Refuge on Leebrick (The Hills of Burlington Book 4)

by Jacie Middlemann

  Tom nodded easily in the direction of the others in the room. “We were just getting to it.”

  “Something to do with the little room at the Summer Street house?”

  “Remember how you felt the first time you walked in there?” Casey watched her brother’s expression, wondering how he’d take finding out his long time friend was slightly more connected than just through friendship. She had no doubt of it. Especially since she’d found records substantiating it only moments before on her ever present tablet. Probably the same records Tom had found.

  “Like I’d been punched from there to D.C.” Jake said easily. The analogy was pretty accurate and if anything it wasn’t nearly graphic enough. It didn’t take much to remember how it felt. Painful. He watched with something approaching trepidation as all three women turned their eyes towards Tom.

  For his part Tom understood what the looks meant. They were waiting for him to provide them with his own description. “Pretty close. I think I would have stretched it a bit further…like maybe Maine.”

  “Did it hurt?” Carrie asked the question in general to both men. She wasn’t all that concerned with who answered it.

  “Not so much like a painful feeling.” Tom closed his eyes and let himself go back to that moment when he’d seen the door within the door and knew without hesitation that Mary was in there. The moment when he’d passed all the way through the second door in the closet and into the room beyond it. It had been like a huge punch of….something. “It was strong, whatever it was.” He opened his eyes and saw Jake’s on him with dawning understanding. “Powerful. Very, very powerful.” He addressed the man he’d known over twenty years. And sometimes it had felt like he’d known him far longer. He wondered if this explained why. “Would powerful work for you?”

  “I’ll be damned,” Jake said in practically a sputter.

  “Probably,” Tom said wryly but there was laughter there as well.

  “You’re connected.” Jake shook his head slightly, trying to fit the pieces together that no one as of yet had filled him in on.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Casey said. “I’m not exactly certain of the exact terminology but he’s a cousin of some sort, that’s for certain.”

  “And he’s another man who felt the emotional remnants left behind of all those before us in that room,” Carrie said with no little bit of wonder in her voice. “A man who by everything we’ve read isn’t supposed to.”

  “Well.” Jake couldn’t think of anything else to say at that moment.

  “That pretty much covers it,” Tom said enjoying the moment of seeing Jake with nothing to say. He knew better than most that it didn’t happen often. He also knew the other man had something on his mind.

  Casey was enjoying the moment of her brother’s speechlessness as well but even as she did she was standing up and moving towards Tom. Even before she spoke she stepped up in front of him and again wrapped her arms around him. “I guess this explains all those years of following you around like a puppy dog.” She felt her own smile even as she felt his snort of laughter moments before she felt his shoulders shake with it. “Somewhere deep inside I must have always known we were family.” She felt his head shake back and forth as she drew away from him pleased she’d been able to make him laugh.

  “Okay. Tom.” Jake focused his attention on the other man in the room. “How about we head down to my house. Have something to eat. Grab something to drink.” Something really stiff to drink if he had anything to say about it.

  “Sure thing.” Tom gave Casey a quick wink before following Jake to the front of the house. He knew his friend wanted to talk and not in front of a roomful of women. Women he was related to. He felt the smile sneak up from who knows where. It didn’t matter how distant it was. They were family.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mary looked around the surprisingly quiet kitchen as the echoes of the front door closing behind the two men was all that could be heard. Casey had grabbed a cup of coffee on her way back to her chair. Carrie had a small smile on her face. She knew somehow each of them were playing back the last couple of minutes.

  “So. More family,” she said finally.

  “Didn’t see this one coming,” Casey said to the room in general. But her mind was working. Wasn’t it just odd that out of the blue Tom had shown up as he had and turned out to be family? Not just family but family descended from women who’d been different from those around them and had often paid a heavy price for it. She sighed at the thought. But she was also thinking of others who had come to Burlington on a whim in the last year. And she wondered if it was coincidence or something else…something more.

  “Isn’t it odd considering all we’ve read so far that both Jake and now Tom are able to sense what no other man has throughout the generations when they went into that room? At least that we know of,” Carrie said, half talking out loud to herself and half honestly wanting to know what her cousins thought.

  “It’s….interesting,” Mary conceded. Just as several other possibilities were she thought to herself and not having a clue that her thoughts were moving along a similar line as Casey’s were. She let out the deep breath she found she’d been holding without realizing it. “And it looks like we need to do more research…more reading.” She looked around the table. “We need to start going through all the volumes that we’ve been avoiding.” She didn’t speak of why. They each knew. The room itself held not only the numerous volumes of their history that needed to be read but also an unmistakable sense of sorrow. It was difficult to be in the room for any length of time let alone pull out any of the volumes that told the stories of generations of women who’d fought and often times struggled to overcome huge obstacles in their lives…but not all. Many had suffered great losses and sometimes the cost had been the greatest that any one person could pay.

  “Yeah,” Casey said simply in agreement. There wasn’t a lot else to say. They all knew why they’d been avoiding them. “I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear from Tom asking if he can do the same.”

  “He already has,” Mary said with a slight smile at the look on her cousin’s face. “I told him it was okay with me.”

  Casey didn’t wait long before offering her own thoughts on it. “I’m fine with it if you are.”

  “I don’t see any reason for him not to,” Carrie said slowly, thinking as she spoke. “I know Beth has been in there reading through many of the older books. As far as I’m concerned the more sets of eyes on them can only help us to find out what it is each of us feels we’re meant to learn…whatever that is.” She looked around the table at her cousins. “It’s been easy for all of us to leave it mostly to Beth to go through them.” She let out the smallest of sighs before saying out loud what her thoughts were. “I tell myself that it’s okay because she’s so interested in it. But truthfully it’s just a good excuse to myself for not getting over there more often to help out.”

  “It’s not like you haven’t been busy with a new husband, new house, and on top of that a new and unexpected son,” Casey said unexpectedly. It wasn’t often she found herself speaking up in Carrie’s defense.

  Carrie looked over at her cousin, almost as surprised by her words as she was the vehemence behind them. She struggled with the smile that pressed at the corners of her mouth when she saw the look on Casey’s face that told her that she wasn’t the only one surprised. “You’re right but things are beginning to settle down finally. I’ll get over there more often and I have no doubt Court will be more than happy to help out.”

  Mary tapped her fingers on the table playing a tune heard only by her as she listened to the conversation between the other two women. Maybe it wasn’t just convenient and helpful for Tom to help out…maybe it was meant. She’d long believed some things were meant as they happened, just as she also believed other things weren’t. And as that thought filtered through another slipped in. She didn’t let it linger long but instead brought it right to the fore. “I’ll do the sam
e. It’s not fair to leave it all to Beth,” she said. “There’s something else I’ve been thinking of I wanted to get both of your thoughts on.”

  “What?” Casey was the first to ask. The hesitance in Mary’s voice wasn’t something she heard very often.

  “I’ve pretty much reached the point where I’ve decided to have the area behind the Summer Street house where Court’s and my ancestor was supposedly buried along with the purported family treasure that Court told us about investigated.” She simply couldn’t bring herself to say dug up. Just as she knew she couldn’t bear to be there when the deed took place. Court could handle that part of it. Wes too since he was just as much a part of it. “I’ve held off mostly because it somehow seems….”

  “Disrespectful,” Carrie finally said when it was obvious her cousin was having a hard time coming up with how to express her thoughts on it. She knew her cousin. Knew how her mind worked. “It’s not, Mary. It’s a matter of finishing something that started long before our lives began. Our parents lives for that matter.”

  “And if you get right down to it, maybe this is something that you’re meant to do. Who knows? But it’s not going to hurt him any at this point, that’s for certain.”

  Mary smiled at her cousin. Count on Casey to cut through to the gist of it. But she didn’t share what at least part of her motivation was. She wanted to know if his death on that land had any connection at all to what was held secure in the little room not even a hundred feet from where his final resting place was. She needed to know. They all needed to know.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jake unlocked his front door and led the way through to the kitchen towards the back of the house. He knew it now as well as he had when he was a child and ran freely through it. Back then it had been his Aunt Charlie’s home. During long summer visits he had spent a lot of time here hanging out with his cousins who included Carrie and her older brothers. Now after so many years it was in the family again. Mary might own it with her name on all the legal documentation pertaining to the property but he lived here. He and his daughter. Not for the first time the sound of those two words sent a ripple of emotion straight through him that couldn’t be defined. His daughter.

  Without asking he pulled two beers from the refrigerator and tossed one to Tom. Flipping back the top he took a long swallow as his mind ran over all the possibilities, discounting some almost as quickly as they popped up. His eyes focused and stayed on the other man in the room with him. One of those possibilities that he tossed out almost as quickly as it reared its ugly head was that Tom had come here somehow knowing….something. Not Tom. There were those who would. He’d met some of them over the course of his life…some he’d called friend…some he still would but had learned better than to trust them as he did Tom. Settling that in his mind took a big piece of the edginess that had simmered hotly since he’d stood in his cousin’s cozy kitchen and heard what could only be termed as an unexpected blow from left field.

  Tom’s earlier text had been simple and to the point. Very much as was the man himself. Meet me at Mary’s. Important. He’d pretty much dropped everything and done just that which was no damn easy feat at the newspaper. But the man he knew wouldn’t have attached the word “important” to just anything. And that he had done just that…it told him how learning about all of this had taken him by surprise. He knew without asking what it meant to him. But he was still trying to work out what his own thoughts were about it. With a deep sigh that said more than a dozen words strung together Jake finished off the can, yanked the fridge open and pulled out another for both of them. He then tugged the chair closest to him out with his foot and sat down. Motioned the other man to do the same.

  “Beth is going to be thrilled. She’ll probably start calling you Uncle Tom whether you like it or not.” And while some small part of him wasn’t thrilled about sharing her, it was the part of him that still wanted to hold his daughter close, get to know her better, somehow make up for all the time lost that could never be regained. But he knew he spoke the truth. There hadn’t been a multitude of aunts and uncles for Beth to fill her childhood with memories as there had been for him.

  “As long as you don’t,” Tom said, his voice dry and with a touch of amusement Jake hadn’t heard since he’d arrived. Fact is, as he took the time to really look at the man sitting across from him at his kitchen table, he could easily see that Tom was actually looking fairly relaxed and content with himself. Jake hadn’t seen that in either his demeanor or his attitude since Tom had walked into his office just days ago. Fact is he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him this relaxed. Sure there had been times he was at ease, he’d been so just the other night at dinner, but not like this.

  “I don’t think you have to worry on that score.” Jake took another swallow out of his drink. “So,” he began, wondering how to phrase his next question before he went into all the details of what Tom would find being part of his family entailed. Then just dived in and went with what he really wanted to know. “Did you come out of that little room behind the linen closet on Summer Street with a sense of anything different than when you walked in? Anything….” he paused again, this time searching for how to put what he himself had experienced.

  “Memories,” Tom offered. He shrugged at the look Jake sent him. “Someone else’s for certain especially considering when and where they’re from, but that’s what was different. I don’t know if that’s what you’re getting at but that’s about as close as I can come to explaining it.”

  “Yeah.” Jake leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the chair next to him. “That works. Knowledge doesn’t quite cover it. You have it as a result of what hits you but that’s not what it is.”

  “No,” Tom said thoughtfully, thinking back to how it had felt. That sudden rush that had suddenly hit him sent a jolt of sizzling anguish deep within him. He’d never forget that feeling. There hadn’t really been physical pain but a soul deep kaleidoscope of emotions that had poured through. It was as if he’d been jolted through generations of time and absorbed the emotions that had been experienced by all those who had come before. There’d been joy. But the grief of those from all those long ago times had been overwhelming. He looked up at Jake and knew that he too had experienced very much the same as he had. Words weren’t necessary but he needed to know. “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’m surprised I didn’t land on my backside from the force of it. Or at least brought to my knees. I don’t know how Mary stays in there like she does.”

  “It eases over time,” Jake said as he lifted his drink to his mouth. He remembered that first time he’d walked into the room. Remembered feeling a jolt of something in the minutes even before he’d arrived at the house. “Somehow I knew the moment Beth walked in the first time. I was at work. But I knew. By the time I got there she was okay but it hit her hard. I think harder than it hit any of us.”

  “Any thoughts on why?” Tom had his own but wanted to hear Jake’s before he shared them.

  “A couple. Maybe.” Jake took a minute to gather his thoughts and wondered just how much to say. How much Tom would accept without thinking they were three steps from being off their rockers. “Mary, for that matter, all of them, believe that it has something to do with acceptance. They found some stuff written by our great-grandmother that doesn’t just allude to that but comes right out and says that it must be accepted. Without that I guess you’d walk in that room and see and feel nothing but a musty old room filled with old antiquated books.” He glanced at his old friend and new long-lost cousin to get a sense of what he was thinking about what he was hearing so far. The pensive look on his face told him that at least he wasn’t discounting it all at first blush. “Anyway, with Beth, that concept of acceptance probably comes to her fairly easily. Besides my family’s…for the moment we’ll call it sensitivities, it turns out Lizzie had her own similar traits.” They’d spoken privately before Jake had introduced Tom to Beth about the details of her pa
rentage and how she had come to arrive in Burlington after the violent deaths of her parents. She may have known of him most her life but it was only after their deaths that she’d actually come face to face with him. “Lizzie never spoke of it to me and according to Beth it was a rare thing for her to discuss it with Jett. But Beth knew…probably because the two of them shared similar abilities but from what I’ve gleaned from her, Beth turned out to be the stronger of the two.” He thought about the emotional conversation he’d eventually had with his daughter that had told him just how strong.

  “You don’t have to go into all this.”

  Jake sighed heavily at the other man’s words. It was just like him. But Tom wasn’t just any friend, he’d always been a good friend and now apparently family on top of that. With a long drawn out breath he spilled out what worried him as much now as it did when he’d first found out about it. “However it works, Beth was connected to Liz when she was dying.” He saw the expression on Tom’s face change and imagined it was similar to his own when Beth had told him about it. “Liz tried to break the connection but couldn’t. Either she was too weak at the time or Beth was too strong.” He rubbed his hands over his face. It still broke him to think of what his daughter had gone through. What Lizzie and Jett had gone through. “Probably the latter. Beth wasn’t about to let her mother go until there was no choice but to do otherwise. I understand that. Having lost my own mother I understand that. But as her father I can’t help but wish she’d been spared what it must have cost her…then and now. I know it weighs on her. Even now it still hits her hard at times. It probably always will to some degree.”

  Tom leaned back in his chair as he thought about what he’d just heard. It didn’t take an idiot to figure out this was why Jake had some misgivings about all this. Especially when it came to his daughter. He could see too how Jake would be worried about how deeply Beth felt the emotions that literally emanated from the volumes of books that filled the room. He wasn’t certain he could alleviate those concerns. But there was something more, something else he’d picked up on during his short time in the small room on the second floor of his new home. And something about what Jake had just shared with him made him think of something else….something that made him understand just how willing he was to accept what some…many would consider out of the range of possible.