A Seeking Heart

by Danni Roan

  A Seeking Heart

  Georgia Peaches

  Danni Roan

  Copyright © 2020 Danni Roan

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9798664189520

  Cover design by: Virginia McKevitt

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Author’s Note:

  Series Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  Susan Holmes is on a mission to solve the mystery of the painted ponies, and she isn’t going to let anything stand in her way. She has heard the story too many times from her grandmother to let a nosy Watkins steal her glory. But will desire to put this conundrum to rest, lead to danger she didn’t count on? Born to a family of means, Susan doesn’t know how to give up and that could spell disaster. David Watkins has known about his families sketchy past for as long as he can remember, but when his grandmother’s dying wish prompts him to investigate his grandfather’s disappearance, things really start to heat up. Determined to find the real culprit to the decades old case, he soon finds himself knocking heads with the most delightful Miss Holmes. Will he out whit the pretty pretender before she discovers the truth or will they both be thrown into jeopardy that threatens not only their lives, but also their hearts?

  Author’s Note:

  I had such a wonderful time writing this book. I have a deep history with the college and town in this story. Not only did I attend this college and meet my ‘every-day-hero’ there my family and his also attended Toccoa Falls College.

  My oldest sister, Cleo, actually found the horses that are featured in this book while she was attending the college and my mother-in-law told tales of straggly men venturing through campus on occasion.

  Cleo was also an author and published one book before we lost her to cancer in 2015. It did my heart good to write this crazy story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Buy a Cowboy is a lasting legacy she left her children and grandchildren.

  For more books by Danni Roan check out her author page Authordanniroan.com

  Series Page

  A Persevering Heart

  A Pursued Heart

  Search for Contentment

  The Heart of Mercy

  Chapter 1

  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

  Matthew 7:7-8

  “Tell me again, Gram?” Susan Lavinia Holmes pleaded, plopping into a chair. “I want to hear the story again?”

  “Susan, you have heard this story at least a dozen times,” Alana Holmes, groaned, smoothing her skirt as she sat in the parlor of her ancestral home.

  “Yes, but maybe this time I’ll find a clue from the story that will set me in the right direction. I have to know what really happened. ”

  Susan’s grandmother shook her head of white curls, but her pale blue eyes were bright. “Alright, I’ll tell you again but take notes. It’s just a silly happening here in the mountains of Georgia, and it worked out well enough.”

  Susan crossed her legs where she sat on the wide ottoman in her grandmother’s stately home and leaned forward for the retelling of an age old family tale. Her soft blue eyes sparkled with excitement, and she leaned in, wanting to catch every word. At twenty-four, Susan had finished her education and was currently between jobs as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do next. Her duel degree in sociology and education gave her a wide range of opportunities, but right now, on this warm Georgia, summer’s day, she wanted to figure out where the stray horses her grandmother had found so many years ago, had come from, and what they could possibly have to do with a missing farmer from a by-gone age.

  “As you know,” Alana began, “I was a student at the college by the falls. It was spring and though I had paid my tuition in full all students were required to work for the college during their tenure there. I chose to work on the farm with the horses, as I’d grown up with them.” The old woman smiled, recalling fond memories and old friends.

  Susan nodded, resting her pert chin on her hand as she listened intently. “All students had to work back then, when the college was fully self sufficient?”

  “Yes, I always thought it was a shame when that ended. I may not have been raised to hard work, but I learned a great deal about myself and my abilities as a young woman working for the school. Young people today need a bit more purpose in their life, if you ask me.” The older woman in the floral print dress gave her granddaughter a significant look.

  “I know, I know,” Susan rolled her eyes. “You think I’m wasting my time trying to solve this mystery, especially since it has been a cold case for over fifty years.”

  “If professionals haven’t been able to solve the case in this amount of time, I don’t see how you think you will do it over the summer. After all reading Nancy Drew books does not make you a detective.”

  Susan giggled, brushing a strand of soft brown hair from her eyes and tapping a finger to her lips. She had loved the Nancy Drew books growing up, and with her last name, she had devoured all of Conan-Doyle’s tales. “No harm in trying,” she urged. “Now tell me the story.”

  Alana shook her head, but the smile playing around her lips told her granddaughter that she enjoyed telling the story again.

  “My friend Gary and I were out hiking,” the old woman began. “There are many trails up behind the falls that meander into the national forest. We had been out most of the day when I heard something snort. Gary thought it was a bear, but I was convinced it was a horse, and plunged straight through the undergrowth to find not one, but two horses, grazing in a small clearing. Neither had halter or bridle and looked as if they were completely wild.”

  “One was a stallion and the other a colt,” Susan couldn’t contain her excitement. Even as a child this had been her favorite story.

  “Who’s telling this story anyway,” her grandmother pursed her lips, slanting a look at the pretty young woman her gangly granddaughter had become.

  “Go on then,” Susan urged.

  Alana’s eyes sparked again as she remembered the tale. “Well, we couldn’t just leave the animals there in the forest. There was no telling what might happen to them. That colt was so skinny, and his tail was matted with thistle and burdock, I didn’t know what to think. Of course, the problem was how were we supposed to bring them home? After a bit of discussion, I convinced Gary we could make a halter from our belts and pretty soon I had that pretty bay paint stallion in hand. He was a decent horse, really, a bit shy to start, but smart enough to know that I was trying to help. That little black and white colt fell in behind its companion, and we started for the barns.”

  “And you never found out who they belonged to?” Susan prompted excitedly.

  “Not for sure. No.” Grandma Holmes agreed. “Some of the town folks had seen a man in the mountains a few times with
a bay paint, but they didn’t know who he was and no matter how the police, and posse tried to find him, the only thing they found was a banged up moonshine still and a broken shotgun. The sheriff seemed to think there had been some foul play between rival moonshiners, but without a body or other trace, they didn’t know what to think.”

  “Is that why they let you keep Israel, and Oreo? The two horses.” Susan still couldn’t believe that the horses had been turned over to her grandmother without any fuss at all. No one had tried to claim them, or even inquire about them.

  “After the sheriff spoke with Gary and me and got our report about finding the horses, no one even batted an eye. They were mine to keep if I wanted them and even as unruly as that crazy bay paint proved to be, he was one of the most beautiful horses I have ever owned.”

  Susan was too young to have ever seen the horse her grandmother dubbed Israel, but she had seen plenty of pictures. Her grandmother had gone from student, to wife and mother in the few short years after taking in the paint and his young companion, and in time, life had become so busy that her old horse had become more of a companion than anything else.

  “He was a good horse,” Grandma Holmes mused. “I’m glad I’m the one who found him.” She turned sad blue eyes toward Susan. “Now you be careful poking around into things you know nothing about. Times were different back then, and those of us at the college were often warned about walking into the woods in case we came across someone hiding out up there. Back then, moonshiners were common, and they didn’t take well to anyone stumbling on their still.”

  “You agree with the police then don’t you?” Susan asked. “You think the owner of Israel and Oreo was a moonshiner who came to odds with his competition?”

  “It did make the most sense,” Alana agreed. “That’s why I don’t understand you’re fascination with the painted ponies and the missing man.”

  Susan shrugged. She had always been interested in this story. She had been fascinated by the mystery of where the horses had come from, who the man with the still had been or where he had gone for as long as she could remember. With nothing else pressing in her life, she was determined to solve the mystery and put this chapter of her family’s history to rest.

  David Watkins walked along the edge of the falls, following an ancient trail that may have been there since before the first white man had traversed the wilds of Georgia. He had been over the trail at least a dozen times this summer, but no matter how many trips he took, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something.

  The old cabin, a hangover from his families somewhat seedy past, drew him as a lodestone draws steel, and he had to go over what he knew one more time.

  Slipping below the moss covered eves of the old structure, he blinked into the cool darkness amidst the dank logs, and earthy smell of the dirt floor. David had been visiting this cabin in the national forest for years, his mind drifting back to the days as a boy when his father would bring him to the cabin looking for clues. The Watkins had been known throughout the northeastern region of Georgia as some of the finest bootleggers of their time, but that wasn’t’ what drew him and his father each summer. The cabin’s draw had more to do with the disappearance of David’s paternal grandfather in the 1960s than the seedy reputation of whisky runners from a by-gone era.

  “What happened?” David mused for the hundredth time. It had never made sense to him that his grandfather would have been making rot got liquor into the early 1960s, but apparently, old habits died hard. At least that was what most of the town’s people believed. The original Watkins clan had congregated in the high hills of Georgia as farmers shifting to bootlegging as the roaring twenties swept the land.

  David ran his hands through his sandy-blonde hair taking in every aspect of the old shack, with his dark caramel colored eyes. There had to be more to his grandfather’s disappearance than a simple scuffle over corn liquor.

  Pulling a sheaf of paper from a shoulder bag, David flipped through the pages scanning the familiar information. The police report was no help at all. The only salient point was the reference to a student from the college downstream finding two horses that may have belonged to a rival bootlegger.

  “What happened?” David asked again, frustration ruffling his usual calm. “Where did you go?” the puzzle of his grandfather’s disappearance had bothered David’s grandmother right up until the day she had died, leaving this mysterious legacy for David to unwind.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, David turned walking back out of the little hut and retraced his steps, following the stream along the familiar path and through the quiet campus far below as his brain turned the problem over again.

  David Watkins needed to talk to the woman that had found the horses. He needed to hear the story from her and find a way to glean any remnant of information that might bring this mystery to a close and put his grandmother’s soul to rest.

  There had to be a clue somewhere. There had to be someone who had seen, heard, or felt something that would, at long last, solve the mystery of the disappearance of Harcourt Watkins.

  As David made his way to the lower parking area, along the same stream that poured more than one hundred feet over the sheer wall of rock that created the falls, he searched his phone for the address of the woman he needed to see. He could only pray that she was still living and that she could tell him something.

  Climbing into his beat up truck, David cracked a window against the sweltering Georgia sun, and turned the key. One way or another he was determined to solve the mystery that had for so long defined his family’s legacy, over shadowing all aspects of joy, jubilation, and cheer.

  A missing grandfather, a moonshine still, two stray horses, and a case as cold as the air conditioning spewing from his truck vents.

  David had his work cut out for him, but he knew he had to pull the threads together and solve the case putting old ghosts to rest.

  The GPS announced that he had arrived and David peered out the window at the massive white house nestled among the big trees. The old home, with its stately columns and immaculately sculpted lawn was not what he had expected to find at the end of his short drive. He was sure that by now the old woman would be in a nursing facility or have moved to Florida, not still residing in the fancy Victorian home at the top of the hill.

  Parking on the street, David grabbed his journal and trotted up the stairs, ringing the doorbell expectantly.

  “Hello?” A dark-haired young woman opened the door, and David tipped his head curiously.

  “I’m looking for Alana Holmes,” he said, puzzled by the young woman’s appearance. The woman he was looking for had to be in her late sixties, possibly seventies by now.

  “That’s my grandmother,” The young woman smiled. “May I ask what this is about?” Her bright blue eyes took in the leather packet in his hands before meeting his warm brown gaze.

  “I’d like to talk to her about the horses she found back in ’66,” the young man met her gaze boldly. “Is she available?”

  Susan scowled at the man on the other side of the screen door. He was tall, dressed casually, and had striking features under a mop of sandy-blonde hair. “Are you selling something?” Susan snipped.

  “No, I’m just looking for some details about the day she found the horses in the national forest. I’m doing research.” He knew the words were bordering on a lie, but he didn’t want to be turned away without a chance to interview Mrs. Holmes. The Holmes family, known as one of the wealthiest in the area, were said to be standoffish at best.

  “Susan, who is it?” another voice punched into the heat of the sweltering Georgia summer. “Invite them in for a glass of sweet tea. It’s too hot to keep folks standing out there on the porch.”

  Reluctantly Susan opened the door. “This way, please.” She let the man walk into the entry hall, grinning as his dark eyes grew wide with surprise. The old family home often had that effect on people upon entry. Over the years the family had modernized their old Victor
ian house, but kept the elegance, and regal appointments of the time along the way.

  Susan’s family had made their money as peach farmers, and over the generations had built an elegant home that fit the north Georgia region perfectly.

  The polished marble floor, the sweeping stairs, the warm rich woods of the office across the hall, all blended in a simple sophistication that was common place to her.

  “If you’ll follow me,” Susan led the man across the hall to a sitting room, where her grandmother was resting in an upright, pink wing backed chair.

  “Grandmother, this is…” Susan stopped realizing she didn’t know the man’s name. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Watkins,” the young man smiled, transforming his serious face. “David Elias Watkins.”

  “Watkins!” Susan and her grandmother expostulated at the same time. “What on earth do you want here?”