Chapter 41 Abilene
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Abilene
Friday
The Pine Valley Trail smells of damp earth and crushed pine needles, the kind of green, breathing quiet that usually settles my thoughts.
Today, it doesn’t, but it softens.
Mara walks beside me with an easy, unbothered stride, boots scuffing the packed dirt like she’s done this a thousand times. She’s wearing sunglasses despite the clouds, hands tucked into her jacket pockets, humming under her breath.
“This trail hasn’t changed much,” she says. “Your mom used to drag me out here even when I complained the whole way.”
I glance at her. “You complained?”
“Oh, constantly,” she says cheerfully. “Bonnie said fresh air was good for my attitude. I said my attitude was fine indoors.”
I smile despite myself.
“This was always my favorite trail,” I say. “I used to race pinecones down that slope up ahead. I was convinced they could hear me cheering.”
Mara laughs, sharp and delighted. “She told me about that. Said you were very competitive for someone who apologized to trees when you bumped into them.”
I wince. “That tracks.”
We pass the bend where the trees thin just enough to let light scatter across the path, and memory comes rushing in. Sticky fingers, scuffed knees, my mother’s laugh echoing through the branches.
“She made everything feel like a game,” I say. “Even chores. Especially chores. She’d sing while we cleaned the hives, made up lyrics about bees unionizing.”
Mara snorts. “She did that as a kid too. Drove our parents insane. She once rewrote the entire school anthem because she thought it was ‘emotionally uninspired.’”
I laugh out loud at that, the sound surprising both of us.
“She always cut sandwiches diagonally,” I say. “Said it made them taste better.”
“That was her hill to die on,” Mara agrees. “She did it with toast too. Claimed symmetry improved morale.”
I shake my head, smiling. “She packed honey sandwiches for hikes. Too much honey. Always dripped everywhere.”
“She never learned moderation,” Mara says fondly. “When she loved something, she went all in. Food. People. Ideas.”
We walk a few steps in comfortable silence before Mara adds, “She was fearless in the strangest ways. Afraid of wide-open spaces, sure, but she’d stand up to anyone if she thought they were being unfair.”
That makes my chest tighten, warm and sharp at once.
“She used to make me stand behind her when she argued with the hardware store guy,” I say. “Like I was backup.”
Mara grins. “She did that with me too. Except I was usually the problem.”
I glance sideways at her. “You?”
“Absolutely,” she says. “Bonnie was the peacemaker. I was the firecracker. She’d calm me down, talk me out of doing something impulsive, then help me do a slightly safer version of it.”
That sounds right. That sounds exactly like my mother.
“She taught me plant names on this trail,” I say. “Quiz style. I always called foxglove fairy bells.”
“She hated foxglove,” Mara replies. “Said it was too pretty for something that could kill you.”
I nod. “Grandma said the same thing.”
Mara’s smile softens at that. “Mom adored her. Said Bonnie had the rare gift of listening without trying to fix.”
That lands quietly between us.
I think of my mother sitting beside me on fallen logs, letting me talk in circles until I found my own answers. Never rushing. Never dismissing.
“She made me feel… held,” I say, the word coming out before I can second-guess it.
Mara exhales slowly. “Yeah. That was Bonnie.”
For a while, we just walk, two people carrying the same woman in different versions of memory. Sister. Mother. Anchor.
It’s comforting.
And confusing.
Because the Bonnie we’re remembering… the warm, laughing, stubborn woman who sang to bees and cut toast diagonally, doesn’t fit neatly with the silences that followed her.
Doesn’t explain the gaps.
“She was different before she married your father,” Mara continues, like she’s commenting on the clouds overhead.
“Lighter. Always sketching, always talking about places she hadn’t seen yet.
She used to tape postcards to her wall. Cities, coastlines, little towns she read about in travel magazines. ”
My chest tightens. “Leaving Colter Creek?”
Mara lets out a quiet breath through her nose.
“Leaving him,” she says, without hesitation.
I stop walking. The trail stretches ahead of us, sun-dappled and indifferent, but my feet refuse to move.
Mara takes two more steps before she notices I’m no longer beside her. She turns, brows lifting slightly, impatient but curious.
“You never liked my father,” I say.
It’s not a question. It’s emotion that’s been rearranging itself in my chest since the moment she walked into my kitchen.
Her mouth presses into a thin line. For a heartbeat, just one, I think she might actually say something unguarded.
Instead, she exhales and motions for me to keep walking, as if forward momentum might blunt the edge of the moment. “That’s complicated.”
“It always is,” I say, but I fall back into step anyway.
“He wasn’t a bad man,” she says carefully, each word chosen like she’s laying stones across a stream. “He worked hard, but he was stubborn. Awkward. Sometimes unpleasant.”
“That doesn’t necessarily sound like a villain,” I say quietly.
“No,” she agrees. “It sounds like a man who shouldn’t have married my sister.”
The words sting.
“She loved him,” I say, because that feels like something I need to defend, that needs to be true.
Mara’s laugh is quick and humorless.
“Bonnie loved a lot of things,” she says. “Ideas. Possibilities. People as they could be, if they just loosened their grip a little.”
“And you?” I ask. “Did you see potential?”
Her jaw tightens, the muscle jumping once. “I didn’t trust him.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes. Somewhere above us, a bird calls.
“She and I used to fight about it,” Mara says finally. “About him. About staying.” She shakes her head, a rueful smile tugging at her mouth. “She thought I was jealous.”
“Were you?” I ask.
Mara snorts. “Of being tied to a ranch and a man who barely looked at her unless she was serving a purpose?” She glances sideways at me. “No.”
That sits heavy between us, uncomfortable and unresolved.
I let it rest, then shift the question before it can turn sharper. “What about Grandma?” I ask. “What was she like… before everything?”
Mara’s expression softens immediately, the defensive edge falling away. “Mom was a force,” she says. “Sharp. Practical. She didn’t suffer fools, but she adored Bonnie.” A faint smile touches her mouth. “She said Bonnie had a way of making people feel seen without asking anything in return.”
That makes my throat ache.
“She taught her the bees,” Mara continues. “Not because she thought Bonnie would stick with it, she didn’t, but because she believed everyone should know how to tend something living. Said it kept you honest.”
That sounds exactly like my grandmother.
“She didn’t approve of your father,” Mara adds, quieter now. “Not at first. Not ever, really.” She hesitates. “But she loved Bonnie enough to stop arguing about it. Mom believed in choosing your battles.”
I think of my grandmother’s hands, guiding mine over a hive frame. Of all the things she never said out loud.
“And after?” I ask.
Mara’s smile fades just a fraction. “After, she held the family together the only way she knew how.”
By not talking about what cracked it in the first place.
We keep walking, the trail curling ahead of us, and I can’t shake the feeling that every answer I get opens two more questions.
And that Mara knows exactly where the edges are, and how not to cross them.
“What about the rivalry?”
Mara’s steps falter, just barely. If I weren’t watching her, if I didn’t know how to read pauses the way I read weather and bees and people who don’t want to be stung, I might’ve missed it.
“What rivalry?” she asks.
The words are smooth. Too smooth.
“The letters,” I say, evenly. “They mention tension. What was it about? Land? Money?”
“Oh,” she says lightly, like I’ve reminded her of a feud between neighbors or a fence line argument. “That old nonsense.”
I wait.
The trail slopes gently downward, pine needles crunching underfoot, and she keeps walking as if she hasn’t just tossed out a word meant to close the subject.
She doesn’t elaborate.
“Mara,” I say, careful but firm, “what nonsense?”
She flicks a hand, dismissive. “Small-town drama. People reading too much into nothing. Your grandmother had land. So did half the valley. That doesn’t make it a conspiracy.”
I swallow. “Did Grandma have money?” I ask. “More than people knew about?”
This time, she stops walking on purpose.
She turns to face me fully, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, eyes sharp now.
“Abilene Kentwood,” she says, like she’s about to correct my posture or my tone, “you’re digging where there’s nothing to find.”
My chest tightens, breath catching in a way I don’t like. “Then why do the letters suggest otherwise?”
Her expression softens immediately. Warm. Indulgent. Like I’ve asked her whether ghosts live in the trees.
“Because people like mystery,” she says gently. “It gives grief a shape. Makes it easier to carry if there’s something to point at.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she agrees easily. “It’s perspective.”
We start walking again, but something between us has shifted. The rhythm’s off now. One of us seems to be stepping out of time.
“So Grandma just…” I hesitate, then push through. “She just kept living? After Mom died?”
Mara’s voice changes. Lowers. Softens even more. “She closed in on herself. Bees, journals, routines. Same walk every morning. Same tea at night.” She pauses. “She didn’t talk about the fire. Or Bonnie. Or the what-ifs.”
I nod. That fits. Too well.
“Did she ever mention anything she was protecting? Anything she hid?”
Mara laughs. Bright, quick, almost musical. It’s the sound she uses when she wants to deflect without appearing defensive.
“Your grandmother hid everything,” she says. “Recipes. Feelings. Spare cash in cookie tins.” She bumps my shoulder lightly. “You inherited that, by the way.”
I don’t smile.
The trail opens onto a small overlook, the valley spilling out below us. Green and scarred and beautiful all at once.
Old fire lines are still visible if you know where to look. Regrowth tangled with memory.
I stop there, gripping the railing, breathing in air that smells of resin and rain.
“Mara,” I say quietly, “do you know who’s been writing to me?”
She steps up beside me, gaze fixed on the view. “No.”
Too fast.
“Do you know what they’re talking about?”
She exhales through her nose. “I know people never let the past rest.”
“That’s still not an answer.”
She turns then, really looks at me. There’s affection there. Undeniable. But beneath it… something else. Calculation, maybe. Or fear.
“You don’t need to know everything,” she says gently. “Some things don’t lead anywhere good.”
I think of the letters. Of how precise they are. Of the way the truth feels folded, not absent.
“I don’t believe that.”
She pats my arm, a familiar, comforting gesture. “You always were stubborn.”
We stand there a moment longer, the wind tugging at my braid, the valley wide and silent beneath us.
I came here hoping for clarity.
Instead, I leave with more questions than I started with, and the growing certainty that whatever my aunt knows, she’s making cautious choices about what not to tell me.
And that scares me more than any anonymous letter ever could.