Southern Rain (Torn Asunder Series Book 1)

by Tara Cowan

  “The goal is for them not to, eventually. Some won’t ever get better, but some will.”

  “Do most of your clients have mental disorders?” she asked, hoping he had some alleviation during his day.

  “No, not all,” he said. “There are all kinds of people who struggle with mental health. We all do, in our own ways. It takes a lot of bravery to try to fix it.”

  She looked at him again, studying him. He seemed really serious about it. And when he spoke about the people he helped, it was with compassion, not an eye-roll. That was pretty rare, she thought. Most professionals barely tolerated their clients. They drove them nuts and made their lives miserable. Maybe he was just able to compartmentalize it all. As for her, she was probably better off talking to hardwood and armoires.

  Another long silence and, apparently remembering that she was spending her Saturday working for his sake, he said, “So home is Asheville?”

  “Yep,” she said, nodding once. “My parents are still there, and my older sister.”

  He looked toward her. “You’re not the oldest?”

  She lifted her brows. “How old do you think I am?” Thirty. He thought she was thirty.

  “I just mean that I had pegged you for an oldest child. Over-achiever academically–”

  “That’s not fair: Harris is an over-achiever, and he’s not the oldest.”

  He studied her for a moment. Finally, he said, “We were pushed to get the highest degree in our fields that we could.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a minute. “Well, I guess you mean that the middle child is usually a little bit of a rebel. But believe it or not, getting a Ph.D. was actually a little rebellious in my family. My parents wanted us to have good, stable, dependable jobs: my sister’s a teacher, and my brother’s going to be an accountant. They’re proud of me, of course, but they worry about me.”

  “They obviously fail to see the doors that have been opened to you by the letters behind your name.”

  “Oh, they do. I think it was the starting my own business thing that freaked them out.”

  He glanced at her. “It seems to be going well, though.”

  “Well, it’s lasted for two years, so we’ll see,” she said, also feeling like she’d dumped too much of her history. She felt disloyal to her family, and confiding two pieces of information always made her feel like she’d spilled as much of her soul as if she’d broken down in tears in front of somebody. She wasn’t as reserved as the man sitting next to her: she was just used to fending for herself.

  There was a long silence. He seemed to be chewing on something (figuratively), and Adeline sat in silence. She thought he knew she wasn’t comfortable talking about herself anymore. Which made it a little difficult for car-ride talk, since he didn’t either. She had a feeling that they were both more comfortable with a chatty person who spilled her guts next to them. Or at least, she was. On second thought, that was the kind of thing that would probably make him jump off a cliff.

  She caught sight of her seatbelt, wedged right between her breasts, clearly delineating each of them. Was that provocative? Oh, well. She wasn’t holding it out from her all the way to Georgia.

  “I just now thought: I should’ve been calling you Dr. Miller.” She made a face, starting to shake her head, but he said, “No, you do for me: I should extend the same courtesy.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not a medical doctor, a professor, or pompous.”

  He smiled, a real one this time. His black eyes sparkled, and he pressed his lips together, as though trying not to laugh. “Alright, then.”

  The air in the Land Rover was much lighter after that, so much so that the silences weren’t awkward anymore. When they’d gone for a few more miles, he turned on the radio. He had XM, of course. He put it on the Frank Sinatra station. “Is that okay?”

  She would’ve chosen Fleetwood Mac or John Mayer, but hey, it could be worse. At least it was historical, sort of. “Sure.” And as the miles rolled past, some Michael Bublé came on, too, which was a happy compromise.

  They made it in good time, and soon they were driving through old residential streets near, she thought, campus. It kind of had that feel. The houses were really pretty, an amalgamation of different historical eras. It was a cozy town: she imagined it would’ve been a good place to grow up.

  He turned into the driveway of a meticulously neat white Victorian with three storeys. There was a small SUV sitting in the drive and a car in the garage. It felt very mom and dad, and very cozy. It made her want to go home for a Saturday night grill-out.

  He opened his door, and she did, too, deciding to leave her purse in the car. It looked like the kind of place you could do that. He preceded her up the path, and they went around to the back door, where a tabby was sitting, awaiting her moment. Instead of knocking, he opened the door and went in. She followed him, as did the cat, even though she wasn’t sure she should have the same luxury.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  A tall woman with dark blonde hair and a lean figure came into the room. She had her oldest son’s features in a more feminine way—clear lines, pleasing bone structure—and an elegant style. Her face was deeply pleasant to look at until you saw that pair of hawkish light blue eyes that saw your soul. And maybe ate it.

  “Adrian,” she said, coming forward. Her voice was calm, self-assured, and pleasing to the ear. She reached up and gave him a kiss and said almost privately, “How are you, honey? I’ve missed you.”

  He leaned into her hug and then away. “Fine. Where’s Dad?”

  “Upstairs, I think.” She had refocused her attention to Adeline, raising her brows and smiling pleasantly as though expecting an introduction.

  “Mom, this is Adeline Miller,” he said. “Adeline, my mother, Virginia.”

  Adeline smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ravenel. Thanks for loaning your box. We’re excited to see what’s in it.”

  “It’s James’s,” she said. She studied Adeline’s face, taking her measure. That gaze was really creepily penetrating. “I hope it can help.” Veeeery dignified. It made Adeline feel like a hippie. And she was wearing Loft.

  Luckily, a man strode through the kitchen door. He was tall and lean, so that it was hard to see which parent the boys got their forms from. His hair was silver and waving, but she had a feeling, from the odd hair here and there, that it had once been black, like his oldest son’s. His features, though, were more like Harris’s. He had the distant look of a scholar in his eyes, and a bit of the non-functional sciency way about him, but he did smile upon seeing them and say, “There you are. You were caught in the rain, I imagine.” He smiled with pride upon his son. Adeline didn’t blame him: she would, too, if she’d created that specimen.

  “Yeah, a little,” Adrian said, stepping back to introduce her to him.

  He was polite and not quite as daunting as his wife. After the introductions were made, he said, “Why haven’t you brought Jude?”

  “I was just coming to that,” Mrs. Ravenel said, levelling a look at her son.

  He held up his hands. “It’s too long of a drive just to turn around and go back. He’s not a great rider. You know that.”

  “He could’ve stayed the night,” his dad said, hands in the deep pockets of his scholarly khakis.

  “Yes,” his mother said. “He could have.”

  Dr. Ravenel looked at the ceiling for a split second. “I didn’t have time to come get him tomorrow.”

  “I would’ve brought him,” his mother said.

  His father seemed to catch his mother’s eye then. Lifting her brows she said, “What, James?”

  “Well, he can take his own son wherever he chooses,” he said. Brave man. Brave, stupid man.

  If the woman had been a cat, her ears would’ve lain back. She said nothing further on the matter. Merely, with a dignified voice, she said, “You’ll want to
show them where the box is.”

  “Oh, it’s in the basement. I should’ve brought it up.”

  “That’s okay,” Dr. Ravenel said, looking relieved at the change in topic. And like he wanted to bolt from the room. “I’ll carry it up.”

  “I’ll come, too,” Adeline said. He was not leaving her here with the duchess. Before they left, Mrs. Ravenel was sitting on one of the bar stools, Adrian’s phone in her hand, looking through it.

  “Mom.” He stopped, his hand on the door. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  She lifted her brows as though in surprise. “Going through your pictures to get the recent ones of Jude. You haven’t sent me any in two weeks.” She smiled at one she was looking at, her whole countenance changing.

  He released a long-suffering sigh. “Alright. But don’t open–”

  “The green app. I know,” she said, as though he were inconveniencing her.

  Adeline assumed the green app contained client files, and not something weird.

  “Will you send them to my phone?” the elder Dr. Ravenel said, opening the door to let them pass.

  “Of course,” she said. She saw Dr. Ravenel—the younger—take a deep, silent breath through his nose, and tried to keep from laughing.

  Soon, they were passing through a living room straight out of Southern Living, except for the large Chemistry tomes lying here and there. The basement was a little more questionable, as basements in old houses often were. Adeline held to the rail and tried not to fall going down the steps. It made her Caesar knee flare up. Caesar knee was what she had dubbed the recurring injury that had happened as a result of stepping off too deep of a stair in the dark at an outdoor Julius Caesar play. Her best friend, Candice, had done it, too. They still couldn’t talk about it.

  Adrian pulled a string to turn a light on, and his dad roamed around aimlessly for about five minutes, trying to find the box. Eventually, his son joined in, but he didn’t seem any better at it. Not wanting to be pushy, Adeline stood back. Until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a box labelled “Old Family Documents.” She cut her eyes to the side, lips pursed. Men.

  “I think this may be it,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, it is. You have a good eye,” the father said. She liked him.

  Adrian knelt beside it and swiped the dust off the top in that no-nonsense way men had, not really worrying about where it went. But it was efficient. He lifted it. It seemed surprisingly heavy.

  “Got it?” his dad said.

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” He carried it upstairs to the coffee table in the living room.

  His dad went to it and opened it, saying, “Let’s see here…” Adeline was torn between telling him not to touch anything and knowing that he could probably tell her a lot about it, if his mother had been interested in history. As he scrounged around in the box, amidst folders and other boxes, Dr. Ravenel seemed to think he was no longer needed, and disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to retrieve his phone.

  He could see, behind the half-closed door, his dad and the preservationist leaning over the box, his dad with scholarly interest, Ms. Miller with the glee of Jude in an ice cream shop. Leaning against the counter, crossing his arms, he said, “You’re coming to the graduation, right?”

  “Of course, honey,” she said, having surrendered his phone. She was making tea now. “I can’t believe he’ll be in first grade. It seems like just yesterday he was a baby.”

  It sure did. Time was racing by.

  “You’ll want him to stay little forever so you can protect him,” she said, turning off the stove. “But it won’t be long until he won’t even want to hold your hand.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said.

  “Well, it’s only the truth. I suppose the Thomases will be there, too?”

  Here we go. “Of course I invited them.”

  She sighed.

  He clenched his jaw for a split second. It didn’t give him any patience, as he had hoped. “What do you want me to do, Mom? They’re Jude’s family. I won’t keep them out of his life: it’s not healthy, and they love him.”

  “I know. I think you had to invite them. It’s only that Theresa is so insufferable.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s Lauren’s mother.”

  She handed him a glass of tea and said softly, “I know. I’ll be nice. For your sake.”

  He looked down at her, suddenly a little amused. “Thank you,” he said, acknowledging her magnanimity.

  She squeezed his arm, and the door opened, revealing the two from the living room. The preservationist looked pretty excited.

  “Find something?” he asked.

  “I hope so. We’ll take the whole box and get it back to you as soon as we can,” she said, taking in his parents.

  “That’s fine,” his dad said. “Keep it as long as you need.”

  “Thanks,” Adeline said, smiling. The two of them had obviously hit it off. “I’ll go get it.”

  Adrian set his tea down. “I will,” he said.

  She looked a little surprised and then shrugged. She’d obviously been single too long. He wondered why. Not that he cared. He went into the living room and picked it up, carrying it through the kitchen, kissing his mom’s cheek on the way out. His dad followed them out in the way dads do and patted his shoulder once he had closed the back door. “Be careful.”

  “Alright,” he said, smiling a little. “See you in two weeks.”

  He patted his arm. “Send your mother more pictures. She’s feeling her empty nest.”

  Adrian’s brows drew together. “Harris is thirty-two,” he protested.

  “I know, but these things come and go for women,” he said vaguely. “She worries about all of you.”

  “We’re fine, Dad,” he said soothingly.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll let you go.”

  He nodded, feeling a little relieved. Sometimes his dad took you down rambling conversations that lasted for thirty minutes. “See you in two weeks.”

  Massachusetts, March 1860

  Chapter Seventeen

  The carriage travelled through acre upon acre of gently rolling countryside which glowed with health and prosperity and looked so very different from South Carolina that Shannon might think herself transported into a different world. Massachusetts, with its neat little painted houses, meticulously constructed yet primitive fences, farmers and their sons tilling the land, ladies inside laboring over supper and scrubbing their floors, indeed might as well have been a separate country. The fields were open as far as the eye could see, and the very soil looked different. That, Shannon’s husband told her, was because South Carolinian soil was dark, and worth farming.

  Shannon watched him as he looked out the window, and realized, suddenly, that he was at home. He did not bat an eye at the pristine beauty all around them, merely watched it, nodding back to a farmer who gave a brusque nod, which she was coming to realize passed for a friendly wave in these parts.

  The air was clean and pure, but briskly cold. John Thomas had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders when they had first boarded the carriage after the train, but it was scarcely enough to stop the chill from seeping into her bones. He did not seem similarly affected.

  Shannon gripped the strap of her valise, on the seat beside her, but was momentarily distracted from her nerves when they made the turn and Harmony Grove rose in the distance. John Thomas had been modest when he spoke of home, so she was not prepared for the large, symmetrical white house with neat dormers and uniform windows, sitting on a hill like a beacon of purity.

  “Oh,” she breathed, and realized he had been watching her, rather than his home, and that the smile in his eyes attested to his pleasure with her response.

  He reached across the carriage and took her hand in both of his. “Welcome to my home, Shannon,” he said softly.

 
She swallowed the lump in her throat, holding his eyes.

  He got down in front of the door and reached to take her by the waist. Servants in neat dress came to take care of the horses, greeting him warmly, and she could see tenants in white shirt sleeves working the fields nearby. John Thomas let her grow steady on her feet and then walked with her to the door.

  They crossed the threshold and were ushered into the foyer, and suddenly there were members of the Haley family all around them, spilling forth from various rooms. Shannon caught glimpses of pale hair and blue eyes, of unadorned dress and the occasional cast of countenance that looked familiar but wasn’t. There was the man of the house at the bottom of the stairs, and Mrs. Haley. Off to the side was a young gentleman, perhaps a few years older than John Thomas, with spectacles and a distant expression, as though he had been interrupted in his work or reading.

  A young woman in a dove gray dress with a plain face was standing quietly, furtively taking Shannon in, while another a little younger, perhaps sixteen, was openly staring at her with bright eyes. Her pale hair was parted down the middle and caught up very simply, and her dark gray gown with pagoda sleeves was very plain but elegant. There was a young man who must be Charles, a year younger than John Thomas, who was smiling, and then there were the two children, who obviously felt this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in their household.

  Mrs. Haley was not demonstrative, but came forward, one hand taking Shannon’s and the other reaching up briefly to touch her son’s face. “Welcome to Harmony Grove, dear children. We had hoped to welcome you in sunshine.”

  Shannon said pleasantly, “It makes no difference: Harmony Grove is enchanting. My dear ma’am, I do hope your train ride was more comfortable than ours, but I daresay it was not. And so very cold, too!”

  “New England winters are not for the faint of heart,” she said. She seemed to unbend as she added, “But I daresay you will grow accustomed in time. My dear, you are looking well. It is good to see. We feared your travels might fatigue you.”