Fireflies and Lies (A Summerbrook Novel Book 4)

by Vicki Wilkerson

  Then she looked behind the counter. The rest of the crew were hanging out. She knew they’d be sporting their mullets, of course. She knew they’d be clad in jeans and leather of some sort. What she wasn’t prepared for was all the lace. Sea Pig had on a lace scarf. Diamond Jim had found a lace choker. Fred wore a lacy belt.

  She closed her eyes and prayed for God to give her strength. She was doing this for Hogan. For Ben. For Mrs. Legare.

  Jenna opened her eyes and let out a deep breath. She just needed to go with it. Who on earth would take a Leather and Lace fashion show seriously anyway? She just needed to embrace it.

  “Buck, where’s your lace?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

  “Hey, these guys can play around with losing their jobs if they want to. I—on the other hand—want a position when this circus here is over.”

  “You think you can get a couple of these…men to go out to my car and grab all the dresses in the back seat?”

  Buck tapped two of the guys on the shoulders and started for the door.

  “Oh, and Buck, make sure they don’t try on any of the frocks in the parking lot, please.” Nothing would surprise her today.

  They came back in, and to her surprise, Colton was carrying an armload of dresses, too.

  She directed which rooms the dresses were to go as her girlfriends started arriving. Good, the real models.

  April walked straight up to her. “Don’t take this wrong, but you look stressed. Are you okay?”

  She chuckled. “I’ve just got to get through this.” She lifted April’s chin with her finger. “What about you—with all this…motorcycle stuff?”

  A sly smile drew up the sides of April’s mouth. “Don’t get upset, but I’ve been indoctrinated.”

  “Indoctrinated? What do you mean by that?”

  She turned around to look at Bullworth, who was standing at the counter. “I love him so much, Jenna. The biker stuff doesn’t matter any more.”

  Jenna hugged her and whispered, “It never really did.”

  “Excuse me,” a refined voice said from behind. It was Lydia Stroble with the mayor in tow. Their once-illustrious Mayor of Summerbrook was still sporting his mullet. Good grief.

  “I’ll let you go. I know how busy you are,” April said and walked away.

  “Jenna, may I have a few moments on stage at the beginning of the show?” Lydia asked.

  “Of course. Why?”

  She got close and whispered in her ear. “Have you heard about the Mullet Challenge?”

  Jenna nodded, slowly, methodically.

  “Well, I’m going to announce how much money we’ve raised with that and how much we’ve brought in through ticket sales for the fashion show.” She backed away and clapped her hands quickly, like a seal.

  “Perfect,” said Jenna. “Oh, your changes are in room number five in the back hall.”

  She clapped like a seal again.

  The look on the mayor’s face appeared…bleak.

  The next hour was pure mayhem. The lights, the music, the clothes, the leather—all mayhem. So much mayhem that she hardly had time to think of Hogan. But she did. She was sorry he was missing this. Sorry that he couldn’t see that she was a woman of her word. A woman who could organize and manage…anything.

  People started filling up the audience seats. At one point, she thought there wouldn’t be enough chairs. Humph. Nothing at all wrong with standing room only.

  Just then, Colton touched her shoulder. “Hey, girl.”

  She turned. “Good. You’re here. My last model to arrive. Have I thanked you again today for all you’ve done for me?”

  He gave her a light hug. “I’m not at all pleased about you roping me into this.”

  “I know. I know,” she said.

  He lifted his brow. “Well, there’s something else you should know.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Bentley’s gone.”

  “Gone for good?” It was what she’d been waiting for. It was what she feared would happen to Savannah and Hogan.

  “Hogan seems to think so.” He looked down. “He thinks you are, too. I talked to him this morning. He’s pretty bummed.”

  Her heart leapt up. All was clear.

  The lights went down in the showroom. The moment had arrived.

  “I can’t talk now,” she said and ran to the back of the room to check on her last-minute list. But all she could think about was Hogan.

  All her models were lined up with their lace dresses, their leather chaps, berets, leather boots, lace blouses, Harley helmets, Chanel suits, leather bandanas, and more.

  Jenna climbed the steps with the microphone. “Welcome to the Leather and Lace Fashion Show.”

  Everyone clapped. But all she could think about was Hogan.

  “First of all I want to thank the First Lady of Summerbrook, our mayor’s wife, Lydia Stroble, for the idea for this fundraiser.”

  Everyone clapped again. Jenna went down the list of sponsors, and she got more obligatory claps.

  “And Ben Evans’s family asked me to convey their heartfelt thanks for all our community has done for their little boy.”

  Lots of clapping that seemed never to end. She loved Summerbrook for their big hearts.

  “Now, the mayor’s wife would like a few words.”

  Lydia Stroble took the stage, and Jenna handed her the mic.

  She cleared her throat. “Many businessmen in this town have been hiding a secret. My husband has been hiding a secret. Unless you’ve been approached for a donation, you probably don’t have a clue about the Mullet Challenge.” She cleared her throat again. “You see, to help Ben, they all grew a mullet. They got money for each week they let it grow. A few had to pay a fine of a thousand dollars because they cut it before the end of the challenge.”

  Jenna felt bad. Hogan was on the hook for a thousand dollars because of her.

  “Anyway, in total, we’ve raised more than twenty-thousand dollars for Ben.”

  Loud applause roared again. But all she could think about was Hogan.

  And then she got choked up. “I just want to thank my husband…thank these men who agreed to participate in this event…and thank you.” She turned and walked off the stage.

  More clapping. Jenna turned and saw a tear in the mayor’s eye.

  Enough with all the emotion. It was…showtime.

  “Okay, Wilder, cue the music,” Jenna said.

  He started playing “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt,” and Dicky came barreling down the runway.

  “Okay, show me…the face,” Jenna said. And Dickey knew exactly what she meant.

  Here we go.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "What greater grief than the loss of one's native land."

  ~ Euripides

  Jenna slept in the next morning. What a night. It was the last thing on her agenda to finish before she attended to the life she’d planned to create. Before her decision to truly control her life…her destiny. Previously, she had merely controlled the little things, like water in her fridge, the displays at the dress shop, her image in her Louboutin heels. All in an effort to avoid taking control of her real life and the plantation. The things that desperately needed her full attention and direction.

  She was completely finished, Bentley was gone, and Jenna was ready to move on to the next phase of her life. She dressed and looked in the mirror. The thing she focused on was not her summer dress or her sandals. It was the firefly necklace that Hogan had given her. She touched the delicate chain at her neck.

  Someone rapped on her front door and startled her. She opened it to find Jasper.

  “Come in,” she said.

  “Miss Jenna, another little wayward little gator’s done took up residence in the pond out front.” He shook his head. “Oh, sorry, honey, I didn’t know you was already dressed to go to town.”

  “Not a problem. I know how to change if I get dirty,” she said as she slipped off her sandals. “Let’s get th
at gator.” She followed the old man to the front of the big house.

  She walked stealthily around the large cement pond with the fountain in the middle until she was at just the right angle. Jasper mirrored each step she took. “Like usual, right?”

  “Right.” He held his arms like he was ready to pounce.

  She quickly grabbed the little alligator’s tail. It wriggled back and forth, stronger than she thought possible. Water went everywhere.

  Jasper leaped into the pond and held the mouth closed on the three-foot-long gator he needed to remove from the reflection pond. They walked it to the river in tandem and released it.

  “Thanks, honey, for helpin’ me get that little guy back in the river. We don’t want him taking up residence in the front yard. They can be awful territorial when they grow up big.” He handed her a rag from his back pocket.

  She was used to him calling her honey. She’d asked him one day when she was a child why he called her that, and he told her that she was simply the color of honey and just as sweet. Every time he said the word, she warmed inside. She loved the old man, and he could call her honey all he liked.

  He looked down the lane. “Better not let your mamma see you playing with gators. Remember how mad she used to get when you showed up in those shiny little black shoes all scraped up and mud all over you?”

  Jenna smiled and nodded. Her entire childhood had been filled with memories of her and Anson running amuck on the plantation, getting wet and muddy catching fiddler crabs, getting all scraped up on the joggling board, getting sun burned from fishing off the dock. Today, no one would believe she had been such a tomboy. That all ended when Anson died. And that uppity French boarding school got hold of her. Inside, though, hidden and deep down, she was still that girl she used to be. But she was about to let that little girl free once again. For everyone to see—even her parents. “If things go our way, Jasper, Momma’s going to have to get used to seeing me dirty around this place. I don’t think I can manage a tea farm and not get a bit of dirt under my fingernails.”

  He chuckled. “Lord, that woman’s gonna faint.”

  “She’ll just have to get used to it.”

  The two friends started down the lane that led to their homes. Jasper stopped to grab an old plantation-made brick that had probably been kicked into the road by a deer or some other animal.

  “What is that old pile of bricks, Jasper?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve been told. It was the old still for making turpentine. Least that’s what my grandpappy told me.”

  “Turpentine? Heavens to Betsy, why would we need to make turpentine on the plantation?”

  He chuckled. “You young ones don’t know nothing. Was a time when everything practically was made on this here plantation. Almost completely sufficient on its own. Under that pile of old bricks is a copper pot, of sorts. In your Grandpappy Henri’s shipbuilding days they made tar and pitch in it for boats. Turpentine was left over and was used for medicines and cleaning and such. The last thing was the amber—well, it wasn’t exactly amber. It was the color of it and, when it cooled, was as hard as a rock, but the real name for the gold-colored chunks is rosin. But because it looked exactly like amber, everybody around the plantation back then called it so. The amber—the rosin was used to make soaps and for all sorts of things.”

  “Would any of that rosin have been tossed in the river?”

  “Why, yes. My grandmomma used to make us go down to the edge at low tide to try to find it. She would cook a big mess of sweet potatoes in it.”

  “Sweet potatoes? In rosin?”

  “Yeah, she used to melt the hard bricks of the amber-rosin in that old syrup pot behind my house and throw in the foil-wrapped potatoes to cook. Sealed in all the moisture. You ain’t never had a sweet potato like that before, have you, Miss Jenna?”

  “I can’t say that I have.” She thought for a moment. “But I remember reading about that in The Joy of Cooking, an old cookbook my grandmother used to use. I had no idea what rosin was when I read it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Started all up around Georgetown and down the coast when they were building ships so long ago. Best potatoes your tongue ever wrapped itself around.”

  “But how’d you know about that amber-rosin from the river?” he asked.

  “Anson. When he dove in the water from the old rope, sometimes he’d come up with it. Said it was Ashley River gold.”

  “Sure enough looked like it.” He shook his head. “That boy was something else.”

  Yes he was. And now it was her turn to try to be something.

  The two continued down the old sandy lane toward home.

  It was too early for her parents to be up. So no one would see how muddy she’d gotten already.

  If the board approved, she was about to turn the entire plantation into a working plantation, and she was going to be getting her hands dirty every day.

  She felt a real sense of accomplishment. She really couldn’t believe all that she’d achieved the last couple of weeks. The dress shop, Ben, April, the fashion show. The Letter of Intent about the tea plantation. And an alligator. She was exhausted.

  Everything was accomplished. Except one thing. And that was on her agenda for today.

  Jasper started to weed the flower bed outside the carriage house, and she went inside to change.

  She picked up a few light bags she’d left on her bed and grabbed the paperwork off the davenport by the front door. “Wish me luck, Jasper,” she said as she tossed them into the back seat.

  “Ain’t no need, honey. The Lord has His hand on you. Always has. Else you’d have been a gonner a long time ago.” Jasper chuckled.

  This day was going to make her or break her. It had been delayed for far too long. One way or the other, she was going to go for broke, put it all on the line, and simply let the proverbial chips fall where they may.

  She was about to slip into the car when her phone rang. It was her mother. “Momma?”

  “Jenna, have you heard?” Urgency stung her words.

  “What’s wrong?

  “There’s a hurricane coming, sweetie. We’ve got to finish that graveyard. Could you help me?”

  “Isn’t it too early in the season for a hurricane?”

  “It’s the middle of the month, and hurricane season started at the beginning of June.” There was a pause. “I will understand if you can’t. Jasper and I will finish up what we can if you can’t help.”

  “No, Momma, Jasper needs help. He’s okay with the light stuff, but there’s a lot of work here if we’re going to prepare for a hurricane.” She glanced down at the clock in her car. “What day is it forecasted to hit?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “That gives us four days. And who knows? It could change course.”

  “I hope you’re right, sweetie.”

  She checked the clock again. “I know it’s early, but do you want to get started now?” The sooner the better for her. She had some really important things to take care of.

  “Oh, Jenna, that would make me feel so much better.”

  “Okay, Momma, meet me on the veranda, and we’ll have some hot tea first. I’m making.”

  “Good. The tea we had the other day on the dock was absolutely delicious.” She paused. “I like this new version of you, sweetie. You seem so…capable.”

  “I’m really way more capable than you even know. Way more than most people think.”

  “Oh, Jenna. I’ve always thought you could do more than you have, sweetie. I had always hoped to spoil you like your grandparents spoiled me.” Her mother grew silent. “After Anson left us—” She broke off again. “I failed you, though.”

  Like Jenna had done for years. But not now. “Momma, sometimes we think we fail others when, in reality, we simply get by the best we know how.”

  Her mother took a huge breath. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “Now, get dressed. I’m coming right over.”

  Jenna clos
ed her car door, went inside and changed for the third time that morning. She slipped on her jeans shorts and her duck shoes. She needed real protection for her feet today. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and headed out the door. This plantation was her first responsibility. Each task in its own time. She’d have time for the rest later.

  She entered the old house from the back part of the wrap-around porch. The kitchen was huge and had been an upgrade her grandmother had overseen when she was young. It used to be that kitchens were housed in separate buildings behind old plantation houses—to keep fire risks down and to keep from heating up the whole house in the already too-hot Lowcountry summers.

  She approached the bank of windows that overlooked the back yard and pulled the loose tea from the cupboard, and started the process, filling the tea pot with water, and measuring the tea into the diffusers. She placed the metal tea holders into two white cups and waited for the water to boil. She’d become an expert.

  She turned on the little TV above the built-in desk in an alcove and took a seat at the round antique table in the center of the room to watch. The first thing that came on was a local meteorologist, explaining what the hurricane was doing—increasing in strength, tightening its eye, picking up speed and moving west, northwest, straight for the South Carolina coast.

  Her mother entered the room, staring at the screen as she walked to the table. “Anything new?”

  “Lots. Looks like it’s stronger and faster. If it keeps up, we’ve got less than four days.”

  Jenna got up and poured the water into the cups and dipped the diffusers up and down.

  “I’ll get the cream and sugar,” her mother said. She also grabbed two freshly polished sterling spoons and two linen napkins that had been impeccably starched by their housekeeper.