she stopped the car in the opposite lane. Hearing tires squealing, she lifted her head and saw an old pick-up truck heading straight for her, fishtailing out of control. Kenna shifted into reverse and floored it. The truck skidded by her, narrowly missing her car. The truck came to a sudden stop in the grass ditch off the side of the road.

  Kenna watched a jeans-clad woman wearing a stylish, black, long-sleeve shirt and bright pink scarf belt jump out of the truck. The woman with beautiful, shiny, shoulder-length brown hair was the polar opposite of what McKenna expected to see. Instead of being concerned about her truck, the woman slowly approached the horse with her hand out. Kenna saw her mouth moving as she talked to him. Ever so slowly, she placed her hand on his head and gave him a smile. Sliding her hand down, she grasped the halter and scratched his nose.

  Kenna opened her door and got out on shaky legs. She could hear the woman talking on the cell phone as she walked toward the scene. “Yeah, Bets, I'm out here on Route 178, and it looks like one of your stallions is loose. Another woman and I almost hit him. Yes, we’re okay. No, I have him now. You better have one of the boys bring a trailer. Okay. Bye.”

  “Hi. Are you okay?” Kenna asked after the woman put away the cell phone.

  “Yes. Thanks. Looks like you made it out okay. I’m Paige Davies. Do you mind helping me for a sec?”

  “McKenna Mason. What do you need?”

  “Here, hold this.” Paige walked the massive stallion over to her and indicated where she was to hold him. “I need to see if my truck is able to run or if I need to call a tow. Thanks!”

  Kenna took a hold of the halter and stared at the horse. She hadn’t been around a horse in decades. She held on for dear life, even though the horse seemed content to just stand off to the side of the road and watch the world go by.

  Paige’s truck roared to life. She drove it out of the ditch and parked next to Kenna’s M6. What a sight: a brand new M6 next to a rusted, blue, Chevy pickup that had to be fifteen years old. Paige gracefully jumped down from the cab and walked over to her.

  “Thanks. Now we have room for the little guy to be picked up. I wonder how he got out?”

  “I'm just glad we didn’t hit him.”

  “This is part of the Ashton Farm, and unfortunately they've been having a lot of problems recently.”

  “Ashton, as in Will Ashton?” Kenna couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t even pulled into town and she had just found the person she was looking for.

  “Yes. The family owns and runs it. You know Will?”

  “I used to. I haven’t seen him in seventeen years.”

  “Are you here to visit them?”

  “No, I'm here to interview with Tom Burns for the assistant district attorney job.”

  “That’s great.” Paige was so excited for her that Kenna couldn’t help but smile. She stepped forward and scratched the forehead of the large horse.

  “Actually, I'm glad I ran into someone from the town. Can you tell me a good place to stay? I couldn’t find any hotels online.”

  “That’s because there aren’t any. You’ll want to go see Miss Lily Rae Rose. She has a bed and breakfast. Just continue straight and make a left at the first stop light you come to. She’s in the big white Victorian. And, if you’re looking for a good place to eat, Miss Lily has two sisters, Miss Daisy Mae Rose and Miss Violet Fae Rose, who run the Blossom Cafe. Great place to eat some chocolate after a close call like this!” Paige laughed and Kenna couldn’t help but like her. This was a woman after her own heart!

  “Thanks a lot. I'm guessing you're from Keeneston. What do you do there?”

  "I have a store on Main Street named Southern Charms. I have all local made products. Everything from statues, paintings, jewelry, clothes, painted wine glasses, to cookbooks.”

  “Sounds amazing. I'll have to stop by.”

  “We should have lunch together. I can be the official welcoming party!” They both turned to the sounds of a diesel engine and saw a massive truck with a horse trailer come around the corner from the direction Paige had come. “Ah, good. Now we can get this boy home.”

  Kenna stood back as three men jumped down from the truck and with an apple helped convince the horse to get in the trailer.

  “Thanks for the help with him. I look forward to our lunch. It was great meeting you and welcome to Keeneston,” Paige said as she and Kenna walked to their cars.

  Kenna’s legs had finally stopped shaking when she slid into her car. Pulling out after Paige, she headed into town, wondering what her new home would be like.

  *

  "Just shoot me now," Kenna thought as she squeezed her eyes closed. She slowly opened them, hoping against all odds the scene before her had changed, but to her utter despair, it was the same scene she had just driven upon. Kenna had pulled her M6 to the side of the road and stared at the town before her with a critical eye. She was sitting on the edge of Main Street and could see the other end of what she guessed to be downtown just two stop lights away. The town was straight out of Mayberry, she thought. She couldn’t help but start whistling the theme song to the Andy Griffith Show as she looked around her new hometown: perfect trees lining both sides of Main Street, American flags waving from every light post, and the people wandering down the sidewalk seemed to know each other since they were tipping their hats and smiling to each person they passed by.

  Kenna had spent the last eleven years in the Big City. So when she took a deep breath that lacked pollution and listened to the honking of cars that were strangely not honks of anger, but honks of greeting as they passed someone they knew, she felt out of her element. Not for the first time, Kenna wondered how she ended up here. Just a month ago, she was at the hottest nightclub in New York City with her best friend Danielle, celebrating her twenty-ninth birthday with all her friends from Greendale, Thompson and Hitchem, the largest law firm in New York. Kenna sighed wistfully as she thought about the six figure salary, the hot clubs and a condo in the Upper East Side of Manhattan that she had left behind in a hurry.

  With her eyes closed and her mind firmly set in what might have been, Kenna thought about how she had dined with professional athletes and actors at the best restaurants on the company dime since they were clients. Standing only five foot four, but blessed with what she called womanly curves, Kenna had not only wined and dined famous people, but had dated and been pursued by some as well. Kenna’s auburn hair, milky skin and dark green eyes that hid an intelligence and sharp wit had made her sought after inside and outside of the courtroom.

  Kenna continued her trip down memory lane by giving herself a moment to gloat. She had just made junior partner, one of the youngest associates to have ever done so and the only woman to ever do so.

  She cringed as she remembered the night it all changed. The night she fled from her six figure salary and left h
er amazing condo. She had fled from New York City with her ex-boyfriend hot in pursuit of her. Kenna fought a shiver as she remembered Chad trying to find her to prevent her from leaving not only the city but most likely her beautiful condo ever again. It was in the early morning hours of the city that never sleeps that Kenna found herself running for her life and looking for a place to hide. She had sat in her car and thought about what always made her feel better - chocolate. She had suffered a chocolate craving to end all other chocolate cravings that night.

  Now sitting in her car in Keeneston, she remembered the shivers of fear that had wracked her body and the feel of the cold bite of the February wind. And all she wanted was chocolate. That’s when the idea hit her, the perfect place to hide and the perfect place to indulge in the mother of all chocolate cravings. She had turned her car towards the interstate and headed to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

  Kenna’s lips twitched. She had been right. Since he had no idea where she was, she was left alone. And in turn, Kenna was surrounded by chocolate for a month. The second night she spent in Hershey, Kenna knew it was time to develop a plan for the rest of her life, or at least for the next phase of her life. Even though she was tempted to apply for the taster’s job opening at the Hershey plant, she decided she couldn’t waste the law degree her parents’ death had paid for. They died when a drunken truck driver jackknifed his semi-truck on a patch of ice, leaving no place for her parents' car to go. The trust they established for Kenna was more than enough to pay for her attendance at law school, and she even had a good part of it left to be able to live off of if she wanted. However, after her parents’ death, Kenna had lost the carefree ways that the life of privilege provided and had gone to law school to learn how to put away drunk drivers for the pain they caused innocent families.

  Kenna sat on her bed in the extenda-stay hotel with the smell of chocolate in the air and started looking for a job. She started with Alabama and worked her way through the states alphabetically, looking for places that were hiring. She kept an eye out for cities that were small but not isolated, cities that Chad the Bastard wouldn’t think of looking for her. But most importantly, cites that were looking for prosecutors. One week later Kenna pumped her fists in the air and jumped up and down on the bed when she saw the opening for a prosecutor seventeen states later. Not too big, not too small… just right.

  It was a good thing she had found the opening when she did, Kenna thought to herself. She couldn’t put on any more weight after spending a month in Chocolate Heaven. She pushed the thoughts of the past back in her mind and opened her eyes again. Mayberry was still there. When she was in Hershey the week before, waiting to hear back about an interview, a memory floated up to the surface from some hidden depth of her mind. That memory was Will Ashton. “What the hell,” Kenna thought. It’s not like she had any place else to go and no idea what the future held besides a job application for an assistant district attorney position. Kenna knew her subconscious had led her here to Will Ashton and to Keeneston, Kentucky.

  Kenna pulled herself out of her thoughts as she drove up the driveway, surrounded by Bradford pear trees, and made her way towards the bed and breakfast Paige had recommended. “It's picture perfect,” Kenna said to herself as she got out of the car and looked up at the three-story, white brick Victorian.

  The green front door opened and a little woman with a helmet of white hair stepped out. "Can I help you, dearie?" she asked Kenna with a soft, Southern tilt to her voice.

  "Are you Miss Lily?" Kenna asked as she started up the steps to the wraparound porch.

  “Yes, surely I am,” Miss Lily answered, her hands clasped in front of her and with a dishtowel casually draped over her shoulder.

  "Paige Davies said you had a room to rent for a couple of nights?"

  "Yes, I do have a room for you, dearie. Come on in." Miss Lily turned and walked into the house, presuming Kenna would follow right behind.

  Kenna turned back to her car, grabbed some of her bags out of the trunk, and hurried into the bed and breakfast just behind Miss Lily. The house was huge with a grand entranceway whose focal point was a wide sweeping staircase. There were large, square shaped rooms off to her right and left.

  "Over here are the private quarters," Miss Lily said, pointing to the right. "This first room here on the left is the sitting room for our guests. There are books and such in there, and we have a fire at night in the old fireplace. The room behind the staircase is the dining room.”

  “I love it.”

  “Well then, I'll put you on the second floor. If you go up these stairs here, there will be another sitting room. Your room is off to the left."

  “Thank you, Miss Lily. I'm McKenna Mason. It’s nice to meet you, and thank you for making me feel so welcome in your lovely house.”

  “Not a problem, dearie. I'll give you a moment to settle in and lunch will be served in an hour,” Miss Lily said as she turned to head into what Kenna guessed to be the kitchen.

  Kenna grabbed her bags and headed up a staircase obviously made for a different time, a time when ladies wore ball gowns so large they needed the six-foot wide stairs to sweep down while making a grand entrance for a ball.

  The sitting room on the second floor was as large as the entrance way and full of overstuffed furniture and a braided rug on the floor. It was the perfect place to curl up and read a book. Two large windows overlooked the front yard and the street. Kenna turned to her left and opened the door to the Man O' War room. She had seen a lot of Man O' War names and couldn't figure why a large and deadly jelly fish was so prominent in Kentucky. Oh well, another Southern mystery she thought as she tugged her bags into the room.

  In the center of the room stood a huge, king-sized, four-poster bed so high up, it had little steps to climb up to get into bed. A TV was on top of an old oak dresser that ran the length of the opposite wall. A window seat looked out to the side yard and down towards Main Street. A private bathroom with an iron claw tub finished off the room. It was amazing. Just sitting in the room with the white lace curtains billowing softly with a spring breeze coming in the open window was enough to make her feel safe for the first time since she had left New York City.

  Kenna unpacked some of her clothes, put them into the drawers, and went to wash up. It was almost time for lunch and amazing smells were coming up from the kitchen. Her mouth started to water as she thought back to the last meal she had at McDonald’s the night before in West Virginia. She finished putting the clothes away and opened the door to head downstairs. The door across the hall from her opened and two impeccably dressed people stepped out. They were dressed casually, well, as casually as you can be dressed in Ralph Lauren, Kenna noted.

  "Oh, we have another guest!" sang the women. She was a couple inches taller than Kenna and in her early forties. Her makeup was perfect in that understated way only movie stars could manage. Her blond hair was pulled into a perfect pony tail tied off with a white ribbon. Kenna realized that if one wasn't used to shopping the expensive department stores like she was, one would never know the woman was wealthy, well, except for the eight carat diamond weighing down her ring finger. Compared to this bubbly woman, Kenna felt much older than her twenty-nine years after the pressure and stress of the last month. Kenna pasted on a smile and turned to face the perky couple.

  "So we do, honey," her husband said to her. He matched her perfectly. Kenna placed him at fifty years old and dressed in Ralph Lauren jeans and a white button up shirt. His salt and pepper hair was perfectly trimmed. He let his right hand rest lightly at the small of his wife's back.

  "Are you here for the sales as well?” Mrs. Perky Ralph Lauren asked Kenna.

  "Sales? I didn't see any department stores in Keeneston. I could do a little shopping.” A happy feeling washed over her and Kenna’s smile turned into a real one. The kind of feeling that only spending money on the perfect pair of sexy shoes or finding that little black dress that hid ten pounds and increased your bust at least one cup size could
do for you.

  “Oh! Oh, ha, a joke. Good one, little lady.” Mr. Ralph Lauren laughed. Kenna darted a glance back and forth between the couple, and apparently Mrs. Perky picked up on her creased brow and look of utter confusion at the apparent joke she had made.

  “Julius, she’s not joking. Dear, I'm so sorry. We thought any visitors would be here for the Keeneland horse sales.”

  So, Mr. Ralph Lauren was Julius. Apparently they had come from out of town, out of state by Kenna’s guess, for horse sales. That was good news for her since she had found out Will still has a horse farm.

  “I am so sorry. Since June and I are so horse crazy, I just assumed you were too. I'm Julius Kranski and this is my wife, June.” Julius turned and took his hand off his wife's back to shake Kenna's.

  June clasped Kenna's hand and lightly held onto it when she introduced herself to Kenna. "So nice to meet you!”

  “Nice to meet you both. I'm McKenna Mason, but you can just call me Kenna. It’s nice to meet some other people from out of town. Where are you from?” she asked as she looked back at June.

  “We have a horse farm in Ocala, Florida,” June said as she smiled and gently squeezed Kenna's hand again.

  She's a toucher, Kenna thought as June continued, “I hope we can be friends. I always love coming to Miss Lily’s for the sales. We always meet the most wonderful people.” June continued to talk as Kenna made her way to the dining room for lunch, explaining all about the sales and about the horses they were hoping to buy. Kenna looked around the dining room and noted that it was casually set with a buffet of olive nut and pimento cheese sandwiches. Fresh fruit was in a bowl and a large salad was set in the middle of the round table were Kenna sat with June and Julius.

  "Come in, come in. Have a seat just anywhere at the table ya'll. I'll be out in a jiffy with the sweet tea," Miss Lily said as she quickly zipped into the kitchen. Kenna's eyes widened slightly. Miss Lily was remarkably fast for someone in her early seventies. She reappeared with a pitcher of sweet tea, and her white apron was blown back from her flowered dress as her easy spirits sailed across the polished hardwood floors. The room was bright with sun streaming in through the open windows.