Chapter Five
B rooke’s left hand on the steering wheel ached like it was just waking up. She’d barely gotten any sleep the night before, so the rest of her felt equally as out of sorts. The memory of camp, of her first crush, split her heart like a sledge ax. It filled her with so much regret that the biscuits and tomato gravy she shared with Nana for breakfast threatened to come back up. She had to shake the nausea and, most of all, the memories, before she arrived at the winery. She needed to be as strong as possible when she saw Libby again.
Hers was the only car in the grassy, gravelly parking lot that morning. She prayed she wouldn’t run into Duke Bradley while she was alone. The front door was locked, so instead of knocking, she decided to walk around back.
“Dagnabbit!” a male voice yelled. “Get out of my wife’s garden!”
Brooke froze. She wasn’t in the garden, so he couldn’t be talking to her. It had to be Duke, and clearly, he was somewhere behind the white picket fence surrounding Amelia’s Patch of Happiness.
“Shit,” he cursed.
The gate flew open, and there he was, staring at Brooke.
“Where’s my shovel?” The question was directed at her.
She shrugged. Was she supposed to know where he kept his gardening equipment?
Duke trudged past her and threw out, “Copperhead.”
He was going to kill a venomous snake with a shovel? She looked all around at the ground and then up the trunks of the nearest old oaks. Could copperheads climb trees? She was stuck in the same spot when Duke returned.
“I knew I shouldn’ta left that rat snake. Thought he would control the dadgum mice, but the danged thing probably denned up with the copperhead this winter. Now they both have to go.”
Brooke didn’t know what to say. He’d just spewed more words than he’d ever said to her before. “I’m sorry.”
He stopped briefly and looked at her like she was the stupidest person on earth.
She almost said she was sorry again. Did he really have to kill the rat snake? Trig had let one live under their house for years. They didn’t hurt anything. Well, except small mice, rats, and the occasional squirrel. They were great pest control.
He closed the gate to Amelia’s garden, and Brooke didn’t know if she should stay nearby in case the copperhead bit him and he needed help, or run as far and as fast as possible. So she stood, rooted to the spot, horrified.
“Well, hey there, Anna Brooke.”
She didn’t want to look. No. No. No. No. Without a doubt, the bitchiest strawberry blonde in the known world was standing directly behind her. Slowly, she turned. “Hey, Libby.”
“How ya doin’, sweetheart? It’s been a while. Don’t you look pretty with your new hairdo.”
Brooke knew darn well that when a peer called you sweetheart , it was a power play, and the compliment was meant to convey the opposite. They were only a few seconds into seeing each other again, and already Libby was trying to exert her dominance.
“Jessa said you were working here,” Brooke said, taking in the upturned nose, freckles, and wrathful eyes that had haunted her dreams for years.
“Yes. I mean, I like the marketing director title, even though I had to turn down so many job offers at bigger and better companies,” Libby began, starched and over-perfumed in her monogrammed button-down. “I just have to be near Charleston while I plan my wedding. You know?” Her top lip disappeared when she smiled, making her front teeth look extra long. “There are just so many details to attend to, and James insists on the absolute best vendors, so here I am!” She spread her arms out wide.
“Here you are!” Brooke said. A tiny smile was the most she could give. “Do you know how to unlock the front door?”
“You don’t have a key?” Libby feigned concern. “Maybe they only give them to management. I suppose I can let you in.”
Brooke walked behind her toward the building. Then she heard a loud thunk and turned from Libby to jog back toward the garden. “Mr. Bradley! Are you okay?” She’d almost forgotten he was in there facing off with a venomous snake.
“I’m fine” came the gruff voice as he opened the gate. In his right hand, he held a long, lifeless carcass. “Got him. Gonna leave the old rat snake, though.” He walked past her toward the dumpster. “Woulda had to keep the customers away if this bad guy was still creeping around.” He looked sad, his eyes red-rimmed and liquidy. “He didn’t deserve it.”
Brooke’s emotions were all over the place. Dead snakes, bullies, locked doors, sad old men. She desperately wanted normalcy. What was she doing here? She stood, staring at the hand-painted sign: Amelia’s Patch of Happiness . There was no happiness for Brooke anymore. She missed her apartment in Savannah and her things in the places they were meant to be instead of festering in the back of her car. She even missed Gates. This was wrong. Being back on Goose Island, near Libby Trotter, at a job that didn’t use her college degree. She was better than this. She should be anywhere but there.
“I opened the door for you!” Libby yelled down to her.
For you. As if Libby didn’t have to unlock the door for herself anyway. Brooke sighed. It was a relief to see the tall yellow food truck zooming down the dirt road, kicking up dust. Salty Dot’s must be servicing the winery that day, and it was exactly what Brooke needed to feel like she might actually survive the next eight hours. If Libby was the copperhead in the garden, Dottie Boone was the shovel.
Salty Dot’s food truck had a chalkboard sign out front that said, Today’s Special: Slow-cooked pork pastrami with mustard sauce on a pretzel bun. Pairs well with Muscadine wine , and judging from the long line at lunchtime and the trash cans overflowing with paper plates and napkins, plenty of people were happy to try it.
Brooke’s day was definitely improving. It was her lunch break. She had the hot pork sandwich in hand, and managed to find an empty Adirondack chair in the shade of a large angel oak. Libby’s office was on the opposite side of the building from where Brooke worked pouring wines for the public, so she hadn’t run into her again. Maybe, with some luck, she would be able to avoid her completely.
Allie must’ve been holed up in the lab with the scientists. Brooke hadn’t even glimpsed her giant dog since their meeting yesterday. Jessa, on the other hand, was like a birdshot shell discharged and spread around the grounds everywhere at once, giving little pieces of herself to whatever needed her, solving problems and making sure everyone was doing their job. When there was a lull, Brooke watched her best friend smiling and laughing with the customers. The customers’ eyes, especially the men’s, always followed her as she walked away. Invariably, there were whispers too. People couldn’t help themselves when it came to Jessa. She was too pretty not to say something about it.
And yet Libby had chosen to bully Brooke. Brooke was pretty too—she was average height, had straight white teeth and sky-blue eyes. She and Jessa actually looked somewhat similar. Each had the same eyes and the same high cheekbones, only Jessa’s eyes were a little bigger, her smile a little wider, and her nose a little smaller. They’d looked more alike before Brooke went back to her natural brown hair color. Why had Libby chosen to leave the prettier girl alone? It made no sense.
The first bite was like Brooke’s mouth had just been rescued from a deserted island—only she didn’t know she’d been starving. It was life-alteringly delicious. She leaned back into the chair and closed her eyes, taking her time to chew, savoring the mix of flavors. Hints of honey mixed with yellow mustard , she thought, her brain learning to find nuances in flavors, thanks to her new job. Salt with a touch of hickory smoke. Velvety and fleshy, yet delicate. Dottie sure could cook. She’d been Brooke’s savior a million times over the years. Since childhood, Brooke had preferred Dottie’s tiny brick house to her own Georgian mansion on the water. Not only was the food better, the people were better too.
Brooke opened her eyes just long enough to take another bite. It was the white hair pulled back and tied with a black ribbon that made her keep them open. “Nana!” She carefully wrapped her sandwich in the wax paper it came in before she wrestled herself up from the chair. “What are you doing here?”
“My granddaughter works here. And I like wine.” She was as firm and fierce as a tiny female dictator.
“Did you walk all this way?” It had to be three or four miles, and Nana, while wearing perfectly acceptable blue cotton pants and a matching button-down, had slippers on her feet.
“What choice did I have? My chauffeur abandoned me years ago.”
“Nana, you never had a chauffeur.”
“I most certainly did. His name was Bob. Bob Ross.”
“Like the painter?”
“Exactly.”
There was no use arguing. Brooke pulled her phone from her pocket.
“Don’t go calling the po-po on me now,” Nana said.
“I’m not calling the police, Nana. I’m calling Cornelia.”
“Who is Cornelia?”
“Your daughter-in-law, Nana. My mother. I’m Brooke, your granddaughter.”
“My Anna Brooke has blond hair.”
“Not anymore. I’m just Brooke, and I’m a natural brunette.” She knew that Nana was acting, but it was kind of fun to go along with it.
“Now, I need you to put that phone down and start pouring me some wine. I’m thirstier than a beached whale.”
It looked like lunch was ending early. Brooke handed Nana the second half of her bottled water, which Nana chugged quickly. “Do you want some of my sandwich?”
The offer was waved away with one flick of a hot-pink-fingernailed, slightly blue, arthritic hand.
Once inside, Nana planted herself at the end of the long raw-edge wooden bar and stayed there until closing time. She had lively discussions with every tourist who sat nearby and even convinced several to buy T-shirts from the gift shop. By the time five o’clock rolled around, Nana was looking peaked. “I had a big day,” she said as she hoisted herself from the barstool.
Brooke was bent over, putting the white wine bottles back in the small under-counter refrigerator, when she heard Nana’s signature “Mmm.” There was something she did not approve of. Brooke straightened.
It was Libby.
“The place is closed,” Nana said tersely. “Turn yourself around and go right on back home.”
Libby immediately broke into a Mafia-boss smile—all teeth and no heart. “I am the director of this establishment,” Libby said, leaving out the word marketing .
Nana flashed a look at Brooke before setting her sights on Libby again. “Are you now?”
“Yes, I am. And I certainly don’t want to keep you here a minute longer. I’m sure you have very important things to do wherever you came from.” The smile was back, only bigger. “Maybe you have more wine to drink at home?”
Nana nodded, a gleam in her eye. “Well, now. I can see plain as that grin on your face exactly what you’re made of.”
Libby smirked and walked toward the front door. “Are you catching a ride home, or do you plan to walk there in your slippers?”
“Young lady, the way you are speaking to your elder is beneath me, and I hope, although I have my reservations, that it is beneath you too.”
“Where are my manners? I am so sorry.” Each word was overly enthusiastic. “Do I need to spell things out for you? Write them down?” Libby held the door open for her.
“I will gladly stand here and give you the opportunity to speak to me nicely,” Nana said with syrup in her voice, like she wasn’t riled up at all.
Libby shifted her gaze. “Are you paying for the wine she drank, Anna Brooke? Because tastings are only one ounce per glass, and this woman has clearly had much more than that.”
“You are not to speak to my granddaughter,” Nana said, physically putting herself between the two girls. Brooke almost laughed at how wild and ferocious she looked. Then, just as quickly, Nana changed her tune. “Now, my dear lovely Brooke, let’s go home. I have a happy surprise planned for you.”
“A surprise?”
“A good one.” She winked. “Your mother helped.”
Libby allowed them to exit the building then locked the door behind them. As soon as Nana was stuffed into Brooke’s cramped passenger seat, she asked, “Who in the tarnation was that?”
“A bully from my past and a coworker in my present.”
“She’s a snake.”
Brooke thought of the poor dead copperhead. Turned out Nana was the shovel instead of Dottie.
“I knew her kind the minute I laid eyes on her,” Nana said. “How long have you known that malicious she-devil?”
“Since summer camp.”
“Oh, Lord. She’s been in your life that long?”
“She had a hand in messing it up.”
“Did she do something with Gates? Please tell me that man is not a cheater.”
“I don’t think he’s a cheater, Nana. And no. She did something with, or really, she did something to someone else.”
“And are you going to tell me what it is?”
Nana must’ve known by the look on Brooke’s face that she was about to talk about a boy.
“What was his name? And I want all of it.”
“Nathan.” There was pride in Brooke’s voice, and it shocked her. She could practically smell the lemon and citronella that the camp counselors sprayed to keep the mosquitoes away, and the warmth of his arm around her shoulders. He’d known she lived on Goose Island, so he’d known she had money. The island has a reputation for generations of inhabitants who owned acres of property and large old homes. But the chasm of wealth between them didn’t seem to bother him. “Being back here with Jessa and Libby has stirred up all of these old memories. It’s like I’ve traveled back in time.”
“And have you kept in touch with this boy?”
“No.” The word was filled with regret. “But I asked him if he would remember me when the summer was over, and he said he would remember me as long as he lived.” Brooke felt herself blush. “I believed him, Nana.” It felt weird to gush on and on about something that happened so long ago, but at the same time, she needed to say it out loud. “He said it was because I smiled at him. And I did smile at him. He got out of a broken-down truck, and I liked him straightaway.”
“Sometimes we just have a sense of folks.”
“Yeah. But I also felt so, so sorry for him.” Brooke stopped talking as more memories filled her head. It was one of the last times she’d ever seen him and he’d said something that made her wonder. He said his family used to own Camp Dogwood. She was pretty sure he was lying—trying to make it seem like he belonged. She wouldn’t blame him for that. He didn’t fit in with those rich camp kids at all. Heck, she might have done the same thing if she’d been in his shoes.
Nana put a hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “Anna Brooke? I’m startin’ to think you’re on drugs.”
“Sorry, Nana. I zoned out for a second. All those years ago, Nate said something that I just now remembered.”
“Was it important, dear? Sometimes, we tuck away the important things because we don’t want to, or can’t, deal with them.”
“No, it’s probably nothing. I think he was just wishful thinking. He said his family used to own Camp Dogwood or something like that.”
“Oh, Lord.” Nana’s skin paled lighter than her pearl earrings. “Was his last name Daugherty?”
Brooke nearly sucked all of the air out of the car with her gasp. “You know him?”
“Nathan Quade Daugherty. His middle name was his mother’s maiden name.” She stopped speaking abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”