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

  "But that would be a total lie!" Mallie smacked the table in front of her.

  "Honey," Carrie rubbed her niece's shoulder. "These people long ago lost sight of what's fiction and what's not. If they say it, that it's true, it becomes so. Even to them. And if it will serve their cause, they will say whatever they need to." She paused before adding, "Repeatedly."

  "That's not right." Mallie looked to her grandmother first, then around the table at the solemn faces. "Whatever Uncle Jake did was right. He told the truth." But she knew, knew that people did bad things. She'd heard the whispers in the night from her room in the Carriage House when they thought she was sleeping or couldn't hear. She knew her Aunt Carrie was seriously thinking about getting a divorce even though she'd never been told. She'd never been that keen about her uncle, she couldn't think of a single time he'd spoken to her other than answering one of her questions.

  "Okay." Mary spoke quietly. "I think we need to do some real careful planning. Jake obviously wanted to talk with us about this so no doubt he'll have some thoughts on how to handle things. But in the meantime I think we need to do some planning of our own." She looked towards the others at the table for their thoughts.

  "If anyone gets this far Casey will be the first they'll look for." Grace leaned back, her face intent, her thoughts the same. "I don't know your brother," she looked towards Casey. "But I'll assume he came here to let the fireworks fly without him and as such probably went to some lengths to prevent anyone from knowing where he was heading." At Casey's nod she continued. "I think if anyone makes it here, it will because they've figured out Casey's here and she's as good as anyone to lean on for information. I'd bet that your other brothers will be approached as well." She leaned forward, "Do any of them know he's here?"

  "Not from me." Casey replied immediately and looked around the table at her cousins and aunt. Each shook their head or spoke up stating they hadn't said anything either.

  "So you think if anyone finds their way here it will be based on tracking him down through his family and not necessarily because they tracked him here," Carrie asked.

  "I think that's the most likely situation." Grace looked to Casey who nodded her agreement. Of everyone at the table the two of them had the insight and experience to have the best sense of how this might play out.

  "We'll know a lot more once we talk with Jake," Casey added, fighting the strong temptation to drag her brother out of bed where he probably in all likelihood was oblivious to what was going on. No, she thought to herself, he knew exactly what was going on. "I'm going to call Mark's house, even if he isn't home Terry will be. Maybe I can find out something more there."

  As Casey walked out of the room with her phone to her ear Mallie stood to walk to the front window. "I think for the next week or so I should stay at Grandma's old house."

  Mary stood to walk over and stand with her. From where they stood you could almost see the house down the street where even now Jake slept. Or at least she hoped he was sleeping. She wrapped her arm around her young cousin. The daughter of one of Carrie's brothers. He, Carrie, and the other three brothers had grown up in that house they now stared at pensively. She still wasn't certain what possessed her to buy it but was grateful she had. And she understood Mallie's desire. Not just to act as a front for Jake but to spend some time in the home of her father, her grandparents. In many ways similar to her own desire to be in this home that had been the place of her own grandmother.

  "I don't know about that Mallie, we really have no idea where this is going." Carrie worried that her young niece would get caught up in something too big for her to handle. Her years in D.C. as a Senator's wife had taught her there was a lot out there too big to handle, no matter how old you were.

  "I can deal with it." Mallie turned, determination stamped on her young face. "No one's going to be looking for a teenager. And if someone shows up and I answer the door how unexpected would that be?"

  "I think she can do it." Unexpected support came from her grandmother. Mallie and Mary both stared at Charlie in surprise. "Of course," Charlie continued, "it can only be for a couple of weeks. I can't let my best inspiration go for much longer than that." Even then she would miss the girl desperately she thought to herself. They shared the restored Carriage House that stood behind the home she had grown up in down on Marshall Street. And as much as she loved it, that joy came immensely from sharing it with her youngest granddaughter.

  Mary turned towards Grace for an opinion that wouldn't be colored by family ties. She knew it wouldn't be completely unbiased. Mallie worked part time at Grace's store and the friendship between the two had grown strong. Grace had very much become the older sister Mallie had always wanted. "What do you think Grace?"

  Grace sighed, not particularly keen on the idea of weighing in on it. But she understood the practicality of it. Casey's brother couldn't live in a vacuum. Of all of them Mallie was the least likely to stand out. And as a front they couldn't do much better. She breathed deep before speaking. "Personally, I'd rather she not. Practically speaking it has a lot of merit." She looked now at Charlie and Carrie. They all loved Mallie but these two had the closet family ties. "The house is in Mary's name and unless they, whoever they may be, get really lucky or we get really stupid, I just don't think they're going to link that house to Jake. Or Casey," she added slowly. "If it turns out someone does show up and actually tracks Casey or any of you down. We’d probably want to keep our own distance from that house just to be on the safe side." She looked at Mallie. "And if that should actually come to pass you may need to keep your distance from the rest of us as well otherwise you won't be doing Jake any good."

  "I figured that much out." Mallie looked around the room. "In some ways this seems like a crazy adventure. I don't completely understand why this is happening. I think politics and all that is pretty much a big waste of time." She felt the huge tightness lighten when her grandmother and aunt laughed along with everyone else in the room at her statement. "But I've always heard about all these great things Jake has done and all he wants now is to be left alone." She had everyone's attention and knew that more than anyone else in the room she had to convince her Aunt Carrie. She looked directly at her when she continued. "There's not much I can do to help him in any other way but I can do this." She smiled at the look that told her she’d hit a nerve. "I can be pretty obnoxious if I want to and that would probably work pretty darn well if anyone rings the doorbell over there."

  All eyes turned to Casey as she swept back into the kitchen. "We may not have as much to worry about as we thought or at least not for as long as we might have." She announced as she took her place again at the table bringing the cookie jar with her as she passed it.

  "Well, get on with it. Don't just leave us hanging." Her Aunt Charlie urged when Casey dug into the jar for a cookie.

  "Mark wasn't there but I talked with Terry," she paused to swallow. "That's his wife," she explained for those at the table who didn't know. "Unlike most everyone else Mark has assigned some of his people to spend just as much time looking into the stories as others are spending looking for Jake."

  Mallie sat up straighter, still trying to put all of what she was hearing together. "Why?" She asked with the complete candor only those under twenty possessed.

  All eyes turned towards her at the seemingly innocent question. It was Grace who spoke first with the simple answer. "Once any one of his allegations are proven true beyond a shadow of a doubt by someone other than himself..."

  "Especially another reporter." Casey tossed in then nodded again at Grace to continue.

  "Once that happens," Grace spread her hands out in a 'the gigs up' gesture, "any other allegations he makes in the story become more believable...more legitimate I guess you could say in the minds of the average person."

  Casey picked up on her explanation. "Just as those implicated in the scandal want to prove it's all so much garbage Mark knows that the moment Jake's story can be backed up by other research, jo
urnalistic investigation...proof...it takes their power away and more pity for them. Their survival in this Pandora's box that it sounds like Jake has flipped the lid off diminishes significantly in that moment.”

  "Then why doesn't he tell them to spend all their time doing that instead of looking for Jake?" Mallie asked, still not completely clear on what the big deal about finding Jake was.

  Casey tilted her head slightly to one side as if she was considering how to answer. "In part because the minute you tell a reporter not to do something they're going to feel duty bound to do just that."

  "That's just stupid," Mallie responded. "It sounds like some of the ten-year-olds I've babysat."

  "You're not too far off, sweetie," Casey smiled at her, visualizing some of her former co-workers as the ten-year-olds they often were. "Mark's in a sticky place at the moment. I can guarantee at least one person at the network has asked about checking with me, being Jake's sister, which is common knowledge to anyone who has a brain in the business. Knowing Mark the way I do my guess is he pretty much told anyone that did ask to go for it and good luck."

  "Because if he said no they'd spend that much more time on it." Mallie sat forward as she spoke.

  Casey nodded at her. "And because it's also common knowledge that he and Jake have a history." At everyone's surprised look she nodded again. Slowly. "I wouldn't go so far to say they're the best of friends, I don't think Jake's tight with anyone." She saw the fighting ire glow in her aunt's eyes. "Except family," she corrected quickly. "But Jake's careful." She thought about it, thinking back over the years. "A lot like Mark can be."

  "What's their history?" Grace asked, trying to understand how it mattered in this and how it might affect what they could end up dealing with.

  "They worked on some stories together years and years ago." Casey nibbled along the edges of the cookie. "I'm not absolutely certain but I think they met up overseas a couple of times when Jake was working on some of his..." she searched for a way to describe the stories Jake took on back then.

  "Are you talking about when he was writing all those shove it up where the sun don't shine stories?"

  "Where in the world did you hear that, Mallie?" Charlie turned to her granddaughter, astounded not at her language but where she could have heard that reference.

  While the others struggled to keep from laughing Mallie struggled for an answer that wouldn't land her in more hot water. "Uh, well," she looked around the table for help, any help. And got it from the least suspected place. Again.

  "Mom," Carrie caught her mother's eye. "You know as well as I do that that particular terminology has come out of the mouths of almost every male in our entire family. She's probably heard it more than once, probably more than once from the same men. Who's to say who she heard it from first." Especially since she probably heard it most often from her own father, Carrie thought to herself.

  Charlie sighed deeply at the truth of her daughter's words. Jake was indeed often the main topic at many family gatherings. She turned to her granddaughter. She had never been able to fix those situations but she could fix this. "Your cousin Jake is a better man than most. Just because he doesn't feel the need to babble about it all the time doesn't make him less of a person. It simply makes him someone who is secure with who he is. The fact he's not down here telling us all about this story we're talking about this very moment is a perfect example of that."

  Mary took in the solemn expressions around her. Her Aunt Charlie's simple words reminded them all of a basic lesson of human nature. And she more than anyone else at the table was the perfect person to make the point. But they still had this to deal with. "Casey," she waited until she had her cousin's attention again. "Did Terry say anything else?"

  "She did say that at least one of the younger reporters that Mark assigned to look into some of the stuff Jake revealed in his article was getting somewhere but she didn't know the details." She glanced at her watch, she really wanted to read this article herself. When she got back to her room at the Marshall Street house, no...she remembered, she was having dinner with Pete at his place tonight. And if she didn't get a move on she was going to be late. "I have to go soon. I'm having dinner with Pete and the kids." She ignored the knowing smiles that seemed to materialize every time she mentioned the man's name. "Terry said something else."

  "What?" Mary asked.

  "She said 'they' would be seeing me soon. She said she'd been looking online at houses for sale here in Burlington and couldn't wait to see some of them firsthand." She looked at Mary, the only other person in the room to have met Mark. "When she first said it I assumed maybe they were thinking of buying a vacation home here, an investment, I don't know." She splayed her hands out. "But now that I've thought back to how she said it I'm not certain."

  "That's interesting." Carrie spoke this time. She didn't know either Mark or Terry but could certainly understand wanting to get out of the Beltway.

  "It could be really interesting." Casey decided she'd be making another call to Terry later that night or first thing in the morning. And not just to find out what was going on in regards to Jake's situation. She looked around the table. Everyone was quietly lost in their own thoughts. And Lord knew there was a lot to think about. "Listen, I have to go. But I've got my cell with me and you've all got Pete's number. Call me if anything and I mean any little thing comes up with Jake."

  "We will, honey." Charlie shooed her on. "You go have a good time with your young man."

  Casey began to correct her, looked at her aunt, at the expectant faces around the table, and decided it just wasn't worth it.

  Minutes after she left Carrie laid a twenty dollar bill on the table.

  Her mother looked at her and sighed. "You haven't changed a bit. Did you make little side bets with your husband all these years?" She watched the light go out of her daughter's eyes and with it a piece of her heart simply broke apart.

  "Not a single time," Carrie responded. Then softened her tone to her mother knowing it was a sore place for both of them. "But I'm more than willing to take your money, Mom."

  "What are we betting on?" Mary asked. Remembering all the bets made and often lost in the years along the way to adulthood. They'd never been allowed to sit in on the poker games with their fathers and brothers so this had been how they'd played the game for themselves. And truth be told none of them had ever truly enjoyed poker. Not the way the guys seemed to.

  "That Casey finds herself as wife and step-mama before the end of the year." Carrie took a piece of paper from Mary's scratch stack on the counter and carefully wrote out the details of what she'd just outlined.

  "How does this work?" Mallie asked as she watched both her grandmother and Mary place twenty dollar bills on top of her Aunt Carrie's money.

  "We each place our bet on whether we agree with your Aunt's bet, which I do." Mary explained as she added her money to the small but growing stack of bills. "Whoever wins takes the total or splits it up with anyone else who also wins." She smiled at her young cousin as Mallie dug through her pockets for money.

  Grace placed a twenty on the table with the others. "I say it will be after the end of the year." She smiled at the others. "Casey is going to fight this to the bitter end."

  "You betcha," Charlie agreed. "Put me down for the same. That girl has never done things easy."

  Mallie watched her cousin write it all down. Realized as Mary handed her an envelope that this wasn't the first time this had gone on. "What do we do if we win?" She thought about it. "You could actually only win a little more than what you put in."

  "The winner or winners take everyone out to dinner at a place of their choosing." Her Aunt Carrie smiled at her as she explained. "It's all in fun and a good excuse to spend time together at the end."

  Mallie smiled. She loved being here, being with everyone. She slapped her twenty dollars made up of singles and quarters that she'd dug out of her pockets and her purse down with the other bills on the table. "Cool. I say she'll be ma
rried before the end of the year. And I know just where to go to eat when we win." She smiled broadly at her family.

  

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I don't know why but I never put it together that Jake Kyle is your brother." Pete moved around the kitchen, putting small cherry tomatoes on top of the salad he'd set aside earlier. "Have you had a chance to talk with him about any of this yet?"

  Casey looked up from where she was hunched over the laptop he'd set up for her at the table so she could read the report that everyone was talking about while he finished up dinner. The internet had blown up over it. She inwardly shivered at the thought of what was going on with it and Lord only knew what was being speculated about it on the many social networks. "No. Not yet." She looked at the bowl of mashed potatoes sitting in front of her in the middle of the table. She hadn't even noticed when he'd set it down practically right in front of her nose. "Are you sure you don't need any help?"

  "I'm putting the last of it together now. The chicken will be done in a minute or two and it's just coming straight out of the oven to the table so to speak."

  Casey just stared. The man had set her up with a computer with internet access which she could never get at her cousin's place. Without a word he'd listened to her complaints about her brother and how their lives were going to be a mess if the hornet's nest he'd stirred up didn't get resolved quickly. And during all that he'd quietly and efficiently put dinner on the table without a hitch. She forced herself to swallow. She was sunk. For all his seemingly small town ways the man was sharp in ways he never allowed others to see. She could see his mind working even now and waited for his thoughts on the situation. He'd already read the story before knowing her connection to it. She watched while he checked what was sending out heavenly scents from the oven.