Epilogue
Sometimes the ensuing months felt endless. Other times, they slipped past so fast it felt like life was trying to buck Harley and Brendan off the ride.
The grand opening of the renovated Serenity Inn happened just at the height of summer. Brendan was back at work in the hotel kitchen, and Harley was in her office, methodically cleaning Wolfgang Outen’s financial house.
On their first day off, they went up the top of Pope Mountain, to the little Church in the Wildwood, and said “I do” with Brother Farley officiating from a wheelchair. He’d married his last Pope and was retiring and moving away.
A new preacher would come, but they didn’t yet know his name, and it wouldn’t matter. Brother Farley had stood in the shoes of the Wildwood church’s pastor long enough. It was time for someone else to claim them.
And that day, after Brendan and Harley were finally alone, he was finally able to share his last secret with her.
“Mrs. Pope, come sit with me. I have a secret to share that only members of our family can know.”
Harley plopped down on his lap, smiling. “As long as you aren’t going to tell me you shape-shift under the light of a full moon.”
He laughed. “Oh, way better than that. I know when you were auditing Ray Caldwell you saw the payments going to the company who controls Jubilee, right?”
“Yes, and the same now that Wolf has taken over, why?”
“Well, every business in Jubilee has the same agreement, because PCG Inc. owns the land outright, and all of the business owners pay PCG to have shops here.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said.
“Well, what you don’t know is that we are PCG Inc.—Pope, Cauley, Glass—PCG. We own Jubilee together, all of us on Pope Mountain.”
Harley gasped. “What? Wait. How?”
“Cameron is the CEO. He and a lawyer in Frankfort manage the corporation. A couple of generations back, they incorporated when Jubilee began turning into what it is today. It was a way to control our way of life, and with no one knowing, we aren’t constantly invaded with complaints from tourists or shopkeepers. We, as in every voting member of the corporation, get quarterly dividends paid into personal accounts in banks outside of Jubilee. No one outside the families know this. So now you do, and you are part of the secret.”
Harley just kept staring. She heard the words coming out of his mouth, but could hardly grasp the extent of the revelation.
“Good lord, honey! That has to be millions of dollars yearly.”
He nodded. “And you all share in the profits.”
She started to smile. “Amazing. Who knew?”
“Just us, is who.”
“Right, and we’ll keep it that way.” And then she threw her arms around his neck. “We all own a town. A whole freaking tourist industry. This is one of the smartest business moves I’ve ever heard of. My lips are sealed.”
“Not too tight, I hope. I still want my kisses.”
She was laughing as he carried her to bed.
***
Months later, Amalie gave birth to twin boys. They were born on Labor Day, which seemed fitting, because she’d labored long and hard to bring them into the world. Sean held both of his sons in his arms for the first time, looking deep into their faces, seeing pieces of him and pieces of her. But their dark hair, long legs, and long arms were a given.
Aidan Pope and Dillon Pope had entered the world.
The seventh generation of Popes had just been born.
***
The last nail went into Brendan and Harley’s new home almost a year to the day from when they first met.
They spent their first night on Pope Mountain in a home of their own and woke up to a sight they would never forget.
Brendan looked out the window and then quickly called out.
“Harley! Darlin’! Come quick.”
She ran to his side, and as she pushed aside the curtain to look out, a chill ran through her.
A magnificent stag was in the clearing, standing between their new house and the clump of trees where they’d first seen him.
“Oh, Brendan! It’s a welcome home sign! We’re meant to be here.”
He slid his arm across her shoulders. “We were always meant to be here, Sunshine. We just didn’t always know it.”
***
It was a Sunday in April, about a month after Brendan and Harley moved in. It was also their day off, when they began hearing cars and trucks coming up their driveway and seeing people piling out of vehicles, carrying shovels, and plants in pots, and trees in tubs.
Brendan and Harley came out smiling. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Shirley came up the steps smiling. “Impromptu housewarming,” she said. “But don’t worry. All of this, including us, stays outside.”
They looked across the yard in disbelief as Aaron and Sean came across it dragging a tree with the root ball still wrapped in burlap.
“All you two have to do is tell us where you want stuff planted. We brought shovels. We’ll do the rest,” Aaron said.
Harley started clapping and jumping up and down and running from flowering pot to flowering bush, and tree to tree, and back again.
“Brendan, oh my gosh… You do the trees. I’ll pick where the shrubs go.”
“Deal,” he said, and off they went in different directions.
Harley grabbed Shirley’s hand. “You have to help. I’ve never grown anything in my life. What needs shade? What needs full sun? What might grow too big too close to the house?”
Caught up in the excitement, Shirley began sorting and pointing, and Harley was listening and learning.
The yard was full of aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors, and every Pope on the mountain, big and small. Dirt was flying, water hoses were strung out, and one by one, all that was green and flowering was going in the ground.
And when they were done, they gathered in a crowd and stepped back to get the full effect of their landscaping as Sean appeared with a fancy camera on a tripod.
“Brendan and Harley, go stand on your front porch, just above the steps.” So they did, Harley standing with her arm around his waist, and Brendan standing with his arm across her shoulder, while Sean took photo after photo. And then he paused. “Okay, now everybody get in the picture. Stagger yourselves on the steps, and then spread out along the front porch. We’re going to take a panorama shot of all of us.”
The crowd moved as one toward the house, sorted themselves out, and then Aaron waved at Sean. “Here, Brother, I saved you a place. Do your thing and come a-runnin’.”
Sean nodded, focused the lens, grabbed his remote, and bolted.
He was standing in place when he called out, “Everybody say, ‘Jubilee’!”
And as they did, he pressed the button on the remote control at least a dozen times.
A few weeks later, Sean gifted Brendan and Harley with two framed 18-by-24 pictures.
They hung the group picture in the dining room, and the one of them alone over their fireplace. Their hearts were full of the love looking back at them.
And there the pictures would hang as time flew by, and the planted trees grew tall, and birds nested within them, and the bushes flourished and bloomed.
Over the years, the apple trees bore bountiful fruit, and what fell to the ground was left for the stags and the does, and shrubs grew tall and spread out as shelter for the little woodland creatures of the night.
And for all the generations to come, the beginning of Brendan and Harley Pope was on the wall for them to see.