Retreat to Woodhaven (The Hills of Burlington Book 2) Read online

  

  Several hours later Mary sat on her front porch swing, letting her feet glide the motion of it gently. Dave had lingered another hour after Court and his aunt had left. In his own way she understood he was as hesitant to leave as she was to let him go. And hadn't wanted this peaceful time away from what he had to return to come to an end. She closed her eyes and listened to the silence. And willed Pete to call her with news...because any news would be better than none.

  His phone call shortly after Dave had left had given her something to think about. Not long after buying the Woodhaven house down the street she'd given Pete a list of the numerous other properties she might be interested in should they happen to come on the market. His call had been about one of them. And one of those special few that required no thought at all. Now if he would only call and let her know what had happened.

  So lost in her wishful dreams and thoughts she didn't hear the footsteps on the walkway or the light thumps climbing the porch steps. Only when the swing shifted slightly with the weight of another person did she open her eyes.

  "Pastor Jackson." Her smile met his. "I came looking for you yesterday." She had wanted so much for her brother to meet him.

  "We were on a short vacation to visit a couple of our kids. Spoil a few of the grandkids to make them unbearable to live with for at least a couple of day after we leave."

  Mary looked into the face of the man who had become more than just her pastor. He had become a friend. A valued friend. "That first time we spoke, when you told me of our family's history, our two families and their connections over the years..."

  "Generations of years," he agreed quietly, watching her almost as if he knew what was to come.

  "How did you know even then I was worried about my younger brother?" She watched him quietly in the dimming light of the slowly setting sun. "I never said a word about it...didn't mention him in any way.'

  "I could tell you it was simply intuition," Jackson answered, his voice soft and thoughtful as it so often was. "And I would be lying. Not completely lying," he corrected gently. "But not completely truthful either."

  Mary waited in silence. It had taken her this long to ask. Now she only wanted to listen.

  "I think you already know." He stared into her eyes. Saw the slightest of reactions. Understood its meaning. "Maybe not the how or why, but I think you know and more importantly accept how I knew." And he understood her quiet patience. Her serene calmness hid a strong resolve and a steady restraint he knew in few others. "Do you ever wonder how some seem to know without any effort how to finish the sentence started by another while others are barely capable of finishing their own." He smiled in response to hers. "How some simply know that something is needed before it is." He tilted his head as if to stretch out a sore neck muscle. "Yet others can't seem to figure out what to do when the most obvious of situations are bearing right down on them." He nodded at her knowing expression. "You understand exactly what I speak of. You understand and more importantly you accept that there is a difference between the two." He shifted slightly from where he sat on the swing beside her and looked out over the neighborhood that was his home. His life. "I'm sure you've heard the old adage about how so and so was at the end of the line when God was handing out brains or something of that nature."

  "Or whatever," Mary agreed. Speaking softly.

  "I wonder if perhaps some of us, no matter where we are in line, are given something extra, not necessarily special because there have been times in my life it certainly didn't seem special by any definition I know of the word, but extra. Something given us long before we're ever born. And that something extra is, well..."

  "A gift," Mary interrupted as he paused for a moment.

  He nodded. "I've often thought of it that way myself." He paused again, gathered his thoughts. "Scientists know without a doubt that humans on the whole use a far smaller percentage of their brain than what is there to make use of. Lord knows that some use even less than that by their own choice." He shook his head sadly, with thoughts of all he'd seen and witnessed over his life. The choices that people made and so often had to live with.

  "Jackson," Mary reached out to him. She understood the difficulty of seeing the suffering of others yet being unable to do a thing to change the course of their lives.

  "Your mother and I once had this same conversation." He laughed at her surprised expression and the joy his laughter brought eased the other more troubling thoughts and memories that had surfaced from out of nowhere. "That got your attention." He sighed, leaned back against the swing's smooth wood slate back. "Actually it was more of a debate. Lord, but did your Mama love a good argument."

  "Yes." Mary was remembering as well. "Aunt Charlie does too, but mostly only when she's certain she's on the winning side of things."

  "Your mother didn't care which side she was on. Winning or losing. She simply loved the discussion. And Lord knows she could argue both sides with the best of them. It used to confuse me just trying to keep up with what she was arguing for and against."

  "It could change in the course of the debate." She laughed. "Sometimes more than once."

  "Yes." And he felt blessed to hear her soft laughter. So much like her mother's. "But back to what we were speaking of. I truly believe some of us get that something extra. Your mother saw it the same way." He paused, his beliefs were strong and not always did they fall within the confines of the beliefs of his church. "I believe that it’s not simply a matter of science but also very much a matter of God and what he provides within us and our acceptance of it. I believe too it’s a matter of faith. Our faith in him and through him...ourselves. It’s difficult to have faith in God if we have no belief in ourselves."

  Mary saw the conflict that waged deep in the man before her. Understood too that there were things that could and should only be resolved by oneself. For now, for her, this was one of them. But she still pressed on what she still struggled to understand. "Did you 'sense' that I was worried about my brother?"

  Jackson looked skyward, an unconscious gesture of many years, searching for the answers from He who held them all on how to explain something he truly didn't completely understand himself. "I didn't read your mind if that’s what you’re asking and there wasn't any loud statement or announcement shouting out from your subconscious. I just knew. It was just there in my mind." He shrugged. And while it had been months ago he could still remember that morning clearly. "It hit me that morning before I ever came to visit with you. It felt stronger as we talked." He took her hands in his. "Mary, I don't always understand it. I don't control it, I don't know if I could if I tried. I never have. I've simply accepted it. If things come to me, they do. If it allows me to help someone...I try to. If I am unable to I grieve for that lost chance to make a difference."

  "Could you control it?" Mary stopped him. "If you wanted to...could you control it?"

  He closed his eyes then answered honestly. "I don't know."

  

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  With his arms full of a mad and mangy cat Jake grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. "Yeah."

  Used to men and how they answered the phone but surprised to hear it coming from Jake, Mary set aside her reason for calling for the moment. "Is something wrong?"

  "I seem to have a cat." As if that explained everything.

  "You seem to?"

  "Since I've spent more time trying to keep it out of the house than I care to, I decided to give it a bath since it looks like it's been living in dung for most of its life."

  "How old is it?" Mary asked while desperately trying without a lot of success to hold back the amusement, knowing it was not what he wanted to hear.

  "Somewhere between a kitten and a cat." He looked at the now rinsed off and angry animal that was giving it back in kind. "I've got scratches everywhere. Damned stray." He set the feline down and was surprised that it just sat there licking itself instead of running off. Worn out, he grabbed a can of the cat food he'd
bought the night before and opened it, then dumped it into one of the bowls he'd picked up at the same time that he’d bought the cat food. Along with everything else a cat would need. He had to be losing his mind.

  "Speaking of strays," Mary began, wanting to get to what she had called him for. And as she spoke she edged over to once again peek out the front window without making herself visible to anyone who might be looking. "Jake, are you there?"

  "Yeah."

  "Have you heard from Beth?" She sensed from the sudden silence she had her answer. Possibly on a couple of counts. "Jake, where are you in the house?"

  His cousin's odd change in subject caught his attention, even as he worried about the very thing she'd asked him. He hadn't heard from Beth and didn't have a clue what to do about it. "In the kitchen." He thought about her earlier comment. "What do you mean about strays?"

  "Go up to the front bedroom." She glanced out the window again. "It's possible Beth may not have responded because she was on her way here." She heard his quick intake of breath. "Whatever you do, don't be obvious when you're looking out the window." She listened to the obvious sounds of his stomping up the steps wondering if he'd taken the ones in the back off the kitchen or the front stairway. "There's a car sitting across the street from your house and just a little to the south. It's some shade of blue, I can't tell from here. But in the past hour or so a woman has gotten out of it three times and never quite made it to your door before turning around and getting back into the car."

  Jake stood a couple of feet back from the window in a position where he knew there was no way he could be seen from anywhere on the street in or out of a car. He easily saw the car Mary spoke of. He could just barely see the outline of someone in the car, sitting right in the driver's seat. But he couldn't tell a thing about them because of the tinted windows. "You think it's her?"

  Mary sighed. It wasn't often any of the men in her family sounded the slightest bit nervous. Childbirth did it to most of them but not much else. But she heard it in Jake now. "It's possible. I can't think of anyone else who might be having a difficult time approaching you." She paused, gave him a moment to think. "Can you?"

  "No, what do you think..."

  "Look!" She interrupted him. "It looks like she's getting out of the car again."

  Jake watched the car door swing open. A young woman was visible in the driver's seat. He knew that face. Lizzie's face. Lizzie's daughter. "Mary." He'd faced down gunfire in just about every hell-hole known to man in this lifetime but was terrified of facing a young woman he'd never met.

  "Just wait. Let's see what she does." Mary watched the slim figure step away from the car and cross the street. Watched her straighten as if calling on every ounce of strength she possessed then just as suddenly let her head drop. Defeat was evident in the way she stood, the way she walked back to the car.

  "Mary?"

  "Go on, get yourself out there right now Jake!" Mary's voice left no room for argument. "She needs someone to take care of her. I think just getting here was about the best she could do." She listened to the phone hit hard wherever her cousin had dropped it. Within moments she saw him walk slowly out of the house, down the walk and across the street to the car that still sat parked where it had been since she first noticed it not much more than an hour before while she sat on her front porch swing. Even now as she watched Jake move she knew he was calling on every bit of discipline she knew he had deep wells of under most circumstances. He wasn't rushing, wasn't walking in that commanding way he had when he chose, but slowly and relaxed. She said a quiet prayer for both of them. Nervous despite herself she watched the car door once again open just as he reached it. Let out a slow deep breath as the woman stood listening to whatever it was Jake was saying. Then when he reached out his hand she was in his arms. Mary could see her slim body shaking all the way from where she stood at her window and her heart broke for everything Jake's daughter had been through. When they turned to walk toward the house she made her way to her kitchen. Brownies. She was going to make brownies and lemonade and by the time both were done it would have given them the time they needed alone before she intruded.

  

  Jake wondered if any battlefield he'd ever sat in, sometimes in the midst of a heartfelt prayer that if his time had come that it be quick...introspective as those moments had been couldn't come close to the terrifying moments of his short walk across the street towards Beth's car. When he'd barely reached the middle of the street the car door opened. He knew as she stood his fear was nothing compared to hers. Her eyes, when they finally met his, were red and puffy. But despite that they were his mother's. "Beth." It wasn't a question. There was no question. But she reminded him of a terrified animal, worn from the battle. Every choice was hers. He smiled, unaware that she saw her own when he did. "I've been watching my email." He held out a hand. "I was worried about you." Then without warning he found his arms full of the young woman who was his daughter. Skin and bones, was his first thought. Not just worn, he realized. Ravaged. When the shakes began he wasn't certain if it was just tears or shock. Either way he needed to get her into the house. A quick glance up the street was all it took for him realize it wasn't all he needed.

  "Come on, let's get you inside." He held her next to him as he led her inside, kicked the door shut with his foot. Headed straight back to the kitchen and thanked every God all around the world that he'd gone shopping the night before. He could tell from the wetness seeping through his shirt where she still had her face buried that the tears still flowed. Getting food into her got bounced down a step as he simply turned her into his arms again and let her cry it out. He thought about Lizzie and Jett. Thought about the situation they'd found themselves in. The senseless actions that led to their violent deaths. And silently promised them, promised Lizzie, as he had silently done numerous times since confirming her death, he'd do as asked. He could do nothing else. Little by little, he felt her calm, felt the sobs slowly dim in strength then almost completely subside. Then he carefully sat her in the chair positioned closest to where she stood. He turned to the kitchen counter behind him and quickly put together his mother's solution to every emotional calamity once they'd reached a certain age. When he turned back around he was shocked to find the mangy cat who not long ago was aiming a claw in the direction of his eyes now purring like a slowly moving train on his daughter's lap. He was even more surprised to see her slowly patting it, running her hand down its newly cleaned fur. And the very feline that had almost taken off a couple of his fingers not an hour ago was calmly sitting there letting her. He shook his head at the sight of it. But if the cat brought some sense of calm to this child of his...he could no longer think of her in any other way...the mangy runt had a home for life.

  "Beth." He sat down in the chair closest to hers. Set the drink down in front of her. "My mother's cure. You'll want to take it slowly." Slid it closer to her and waited for her to take a sip. "Whiskey and coke," he elaborated as her eyes watered, this time from the kick of the strong alcohol. "It's got a punch but it'll help." He watched her take another...this time a much smaller sip.

  "Your mother," she spoke haltingly in a voice that surprised him. It was soft, still rough from the tears but smooth as the whiskey in her drink. "You miss her."

  "All the time." He watched her eyes fill, understood it was a cleansing. A necessary one. He sighed. Then reluctantly admitted. "And sometimes like it was yesterday."

  "I couldn't stay in the house," she didn't look up from the cat. "I didn't know what to do." Her hand slowed its movements along the cat's back. Her thoughts in her eyes, the pain that tightened the skin at the corners of her mouth a testament she was living on nerves alone. Little else drove her. "I didn't know where to go. But I just couldn't stay there any longer."

  "Beth." He waited for her to look up at him. "You can stay here for as long as you need. As long as you want." He saw the confusion, knew he was somehow as much the cause as anything else. Had no idea what to do other th
an wait. And he did.

  "I don't know what to call you," she finally said quietly, her voice choking. She clenched the cat with both hands as if she was afraid she'd lose it otherwise. Jake watched it, afraid it would claw her for its freedom as he had the scratches to prove it capable, shocked when it didn't. Instead sat calmly within her grasp. "I just can't call you Dad," she said in a rush as if it was the most important issue. He realized to her it was.

  "Jake will do fine." He looked at her, understood in times of grief the least suspecting thing could grow to become as important as it wasn't. "My Aunt Charlie calls me Jacob. That would do as well." He watched her take another sip, her hands not quite as shaky. "My brothers, I have no doubt, will tell you what they choose to call me from time to time but I'd rather we skip that." He kept his voice light and was rewarded when the slightest of smiles tempted the corners of her lips.

  "Jake." Beth let the sound of it...the feel of it as she said it calm her. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She shouldn't have gotten herself so worked up over a word. A name. Nothing was as it should be. Nothing would ever be again. She felt the tears that seemed always a moment away threaten.

  "Beth. I'm not going to tell you it will get better." He edged the glass towards her again. "It will." He sighed. Trying to remember the weeks after losing his mother. He'd walked around in a daze. There wasn't much else he remembered. "But it doesn't mean a pickle now. And won't for a good long time." Hearing her say his name had somehow given him the knowledge of what he wanted to say. Needed to have said...known between them. "Your father was my friend." He looked out the window behind them. Remembered that last visit between the three of them. "We sat through a few wars together. Drank some whiskey and coke together." He nodded at the glass in front of her, watched as she slowly took another sip. "He could tell one Hell of a story and Lord only knows how important that was when you felt like you were sitting in the middle of it. But he understood life and the importance of living it because God only knew when and how quickly it all could end." He stood, walked to the refrigerator, needing a drink for himself. "We watched people die. There were a couple of times they were people we knew. People we had to bury ourselves because in the middle of war the enemy will kill you, loot you, they'll step over you..on you...but it is rare indeed that they'll take the time to bury you. Jett once said that it was pretty Godless to hold a war in the name of religion and not bother to bury the dead." He turned around to the young woman who was his daughter. His only child. "I just wanted you to know that I understand. Sometimes titles are just that. Titles. They mean little. And sometimes they mean everything. Your father was one of the best men I knew. I don't know that I could ever step in his shoes. I don't know that anyone could. So when you feel the need to get my attention, Jake will do just fine."