Chapter 21
Kennedi
It was a balmy evening, the last day in October.
Bryson and I were sitting on our lanai and enjoying the nice breeze and watching the leaves continue to fall.
Someone not too far from our home was burning leaves.
I could smell the scent rising in the air, the same way that I could see the smoke ascending.
I knew that it wasn’t too far from our home.
Off in the distance, we could hear the high school’s marching band playing. We didn’t live far from the high school, and I surmised they were practicing for this weekend’s homecoming game.
I rocked back in my rocker and powered up my laptop to continue the research I had started this weekend, but got pulled away when Bryson needed some attention.
I had accessed the archives of the library database from Mooresboro County, where we had visited the Grace Gardens Bed and Breakfast Inn. It took a while, but I had finally found what I was searching for.
“That’s odd.”
“What’s that?” Bryson asked, turning his gaze from outdoors to look at me.
“This article that I found about the B&B.”
“What does it say?”
“According to this article, the area of land that we visited is empty. There’s just empty land there, and it has been for quite some time.
They state that there used to be cabins and a large ‘main house’ up there decades ago, and that the house had existed for more than a century, but the cabins had been added long after the main house was built. ”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. This article states that the original owner, James Grace, returned five years after the death of his wife to confront the farm manager there. Apparently, the man had been married, but he had also seduced the Graces’ young daughter, Hope.
When they learned she was pregnant, he forced her to lie to her parents and state that she had become pregnant by a traveling guest. He threatened to have her baby taken if she ever revealed the truth. ”
“How do they know that?”
“According to this article, one of the farmhands, who had been in love with Hope all along, came forth to tell the truth when he was traveling with his family in Virginia and ran into James Grace.
James thanked him for his honesty, and he returned to the farm a couple of days later after making arrangements for his daughter to remain with his sister in Cherokee Springs, Georgia.
“He traveled back to the farm and burned it down with all of its guests and existing workers, including the man who seduced his daughter and his wife. He then went away, and no one ever saw him again. This article states that the granddaughter was raised by his sister here in Cherokee Springs.”
“Damn. That’s crazy, but what do they mean that there’s nothing there now?”
“Well, the article was written ten years ago. But look at this . . .”
I turned the computer to him. “What’s this? Property records?”
“Yes, as of last year. It shows the land as still in the Grace family, but there are no buildings there.”
“That can’t be true, baby. We stayed there.”
“I know, but look, baby. Even these Google aerial photos show the land as empty.”
He looked at the photos that I had discovered. “There’s got to be a mistake.”
I told him about the woman at the bar and how she resembled the cook who was at the B&B, and he shared with me that he had the same experience with the front desk clerk, who strongly resembled the stripper who had given him the invitation.
We both had encountered the issue with the staff that was there upon our departure, not recognizing the people we were talking about.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as I continued to scroll down the computer.
“What?”
“Look,” I answered and turned my laptop to face him.
His mouth dropped open and he mumbled, “What the fuck?”
On the screen before us was a family photo of two beautiful women and a man. Opposite their picture were the pictures of two other men, one identified as the married farm manager, and the other identified as the farmhand who helped James Grace find the truth.
The older woman was the woman at the bar who had given me the invitation and who was also the cook at the B&B.
“That’s the stripper who gave me the invitation,” he declared, pointing at the screen at the picture of the younger woman who was also the woman at the front desk. “Dominic? That shit can’t be right.”
“What?”
“This man is the same man I met with that weekend when I met the stripper. He was the one who took me to the club after we handled some business,” he explained, pointing at the farmhand.
“Dominic?”
“Yes. That’s him.”
“This article says that the older woman is Marion Grace and the younger woman is Hope Grace.”
“So, you’re sitting here telling me that these two women we’ve interacted with on multiple occasions were from the past?”
“That’s what the article says.”
“That can’t be. I don’t buy no bullshit like that.”
“Then how do you explain the woman you met at the club looking exactly like the woman at the B&B and the woman in this article, Bryson?”
“Hell if I know. They could be her descendants, and the two of them could be cousins or sisters or anything.”
“But you said they look exactly alike. I know this picture of Hope looks just like the girl at the front desk.”
“Descendants. As far as the girl at the front desk and the stripper are concerned, they could be identical twins for all I know. They say everyone has a doppelganger.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was always drawn to that lake. I always felt a sense of peace there, same as Marion Grace did.”
“And yet, something tragic happened to her.”
“I know. This is all just so bizarre, especially when we were told the people who helped us didn’t work at the B&B. I had no idea how to explain that.”
“Come here, girl,” he demanded, patting his lap.
I set my laptop aside and walked to where he sat. He pulled me down onto his lap and kissed my temple. We stared out of the windows together for several long minutes. It was a beautiful fall evening, and we had a fire going in our firepit.
“You wanna make some S’mores?”
“Over the firepit?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
I got off his lap and waited for him to return from the kitchen with the s’mores supplies. He grabbed a stick from outside in the back and returned to me. We sat in silence, with me on his lap again, making s’mores and eating them for almost twenty minutes before he spoke.
“I haven’t told you how proud I am of you lately.”
“What?”
“How you’ve taken to this promotion. The last two weeks, you’ve been training under Milicent’s hand, but you’re still keeping track of time and getting home at decent hours. You haven’t even worked on the weekends. I appreciate that.”
“And I appreciate you. You’ve taken time out to see how my day is going, still dropping by to bring me lunch, and even listening to how my day is going when I talk about it incessantly.”
He laughed. “And thanks for the daily texts that you send me to update me on your day and to check on mine.”
“I have to make sure my baby is safe out in them streets. You do work with the criminal element of the city, you know?”
“Damn, you make my clients sound like riff-raff.”
I laughed and replied, “Your words, not mine. Seriously, though. Falling in love with you all over again has been so easy, Bryson, and so worth it. I think I was getting burned out on life, and you’ve pulled me back into this place that I cannot resist. You make it easy being here.
The way that I can be emotionally vulnerable with you and comfortable being in your presence is all new. ”
“We have to gradually work to get to where we want to be. You’re worth it to me, Kenni. Ever since we took that trip, you’ve allowed me to see a softer side of you. You’re warm and compassionate, and you genuinely care about how I feel.”
“Maybe we needed that.”
“No doubt we needed that, beautiful. I think we’ve learned how to appreciate each other and be genuine with one another.”
“I would agree. This time around is so different than the first. We were all fire and sizzle until we almost burned out. This time, though, it feels like . . . a soft fall into love.”
“Well, we’re going to keep falling, baby. I love you.”
“And I love you, too, Bryse.”