Chapter Seven #2
Bailey Rae scanned the recipes from everyone in the town, from Uncle Russell’s catfish stew to his grandmother Annette’s skillet cornbread.
Women from the factory had contributed, as well as ladies from the garden club.
Some of the recipes were accompanied by a picture of the “chef,” while others included photos of Bent Oak, the factory, the town hall, the river.
Quite the homage to local flavors on so many levels.
Flipping a couple of pages, she lingered on one of Winnie’s recipes.
No image of Winnie stared back, though. Just a snapshot of canned preserves with a pound cake on a picnic blanket with a large satchel and floppy hat resting beside.
Signature Winnie. The sight of the jam recipe stirred tears in her eyes and flavors on her taste buds.
Sleep wasn’t even remotely on the horizon with her mind racing and her heart missing Winnie. So one by one, she pulled out the ingredients and lined them up on the counter. She would take solace in the kitchen for a little while.
She had a pantry to clear and memories to pack away.
Ninety minutes later, Bailey Rae washed the bowl, beaters, and spatula while the cake cooled on a rack.
The warm scent of vanilla lingered in the air.
Her pantry and fridge were now shy a pound each of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs, but her mind was full of the memories associated with this recipe.
She’d stood at this counter the day she’d realized her mother wasn’t coming back.
After Winnie had dried all the tears, she’d offered to share a secret recipe that would be known only to the two of them, the connection coming at a time when Bailey Rae felt so adrift.
Somewhere between sifting the flour and scraping the last bit of batter from the bowl, her chest eased enough that she could breathe without hiccups.
Now, as Bailey Rae dried her hands on the skirt of her dress, a flicker of light in the woods caught her attention.
Her breath hitched. She checked in with Skeeter, but the hound snoozed on the rag rug by the mudroom door.
She looked back at the window, pushing the curtain open farther away from the pane that needed a good cleaning.
The faint glow still shone through the trees.
In the distance. Like a car parked at the top of the lengthy dirt driveway.
Her stomach knotted even as she told herself there were a thousand benign reasons. A couple parking to have sex. Teens out drinking.
Or an angry, abusive husband stalking his wife.
She snatched her cell phone off the counter and didn’t question why she bypassed calling Keith to phone Martin instead.
He picked up after one ring. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to bother you.” Her voice trembled. “But I think I see a vehicle parked at the end of the drive. I noticed the light ... It may be nothing ...”
“That’s me.” His deep tones rumbled from the speaker. “I’m at the top of the drive. I have the dome light on inside my truck to finish up paperwork.”
Relief sucked the adrenaline from her, and she slumped against the counter. “You stayed anyway? Don’t you have to get up early for work?”
“I got someone to cover my shift. Leaving you out here with only Keith Farrell for protection didn’t sit right.” He paused, then admitted, “I wouldn’t have slept anyway, worrying about you.”
She didn’t even hesitate asking, “Do you want to come inside? The light’s better in here, and I have food.”
“I’m already at your door. I just didn’t want to ring the bell and wake your guests.”
“I’ll be right there.” More excited than she wanted to ponder, she disabled the security system and flipped the lock, waving him inside.
Martin hung his game warden ball cap on the hook by the door. “Why are you still awake?”
“I’m too spun up from all that happened today, so I decided to bake.” Waving him deeper into the cabin, she plucked a clean knife from the drawer.
“Smells good, sweet. Not at all like grits, although I confess to being a convert, as long as you’re the one cooking them.”
“Well, I’ve been doing more than emptying the freezer of gumbo.
I’ve also been on a quest to use up opened staples, like the flour and sugar.
” She slid the blade around the edges of the tube cake pan, then loosened along the center hole.
Lifting carefully, she tried to ignore Winnie’s voice in her head insisting she hadn’t let it cool long enough.
Breathing a sigh of relief as the cake held together, she eased the finished product to a dish. “This is Aunt Winnie’s secret recipe for pound cake. She didn’t share it with just anybody.”
He hitched up to sit on a stool at the kitchen island. “I haven’t been in the South long, but even I know how some of these ladies hold their recipes as close as state secrets.”
“Would you like a slice?”
“If it’s half as good as the grits and gumbo, I would be a fool to pass it up.”
“You should see what I can do with a fish fry. Well, if I was allowed to fish, which of course I would never do illegally.” Grinning, she cut a generous slice.
He forked off a bite and tasted. His eyes slid closed in ecstasy. “Man, that tastes even better than it smells.”
The praise warmed the corner of her heart that still felt like a homeless six-year-old who had crummy grades in school because she fell asleep on her desk. “When I open my restaurant, it will be like having Winnie with me every time I cook one of her specialties.”
“Restaurant?” He swiped a napkin along a crumb at the corner of his mouth.
“A food truck, actually.” She’d only told Winnie’s friends, no one else, half-afraid that people would laugh at her. “That’s what I plan to do with the money from selling this place.”
“I heard from Thea and June that you were leaving, but nothing detailed.”
Winnie and her friends always had been able to keep a secret. Or maybe they were hoping if they didn’t vocalize her move, it wouldn’t happen. “I’m relocating to Myrtle Beach. I’ll live in the Airstream by the ocean and support myself with the food truck business.”
“Why Myrtle Beach? Why not Charleston or Edisto?” he asked, already halfway through his hunk of cake.
She bit her lip to hold back a smile that he hadn’t questioned her dream, only the location. “Aunt Winnie talked about going to Myrtle Beach all the time but never made it there. She seemed to be a bit agoraphobic about crossing the county line.”
Once the words were out of her mouth, she wished she’d labeled her aunt as a homebody or even a hermit rather than agoraphobic.
“So she lived in Bent Oak all her life?”
“Actually, no.” She wished more of those photos in the album carried dates. “She came here as an adult ... I’m not sure exactly where she grew up. She was an orphan, and she said it hurt too much to discuss her childhood.”
Looking back, it felt self-centered or uncaring not to have delved deeper. Would he judge her for that?
“What foods will you serve?”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Southern specialties, like barbecue, cornbread, slaw. The pound cake, of course. Then I’ll rotate other dishes like chicken bog.”
“All right, I have a question.” He held up a hand to stop her as he continued with a wry grin, “What in the hell is chicken bog? I’m not gonna lie. The name does not make it sound appealing.”
His good-natured teasing caught her so off guard she burst out laughing. A much-needed tension release for the pressure cooker of the past few days.
Finally, she quieted and caught her breath. “You’ve been here for months and you don’t know what chicken bog is? Not very observant, are you.”
His grin kicked up higher on one side, pushing a dimple into his tanned cheek. “I guess you’ll have to teach me—”
Skeeter cut the rest of his answer short, leaping up onto all fours and barking his fool head off. The hackles along his spine rose, and he took off running for the front door, ears flapping.
Bailey Rae gripped Martin’s arm. “He only barks at strangers.”
Martin’s shoulders braced, like a soldier on alert, poised for action. “Stay here. Bolt the lock. Call the police.”
He charged across the living room and grabbed his cap. Skeeter raced past her to catch up. The dog threaded the narrow space between Martin and the doorframe before leaping off the porch. The door slammed closed behind them.
She wanted to argue that she wasn’t completely defenseless, but he’d already disappeared into the dark and she really should call 9-1-1.
Except once she did the line rang and rang, only to throw her on hold.
The department was small and understaffed, with a high turnover as people either quit or moved to a bigger city with better pay.
The recording assured her that if she had to hang up, her number would stay on file and the first available operator would respond. She ground her teeth and peeked out the windowpane, watching the bobbing illumination from Martin’s flashlight move farther away.
Then swing around and bobble closer again.
She yanked open the door, cell still clutched in her hand with the inane recording cycling through for the fourth time. “What did you find?”
“Some tire tracks,” he said, his tone tight with frustration, “but whoever it was is long gone.”
The light flipped on inside the Airstream a moment before the door swung wide. Keith poked his head out, his hair sticking up. He jogged down the two steps, shirttails loose. “What’s going on?”
“We heard a noise outside, and Skeeter about lost his mind over whatever it was.” Breathe in the flowers. Blow out the candles. Breathe in the swamp fumes. Blow away the mosquitoes. “Martin found some tracks ...”
Keith scratched a hand along his neck. “Could be a deer ... or one of those wild pigs.”
Martin shook his head, aiming the flashlight beam past the sprawling oaks and toward the path leading into the pines. “Those tracks weren’t made by an animal.”
Bailey Rae walked alongside Martin, with Keith trailing them until she was close enough to see outlines in the soft earth. Footprints, one set of which appeared to be made by work boots, disappeared into the dense pine woods.
Night sounds mocked her overhead—yes, just birds and bugs, but their high pitch jarred the senses—joined by the sound of an engine cranking.
Not a car. But the machinery was distinguishable all the same.
A four-wheeler. The engine caught and revved, then grew softer as someone drove it farther and farther away in the direction of the river.
Keith cursed softly under his breath. “Whoever it was appears to have left.”
For now.
The unspoken two words hung in the air like mosquitoes making their presence known one bloodsucking bite at a time. In the silence that followed, Skeeter returned, panting heavily but calmer now that he’d chased off whoever had been lurking outside.
Martin adjusted his hat. “The best we can do is sit tight and wait for the police to come out so we can file a report.”
Like the reports that had been so beneficial to Gia and Cricket in the past? His words didn’t bring any more reassurance than the recorded message droning through Bailey Rae’s cell phone. And now she had two people depending on her to find answers in her short time remaining in Bent Oak.