

## Grandma

## Takes A Lover

### Sue CHAMBLIN Frederick

Other Books by Sue CHAMBLIN Frederick

The Unwilling Spy

Madame Delafloté, Impeccable Spy

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Sue CHAMBLIN Frederick

All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the prior express written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted material in violation of the author's rights.

ISBN: 978-0-9852104-0-3

### Acknowledgments

To my five brothers and sisters who thought my wild imagination was dangerous – see, you guys, I've channeled that imagination into terrific novels.

To Robert (Rob) L. Bacon of "The Perfect Write" who tirelessly contributes his wisdom of the writing world to both published and unpublished authors. His manuscript evaluation and editing are solid gold! You're still the smartest guy I know, Rob.

To Steven W. Johnson, the best layout person in the world and author of _Not Much of a Crime_.

To Brenda Cochrane, Gary Frederick and Iris Whittington for their expert proofing of the manuscript.

visit the author at: http://www.suechamblinfrederick.com

# PART 1
# Prologue

The three angels rejoiced in the arrival of Tuesday, a day they reserved for contemplative discussions about humans, their conversations mischievous beyond description and most assuredly the cause of a big hiccup in the life of Adela Queen Harper, a woman who was as near perfect as one could imagine.

"Leave her alone," said the most assertive of the angels. "Her life is just the way she wants it." The voice boomed like thunder, then settled in confident finality upon the ears of his cloudmates.

From a few feet away, a delicate voice floated from the softness of endless white clouds. "Ah, this is where we differ. I am of the opinion that Adela is in need of...of a man in her life."

"A man? That's the last thing she needs." The sound of a clucking tongue bounced across the sky,

The least wicked of the three shifted his flowing robe. "She wouldn't know what to do with a man."

Another slit-eyed smirk from heaven's most opinionated angel. "You are certainly underestimating Adela Queen Harper!"

Their oratorical debate was interrupted as the heavens stilled and the fire and fury of a passing comet split the sky a few hundred miles away. A sign, perhaps.

A lifting of eyebrows. "It's settled?"

A nodding of three heads. "Yes. Let's see what Adela is made of."A pause in their wickedness. "What about...the man?"

"The man?"

The angels leaned back and looked toward earth, a slight gleam in their eyes. "Ah, yes. The man."

For a few moments, the heavenly assemblage basked in their goodness, filling their hearts with the pleasures of helping an earthly being. They rejoiced in their brilliance, smug in their earthly bequest on this glorious day. But, soon, like a drop of dew falling from a towering tree, a splash of anxiety found itself in the middle of them.

A timid voice. "What about that other thing?"

Two angels turned and looked in the direction of the shy face. "Other thing?"

The cherub chin dipped and his lips smiled. "You know...that other thing." A swath of pink pushed its way across his cheeks.

Three pair of eyes avoided looking at each other, their glances darting across the heavens, into the clouds, at the earth below them and, finally, with a nodding of heads, they came together.

The most direct of the angels spoke.

"Well, it's been quite a long time, you know."

"Yes, for both of them."

# Chapter One

She'd heard he was coming back.

He had moved into the rambling house in the middle of a starless night as winds blew down the mountain and across the lake with unusual fury. Even after three days, the house sat still and dark, without any signs of life.

Her cottage was only a short distance away, a picket fence separating the grand mansion from the austere little house with the tin roof. The fence was more than a fence, its white pickets seemingly lovely and evoking a feeling of peace and serenity. Instead, it was a fence built with anger forty years before by the man who now lay sprawled on the floor inside his grand house, an empty whiskey bottle in his hand.

Across the fence, Adela Queen Harper danced in the rain until the storm passed and left behind a soft hush of caramel-colored sky. Her hair lay matted to her head, rain dripped off her chin and a breeze carried the smell of wet leaves to her nostrils. From across the lake, the loud rattling call of a kingfisher skimmed across the water and broke the silence of dusk.

From the east, a new breeze, riding high across the ocean, brought a melodic sound, like angels singing. Always from the east, it occurred just at nightfall, when Adela looked for Andy in the fading light of day. Had a magic wand really been magic she would have waved it and brought him closer, closer where she could smell him, touch the eyelashes that ran across the velvet of his blue eyes and kiss the sweet curve of his crooked smile.

She lifted her hand and reached out through the wet evening air. _Just one touch_. She brought her hand to her chest, closed her eyes and whispered.

"You left me behind, Andy."

# Chapter Two

Adela

Adela had danced since the beginning of time, a gene so prevalent that when she was only six she asked her daddy to tack metal clips to the soles of her little black patent leather shoes so she could tap her way to school and back. Years later, her legs, long and slim, her feet faster than bullets, she danced on the dock of Nottely Lake under a full summer moon, the fragrance of lavender heavy in the night air.

Dancing wasn't all she did on the dock that night. She met Andy Harper, a tall, lean young man and rather shy. They slow danced until sunrise while the waters of the lake lapped against the pilings and promised the music would last forever.

Andy Harper, known as Tall Andy in the small town of Ivy Log, Georgia, left for the raging war in Europe when he was twenty years old. A serious young man, he doubted he would survive a war in a far-away place where the enemy's stiff-armed salutes hailed Adolf Hitler as if he were a God. Andy was right about that; his casket was carried by a Georgia Central Railroad train whose cars were dark and mournful as they slowed to a stop near midnight on the outskirts of Ivy Log.

The dead soldier's youth had been stolen by misguided men who had begun war simply because they feared the consequences if they did not. Their battles left bodies lying in trenches all across Europe.

Adela Queen Harper, his widow, met the train and stood on the platform with his grieving mother and father. Down the tracks, a dog howled into the night, a sorrowful sound that lifted into the crisp air and raced along with the thin clouds moving east.

"You all right, Adela?" Andy's mother turned and studied the face of the young woman who had captured her son's heart and bore him a child, a daughter, who had his crooked smile and hydrangea blue eyes.

Adela simply nodded. She brought her hands to her eyes and closed out the image of the train and the dark casket that sat on the platform waiting to be loaded into the Chapman Funeral Home's hearse.

Andrew Alpheus Harper was buried in a small cemetery on a hill overlooking a sprawling cotton field that stretched almost to the next county. Adela held her daughter in her arms and remembered her first dance with the boy whose arms she could still feel around her. She felt her chest heave and the heaviness of his death smother her. The casket was lowered and she turned from the mound of dark clay dirt and walked along the rows of cotton where the pods were just popping open. She reached down and broke one off and handed it to her daughter.

"Your daddy will always be in this cotton field, baby girl. You can come and talk to him one day and tell him how much you love him."

# Chapter Three

Adela

Adela's life was just as she wanted it, uncomplicated and absent of any overtones of drama or smears of soap opera mentality.

As a widow, it seemed she was ordained to live under the scrutiny of the citizens of the small town of Ivy Log, a common pastime for folks who lived in a place where the pace of daily life was slow and easy.

In their view, the town sorely lacked the imagined excitement of a big city that festered with the sins expounded so vividly in the pages of the Bible. Had Adela not been a dead-ringer for Rita Hayworth, she would have most certainly shriveled up and faded away in the confines of her lovely two story white house, which sat on the corner of Dellwood and Mayberry Streets. Her life would have faded into a non-descript existence, one that totally lacked any of the hot and fiery stuff that, auspiciously or not, accompanies a beautiful woman.

Ivy Log wasn't Hollywood, yet Adela evolved as the small town's version of a titillating mystery. At any given moment, simmering in the hollows of the Georgia town, the mystery begged to be solved. Why hadn't she married after so many years of widowhood? Had she ever had a lover in the dark upstairs bedroom of her stately Southern home, which sat in imagined secrets under the shade of an old oak?

Proper ladies of the Church of Ivy Log watched her from afar and waited breathlessly for her fall from grace. Surely, they had said with pursed lips, she would visit the tavern on the edge of town and slow dance with some tall man in a plaid shirt from the nearby hills. The man, of course, would have every intention of bedding the beautiful widow Harper.

The mere thought of it fueled the rampant gossip that so devoured Ivy Log and made life worth living for its inhabitants. The church ladies, in their tiny cloth hats with netting across their foreheads, tittered in church and said it would be so. And, they waited, perspiration dotting their upper lips, their pupils dilated in fevered anticipation. _We are never wrong_ , the upstanding members of The Church decreed as they sang _Love Lifted Me_ in perfect key.

To their dismay, Adela had not lived up to the malevolent, less than pious, expectations of the small-minded townsfolk of Ivy Log. She had, instead, remained a Southern lady, raised her daughter without the slightest bit of compunction and had become a grandmother with the highest honor and never, no not once, visited the tavern where _the man in the plaid shirt_ had surely waited for her all these years.

And the ladies of The Church? They desperately wanted to see someone as lovely and pure as Adela Harper falter, submit to temptation and bury herself in the dark and sordid world of sin.

After all these years, in the dusk of an October evening when Canadian geese honked high above the dried and yellowed corn fields, it was possible they would have to wait no longer.

# Chapter Four

Ivy Log

Jasen Hutchinson at the Phillips 66 station sat on a stack of old tires each and every Thursday afternoon just to watch Adela take her customary walk to the library. He liked the red in her hair, her bare shoulders when she wore a sundress and, best of all, the way her long legs found the sidewalk with a dancer's ease.

"Hey, Adela." Jasen tipped his red cap emblazoned with "Phillips 66" and grinned as wide as the Missouri River.

"Hi, Jasen. How's your mama?"

"Doing well, thank you. She's been home from the hospital for a week and been going like crazy."

Adela slowed her step. "That's good. Tell her I'll bring her a cake tomorrow."

Jasen jerked his head around. "A lemon pudding cake?"

"That's right."

"I'll call her right now." Jasen watched the slender back of Ivy Log's most beautiful woman as she continued down the sidewalk. He had loved her since the sixth grade and reluctantly saw her marry Andy Harper when she was only eighteen. He shook his head and smiled as he thought of her in a one-piece sky-blue bathing suit swimming in the cool waters of Nottely Lake. He suspected she looked just as good today as she had then. He threw his cap across the asphalt of the service station and watched as it landed in a puddle of oil and grease. He had never even kissed her.

Ivy Log's library harbored cherished pages of history that heralded the one-hundred-fifty-year-old town and its propensity to pride itself as the home of some of the South's most treasured sons and daughters of the Confederacy. Though not recorded in the history books, it was rumored that General Sherman himself had galloped through Ivy Log, leaving behind his young, handsome Aide-de-Camp, L. M. Dayton, who swept a lovely town girl onto his saddle, rode off with her, her bonnet tossed to the ground, her skirt billowing in the wind. She returned three days later, her reputation somewhat compromised, but a beguiling smile on her soft, rose-petal pink lips.

Ivy Log's citizens were just about as old as the town, their rocking chairs painted pristine white and sitting on porches that had once held young lovers who stole kisses, whose nervous young boys had touched a girl's soft breast while a half moon filtered light through the trees and exposed the joys of youth.

Adela climbed the ten steps of the Federal-style building and pushed open heavy doors that hadn't been painted for years. The smell of old books hung in the air and made one think of old men wearing unwashed shirts and crumbs in their beards.

The stale air was joined to memories like sandspurs to cotton socks and reminded Adela of the abandoned house in a cornfield where she and Andy had shed their clothes and explored their bodies for the first time. Her eyes glazed over and the sound of corn stalks blowing in the wind lifted her chin and titled her head to where she could almost touch the memory.

"Mom!"

Adela looked up and saw her daughter standing on a balcony overlooking the main floor of the library. Behind her, books were stacked to the ceiling, her blond hair contrasting with the dark colors of their spines.

Adela smiled and saw Andy in the face of her daughter, the same look of wonder coming from eyes that danced with light. "Hello! Come down and I'll give you a hug!"

Adela's daughter, Daly, rounded the curve of the stairs and followed the steps down to the hard wooden floors that ran in wide planks across the sprawling expanse of the library. Her body was tall and lean like her father's, her eyes ever watching.

"Good to see you, Mom."

"Wanted to see you before I leave early in the morning. Where's my granddaughter? I'd like to see her before I go."

"She just ran home to change clothes. Another practice at church."

"Who's directing?"

"John Carter." Daly rolled her eyes. "With the aid of Paula Jennings, of course."

"But, of course. Nothing happens at The Church that Paula doesn't have her fingers in it."

"Don't forget. You've got to come back next Saturday for the performance. Just one night, Mom."

"Wouldn't miss it. Saturday night?"

Daly wiped her hands and nodded. Then, eyed her mother. "How long will you be away this time?"

Adela heard the anxiousness in Daly's voice. "Oh, a few weeks."

"A few weeks? Why so long?"

Adela smiled. "I have a lot of reading to do."

Daly nodded slowly. "Rules still the same?"

The air in the library seemed to thicken. "Still the same."

"You're such a recluse, mom. Why can't we come see you out there? What's the big deal?"

"No big deal. I just want to be alone."

Daly's voice rose. "You do this every year. After all this time, you still can't handle dad's death. It's like some kind of ritual. Go to the lake. Cry. Come home. And then do it again the next year." She shook her head. "I just don't get it."

Adela looked out through the tall library windows, then back to her daughter. "You don't have to get it. I'm the one who needs to get it." There was no anger in her words, only softness, a plea for understanding.

"I know. I know. It's just...I want you to be happy."

"I am happy." Adela reached out and touched Daly's cheek. "Tell Charlotte bye for me and that her grandmother loves her. I'll see you Saturday night."

From the doorway, she turned. "I'll be okay. What in the world could happen to me?"

# Chapter Five

Adela

The grass lay with the wetness of early morning dew and shimmered as though singing. The blades were high for October, no frost yet as summer had lingered and kept the days warm with a teasing promise that it would last forever.

Adela followed the long, rutted lane to the lake house as if it were a secret passageway leading to some extraordinary discovery. She caught the glimmer of morning sun on the tin roof of the weathered cottage and eased the car to her right where the road took her to a stand of Georgia pines and red maples. Beyond the trees, the lake spread like the blue pallet of Van Gogh, the colors soaring up and meeting the brilliance of the clear October sky.

_I'm here, Andy._ Adela parked the car and walked down to the lake's edge. If time had stood still, she would be wearing white shorts, a pink shirt with tiny white flowers and no shoes. Beside her, Andy's long legs would be stretched out, almost touching the water and the remnants of Spam sandwiches and cookies scattered on the lake's edge.

"What time does the train leave?" she asked, a tremor in her voice.

"Early. Before daylight."

"Can't believe this is happening. Why do we have to fight a war that's so far away?"

"Got to. If we don't, the Germans will take over the world and that includes us. Why, they'd march up these mountains so quick, we wouldn't have time to load our guns."

"They don't need to take the boys from Ivy Log."

"Boys? I'm a man, Adela." He looked at her, a gleam in his eye. "I think I proved that the other night, didn't I?"

Adela smiled, a soft pink glow creeping from her hairline across her face. "Stop, Andy. You know we shouldn't have."

"Why? We love each other too much." He reached over and pulled on a lock of her hair. "Glad we did, though. I'll be leaving in the morning for God knows how long."

Adela leaned back into Andy's arms. "Come back to me, Andy. You have to come back."

# Chapter Six

Adela

The western sky paled to darkness and the color of the lake melted from blue to black. Adela walked through the tall grass to the picket fence where a two-story, rambling house lay only a few yards across a field. She had heard the gossip. Frank Carberry, one of Ivy Log's pioneer families, had returned after forty years.

Rampant speculation had decreed him unapproachable, a mean-spirited persona that kept even the most brave away from his mountain hide-away. Adela had also heard that a mountain-man eccentricity had shaped Frank Carberry's life, a stubbornness that had enabled him to survive the war and return to the small town in Georgia where he began his life sixty-seven years earlier. That same obstinacy scorned the doctors who wanted to remove the cataracts that clouded his vision. Frank was not an easy man. The gossip said he sat quietly, nearly blind, and waited as the world passed him by.

Adela leaned on the fence that separated the two houses. The fact that she was naked was of no concern to her. Her neighbor couldn't see a thing.

# Chapter Seven

Frank

Across the field, Frank Carberry's house sat in dismal darkness. The trees that surrounded the house seemed to smother it, letting no one in or out. Perhaps that was the way Frank wanted it. The definition of a recluse was someone who led a secluded or solitary life and, in Frank's case, he was a classic example.

Frank's withdrawal from society was also one of Ivy Log's delicious subjects of tittle-tattle that so absorbed the town. Some thought him mentally ill, perhaps he was someone who snuck out at night and howled at the moon. Andrew Morris swore he saw Frank running naked through a cornfield at midnight, flying a kite, and his dog, Cootie, following behind and chasing his bare butt.

As rumors go, however, nothing compared to Paula Jennings's claim that Frank harbored a harem of women inside his lake house, each one pleasuring him at the crook of his finger.

Who were those women someone asked Paula. Well, I haven't seen Melda Simpson for a few days, she had replied with certainty. Malicious, totally malicious. But, Paula was never wrong about anything. Just ask the women who trailed after her and supported her claims with the utmost credibility. After all, they were all members of The Church, sang in perfect harmony and smiled at each other in their smug little way. Prunes for lips, when _Standing on the Promises_ hit a high E, they could hardly open their prim little mouths.

Truth be told, no one really knew exactly the going's on in the Carberry house. The gate at the beginning of the lane was always locked, a sign saying "Keep Out" posted squarely in the middle of the road.

# Chapter Eight

Adela

It was 11:30 when Adela turned out the lights and sat on the screened porch in an old glider that had belonged to her grandmother. From inside the lake house, the sounds of Glenn Miller's _Moonlight Serenade_ drifted out from an old 33 record. When "Little Brown Jug" began, Adela tapped her foot and smiled. A vision of Andy's long legs dancing the East Coast Swing on the swaying dock filled her head and left her gasping for breath.

Adela left the porch and found the feather mattress that held memories of Andy, her first and only love. She slid beneath the cover and whispered. "Andy, I had fun dancing with you tonight."

# Chapter Nine

Adela

The sunrise and the sounds of singing birds pushed open Adela's eyes. "Coffee," she said as the cover flew off and she padded to the stove. "Ah, delicious."

On the front porch, she watched as a hawk circled and screeched above the lake house. From the soaring hawk, her eyes caught a piece of paper stuck in her screened door. A note from her neighbor.

" _Your consideration as a neighbor leaves a lot to be desired. The sounds of Glenn Miller's music shattered my hearing as well as my evening, causing a giant headache for which even bourbon did nothing to diminish. I did not call the police simply because I don't have a phone. I will, however, get out my 12 gauge and fire it above your house should you be so discourteous in the future."_

Franklin D. Carberry,

Major General,

_U.S. Army, Retired_.

Adela looked across the picket fence to Frank Carberry's house. The near perfect woman from Ivy Log narrowed her eyes and whispered, "You son of a bitch."

# Chapter Ten

Ivy Log

The ladies of the church would have shouted with glee had they heard Adela's foul words ring across the lake and into the hills of north Georgia. A crack in the armor of Adela Harper, Paula Jennings would say to the members of her Sunday school class. The prim ladies would all nod their heads in agreement and then, while eating Sunday dinner at the Boarding House Restaurant, pray for the woman who, in their estimation, was surely going to hell.

# Chapter Eleven

Frank

Major General Franklin D. Carberry, U. S. Army, Retired, would have disappointed the Ivy Log gossip mongers who worked tirelessly gathering the fuel needed to keep their rumor fires burning during the long, lazy days of a fading Georgia summer. Had they known the truth about the tall, lanky sixty-seven year old former soldier, perhaps they would have steered clear of the intense man who, in October 1944, as a lieutenant fresh from West Point, had fought during the liberation of the Philippines and sliced a man in two with a shin-unto sword he had captured from an Imperial Japanese officer.

Frank's burning blue eyes could turn someone into a melted pile of skin and bones with nary a word. The stiffness of his jaw rarely softened when, in rare moments, he teased a hesitant smile from the lines of his hardened mouth. His stoic face did nothing to reveal what his lightning brain was thinking. If his eyes narrowed and turned dark, it was too late.

Everything about the retired major general was disciplined. From the moment his feet found the floor in the early mornings until his last glass of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon in the evening, his day was measured in agonizing predictability and revealed no evidence of serendipity coursing through his ice-water veins.

Frank worked on his second bourbon and pulled open his desk drawer and removed a large, round magnifying glass. "Hell and damnation," he muttered, as he slid the glass across a letter from his son dated three weeks earlier.

" _Dad, if you don't have the cataracts removed within the next thirty days, I will personally come to the lake and tie you up and carry you to Dr. Anderson's."_

Frank looked at the letter's date. September 7, 1987. Today's date was September 28. He knew his son well enough to know he meant what he said, never mind that he was four thousand miles away in Alaska. Nonetheless, the rigid ex-soldier didn't like someone telling him what to do. And, his forty-four year old son was doing just that.

"Damn," he said, as he poured another drink and looked, with less than perfect vision, toward the lake, where the setting sun had left a dim smudge of gray-orange light along the tops of the trees.

He had asked himself many times why he didn't want John Anderson messing with his eyes. Never came up with an answer. Perhaps he was what everyone had said – stubborn – never mind foolish and totally inflexible. He'd have to have the surgery sooner or later. He had chosen later. And, now it was later. He could hardly see the lake, even in bright daylight.

He walked to the porch and sat in a rocker that had belonged to his grandfather, the man who, at one time, owned eight hundred acres surrounding the lake, the man who had left his only grandson three and a half miles of shoreline on one of the most beautiful lakes in north Georgia.

Frank leaned back and sipped his drink only to have the evening explode with sounds of a Glenn Miller tune that shook the pine needles from the trees, rippled the waters of the lake and assaulted his ears. He jumped from the rocker, spilling his drink and cursing as though he had stepped on a prickly cactus.

"That damn Harper woman!" From the porch, he half stumbled down the steps and into the yard. Darkness and poor vision kept him from moving forward, but it didn't keep him from shaking his fist in the air. Frank Carberry was a bitter man – so bitter he didn't want a woman within ten miles of him.

# Chapter Twelve

Adela

Adela read the note again. _Major General Franklin D. Carberry, U. S. Army, Retired_. She wondered if the 'D' stood for 'deranged.' And another thing – who in the world would not like music by Glenn Miller? She paused. _A bastard would not like music by Glenn Miller_. She looked across the picket fence and, as usual, saw no sign of life, no sounds, no movement. Just a house that held a recluse who seemingly thrived on depriving others of happiness.

Twelve gauge or not, she would play Glenn Miller until the cows came home. Or, at least, until she figured out how far the pellets of a 12 gauge traveled. She could call his bluff, turn the volume up a notch and wait. She felt a slow wickedness creep up her spine, a flare of rebelliousness that caused her heart rate to quicken; a voice that said: _I will not abandon you, Glenn Miller_.

From the lake, the honking sounds of newly arrived Canadian geese filled the morning air as they glided across the lake's surface. Adela slipped on her shoes and left the porch steps and walked to the path that led to the lake. The hem of her short gown fluttered in the morning breeze, her tangled hair blew around her face. She reached up and twisted it into a knot on top of her head.

The path, used by animals and well worn, meandered through the trees for about a hundred yards until it ended at the lake's edge, where the cool waters of Nottely Lake carried the reflection of the sky along with clouds that raced east toward the ocean.

Adela jumped when a fish sailed through the air and plopped noisily into the water only a few feet away, her gaze following the ripples of the water until they ended in the wet soil. Ended on the shore where a shoe lay, half covered with leaves and dirt, its toe pointing to an overhanging limb of the oak tree above.

A leg was attached to the shoe.

The air stilled as Adela leaned forward, her eyes running from the tip of the shoe, up the mud-covered leg and to the man whose arm was flung over his face, his right hand wrapped around an empty glass, his mouth grimaced into a hard line of determination.

Was he breathing? She stepped closer and studied his shirtless, tanned chest, then saw a soft rise and fall of his ribcage. Almost like a baby, he whimpered, then slapped at a fly that flickered around his face. Adela stepped back and was about to walk away when one eye popped open.

"I smelled your perfume."

"Perfume...?"

"You heard me. Are you deaf? Your perfume woke me."

Adela looked down her nose at her neighbor. "Sir, do you usually sleep outside by the lake?"

"Sir? You may refer to me as Major General Carberry." He sat up. "I sleep where I want to."

"In the mud? With flies crawling over you?"

He raised his voice. "If I want to."

Adela lifted an eyebrow and studied the stubble of beard on Frank's face. She noticed his eyes never found hers, instead wandered past and around her, not quite focusing.

"Let me get this straight. You actually wanted to sleep in the cold night air, in dirt and leaves with bugs crawling all over you?" She laughed and shook her head. "Well, I'll leave you in your cozy little bed and return to my mudless, flyless cottage."

She turned and started down the path. "Anything to ensure we get along," she said over her shoulder as she walked away.

He yelled after her. "Get along? I assure you I have no intention of _getting along_."

Adela shrugged without turning around. "But, of course. I see you are living up to your reputation." She continued down the path, oblivious that the short gown she wore was quite sheer and her long legs created an image of endless grace along with a good dose of sensuality. No worries. The old goat couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

"Wait!" The ex-soldier's commanding voice boomed down the path toward Adela. "Had your grandmother not had an illicit affair with my grandfather, you would never have set foot on this property."

Adela felt the breeze suddenly turn hot, beads of perspiration finding her forehead and upper lip. No longer was she in the soft cocoon of a fading summer where she found memories of Andy. Instead, she found herself spinning around and confronting the man whose grandfather had loved her grandmother like Sir Lancelot had loved Guinevere, like Rhett had loved Scarlett.

She realized she was slipping into a place so profoundly foreign to her that she faltered, stuttered. Then, like a crazed, rabid animal, covered the ten yards to where Frank Carberry sat, smeared with mud and a twisted smile on his lips. Words flew across her tongue like bullets.

"Illicit love affair? Is that what you call it? Two people who found each other late in life and made the most of it?"

"Ha! It was your grandmother who made the most of it, my dear lady." Frank puffed himself up. "Got twenty acres of prime lake property and a cottage for taking off her clothes."

He rose halfway from his bed on the ground, his hand reaching out to the tree trunk and pushing himself to a standing position. He bumped his head on the low limb above him and cursed. "Damn." He looked like a swamp monster as leaves and dirt fell from his legs and arms. His short gray hair lay matted and full of debris.

Adela stepped closer. "What a cynic you are, _Major General_ ," she said, her voice low and simmering. "Did it ever occur to you that our grandparents might have loved each other?"

Frank raised himself up to his full six feet, two inches and took a deep breath. "Loved each other? The only thing your grandmother loved was his money." His grin was triumphant, surly, bordering on a snarl.

Adela deliberated a moment. The sun warmed her back while she swept her eyes across the lake and remembered her grandmother. She had been told she looked like her, tall, hair that carried the hues of a sugar maple turning color in the fall. Innocent, like Guinevere; devilish like Scarlett. A woman who loved her man with a quiet passion.

She raised her chin and found the cloudy eyes of Frank Carberry. She refused to call him _Major General_.

"I dare say, Mr. Carberry, your insight into our grandparent's relationship is tainted with an absence of character, akin to a man who lacks a heart."

She continued in an almost melodic oration as she tilted her head toward him. "Please do continue to wallow in your world of cynicism as it is quite obvious to me that you are incapable of feelings."

Adela found the path once more, then turned abruptly to face her disheveled neighbor. "I do believe you are on my property. Would you like for me to use _my_ twelve gauge?"

# Chapter Thirteen

Frank

Frank watched Adela Harper leave the lake's edge and walk the path toward her cottage. Her image faded into a smear of gray white as his eyes struggled to focus on the woman who had just threatened him with her shotgun.

Whether she owned a gun or not, it was clear she was just as resolute to keep him off her property as he was to keep her off his. It was a Hatfield and McCoy standoff in his estimation. The feud just found a new name: Carberry and Harper.

He felt his way around the trunk of the large oak tree and tried to get his bearings. His midnight trudge to the Harper house had been carefully planned. It was the extra glass of bourbon that had thwarted his attempt to sneak to her porch and place a threatening ultimatum on her door. Placing the note had been successful. It was the slog back home that went awry.

Too drunk to climb the picket fence, he had followed it down to the water's edge, only to fall into a clump of dog fennels and briars. He didn't plan on the woman finding him in such a precarious position. But, find him she did.

Not only that, she unleashed some not too nice words about his character that left him highly irritable and contemplating a dignified retort. _Dignified retort?_ No, no. He had it all wrong. There would be no dignified retort. There would be a good old-fashioned kick in the ass.

Frank followed the fence to the field in front of his house, then walked through the high grass to an old tobacco shed where he stripped his clothes and washed off with a water hose. In a defiant gesture to his neighbor, he leaned over and shot his butt into the air. "Take that!"

From the shed, he went into the house and slipped on a pair of pants, made coffee and returned to the front porch. From the porch, he heard the rumbling sound of a motor and Wiley Hanson, long-standing citizen of the mountains surrounding Ivy Log, gambler, moonshiner, tobacco-chewing son-of-a–gun who played a banjo like Charlie McCoy and sang like a castrated pig.

"Hey, captin'," Wiley called, stepping down from his truck and placing a hat on his head.

"It's Major General, Wiley. How many times do I have to remind you of that?" Frank sipped his coffee and frowned. He had known Wiley Hanson since grade school.

"Oh, that's right. I keep forgettin' about that, captin." He spat across the grass. "Welcome home. Been how many years?"

"Doesn't matter. Not long enough."

"Now why'd you say that, captin? You've been sorely missed around this place."

"Don't think so, Wiley."

"Where's ole Cootie?"

"That dog ran off chasing a rabbit yesterday. Haven't seen him since."

Wiley pulled off his cap and scratched his head. "Tell me something, captin. What's it like comin' back after all this time?"

Forty years was a long time. The military had sent him everywhere but Ivy Log. Had put him on airplanes that went to places unnamed, unknown and unprotected. He was a no-name military man whose mission was 100% incognito nine out of ten times. But, that was okay. He liked the savage truth of his own mortality. He'd take it all like a man. Hard, ruthless and...and, like the Harper woman had said, totally without heart. That was the way it was meant to be. Destiny – that was the word.

Frank growled at Wiley. "Coming back to this hell hole? Doesn't please me at all, Wiley."

"You here to stay this time?" Wiley squinted into the sun and slicked his hand across his mouth.

"No choice. Blind as a bat. Got to settle somewhere." His words were empty, no semblance of concern – just total acceptance of what life had dished out for him.

"Blind? You ain't blind, captin. Ethel Morris told me all's you need to do is get those cataracts removed and you'll be good as new."

"Is that what she told you? Gossip, Wiley. Gossip. Can't stand those people who think they know everything."

"Well, I don't consider it gossip, captin. Ethel Morris' been working for Doc Anderson for twenty-five years. If she says it, it's the truth."

Frank turned his head slightly to the right, finding Wiley's profile sharper. "Wiley, are you here to gossip or mow my grass?"

Wiley bobbed his head. "I reckon I'll mow your grass. This'll be the last time before next spring."

"Well, get busy. I heard rain was moving in again later this afternoon."

"Yep," he said. "When I finish here, I'll go over and mow for Miss Adela."

"That old widow?"

Wiley smiled and pushed his hat back. "Old? Too bad you got them cataracts, captin. That _old widow_ is one good lookin' woman."

Wiley unloaded his tractor and parked his truck under a shade tree. Across the yard, Frank sat on his porch and rocked..

The captin looks awful, thought Wiley. All scratched up. Hasn't shaved in days. The rumors about Frank Carberry returning to Ivy Log had been circling for years. No one really knew where he'd been, what he'd been doing. Just knew it was all secret government stuff. They also knew that one day he'd return to his grandfather's land – land that the old man had referred to as paradise.

_Carberry's Paradise_ were the words chiseled out of the plank above the gate leading into the sprawling eight hundred acres – make that eight hundred less twenty. Only it seemed like it wasn't paradise to Frank Carberry. It was more like hell.

# Chapter Fourteen

Adela

The Georgia fall teetered between a molasses-slow summer and a cut-throat winter that snuck in and caught one without a wood pile. It skipped back and forth between warm and cool, hot and cold, all depending on the Canadian air that moved on a whim from north to south, then west to east.

Riding on rushes of air that swooped down through the hills of Georgia, fireflies came and played hide and seek with each other. A blink here, a blink there, until they found each other and agreed to make love. Adela wished it could be that simple. A blink here, a blink there and there would be love.

The back porch door slammed behind her as she found the comfort of her small cottage. She flung her gown across the bedroom and searched for a pair of jeans.

Her encounter with Frank Carberry had left her angry. It was difficult to understand his perspective of the relationship between their grandparents. It was obviously skewed, warped by his cynical view of life in general. Maybe that was the way hardened, war-time soldiers thought – no comprehension of a loving relationship. It seemed the ex-soldier was far removed from the whisper of loving words or a secret rendezvous with a woman who adored him. Or, maybe not.

The sound of Wiley's tractor rumbled through the screens and onto the porch. Adela knew he'd want a glass of tea and pulled a tall Mason jar from the cabinet, filled it with ice and headed for the back porch just in time to see him jump down from his tractor and walk up the steps.

"Right on schedule, Miss Adela. Did you put some lemon in there?" Wiley removed his hat and revealed a shiny, bald head that was the color of a speckled chicken egg. His eyes danced with mischief, a perpetual smile stretched against his less than perfect teeth. They walked into the kitchen where Wiley pulled out a chair and pushed his long legs onto the yellow linoleum floor.

"There's lemon, Wiley. Hungry?"

"What you got?"

"Not too much. Just arrived yesterday so I haven't cooked a thing. How about some toast and jelly?"

"That'll work." The mountain man drank long and noisily and sat his jar down with a thump. "Don't you get lonesome out here?"

"Never. I like the quiet."

"Nobody ever comes to see you?"

"Not allowed. I keep the gate locked anyway."

"You don't even have a phone, do you?"

"Don't need one."

"So what do you do?"

Adela smiled. "Read, mostly. Walk down to the lake. Fish."

Wiley was quiet for a while. "You been coming down here ever since I can remember. Well, ever since Andy died."

Adela nodded.

Wiley refilled his jar. "You know what really gets me, Miss Adela?"

Adela said nothing as she put toast in the toaster and waited for the long-winded monologue that Wiley carried with him everywhere. He had opinions on everything and he expressed them in a sing-song style reminiscent of those who had lived in remote areas of the mountains their entire lives. They came to the foothills only occasionally. Wiley was a farrier by trade, but he and those who came before him in the Hanson family had cared for the Carberry place for as long as she could remember.

There was one more thing about Wiley Hanson. He was a head-bobber. In conversation, every third word or so was accompanied by a quick bob of his head. Some would say it was an affliction, a tic. Learned or genetically endowed, if you saw a head bobbing, it was a Hanson. His head resembled a fishing cork that bobbed repeatedly as the bait was nibbled by a hungry brim.

Adela sat across from him, noticing his Adam's apple seemed to prime up and down like a hand pump handle just before he spoke.

"That Frank Carberry – now there's a funny bird," he said. He scooted his chair closer to the table and leaned forward.

"Now, I ain't gossipin' or nuthin', but it seems to me that man has some secrets. "hat's right. Secrets." Wiley's head bobbed, his neck finally sinking down into his shoulders as if to rest. A turtle. A mountain turtle that roamed the green hills, stopping to have lively conversations with anyone who would listen.

Adela sipped her tea. She felt Frank Carberry was nothing more than an eccentric who wanted to be left alone in his misery. Unfortunately, Adela was only a few hundred feet from the man's misery, across a picket fence and past a few maples. No matter how close he was, she intended to spend her few weeks at the lake ignoring him.

"Secrets? I have no idea what you're talking about, Wiley."

Again, a bob. "Miss Adela, that man is hiding something."

Wiley's eyes stretched into large round globes, the brown of his iris floating in a sea of white. Adela almost laughed at the intensity with which he stated what he believed to be the truth. Then, again, Wiley was an instinctive man. He traveled the mountains with an eye for intrigue. Curious, he did not miss much.

"Who cares? I don't." She buttered Wiley's toast and reached for the peach jam she had made the previous summer.

Wiley ducked his head. "He ain't no ordinary man. That's all I got to say. I just feel it in my bones."

"Wiley, ordinary or not, Mr. Carberry is a private person, with no interest in me or you or anyone else in Ivy Log. Let it go."

Wiley shook his head. "Wish you coulda seen him 'while ago. He cain't see nothin'. His eyes done clouded over into cotton balls."

"Wiley!" Adela placed his toast in front of him. "Eat!"

Wiley bobbed his head. "Yes, mam." Then, slowly, his eyes shifted up. "Miss Adela," he said quietly. "You reckon the captin' is dying?"

Adela jumped from her chair in frustration. "Dying?" She threw the dishtowel across the kitchen and glared at Wiley. "Who cares?"

# Chapter Fifteen

Adela

Her eyes were brown with green and gold flecks that seemed to shift when she blinked. Her Rita Hayworth looks were obvious at an early age. Just ask her grandmother who sewed dresses for her on her Singer pedal sewing machine. "More lace, more lace!" Adela had instructed. Her legs outgrew her torso, dancer's legs that could not be stilled when the notes of Glenn Miller's _In The Mood_ found her on the front porch of her grandmother's house, taps on her shoes, her hair flying as she boogied late into the night.

Adela waved at Wiley and watched while he bobbed his head one last time and drove his truck down the lane to the paved road that would take him back to Chestnut Knob deep in the Cherokee Valley. "Don't forget to lock the gate," she yelled.

The October sun warmed the lake as though it was summer, forgetting that snow was surely on its way and would cover the nearby mountains to remind one that time moved on, that there was no stopping of the seasons whether you had enough fire wood or not.

The widow from Ivy Log found solace in the sound of water lapping the pilings that held the weathered planks of the old fishing dock. Her walk down the path to the lake was more than a walk. It was a passage into a sanctuary – a sanctuary in her heart where she found herself whole, complete, not wanting or needing anything but the moment.

She threw a towel across a railing and slipped out of her top and cotton pants. The sun warmed her skin as she walked naked to the edge of the dock, dove in and swam about twenty yards and turned around. She floated on her back, eyes closed, a smile on her lips. _I'm here, Andy_.

# Chapter Sixteen

Frank

Frank Carberry's house had been built by his grandfather long before the damming of the Nottely River. The river began its winding journey high in the Blue Ridge Mountains where the Muskogean Indians had lived in relative seclusion until white settlers uprooted them and banished them to Oklahoma early in the 19th century. Once dammed, the river formed numerous lakes in Georgia, where folks like Frank Carberry hoarded their large parcels of land and dared civilization to erode into their privileged paradise.

Frank might have been nearly blind, but he heard the splash when Adela hit the waters of the lake only a hundred yards away. Too big of a splash for a fish, he thought, as he left his front porch and found his way to the maples that lined the edge of the woods.

His altercation with the Harper woman earlier that morning had, without a doubt, riled him. As rigid as he was, he contemplated the source of his anger, his rise to unbridled confrontation. It was nothing she had specifically done other than infringe upon his space. He wanted to close out the world and its insanities. War had taught him many things. Sadly, he had become a hardened man, someone who seemed to be built of stone, with no softness around the edges.

It was possible his whiskey brought him the softness he needed. But, too much of the smooth drink made him think of the past, a past that was so cursed that the bottle was emptied well before midnight. The whiskey had squeezed him mercilessly, lathered him until all he wanted was more.

He squinted into the sun and cursed his lack of sight. When he moved forward toward the lake, he used the trunks of the trees to guide him, his hands touching rough bark along with soft moss that felt like the hair of a calf's ear.

Only yards away from the lake, he heard singing, words that lifted into the early October air and floated through the trees. The widow, of course. He tilted his head and saw the smudged outline of the dock and the woman who stretched across it.

Again, he smelled her perfume. French? Yes, French. He remembered well his time in Paris after the Nazis had fled. The Parisian women had loved their perfumes, their silk stockings and red lipstick. And, Frank Carberry had delighted in all of them.

But, that was long ago. At least forty years. He was young and had smeared his young soul with thoughts of love. He had even written a poem to a dark-haired French girl who lay naked in a field, her skin white and beckoning, her breasts pointing to the sky.

He heard the music again. What was she humming? The melody was lilting. Familiar, yet remaining on the fringe of his memory. He stepped closer and leaned against the large oak where he had slept the night before.

_Among My Souvenirs_. The words drifted toward him, invading his memories, taking him back to when he was sixteen. His first love. _Some letters sad and blue, a photograph or two, I see a rose from you, among my souvenirs_.

"You there! Stop that singing!" Frank plunged forward. Damn if he'd have his day filled with sad songs.

# Chapter Seventeen

Adela

Adela didn't move. She had heard him, then seen him lean against the large oak that leaned over the lake. She lay on the deck, the sun drying her wet hair, a breeze pulling at the edge of the towel that covered her.

"Mr. Carberry, there are no laws against singing. Or at least, none that I know of," she said calmly. She closed her eyes.

Frank knew there were no laws against...singing, but that didn't stop him from entering into an oratorical debate with the widow whose singing had accosted his ears. Melodramatic or not, he was used to calling the shots. _Straighten that line. Clean those rifles. Bury those bodies_.

He lifted his chin and swept his non-seeing eyes in a circle around him. His voice was authoritative, almost booming, the words settling on the still waters of the lake like distant thunder. "There are _noise_ ordinances," he said with blatant sarcasm.

Adela sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the dock and swished her feet in the water. "I'm sure there are...in New York City," she said with her own commanding voice.

Frank kicked the bottom of the oak tree and cursed. "By God, I'm going to have the sheriff come out here and give you a citation for disturbing the peace."

Adela leaned back on a dock post and studied the surly man whose face had reddened and whose hands seemed to be searching for a glass of bourbon.

She laughed. "Go right ahead. And I'll ask the sheriff to arrest you for trespassing. Move three more feet this way and you'll be on my property."

There was silence from the oak tree. The hand that searched for a whiskey glass also reached up and scratched his beard. Finally, a sharp nod of his head.

"Again, I'll remind you that _your_ property was absconded from the Carberry's in a surreptitious manner, with no regard for integrity or sense of decency."

He could have been a Baptist preacher, his words ensuing with fire and brimstone, a promise of hell and damnation for the perceived theft of twenty acres and a run-down cottage over fifty years ago. He stood with his hands on his hips, a lake wind tearing at his shirttail while his mouth hardened above his stoic chin. Had he moved a few feet to his right, he would have fallen into the lake.

Adela reached out and grasped the dock railing, pulled herself up and walked to the end of the dock, closer to Frank Carberry.

"You mystify me, Mr. Carberry. Why do you find it so difficult to understand that our grandparents loved each other?"

She moved a step closer, a step she knew placed her squarely on his property. "These twenty acres and cottage were a gift of love to my grandmother."

If Frank could have seen Adela's face, he would have seen a woman whose eyes were pleading, beseeching him to honor the memory of two people who were devoted to one another.

Adela waited for his reply, found herself looking into the eyes that Wiley had called "cotton balls." There were no reflections, only dull blue iris' that wavered back and forth looking for detail, a semblance of clarity. There was none.

Finally, Frank turned his head at an angle, found what little vision he could from the corner of his eye and sought Adela's outline.

"Please, Ms. Harper" he said, a false laugh pushing his cheeks into lines around his eyes. "Do not trouble yourself with speculation." Then, his smile vanished into the abyss of his black heart. "There is no mystery. Your grandmother was a whore."

# Chapter Eighteen

Adela

The possibilities of reasoning with Frank Carberry were remote, left floundering in mud holes that swallowed any semblance of pragmatic rationale. Adela remained standing on his property, beneath an October sky that whispered of approaching rain and watched his long legs climb the embankment of the lake, his large hands grope for the trunks of trees that would lead him home.

_Her retort?_ How do you converse with a fence post? The hind leg of a mule? She saw him stumble and almost fall. Still she did not move. Her eyes followed him until he fumbled around a large sycamore and faded into the stand of trees that bordered his house.

_Your grandmother was a whore_. Adela felt the anger creep along her skin as though the beginnings of a fatal illness. It came from a place called regret, a regret that caused unimaginable sorrow, a regret that was so painful she felt it in her chest, her throat wanting to hurl a scream into the universe.

Through tears, she looked across the lake and saw the clouds that would bring a late evening storm. Her stillness was therapeutic, a regaining of self, the settling of her heart. She knew her grandmother had not been a whore. What she didn't know was why Frank Carberry thought she was.

# Chapter Nineteen

Frank

The sound of Adela singing the chorus of Hank Williams' _Cold, Cold Heart_ at the top of her lungs followed Frank across the field. _Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?_

He lumbered across the porch and headed straight for his bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. The Harper woman had not only pierced his armor, she had lifted the rib bones of his chest and, indeed, exposed his cold heart.

If words fell from the Universe and found Frank Carberry standing by the oak tree at the lake and watching Adela Harper through his cloudy vision, they would not label him a voyeur. Instead, they would describe a man desperately needing a human connection. If that connection was one of confrontation, so be it.

An awareness of his frailties, his inability to escape from a deep wound of the heart and his inherent stubbornness united to make a man who, at sixty-seven years old, wallowed in a life of what-ifs. His forty years in the confines of his military duties had made him a wooden man, shaped by endless forays into a world of clandestine missions that left him somewhat tainted by the brutal, imminent reality of his own mortality.

Frank Carberry was a lost man; the umbilical cord to his position of major general in the army had been cut and, as a result, had cast him into a place of unknowns, a place where he floundered and questioned his ability to survive.

# Chapter Twenty

Adela

Evening came with a subliminal calm, the sun setting without the companionship of clouds. Its light pure, a three-quarter moon beckoned from the east with a promise of clear nights, nights that begged for the continuance of an Indian summer. From the lake, smells of fresh rain called the deer to the water's edge where they flipped their white tails and pranced playfully along the shore.

The remains of the day found Adela watching fireflies from the small terrace that lined the back porch of the cottage, its stones gathered from the rock beds that carried streams of cold water from the mountain top. She held a glass of Canadian whiskey laced with lime, a favorite drink when her mind became reflective and searched for answers to perplexing questions, questions that brought about a troubling restlessness.

Her shadowed profile was regal, almost queen-like. The long strands of her Rita Hayworth hair piled at the top of her head, bound by a ribbon whose many colors made one think of the carousel ride at the country fair.

Her encounter with Frank had been unsettling, his hostility evident, if not confusing to her. She tried to hold her analytical mind at bay, but found herself dissecting the man's words as though their understanding would mean the saving of the world. She knew nothing about him except for the rumors that swept through Ivy Log upon his return. Her discovery of him asleep in the mud and brush of the lake's edge had been their first meeting. Then, her reputed invasion into his kingdom by singing as she sunbathed on the dock. And what about the sage words Wiley had shared with her about him when they drank iced tea in her kitchen? They were simply happenstance, bordering on gossip.

Perhaps Wiley had been right. The man had secrets. His forty-year absence from Ivy Log was not of great interest to the ladies of The Church in their tete-a-tetes after bible study on Thursday nights. It was his somewhat clandestine return that caused a titter among those in Ivy Log who deemed the tall, enigmatic ex-soldier fair game as they selected their topics of conversation.

Their Sunday afternoon lunches at The Boarding House provided the perfect venue for examining the intrigue that surrounded the man. Interestingly, Frank Carberry was not the only matter discussed as the apple pie was served atop fine, blue-trimmed china placed on white linen tablecloths. The ladies' pursed lips once again found the joys of fallacious chatter as they bent over their warm pie and whispered of the torrid love affair that still haunted the small town after so many years: Douglas Carberry and Ahyoka Kree.

# Chapter Twenty-One

Frank

Douglas G. Carberry and Ahyoka Kree. The love affair of the century found Frank's grandfather, Douglas, and Adela's grandmother, Kree, perhaps drawn together by the alignment of the universe, the arrangement of the planets into an earthly influence that decreed the two become lovers.

Frank's perspective of his grandfather's blatant love affair with Adela's grandmother went deeper than the twenty acres and cottage that had exchanged hands in 1951. The twenty acres and cottage were a mere pittance compared to the 800 acres, less twenty, that still held the Carberry family name.

There was no particular name for the affliction that brewed in the bowels of Frank's soul. Its description, however, was clear and unambiguous. It was an anger that brittled his bones, atrophied his heart and frenzied his mind. His grandfather had fallen in love with a tall, brown-skinned Indian woman, a Cherokee, who lived high in the Appalachians and who had cast spells on him that lasted a lifetime. His love for her was powerful, unrelenting and so deep that the universe stilled and watched in wonder.

Frank had wondered about the power of love his entire life. Was it possible? Was there any validity in a touch or a kiss that made one powerless, made one succumb to the belief that nothing else mattered? Perhaps the whys of it were not known, just that it was there. And, once it was acknowledged, there was no letting go, no return to what was. Only love remained, regardless of circumstances or the laws of the universe. What was, was and there was no denying it once you crossed over into that mysterious thing called love.

And what about lust? He had thought about it for so long. Was it lust that sent his grandfather over the mountain, into a great vortex of physical pleasure that swirled him into a place of no return?

Frank was ten years old as he watched the back of the mule that carried his grandfather up the mountain to the woman he loved, the man who had cared for him since birth, since his mother had bled to death as she pushed out the tiny baby boy who would never lay in her arms.

# Chapter Twenty-Two

Ivy Log

Its history, as well as the people who lived within its realm of rules regarding morals and social standards, shaped the small town of Ivy Log. Deviations from those rules were plain and simple: they were sins.

Wiley Hanson walked down the sidewalks of Main Street to The Boarding House, as was his ritual each time he traveled from the mountains and to what he called his 'time with the city folks.'

It happened only three or four times a year, but it was enough for Wiley. He had left the Carberry plantation and drove his faded blue pick-up to the edge of town and parked under sycamores that had already lost their leaves and whose branches pierced the sky like pitch forks. He met Joe Chapman mid-way on Main Street and they discussed the hooves of Joe's horse, Buck, Wiley bobbing his head, as he explained the intricacies of hoof trimming.

He continued down Main Street, skirting the barbershop. Damn if he'd pay three dollars for a cut when he could cut his own hair.

The Boarding House restaurant bustled with hungry patrons as he opened the wide oak doors and smelled the best meatloaf in the entire Appalachian mountain range.

The restaurant cook was Pyune Murphy, a lithe black woman who had cooked for the Boarding House for nineteen years. Wiley knew Pyune well. He had eyed her one day as she loaded his plate with her special recipe of meatloaf stuffed with green peppers and sweet wild onions. He gave her a look; a look that mountain men gave women when they pined after them and the biscuits they made. Wiley knew if he gave Pyune the mountain man look, she'd give him extra portions of her delectable specialties.

He also knew that given the opportunity she would delight in finding him behind the restaurant in the smokehouse where hams and bacon hung like prizes at the county fair. And find him she did. She pressed his thin, lanky body against the rough wood of the smoke house and rode him like he was a wild stallion. She squealed when he found the strength to pick her up and place her on the slicing table. There, he devoured the plumpness of her brown skin and decided he didn't care if he ever ate her meatloaf again. He had found something much better.

He smiled at her as he sat at a nearby table. Her skin glistened from the heat of the kitchen's gas stoves, her eyes bright and beckoning. He watched her slowly pull a plate for him and begin her sensual spooning of potatoes, green beans and cole slaw. The meatloaf came next, brown like her skin, dripping with mushroom gravy and piles of pepper. When she walked to his table, he leaned back so she could see the bulge in his overalls that told her he would expect dessert.

Across the restaurant, Wiley saw Paula Jennings sitting with the members of her Sunday school class, prissy women who wore Easter egg colored hats that matched their dresses and jewelry that sat perfectly around their sagging necks. Their bright lipstick painted prim lips that no man would ever want to kiss. He caught Paula's eye and nodded. She dipped her head in a shy fashion, a slight blush wiping her cheeks the color of newly picked peaches.

He and Paula went way back, back to grade school and the playground where they chased each other and, as children do, taunted each other with the hatefulness of youth, calling each other names, always a reference to class, her highfalutin status as a city girl and his lowly emplacement as a mountain boy.

Through the years they had established common ground. Both of them sat in the not-so-hallowed seats as Ivy Log's most proficient gossips.

She left her table and walked the walk of a woman whose pretentiousness turned heads. Bone thin, her collarbones protruded like cypress stumps, smooth and without fat. She neared his table and smiled at him. Wiley was surprised when she pulled out a chair opposite him and demurely sat at his table as if it were the most natural thing for her to do.

"Wiley Hanson," she said, the red of her lipstick pushing into the corners of her mouth, pretending to be a smile. "What are you doing down from the mountains?"

Wiley pushed his fork into Pyune's meatloaf where the sight of little bits of green pepper made his mouth water. "Hello, Paula."

She waited while he chewed and then sipped his tea.

"The usual. Shoeing horses. Mowing the Carberry place."

At the mention of Carberry, Paula lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes and smiled her most engaging smile.

"See Frank Carberry while you were there?"

Her casualness thrilled Wiley. Her reputation for gossip was well known. He felt excitement furrow the back of his neck. Gossiping with Paula Jennings was as good as homemade wine.

He bobbed his head. "That I did, Miss Paula." He made her wait an agonizing minute before he continued.

"Worried 'bout that man. He cain't see a thing. Just blurs of images that have no detail from what he tells me."

Paula nodded. "Heard he had cataracts."

"That would be true."

"There's a simple solution," she said with her city-girl air of authority. "Surgery."

Wiley waited while Pyune refilled his glass. He looked at her with teasing eyes. "Got some lemon, Pyune?" She smiled and nodded. He watched her sashay from his table and remembered her bucking body in the smokehouse.

"He's a stubborn man. Got secrets, too."

At the mention of secrets, Paula leaned forward and raised her eyebrows into her lined forehead where freckles banded together into miniature shapes resembling the constellations. Their arrangement across her cheeks caused one to ponder the possibilities of a hidden message in the dots and dashes.

"Well, I'm sure he does. He's been away for forty some odd years." She paused and licked her red lips. "I'm wondering why he even came back."

Her breath came faster, from her lungs, up her thin neck and into words that she knew Wiley Hanson loved to hear. She enjoyed baiting him.

"Isn't Adela there, too?"

Wiley smiled and fell into the same breathless whisper. "In the flesh. Red hair and all."

"How interesting," said Paula. "Adela's been going to her cottage every October for years and this is the first time Frank has been there at the same time." Paula's eyes swept the restaurant in contemplation. She leaned even closer to Wiley, noticing the mashed potatoes in his beard.

"I'm certain you are aware she sunbathes in the nude."

Wiley's head jerked up. "How'd you know that?"

Paula laughed out loud, her teeth the color of weak tea, the width of her grin exposing a small gold filling. "You told me years ago, Wiley." She frowned. "Don't you remember? You came down the mountain hunting deer by the lake and saw her."

"I remember all right. Just forgot I told you." Wiley grinned. "'course, there's not much I don't tell you, is there, Paula?"

He remembered exactly when he'd told her. He'd found her raking leaves in her back yard, saw the perspiration on her upper lip, the outline of her hipbones through the faded blue jeans she wore. When she offered him a cool drink, he accepted, followed her into the kitchen and watched her small rump as she filled the glasses with ice. When she turned toward him, he saw where she had unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, exposing the tops of her tiny breasts.

When he reached for the glass, he touched her fingers and felt the smooth skin of manicured hands, a city-girl's hands. They made love upstairs in her guest bedroom where wallpaper covered the walls and ceilings. He still remembered the wallpaper and how the branches of magnolia trees and their large white blossoms etched the paper like a scene from Gone With The Wind.

He also remembered her clinging to him and begging him not to tell anyone of their lovemaking. Of course, he wouldn't. Mountain men were not known for making love to city women. Anyway, not a mountain man by the name of Wiley Hanson. Later, he smiled to himself. It was his opinion that a city boy could never satisfy a city girl like a mountain man could. He could still feel Paula's panting breath on his neck as she whipped him into a lather. "Faster! Faster!"

"Don't matter that she walks around in the nude out there. Gate's locked all the time." He watched Pyune as she placed a fresh pie on the dessert table.

Paula nodded. "Adela is the most private individual I know. Buries herself at the lake. No phone. No visitors."

"She's a good woman. Just don't understand her not marrying again," said Wiley.

"I'll tell you why. She never got over Andy Harper's death."

"Oh, come on, Paula. People don't grieve for forty years."

"Well, evidently Adela has. Who knows? Maybe she's content with her life."

Wiley pushed his plate away and looked at Paula. "What I don't understand is how a woman as beautiful as Adela can live her life without a man."

The look Paula gave Wiley was perplexing. "Maybe there are no men who can measure up to Andy Harper. He was her first and only love. I remember well their passion for each other." Even the cold Paula Jennings felt a twinge of sorrow for Adela.

"I reckon that could be. Not many men like Andy Harper around."

Paula reached over with a napkin and gently wiped the smear of mashed potatoes from Wiley's beard, a familiar, intimate thing to do. She had explored his naked body on many occasions in much the same way.

Wiley's turtle head ducked deep into his shoulders and out again when Paula's eyes revealed a wickedness that he knew so well. Her voice lowered an octave. "Do you think Adela will sunbathe in the nude with Frank Carberry just across the way?"

Wiley's head bobbed. "Don't matter. He's half blind. He couldn't even find his pecker if he wanted to."

Paula's eyes widened. Wiley Hanson was the only man who could say the word 'pecker' and not be slapped by one of Ivy Log's most prim and proper residents.

Paula returned to her proper city friends and left Wiley contemplating what he wanted for dessert. He eyed the dessert table and saw Pyune's lemon meringue pie, the meringue piled high in tufts of white tinged with caramel colored peaks. He turned his head toward the kitchen where Pyune stood in the doorway. He knew from her expression she was heading for the smokehouse. He was right behind her.

Paula moved her thin body around the restaurant tables like a dancer, making sure that her fish-tail skirt swished eloquently while she nodded and smiled at those who vied for her attention.

Behind their smiles, they trembled at the thought that they themselves might fall prey to the whims of the small town's queen of gossip. Her hair was swept into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck, her eyes smoldering and seeming to see into one's mind and heart as if she were the wife of the devil. Behind her wide smile, a snare dangled with diabolical delight, waiting to capture its next victim.

Her subjects waited at her table with obvious anticipation. Perhaps it was their own lack of self that allowed them to succumb to the power of a woman who rejoiced in the pain of others. They followed her shallow rules as though hypnotized. Weak women, they left behind the teachings of the beatitudes in their Sunday school classes and, instead, gave power to their small minds, not recognizing any possibility to rise above someone like Paula.

Paula pulled out her chair and sat with regal importance at the head of the large table. Her Cruella Deville smile seemed drawn on her face as though a painting, her eyes bright and darting, the energy of her wickedness flushing her skin. The ladies of The Church leaned forward, salivating in anticipation of what was to follow.

"Adela Harper is having a torrid love affair with Frank Carberry."

# Chapter Twenty-Three

Adela

At half past midnight Adela left the stone terrace and opened the screened door that led to her bedroom. Her second day on the lake had been an emotional one, a series of confrontations with Frank Carberry. They began with the hateful message he had stuck in her door complaining about Glenn Miller's music. Then, finding him at the lake's edge in the mud and briers had shocked her. Lastly, in the quiet of the afternoon, he admonished her for singing as she lay sunbathing on the dock.

In the dark, she pulled off her clothes and headed for bed. She passed the phonograph and hesitated. Without a second thought, she placed a Glenn Miller record on the turntable and turned the volume to high. She then slung open the window that faced the Carberry house and smiled as the sounds of _In The Mood_ went sailing through the night air and to the ears of Frank Carberry.

At 3:00 a.m., Adela listened to night sounds that came from the lake's edge, an occasional flopping of a fish, an owl, a whippoorwill. Eyes open, she waited for the sound of buckshot soaring across her cottage. Daylight eased into the sky when she finally fell asleep.

It was three days before Adela saw Frank Carberry again. Another storm had moved in from the west, clouds boiling like a witches' brew on the horizon and lightening poking the sky in vicious strikes. From her kitchen window, she saw him stumble across the field from the woods and toward the house. He carried a basket and hovered over it as he made his way up the porch steps. He left the basket on the porch, then found his way back across the field.

She lost sight of him as the rain hit, bringing hail that pummeled the tin roof of the cottage and sounded like the boots of marching soldiers. The storm was fast-moving, leaving blue skies shimmering in its wake. Adela left the kitchen, not a shred of clothing on her lithe body and stretched out on the deck at the end of the terrace. She felt her nudity was healing and released her from the hurts of yesterday.

She turned her head toward the Carberry house and saw Frank leaning against the porch post. He wore a straw hat, no shirt and a pair of baggy pants the color of cow manure. He remained still, facing her cottage and watching as though to prevent a sin against the hallowed Carberry dynasty.

She sat up, lifted her arm and waved to him. No response. Of course, not. He couldn't see farther than the stone walk that led from his back porch steps to the hand pump of the well, only five yards away.

"Good morning, Mr. Carberry," she called. She saw his body jerk, his hand reach up and pull his tattered hat farther down his brow. He paused only a moment before he quickly turned and stomped inside his house as though a swarm of bees was after him. The screen door slammed with a vengeance, leaving no doubt Adela Harper was not welcome beyond the white fence that separated her ill-gotten twenty acres from the eight hundred acres of land that served Frank Carberry and his quest for solitude.

Adela left the deck and walked to the row of rose bushes that lined the edge of the porch. The sun warmed her back as she found the pruning shears and began cutting the canes. She hummed as she worked, her nakedness a mere afterthought. Her grandmother, Kree, had also tended a rose garden, almost as passionately as she had loved Douglas Carberry.

Adela turned and looked past the fence and to the house that stood cold and forbidding on a slight rise. She wasn't sure, but she thought she saw Frank looking her way from the kitchen window.

# Chapter Twenty-Four

Frank

The ex-soldier's life had been lived in foreign places, in places where he lived in anonymity, a no-name who quietly infiltrated the clandestine world of sub-rosa operations, covert and most definitely dangerous. He had lost himself there among the darkness that comes with an undercover life.

When he left his secret world and began a life in the U. S. Army, he could not regain the normalcy of civilian life. His mind conspired with his heart in a way that left him cold and untouchable, especially untouchable by love.

The absence of love in Frank's heart did not begin in the places that stripped him of his identity and led him into a subversive life. It began when he was ten-years old and watching his grandfather ride up the mountain, leaving him forever.

# Chapter Twenty-Five

Ivy Log

Songs written about small towns like Ivy Log used words that were lonesome and sad, the mournful music begging exodus from a one-horse town and to the happiness that waited in far-away places where sandy beaches and coconut rum took the blues away.

Ivy Log was isolated in its smallness in the higher elevations of Georgia, its population a mere six hundred or so whose families had settled among the peaks of the Appalachians and who had scratched out their tiny farms and herded their cow or two. They found solace in the churches where, for a few hours on Sundays, they sang _Sweet Hour of Prayer_ and put their hard-earned money in the offering plate, their hopes riding on their prayers.

On Saturdays they left the hollers, their hoes, their rusted old tractors and walked down Main Street, giving themselves the privilege of "going to town." They visited the barbershop were John Reece cut hair the same way he had forty years ago. There were no new trends or styles: John's style was as short as the hair of a new-born puppy.

In forty years, there was only one Saturday that he was unable to open for business. A horse had kicked him in the leg, his femur bone shattered. He lost two inches of length in the broken leg, causing his gait to shift in a sideways movement as if his body were a metronome. He returned to the barbershop as if nothing had happened, his short leg propped on an over-turned bean pot as he stood behind the barber's chair.

"So, how'd you like yer hair cut today, sonny?" His scissors flew across the scalps of his patrons, a razor following along necks that dimpled with chill bumps as John moved the blade as though icing a cake.

"Now, how's that? Too short? Well, I'll leave 'er longer next time."

"Going to town" bought them feed for their cows and chickens at Tom's Feeds, where Tom smelled like sorghum, corn dust in his hair and eyebrows. A dusting of wheat and barley left his faded flannel shirt almost colorless as he lifted the fifty-pound sacks as though they were baby kittens.

At the end of Main Street, they found Pyune Murphy's fresh pies, a wondrous glimpse into a store-bought luxury that sustained their need to forget for a moment that they were resigned to a life of want.

Ivy Log's citizens fell into two categories – church goers and non-church goers. The two groups were easily recognizable. All one had to do was ride by The Church on any Sunday morning to see whose cars were in the parking lot. By the same token, a ride by the tavern at the end of town would easily indicate there were no laws that prevented the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday. It was obvious there were more cars at the tavern than at The Church.

# Chapter Twenty-Six

Adela

Adela did not attend The Church nor did she frequent the tavern. She did, however, attend the events at The Church that featured her granddaughter and her lovely soprano voice. An October musical performance was scheduled for 7:00 and Adela dressed and left the lake cottage for the hour's drive.

The church parking lot was crowded, a sea of cars full of town folk who had come to see their children perform in a musical that depicted the rewards of living a life without sin. Adela's granddaughter's role as "Tiffany" required her to sing the lead part, a much sought after part that had been auditioned for by every young girl in Ivy Log, whether she could sing or not.

The pews were full and Adela stood in the aisle a moment when she saw an arm wave above the crowd. It was her daughter. She smiled and nodded. Her red hair swept into a twist at the top of her head and earrings dangled when she walked. She slipped into the pew beside her daughter and saw that Paula sat directly behind her. She half smiled, then turned her attention to the stage where a dozen young singers had gathered, her granddaughter in the center, standing on a raised platform where a spotlight caught her angelic smile.

Adela leaned slightly to her right and whispered. "How did we get so lucky?"

Her daughter smiled and shook her head. "A miracle." She reached over and squeezed her mother's hand.

At intermission, Adela felt a tap on her shoulder and the hot breath of Paula Jennings on her neck. Paula's mouth was so close to Adela's ear that Adela was sure she smelled the remnants of alcohol.

"Adela, darling, how marvelous you look. Is that a new hair color?"

Without turning around completely, Adela shifted in her seat so she could see Paula. "Thank you, Paula. Yes. When I went to see Dottie at the beauty salon, I asked her to give me the same color you wear."

There was a slight pause and Adela saw Paula's imitation smile fade slightly while a distinct coolness fell between them.

"I will assume you are at the lake as usual," said Paula.

And it began. Paula's casual inquisition, the prelude to her underlying objective to rummage around until she felt she had unraveled any barriers between her and the delicious possibilities of new gossip.

Adela, the epitome of grace, nodded her head. "But, of course." She turned and faced the front of the auditorium, leaving no doubt she had concluded their conversation.

It was not to be.

Paula, in her quest to engage Adela, leaned even closer and spoke with honey sweetness. "Isn't it wonderful that Frank Carberry has returned after so many years." There was an excited breathiness in her voice.

Adela felt a surge of anxiety, a flashing picture of Frank's snarling lips as he admonished her for singing as she sunbathed on the dock. His name was not a welcome thing for her to hear. She injected a distinct coolness in her reply, a setting of boundaries. "I wouldn't know."

"Well, isn't he in the big house, just a few feet from your cottage?" Paula was almost panting.

"As I said, Paula, I wouldn't know. It seems he is a private person."

"How interesting. Perhaps all he needs is a little company. I'm sure he's lonely."

Adela became increasingly uncomfortable. She didn't answer Paula and feigned interest in the performance program she held in her hands. She felt perspiration forming above her lips.

Paula maintained her vigil at Adela's ear and released a sly laugh. "Adela, I can't help but remember when Frank's grandfather ran off with your grandmother. What excitement in this ole town. I wonder if Frank is still smarting over that little escapade. Why, even after all these years, folks are still talking about it."

Adela said nothing.

Paula lowered her voice even further. "Wouldn't it be something if you and Frank got together after all the turmoil your grandparents caused? Another electrifying affair between two of Ivy Log's most renowned families."

Paula's words were meant to hurt, to stir up past memories.

Adela said nothing.

Paula's voice went an octave lower. "Rumor has it that Frank's filed suit to take back your twenty acres and cottage."

Adela whirled around, only to see the backside of Paula Jennings leaving her seat and gliding down the aisle of the auditorium, her head nodding to those she deemed worthy of her wide smile.

# Chapter Twenty-Seven

Adela

After the performance, Adela and Daly left the church auditorium and found Charlotte in the dressing rooms at the rear of the church. "Where's the star?" Daly called as she ran toward her daughter.

"Oh, mom!" Charlotte said as she blushed. "So glad it's over. I was so nervous."

"Nervous? Why in the world would you be nervous?"

"Oh, I don't know. So many people, I guess."

"You were wonderful," said Adela.

"Thanks, grandma." She reached over and put her arms around Adela. "I appreciate your driving all the way back to town just to see me."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"I think this calls for a celebration – say pie at the Boarding House." Daley smoothed her daughter's hair and took her hand.

"Yum. Let's go."

Main Street was crowded with those who craved Pyune Murphy's coconut crème pie. They found their way to the Boarding House Restaurant where Pyune herself stood guard over the pie table and calculated whether or not she had enough pie for everyone. She decided to run back to the kitchen and whip up a few pumpkin chiffon pies from a recipe that dated back to the Civil War.

Her pie table was in jeopardy of caving in from the weight of two apple walnut pies, an Italian crème cake, three pecan pies and a Black Forest cake whose sour cherries gleamed like red rubies and whispered of endless pleasures.

The Harper ladies found a small round table in a corner opposite the pie table, their eyes never leaving Pyune's Black Forest cake. They were surrounded by the same town folk who attended the church musical, including Paula and the members of her Sunday school class, who sat in the rear of the restaurant near a large bay window. Adela purposefully ignored their table and pulled out a chair that faced in the opposite direction.

"Charlotte, you are quite a talent. I never dreamed I would hear my granddaughter sing in such an illustrious performance." She paused and studied her granddaughter's face. "I am wondering where you get this marvelous talent."

Daly clapped her hands together. "Oh, I know! Don't you, Charlotte?"

"I sure do. It's you, grandma. You gave me all this talent."

"Me? I don't think you've ever heard me sing." She laughed. "And, if you had, you would know right away your lovely voice did not come from me."

"That's not true. I've heard you many times. You sound exactly like Rosemary Clooney."

"Rosemary Clooney! How do you know who Rosemary Clooney is?" Adela wrinkled her brow.

"Grandma! Don't you remember? We used to watch her old movies together when I was little. You know, with Bing Crosby."

Adela shook her head. "Ah, that's right. Forgive me for forgetting." She held up her hand and pointed to Charlotte. "That's where you learned to sing! From those old Rosemary Clooney movies."

Charlotte looked at her grandmother, her voice young and sweet. "Grandma, you are the most beautiful grandmother in the world and I love you so much."

Adela reached over and touched her granddaughter's hand.

They ordered three servings of the Black Forest cake. They hoped Pyune wouldn't mind if they asked for a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It agitated Pyune if her cakes and pies were diluted in one form or another. When the cake arrived, Pyune leaned over and spoke to Adela.

"Miss Adela, I'm thinking you is lookin' prettier every time I see you."

"Oh, Pyune. Aren't you sweet? Thank you." Adela picked up her fork and shook it at Pyune. "Pyune, I want you to make me a lemon pudding cake one day."

"Now, I can sure do that, Miss Adela. You just say when."

When Pyune left their table, Charlotte touched her grandmother on the arm. "Grandma, there's something really on my mind."

"What is that?"

"I've never had a grandpa and I want one."

# Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ivy Log

At the large bay window near the rear of the restaurant, Paula's long, red fingernails swept through the air in animated conversation, her face lifting in a dramatic turn toward the ceiling as if talking to God himself. Indeed, she may have been. The ladies of The Church who sat at her table followed her red fingernails as if they were the head of a cobra. Paula found delight in being on stage, but only as long as her audience was subservient and viewed her as their queen.

"Then, I could hardly contain my laughter as she whirled around to face me. Of course, I had already planned my exit and was well on my way out the auditorium. Hysterical! Absolutely hysterical!"

Sally Crowe stared wide-eyed at Paula. "What do you think she's going to do?"

Paula glared at Sally. "Sally! I do not have a crystal ball." She paused while she studied Sally's absurd attempt to apply eyeliner. The black line smeared across her lids like a railroad tie.

"In the strictest confidence, I will tell you this." Paula savored the long moment while her ladies stilled and waited.

"I have no doubt that Frank Carberry and Adela Harper are having an affair. Not only an affair, but a lustful, sinful relationship that borders on...." She leaned across the table as did all the ladies around her. "....borders on... _erotica_."

Erotica!

An agonizing silence spread through the air above the table and into the shocked eyes of the ladies of The Church. _Erotica!_ Paula's words shot through their brains like bullets and ricocheted there while they allowed themselves to conjure up images of... _erotica_.

Paula basked as she once again prided herself for her salacious delivery of scandal to the boring little ladies of The Church. After all, other than her occasional tryst with Wiley Hanson, her life was devoid of the passion she so desperately craved.

From the other end of the table, shy Carole Johns, her small, pointed nose lifting slightly above her small, rosebud lips, spoke. "But, how would you know it was erotic if you weren't there?"

The red that emerged on Paula's skin was no less colorful than the cherries on top of Pyune Murphy's Black Forest cake. From the edge of her hairline down to the bottom of her chin, her expression became stone-like, any softness disappearing as though plucked away by the devil himself.

She lifted her stiffened body from her chair toward Carole, her words shooting out like a volcanic eruption, searing their way down the table to where the meek woman stared in wonder at Paula, a woman who looked as though she had just stepped out of a horror movie.

"Carole," she hissed. "Your naiveté makes me want to slap you."

# Chapter Twenty-Nine

Frank

Evening came quickly for Frank, his less-than-perfect vision falling into the shadows that grew along the tree line leading to the lake. He sat on the back porch of his sprawling house and listened as the sounds of an October dusk tittered around him, remnants of orange and yellow leaves rustling along the ground as a breeze caught them and swept them toward winter.

His remaining senses seemed heightened with the decline of his sight. He tilted his head and thought he heard the harsh waak of a night heron proclaiming the lake for its own. From the night air, he smelled a far-away wood fire, oak maybe, or perhaps a mound of leaves that had been raked into a high pile, defying the wind to scatter them again. In his mind's eye, he saw the smoke lift high and ride the mountain currents to the same places where eagles soared and nested with their young.

He sipped his Pappy bourbon while the remaining light of day lingered and then retreated deep into the western sky. So, this was how it would end. An extraordinary life stuffed away in some hidden intelligence file, a file so secret only a few select people would ever read it. The reader would never know the toll it took on Frank Carberry's life, the pain, emotional and physical, that entered his every cell and robbed him of everything but his beating heart. _It was your choice, Frank, old boy_.

Frank jumped from his chair when loud noises rattled the quiet. _It better not be that damn Harper woman_.

"Who is it?" he called, his voice booming like that of a giant. "Get your ass off my property!" He felt his way through the house and picked up his 12 gauge as he lumbered toward the door. He thrust the gun toward the shadow of a man who stood towering above him.

"Hello, Dad."

# Chapter Thirty

Frank

Frank stilled at the sound of his son's voice. "Jack. What are you doing here?"

Jack lifted his eyebrows. "You know very well the answer to that question. He paused. "Gonna share that whiskey?"

They sat together in the cool mountain air. Father and son, bound by the whims of the universe and by a woman who no longer walked the earth. She, instead, lay in a small cemetery in a remote place on the other side of the world. They rarely spoke of her, but each of them carried a lone, silent memory that came to the surface only when they allowed it.

Frank lifted his whiskey bottle and generously refilled his glass. "I assume your travel from Alaska is meant to irritate me?"

Jack laughed. "By all means. It's what I do best – irritate my father. Of course, that's easy for me to do. Has been ever since I was young."

"You're still young, Jack. How old are you? Forty-five? Forty-six?"

"Forty-four, Dad."

"Ah, yes. Now I remember. I was in the big war when you were born."

Jack sipped from his own glass. "Among other places, if I remember the stories correctly."

Frank shifted in his chair and wished he could see his son's face. His handsome son, a son whose life was far removed from his own. "Oh, there were other things going on." He leaned over toward the shadowy image. "But, of course, I can't talk about them."

"How many times have I heard you say that?"

Frank cleared his throat. "Often, I assure you. It's the oath, you know. Allegiance. Honor. Faithfully discharge the duties of my position...." Frank let his words fade away. "And all that hogwash," he said, as he raised his glass.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "I never thought I'd hear you say your oath was 'hogwash.'"

Frank leaned back and closed his eyes. His words were barely audible. "Perhaps my entire life has been hogwash."

Jack studied his father's profile, saw the firm jaw, the full head of salt and pepper hair and wondered if his father had regrets. He leaned forward and clinked his glass with Frank's. "Dad, you're the most incredible man I have ever known and I don't think there has been any hogwash in your entire life."

Frank turned to his son and smiled, not really seeing his blue eyes or the hint of his own self in the face of his son. "Did you travel four thousand miles just to tell me that?"

Jack laughed and slapped his father's knee. "Dad, you know why I'm here so let's just get on with it. I gave you an ultimatum and I'm here to ensure that it's fulfilled."

Frank kept his eyes closed. "May I assume you're talking about my eyes?"

"Bingo!"

A few long moments of silence lingered between the two men, a backing into their respective emotional corners where each of them prepared for the conversation that was to follow. Frank refilled his glass for the fourth time; Jack watched his father carefully, seeming to acknowledge the reality of an aging parent.

Frank's propensity to give orders instead of take them surged toward his tongue, but he checked himself. "So, what do you have in mind, since I seem to have no say in this matter."

"Let's keep it simple. I've made an appointment for you over in Chattanooga for Monday, at 8:00 sharp. They have one of the finest eye clinics in the south."

"Oh, really? 8:00 sharp, you say?" Frank's sarcasm grew. "Hell, why don't we go now and get it over with?"

Jack stood from his chair and paced the porch, the sound of his boots on the wood planks reverberating across the field and to the waters of the lake.

"Pack a bag. We'll leave now and stay at a hotel." He left the porch and went inside where he saw a picture of his mother at age twenty-two riding a bull in north Texas. He had her smile, but not the wanderlust that had coursed through her veins and sent her stealing away into the night, away from him. And what about his father? The husband of his wayward mother? The man who lived a secret life in far-away places that never had names?

Jack turned his mother's picture face down on the fireplace mantle, knowing his father would notice despite his poor eyesight and set it right again. He felt the bitterness creep toward his heart. In his mind's eye, he saw Kree, the Indian woman who had changed all of their lives.

# Chapter Thirty-One

Adela

Mornings in the mountains were like no other. They came softly, opening like the petals of a rose. Even the smells were soft, floating in the air through the hollers and valleys like prayer at a baptism, hopeful and uplifting.

Adela pulled her car onto the highway that led back to the lake, the sun following her as she sped along the black asphalt and hummed a tune from "Oklahoma." She had spent Sunday with her daughter and granddaughter and hugged them goodbye at midnight as the October moon rode the sky toward the western horizon. "I'll leave early so don't get up." She turned toward the stairs. "I'll see you in another week or so."

She left Ivy Log in her rearview mirror, a running away perhaps. With each mile, she felt a lightening of her heart. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. " _Ooooook-lahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain_." In an hour or so, she was turning onto the narrow road that led to her cottage. _At least, she thought it was her cottage_. Paula's comment had been ringing in her ears for the last twenty-four hours. Gossip or not, she felt the possibility of Frank filing suit to regain his twenty acres and cottage was very real. She pulled the car to a stop and breathed in the moist air of the lake. _Hello, Andy_.

On Monday afternoon, Adela picked pears from a tree that had been planted by her grandmother. They were pineapple pears, round and harder than a tree stump. The tree was located near the fence that separated her from Carberry land. She picked up a rotten pear from beneath the tree and threw it across the fence – a totally juvenile thing to do. Yet, it caused her to smile.

On Tuesday she dug worms and took a cane pole down to the dock and fished until dark. She lugged a bucket full of brim back to the cottage and cleaned them while crickets sang in the early evening. She looked up when she heard the call of a woodpecker above her cottage and watched as it flew over Frank Carberry's land, swooping low and skimming the rooftop of the dark house.

On Wednesday she lay on the terrace like a Degas nude and let the rays of the October sun warm her body. An afternoon drizzle chased her inside where she showered and washed her hair. Later, hushpuppies with onion and green pepper bobbed in hot oil along with the fat fish she had caught the day before.

Near midnight on Wednesday evening, she sat on her terrace and searched the sky. Her eyes followed the constellation Orion and its belt of three dazzling stars. She smiled as she found three stars hanging from the belt that formed the sword of Orion.

Andy had taught her about meteors and teased her when she made a wish each time she saw one. At that moment, a streak of light pierced the night sky and Adela stared in wonder at the tail of a meteor zip toward the earth. A wish immediately found its way into the night. "Wish you were right here beside me, Andy," she whispered.

Across the picket fence, a door slammed. The beam of a flashlight fell across the yard as Frank Carberry walked the trail to the lake. It was the first time she had seen him since she left for Ivy Log the previous Saturday. She lost site of him as he entered the tree line. From the lake, she heard the aggressive rattling of a curious buck skim across the water. In a moment, the sound of buckshot rang through the woods, followed by an eerie silence. Neither sounds nor lights came from the trees as she turned and entered the cottage. In moments, she found the cool sheets of her bed and closed her eyes. She dreamed of Andy, his touch, the smile that was so comically crooked. She saw his blue eyes that carried the shimmer of ocean waters.

At 3:00 a.m. Adela woke to music. Confused, she sat up and listened as the sounds of the Andrews Sisters' _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_ pierced the night. She left her bed and walked to the back porch. Across the picket fence, Frank Carberry's two-story house lit up the night sky, every room in the house filled with light. In the yard, Frank danced wildly, his bare feet moving like lightening, his bare butt shining like the moon and a whiskey bottle in his hand.

# Chapter Thirty-Two

Adela

The late morning sun found Adela still asleep. She stirred in her bed, opening her eyes when she heard a woodpecker hammering the dead pine tree behind the cottage. _What day is it? Thursday. Why did I sleep so late? Boogie, Woogie Bugle Boy. Oh, yes. Now I remember_.

From her bedroom, she padded across the linoleum floor of the kitchen and plugged in the coffee pot. Coffee was what she needed. She yawned and pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. The clock on the kitchen wall read 9:10. She frowned at missing an early morning of fishing as well as a walk around the lake's edge. She remembered hearing the weather report, a forecast of an unusually warm day for October. A perfect day to stretch out on the terrace.

The screen door slammed behind her as she walked out onto the porch and found her favorite chair. Before sitting down, she looked across the picket fence to see if Frank was in his yard. It was possible she would say something to him about the loud music she had heard at 3:00 a.m. Perhaps she should leave a note in his door – just like he had left her. But, his eyesight was so poor, he could never read it.

Yes, talking to him was the best thing to do. A minute more of deliberation and she decided she would say nothing. No, she would simply wait until 3:00 a.m. in the morning and place a Glenn Miller record on high volume and then wait for the sound of Mr. Carberry's shotgun firing above her house.

# Chapter Thirty-Three

Frank

Frank's grandfather had built the grand, six-columned house prior to World War II. The rocks that soared upward and around the fireplace were mountain rocks, gathered by laborers and then carried by mules down the mountain. The rooms, spacious, with towering windows, boasted hardwood floors hewn at the Casteel mill and sanded as slick as rock ice.

Warm sun swept across the deeply gabled rooftop and then through the long leaded windows on the east side of the house where the warm light fell on an antique piano, a Bösendorfer from Austria. The room was known as the piano room, the notes of Claude Debussy's _Clair de Lune_ soaring to the high ceilings and then floating down to awe honored guests. Sadly, to the dismay of Frank's grandfather, no one had touched the ivory keys since the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The sprawling kitchen had hosted chefs from all over the world. It was the middle of the day when Frank, in a not-so-grand fashion, lay like a fallen runner across the cold floor, his Pappy Van Winkle bottle, bone dry, next to him, only inches from the fingers of his right hand. He seemed to be reaching out for just one more swig.

Naked, his butt cheeks were smeared with grass and mud, his legs halfway under an oak table where remnants of a stale grilled cheese sandwich lay on a saucer, its crust removed. His two-day old beard, rough as extra course sandpaper, set gritty on his square jaws and surrounded an open mouth that emitted breath smelling as sour as a pig trough. When he heard the timbre of chimes coming from the grandfather clock in the foyer, only ten feet away, he grabbed his ears and winced. "Wha...."

"Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve," he moaned. Noon. It was noon. He turned over and opened his eyes. Above him, the ceiling's ornate tin tiles ran row after row. He counted them slowly, both vertically and horizontally. When he craned his neck to count the bulbs in the chandelier hanging in the foyer, his heart began a quick patter.

From the foyer, he turned his eyes to the piano room at the end of the wide hall running from the kitchen. He studied the oil painting hanging from the pale yellow wall. A pastoral scene, with grazing sheep and a lone chestnut, shaggy-haired pony. He counted the sheep. Seventeen sheep. Seventeen white sheep. Seventeen white sheep with seventeen noses. Seventeen white sheep with seventeen tails. Frank Carberry could see.

# Chapter Thirty-Four

Adela

Dusk eased into night as the last rays of the October sun found their hiding places at the curvature of the earth, leaving behind a cool darkness that gave way to the sounds of croaking frogs and crickets along the lake. At the cottage, soft music drifted through the screens and out onto the terrace where Adela sat, her wine glass empty.

Again, she watched the stars. A habit, mostly. A thing she did to remind herself of the insignificance of the planet earth, an acknowledgment of the universe and its far-reaching galaxies.

At midnight, the wine bottle empty, she left the terrace and found her bed. Once under the covers, she curled into a fetal position and was asleep in only minutes.

It was a trumpet. Shrill and piercing, the notes of Harry James' _Up A Lazy River_ split the night air and assaulted the sleeping Adela Harper. She sat up in bed, threw back the covers and looked out the window. Sure enough, a naked Frank Carberry moved in rhythm across the back porch, down the steps and into the yard. Again, his companion was whiskey, no glass, just an upturned bottle that somehow moved in sync with his gyrating torso and hips.

"Damn fool," she said. She closed her window, crawled back into bed and put the pillow over her head. She envisioned herself climbing over the picket fence and into the briar patch of Frank Carberry's estate. Their conversation promised to be lively. She only hoped that his 12 gauge was not loaded, instead hidden away in a dark closet where his cloudy eyes could not find it.

# Chapter Thirty-Five

Frank

Frank eased himself from the floor of the kitchen and stood looking at the toaster, the coffee pot, the fat, round canisters of flour and sugar with pictures of colorful roosters on the sides. His eyes found the black knobs of the gas stove, the tall white ceramic pitcher that had belonged to his mother. Next to it, a little creamer in the shape of a cow nudged the pitcher as if looking for a teat to suck.

Details as sharp as pin pricks exploded in front of him, leaving him almost breathless. Frank amazed himself as tears formed in his clear eyes, glistening the blue irises like sapphires from Kashmir and running down his bearded cheeks.

"Holy shit!" he muttered under his breath. "I can see."

Jack had driven him to Chattanooga in the middle of the night, a long ride that allowed him the opportunity to lambaste his son for intruding in his life, for making decisions that should have been left to him. What did he think he was? A child?

"Why don't you just put a diaper on me, Jack? Give me a bottle of milk, burp me." His anger swelled with each mile. "Ha! Jack's widdle baby father needs his diaper changed."

They were halfway to Chattanooga before the whiskey wore off and Frank settled into a snoring sleep, a sleep that emitted occasional whimpers and barks of unintelligible words that were filled with anxiety and fear. His arms and legs jerked as if he were being chased by a bear that had every intention of eating him.

It was still dark when they arrived in Chattanooga, not quite 5:00 a.m. They checked in at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown and slept until noon. In the early afternoon, they called a cab to take them to the Bluegrass Grill on Main Street, where they filled themselves with red boiled potatoes and fresh fried eggs. When they returned to the hotel, night had fallen and the two men settled in, Jack in an overstuffed chair near the window, Frank stretched out on the bed.

"Why'd you come back, Dad?"

Frank's eyes were closed, his hands folded over his chest as if he lay in a casket. His long legs stretched across the navy stripes of the bedspread, his head on pillows that were fluffed high on the bed. If he opened his eyes, he would not be able to see his son. Would not be able to look into the eyes of the child he had left behind while he traveled the world and played war games with men who spoke a language he did not understand.

When he opened his eyes, he turned his head in the direction where he knew his son watched. Waiting. Why did he come back? The answer was clear, so clear, his heart began to thump wildly in his chest. Finally, he lifted his hands as though blessing a child at baptism.

"To die, son. I came back to die."

# Chapter Thirty-Six

Adela

Adela poured coffee into a cup that had belonged to her grandmother Kree. A mug with a vine of green leaves circling the handle and twisting around the rim. Her grandmother had been a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, her hair brown black and eyes the color of gun powder.

Adela's own hair was dark auburn, strands that whispered of long-ago dalliances with the winds of the mountains and the Cherokees who danced under the moon. Her eyes hinted of colors of the Tallulah River, shifting from hazel to golden brown as if moved by the beat of her heart.

From the kitchen, she moved to the back porch and the sun that had moved above the trees and found the cottage. A little shudder ran up Adela's back as she glanced at the Carberry house. At some point, she would have to confront Frank about the loud music that blared across the picket fence and into the quiet of her cottage.

She was not looking forward to a conversation with a man whose cynicism was rampant, whose surly personality left one with a desire to slap him. His near blindness was no reason to feel sorry for him and certainly no reason to prevent her from confronting him with the issue of Harry James' trumpet blaring across the field to her cottage.

No, she would not let that prevent her from speaking her mind. After all, over the years, her time at the cottage had been serene, a rejuvenation of her soul, without the harassment of a Carberry. His return after so many years away had, so far, been quite unpleasant for her. _So there_.

And another thing - his hatred of her grandmother was baffling to her. It was possible Frank hated all women.

Adela left the back porch for the deck when the noon-day sun beckoned a short while of sunbathing on the terrace. Naked as the day she was born, she felt the warm sun on her skin and a soft breeze from the mountains lift her hair as she stepped out and looked up into a clear, blue autumn sky.

# Chapter Thirty-Seven

Frank

When Frank heard Adela's screen door slam, he looked across the field, just a mere three hundred feet from his back porch and watched as a naked Adela Harper walked out onto her terrace. His new eyes saw her long legs, her rounded breasts and her long hair hanging down her back and pointing to her rear-end.

His heart stilled. The widow Harper was lovely. She walked with a calm grace around the terrace and to a bird feeder hanging from a post. He watched as she filled the feeder, then lift the top of a nearby birdhouse and peek inside. In a moment, she was lying down, her arms by her side, her chin tilted upward, while a breeze blew hair softly around her face.

He stood a long time watching her and felt himself remember, felt the long-ago beauty of youth, of love. Where did it go, he wondered. Did a grandfather who thought more of an Indian woman than his own grandson take it from him?

He would spend a lifetime never understanding or realizing the truth of it all. There was one thing he did know for sure – his grandfather had put a hole in his heart, a deep, dark hole, when he rode up the mountain to the Indian woman and left behind a ten-year-old boy who ran behind his mule and sobbed until the sun set and left him in an unimaginable darkness.

# PART 2
# Chapter Thirty-Eight

Frank's Grandfather

He could have given her everything, the eight hundred acres, the sprawling house with its three fireplaces and the money that had grown in a myriad of investments he had made over the years. Kree had sat on the lake's edge on a balmy August evening and kissed Douglas Carberry with such passion that the heavens stood still. In return, he had pulled her to him and whispered, "My darling, Kree. My love."

She had come down from the highest peaks of the Appalachians with her father, from Standing Indian Mountain in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness. They had crossed the North Carolina line into Georgia where they hunted deer on the Carberry land, her father stalking, then shooting them, Kree immediately gutting and skinning the carcass with a knife so sharp the skins tore like paper.

Douglas Carberry was thirty-five years old, long a widower, when he saw the Indian woman with blood on her hands and arms while she knelt over a freshly-killed deer. They were on his land, but he said nothing as he approached their camp and leaned his rifle against a tree, his eyes soft as he walked a few feet closer and squatted next to the woman.

"What are you going to do with the guts and stomach?"

She kept her hands moving for a few moments, through the sinew, the skin and then bone. When she looked up, her eyes were dark, like a cave, as they roamed over Douglas' face. Douglas saw the moment her eyes softened, saw them smile. "Leave them for the animals."

"What animals?"

She returned to her work. "Red wolves."

"Red wolves?"

The knife stilled as she looked up at him. "Among other animals."

Douglas studied the woman's face and wondered her age. He saw wisdom and a deep intelligence that pulled him to a place that wanted to know more. There was one thing he couldn't overlook. Her dark Cherokee beauty hit him between the eyes and caused a rumbling in his chest. He stood and nodded to the old man.

"You're hunting on my land."

The Indian said nothing, his face stoic, his eyes blank. The woman stood, the knife held to her side, the softness in her eyes wilting. "You may keep our kill."

Douglas let his own eyes smile. "I don't want your kill. You're hunting on my land, which is fine. Be careful that you don't cross the river. Folks aren't too friendly over there." He turned and picked up his rifle.

"Do you know my house?"

She nodded. "The big white house six miles that way?" She pointed her brown fingers to the east.

"Yes." Douglas placed his rifle over his shoulder. "You've been there?"

"Only on the lake's edge. I see your house through the trees."

Douglas smiled and looked at the old man. "I assume he is your father."

"He is my father. His name is Austenaco."

"He is Chief."

She seemed surprised. "Yes."

"And your name?"

"Ahyoka Kree."

"Ahyoka?"

"It means 'she brought happiness.'"

Her words were serene, gathered from her heart and entered his own. Douglas' voice was almost a whisper. "And what about 'Kree?'"

She lifted her chin. The wind caught her long hair and revealed the softness of her neck. "A pet name."

Douglas seemed puzzled. "A pet name?"

"It is an afterthought, like 'darling."

His words were hesitant, but his eyes never wavered. He stepped closer and smelled the sweat on her skin. "Kree."

Douglas Carberry left the wilderness as quietly as he had come. Only this time, his thoughts were not of deer or wild turkeys, but of Ahyoka Kree. Perhaps he didn't realize it at the time, but at the moment of their meeting there had been an imperceptible wobble in the universe, an alignment of planets, a shift of the stars.

# Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ivy Log

On Monday morning, Paula walked to the Boarding House Restaurant, as had been her habit for as long as she could remember. Her thin calves slipped into even thinner ankles, ankles that were strapped with the red leather of her high-heeled shoes. She walked as if she were on stage, a pretentious carriage of her body that pushed her boney shoulders back and projected small breasts that pointed to wherever she was going.

She lacked classic beauty, but she made up for it with her meticulous attention to style. If she were in New York City, heads might turn to look at her red hair, her purple eye shadow and her skintight yellow dress.

In Ivy Log, it wasn't her red hair or yellow dress that prompted a craned neck or two. Nothing as mundane as hair whetted the appetites of those who fed on the tittle-tattle that was so reminiscent of small town existence. Instead, they gorged themselves with the pleasure of knowing what other folks were doing, lapping themselves into delicious conversations over coffee and pie at the Boarding House, where Paula Jennings reined queen.

The aroma of meatloaf baking in the big ovens wafted in the mid-day air along with the hot biscuits that lined the cook's counter. It was Monday's special: meatloaf, mashed potatoes and bright orange carrots flavored with ginger and brown sugar.

For twenty-five years, Pyune Murphy's secret ingredients had drawn Ivy Log's citizens to the Boarding House where they found sweet iced tea with lemon and berry pies brimming with juices that ran over the pan edge and caramelized into sticky candy along the sides.

Faithful customers flocked to the big, white clapboard house especially on Mondays when the hum of gossip seemed to permeate the walls, the floorboards, the crisp white tablecloths and the very air that swirled around the pie table. Mondays seemed to be the culmination of the events of the weekend. Who attended church, who did not. Who wore a hideous dress with large purple flowers? Who wore trousers that were too short, revealing bony ankles that protruded outward like knobs on a radio?

Alcoholics were especially scrutinized, the remnants of too much gin or bourbon in their puffy faces and droopy eyes. Gossip fueled the bored lives in Ivy Log as if it were an aphrodisiac, a drug that sustained life.

"Morning, Paula." John Reece, Ivy Log's only barber, waved from across the room as she walked through the double oak doors.

Paula nodded and turned her attention to her favorite table by the window where no one dared sit on any given Monday. Waiting for her were Sally Crowe and Ann Crabtree, friends since grade school.

"Hey, ever' body," said Paula as she pulled out a chair and was immediately served a sweet iced tea. "Can't believe how hot it is out today. October and it feels like summer."

"Weatherman says a cold front's coming in next week. Temperatures 'll be in the 40's at night. 'round 60 for a high." Sally stirred more sugar into her tea.

"That's chilly. 'bout time. I'm tired of summer weather. Let's get on with fall and a little winter. Not too much winter though. Not like last year, anyway." Paula's long fingers arranged her silverware in perfect alignment, then placed a napkin in her lap.

She cast a probing glance around the restaurant and was surprised to see Wiley Hanson. "Well, I can't believe it. There's Wiley. What's he doing here?" Paula watched Wiley find a table near Pyune's pies. "Thought he went back up the mountain."

Sally leaned over the salt and pepper shakers. "He's come back for that sweet pie of Pyune's."

Paula felt a shiver run up her back as she thought of the four-poster bed in her guest room and the naked body of Wiley beneath her. She saw herself astraddle his thin, wiry frame as his hands squeezed her breasts. The idea of him returning to that dark upstairs bedroom caused her to look his way and give him a come-hither smile. He caught her look and nodded slightly. "Maybe he's here to shod a horse," she said casually.

Ann laughed. "Bet he's here to shod Pyune."

Neither Sally nor Ann had any idea of Paula's liaison with Wiley. No, she would take that secret to her grave. After all, she had an image to maintain.

Shirley Altwater came through the door and headed to their table.

"Missed you in church yesterday, Shirley." Paula looked at Shirley over the rim of her tea glass. "Sleep in?" It was a casual question, but its answer would be interesting.

"Not hardly. Was actually up early reading my bible." Paula knew that was a lie.

"Saw Adela Harper at the youth musical Saturday night. Snooty, as usual," said Paula.

"I thought she was at the lake for a few weeks."

"She is." Paula paused. "And, may I remind you, Frank Carberry is there, too."

Sally fed the comment. "Still think they're having an affair?"

"Think? I _know_ they are. It was written all over her face Saturday night. What a hypocrite she is. Doesn't fool me." A red line appeared across Paula's brow.

Ann unfortunately crossed a line. "How do you know? The lake is so secluded."

Paula's face clouded, a sneer of unparalleled proportions spread her lips wide and menacing. "My darling, Ann, just trust me. They are having an affair as sure as you and I are sitting here."

After a slice of lemon meringue pie, the girls left their table, Ann and Sally leaving for appointments at Dottie's beauty salon, Shirley to pick up her grandson. Paula meandered to Wiley's table where he sat finishing Pyune's meatloaf. "My goodness, Wiley. Back in town already? Thought you'd shod every horse in the valley."

Wiley wiped his mouth and nodded. "Yep, I did, Paula. Thirteen in all."

Paula waited a moment while Wiley picked his teeth. "What's brought you back down the mountain?"

Wiley smiled. "Why, Paula. Is there anything you don't know? I'd a figured you knew by now that I'd come back to see Doc Anderson about a bum leg. Horse kicked me over at the Keeling farm."

A look of feigned concern wrinkled Paula's brow. "So glad you weren't kicked in a really important body part." Her grin was sly, typical of the woman whose role it was to play both parts: upstanding member of The Church and secret lover of Wiley Hanson.

"Wouldn't want to disappoint you, Paula."

"How long before you head back up to the mountains?"

Wiley's eyes narrowed, his mountain man caution surfacing before a grin parted his Sean Connery beard. He looked carefully at the woman with the uninhibited tongue. "Now, Paula, I am certain, coming from you, that is not an empty question."

Paula leaned back and patted her hair while her eyes darted around the restaurant. From the corner of her eye, she saw Pyune standing in the doorway, her black skin glistening from the heat of the kitchen.

When Paula smiled at Wiley, it answered his question. No, it was not a casual question.

"Want you to do a favor for me, Wiley."

"If I can." He waited while Pyune filled his tea glass and gave Paula a cold stare. "What is it?"

"I want you to do a little spying for me."

"A little spying?"

She nodded. "Won't take long."

Wiley seemed curious as he leaned forward in a conspiratorial gesture. "What are you up to, Paula?"

"Oh, just a little inquisitive snooping."

"Snooping?"

"What's the matter, Wiley? Never snooped before."

"Not really."

Paula seemed irritated. "Damn it, Wiley. Are you going to help me or not?"

"Oh? We're doing this together?"

Paula rolled her eyes and shook her head. "But, of course.

She paused as if something had suddenly occurred to her. Her words came slowly, as smooth as her silk stockings. "There's one other thing we can do together," she said, as she rubbed his leg beneath the table.

# Chapter Forty

Adela

She did not lack courage. That was not why she hesitated. The fence was four feet high. She could climb over it or walk down to the end where it stopped at the edge of the woods, about ten feet from the lake's edge – the same spot where Frank Carberry had slept in the leaves, along with his empty whiskey bottle – where he had blasphemed her grandmother.

The fence was more than a fence. The pointed tops of the pickets were no different than the wooden stakes used to defend a castle. The sharp obstacles decreed a dividing line between the Carberry estate and the pitiful little twenty acres and cottage that belonged to Adela Queen Harper, granddaughter of Ahyoka Kree, the Cherokee woman who stole away the heart of Frank Carberry's grandfather.

Adela looked past the top of the fence and to the imposing façade of the house, which set facing the woods and the pristine mountain waters of the lake. She would simply walk up the steps and knock on the door. Then, she would politely ask Frank Carberry to refrain from his lurid behavior between the hours of three and four in the morning.

For the past two mornings, she had seen his naked, writhing butt, heard whooping and hollering that in no way resembled the words to the blaring song that roared across the fence, through her bedroom window and into her sleeping ears. It was time for a civil conversation, neighbor to neighbor, without a bottle of bourbon, without the lingering sneer that professed his disdain for every breath she took.

She walked the line of the fence to the end where lake waters lapped the shore. Crossing over onto Carberry land, she stepped onto the formal front entrance to the rambling house where she raised herself up, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Then, her somewhat timid knuckles found the wood of the polished oak door. A not-so-loud tap followed. Then, another. Perhaps along with his blindness, Frank Carberry was also deaf. Adela shifted from foot to foot in an attempt to calm the nervousness she felt. She shrieked when the door flung open and a towering Frank Carberry stood before her.

"Good morning, Mr. Carberry," she managed to say with remarkable aplomb. He was shirtless, a bed of gray chest hair only twelve inches from her nose. Why she noticed his nipples, she did not know. They were hard and brown, easily seen beneath the tangle of hair. She lifted her chin and found his face, where a stubble of beard lined his cheeks and jaw. Rugged. That's what he was, rugged, a lean military body.

She waited for his response, but he said nothing. Just stood there. She was afraid to look into the cloudy eyes where she knew he saw only blurred visions that faded into obscure pictures. Words came from her mouth despite his cold stance.

"I do believe you left a note on my door last week requesting I not play my music so loudly." Her gaze went past him and into the foyer where large oil paintings hung on the paneled walls. She smiled, though he probably could not see it. "I have honored your request and now I'd like you to honor mine. It seems you have, yourself, played music at all hours of the night."

Adela found herself rising on her tiptoes as if to intimidate him. "While I don't have to look at your disgusting naked body as you gyrate across your lawn, I can't seem to tune out the sound of Harry James' trumpet."

She paused. "I am certain you can find the volume knob so you may adjust the volume of the music you play." _So there_.

He was so close. She smelled peanut butter and orange marmalade. Saw toast crumbs in his beard. Saw his lips spread wide and a row of beautifully straight teeth as he expelled a nauseatingly phony smile.

"My most humble apologies, Ms. Harper. How inconsiderate of me not to notice the clock on the wall and the time that I put Harry's music on." His smile became even wider.

"And, oh, how could I not notice that I wore no clothes as I danced – excuse me – I believe you said 'gyrated' – across the lawn. I tend to be forgetful sometimes. You know, the time, no clothes. No memory of...of exactly how you became my neighbor."

Frank's dramatic, animated speech elevated. "Oh, now I remember. My grandfather fucked your grandmother and then gave her twenty acres and a cottage for her services."

The sound of Adela's hand finding Frank's cheek reverberated across the porch and into the quiet morning. The slap was delivered so violently that the toast crumbs in Frank's beard flew across the porch, leaving him still and wincing from pain. His eyes watered. Even his nose began to run. Still he did not move.

Adela heard a lark singing from the top of a nearby holly tree, the notes pure, rising to the heavens as if called by God himself. She felt the breeze that brought the fragrance of fall from a far-away wood fire. She backed away from Frank Carberry and placed one foot on the step. Her words were distant, coming from a place far away, as if spoken by someone else. She looked into his eyes.

"I feel nothing but sadness for you, Mr. Carberry – your heart is non-existent." She stepped down another step. "It is troubling to me that you do not honor the love your grandfather had for my grandmother."

Again, she moved farther away, from the last step, into the yard. Her voice rose slightly, a firmness that ensured he heard her. "Your cruel words will not diminish my memories of their love and respect for one another."

Adela left him unmoving, watching her. She never looked back, followed the fence to the lake, to the dock. The tears coming quickly. She looked down at her hand, red and still smarting from the blow that struck Frank Carberry's smug face.

# Chapter Forty-One

Frank

It was always a woman who seemed to bring men down. Frank smiled and thought of Jezebel and Cleopatra. In his forty-plus years in the military, never once had he been struck by anyone – at least, anyone who lived to talk about it.

His position of authority guaranteed respect and, most certainly, a reverence for his uniform and rank. Now, as he watched Adela Harper walk along the fence line, across his land and toward the lake, he wondered just how she had been able to deliver such a blow to his jaw. He reached up and rubbed it, moved it back and forth, clicked his teeth together.

Then, he wondered why he had not hit her back. He wished he could have handled her like his troops, put her in solitary confinement, had her scrub the latrine. In war time – had her shot!

He moved to the edge of the porch and saw her disappear through the trees, saw the red-brown hair swing with each step, the trim body he had seen only hours before without its clothes. He waited for her to appear again as she returned to her cottage. When minutes passed and there was no sign of her, he went inside. He decided it was too early for Pappy Van Winkle so poured coffee and went out to the back porch and sat in a rocker that had belonged to his grandfather. And thought about love.

# Chapter Forty-Two

Ivy Log

If they had not been so well constructed, the rafters of Paula Jennings's house would have shook as though gale force winds pummeled them. Paula's thin body pummeled Wiley Hanson, who lay beneath her and grimaced with each thrust. She squealed as though calling home the pigs that roamed Luther Mann's farm.

"Give it to me, Wileyeeeeeeeee. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

Then, as if kicked by a mule, she collapsed into the sheets and lay still, panting.

Wiley turned over and looked at her. "Paula, do you ever get enough?"

She was quiet for a long moment. "What's wrong, Wiley. Are you giving out on me?"

He smiled and blessed the day she had invited him in for iced tea and then a romp in her upstairs guest room, where he meticulously studied the wallpaper on the ceiling as she sat atop him. "Naw. Not giving out. Give me a little while, woman."

They lay in the dusk-darkened bedroom, Paula's leg across Wiley as if to prevent him from leaving, not that he would. His appreciation of Paula went further than the occasional liaison that brought them together in her four-poster bed. Perhaps it was her city-girl persona that fascinated him, kept him intrigued and, of course, coming back.

"I still can't figure out why you want to snoop on Adela," he said, putting his own leg across Paula's.

"For Pete's sake, Wiley. Why do I have to explain it to you?" She sat up and, even in the dimness of the room, he noticed her nipples were the color of washed out clay.

He reached over and stroked her stomach. "Adela's my friend."

Wiley saw Paula's lips puff into a pout. He knew she had always envied Adela, felt inferior to her.

"Wiley, it's not really Adela I want to spy on – it's that Frank Carberry. He's just so weird. I want to know the truth about him...and, if we happen to see that he's having an affair with Adela, then so what?"

"Trust me, Paula. There's no way Frank would be having an affair with the granddaughter of that Cherokee woman."

# Chapter Forty-Three

Adela

Adela left the dock, the calm of the lake and found the path to the cottage. Though the picket fence was only a few feet away, she ignored it, as well as the house where she knew Frank sat all day drinking his whiskey.

Her first thought was to pack up and return to Ivy Log. Leave the ill-will at the lake and remove herself from any further confrontation with the old cuss. His words had left her angry, then distraught. She felt a need to lash out, defend the memories of her grandmother – even more so, defend a relationship that she deemed meaningful.

In the end, her decision was to stay, ignore the obstinate man and continue her time at the lake as if he didn't exist.

At the cottage, she drank iced tea and made a chicken salad sandwich. A few oatmeal cookies and she was out on the terrace. The rays of an October sun found her part-Cherokee skin and she felt herself slip into a place that brought a soft peace. She closed her eyes and waited for thoughts of Andy to surface, to remind her of a time so long ago.

Instead, an image of Frank Carberry appeared, a naked butt, his long legs dancing around in the moonlight. She felt herself smile, then laugh out loud. Before it was over, tears rolled down her cheeks. She had never slapped anyone in her entire life and she had rather enjoyed it.

# Chapter Forty-Four

Frank

It was the slamming of her screened door that jarred Frank from his quiet spot on the back porch and into the reality of his still smarting jaw. He turned to see Adela walk across the terrace, her nakedness as natural as the sun that washed over her skin.

He stilled and remembered Kree when she first came to the big white house, his ten-year-old shyness moving him behind the kitchen door, his eyes finding her through a small crack.

He had stayed behind the door until she left on her little white pony. He remembered watching out the window and seeing the pony's tail dragging the ground. In his youthful thinking he decided white ponies should not have long tails. She turned and saw him watching her and waved. A smile left her lips, but still, he did not love her.

He searched for his grandfather and found him in the barn, saddling his favorite horse. "Where are you going?" he asked in his little boy voice.

Douglas Carberry swung the saddle onto the horse, over the blanket, and reached under the horse's belly and pulled the cinch into place. "Oh, up in the mountains."

"Where in the mountains?" The boy's face turned upward, questioning.

His grandfather worked quietly. "Doesn't matter where, Frank. I'll be back in a few days. Do your homework like Margaret tells you."

Douglas pulled himself into the saddle. "Feed the cats." And, he was gone.

Frank heard Margaret behind him. "Come into the house, Frankie. I just made you some peach cobbler." Margaret touched his shoulder. Until he was eighteen years old, it was the last touch he remembered.

Though loving and kind, Douglas' sister did not fill the void left by his grandfather's absence. The farmhands, the animals, the occasional visits from town-folk, as well as the material things his grandfather's wealth brought him, he was lonely for the man who had raised him since birth.

Now, as he looked across the fence, he saw a woman like the Kree of long ago. Beautiful. Beguiling. There was only one difference – Frank Carberry would not fall prey to Adela Harper.

# Chapter Forty-Five

Adela

Evening fell quickly, the stars finding their places in the sky, the western horizon empty of the setting sun. The air was still, with no hint of the winter that perhaps lay waiting in Canada, waiting to launch itself and put an end to the north Georgia Indian summer.

Adela held her empty wine glass and hummed a song from an old movie. _Yeah, maybe it's you. Maybe it's you I've been waiting for all my life. Tootsie_. That was the name of the movie.

From her chair on the terrace, she looked across the field. Kitchen lights spilled from the house and a silhouette of Frank Carberry appeared here and there as though he played hide and seek with the window. She left her chair and walked to the edge of the terrace and watched him, remembering his judgmental blue eyes as she performed her little speech on his front porch.

She stepped down from the terrace and walked to the fence, just a hundred or so feet away. Something began to bother her, a vague something that wasn't quite within her reach. Yet, it was most certainly there.

# Chapter Forty-Six

Frank

Frank held an unopened bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon and read the label. _90 proof. Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery, Frankfort, Kentucky_. He could see.

The gentleman in Frank found him reaching for a proper whiskey glass, Glencairn crystal from Scotland, and pouring a generous amount of Pappy. It was the same whiskey his grandfather had enjoyed. He sipped the warm liquid and walked to the library where a painting of Douglas Carberry hung in prominence.

His grandfather was regal, the small Carberry cleft in his chin, a straight nose and thick hair. He was sitting on his horse, a fine buckskin named Jack, whose pale brown eyes looked out from the painting and almost beckoned one to reach out and stroke him. Jack's coat glistened like he had been ridden hard, a touch of foam on his bit, Douglas Carberry holding his reins. His grandfather's eyes were misty, seemingly reflective and thoughtful. He had been a handsome man.

Frank left the rambling rows of books that lined the library walls and ventured out the back door and into a field where the fragrance of wild onions filled the night air. He walked to the top of the rise and looked down onto the lake. Serene and still, it was fed by the river as well as waters that ran from the mountains and carried the spirits of the rocks and trees.

To his left, he saw Adela Harper's small cottage. There was a quaintness about it. Gabled and heavily windowed, it snuggled against a stand of sugar maples, its terrace wide with the same stones that had built the mansion-like home of Douglas Carberry.

A melancholy lingered as Frank leaned against a tree and felt the glass of Pappy bourbon swaddle him in memories that he had put in the ground so long ago. He studied the darkened cottage and remembered when every window was ablaze with light, when the timbre of music rode on the hillside air.

He emptied his glass and walked down the hill toward the fence that separated the cottage from his two-story house. The fence had not always been there. At one time, a worn path had run between the two houses, connecting them as though an umbilical cord.

Absentmindedly, he looked down, his gaze running across the grass from his land, under the fence and to the small cottage. The path had faded away long ago, no longer used by Douglas Carberry when he slipped away into the night to find the warm body of the Cherokee woman.

When he reached the fence, he touched it, felt the roughness of the wood, the sharpness of the pickets. He looked up and remembered. The cottage had been Douglas Carberry and Ahyoka Kree's love nest.

Her eyes had followed him from the house to the top of the rise, then down to the edge of the fence where he stood. She moved back into the shadows and wondered if he had visited before, stealthily, after she'd gone to bed and slept with dreams of Andy. Wondered if he had touched the fence, the ugly thing that divided them, that kept them from the truths that, in the end, had kept them apart.

Two people who were connected, yet unconnected, disemboweled from the two people who were most important in their lives. Such a travesty; love to hate. And, there had been love; deep and true. As true as the heartbeat of the woman who had captured Douglas Carberry's heart. As true as the man who had loved Kree like no other.

Adela felt her own heartbeat as she pressed herself against the cool stone of the cottage. She smelled the night dew, felt the soft wind from the mountains and remembered the songs of her Cherokee grandmother. Love songs. _Carry me to the one I love, who waits for me on the hill; Carry me to the one I love, the one who loves me still. Yeee, yi, eeeee. Yeee, yi, eeeee_.

From the lake, she heard a cry from a night heron, a beckoning cry that broke the night and said _come fly away with me_. Somehow the call of the bird saddened her. If truth be known she would have flown away and found the place where Andy was – where his crooked smile teased her and left her breathless.

She watched Frank meander toward the house, a lonely walk, disjointed as though he wasn't really sure where he was going. A step this way, a step that way. Perhaps he was drunk. Perhaps she could expect a wild tirade at 3:00 a.m. when he performed his loud tribute to Harry James' trumpet.

When Frank reached the porch steps, he hesitated and looked over his shoulder as if he had forgotten something, as if he wanted to go back to the fence and say something to the cottage, to the invisible path, to the memory of his grandfather. He stood a long moment, still and waiting. Listening. Did he hear someone calling him?

Adela watched him turn away from the direction of the cottage and look toward the woods, lifting his chin. She then heard a soft whistle. Once. Twice.

# Chapter Forty-Seven

Frank

He'd not noticed the sun before, his days beginning with a gray cloud over his eyes. But, now, as he lay in the large bedroom on the second floor, the sun swept in, found his face and demanded he open his eyes and begin his day. The thought of that was appealing to him. He had to admit his cataracts had been debilitating. Why had he waited so long? Perhaps he didn't care to see. What was there to see?

He smiled and sat up. _There was Adela Harper to see_. His smile turned to a grin as he jumped out of bed and walked to the window that faced the small cottage. And there she was.

She carried a cup of coffee and busied herself with her flowers. A pinch here, a pinch there on her late blooming Shasta daisies. She wore a pair of cotton pants, green, and a white tee. Her hair twisted into a wild top knot, held by a pink ribbon. Through the open window, he heard her humming.

Wiley had called her the Widow Harper. _Never remarried after all these years_. Her pilgrimage to the cottage occurred every October, a month long, a rejuvenation of sorts, from what Wiley had said. Said she didn't allow visitors – it was her time to assess her life, the depth of her happiness or lack of. Such a woman thing, thought Frank. He left the window and pulled on a pair of pants. He wasn't going to walk around in the nude like his neighbor.

Downstairs, he made coffee, found the orange marmalade and plugged in the toaster. He laughed out loud. The Widow Harper had no idea he had traveled to Chattanooga, had cataract surgery and could now see a flea on a goat's ear a mile away. And, better than that, he had no plans to tell her.

# Chapter Forty-Eight

Adela

Adela filled the bird feeder, swept the terrace and watered the rosemary and basil. No rain until later in the week when a Canadian front would bring dark clouds and wind, a prelude to the cool weather that would follow. Perhaps she'd take a pole down to the dock and fish awhile.

Across the way, the back porch of the big house lay in soft filtered sunlight that had found its way through the branches of a nearby evergreen. Sitting in a rocker, Frank drank coffee and looked her way, expressionless.

At one time, she would have waved, perhaps even smiled, even though his poor vision wouldn't have allowed him to see her. Her dislike of him had escalated with each passing day, his treatment of her unkind, his behavior inexcusable.

There would be no mending of the fences nor crossing of the bridges as far as Adela was concerned. Frank Carberry's hate ran too deep.

She left the terrace to have lunch, a salad. Then, an hour sunbathing before she tried her luck fishing later in the afternoon. She decided to begin a new novel, a love story about a woman who loved a man who lived half way across the world, an ocean dividing them. It was a love story built on words.

At 1:00, she settled on the terrace, her lean body stretched across the lounge, her new novel propped on her knees.

And, across the way, the tall, lanky frame of Frank Carberry leaned against the white column of his front entry, his repaired eyes twinkling, a smile on his lips, as he savored the naked loveliness of the Widow Harper.

# Chapter Forty-Nine

Ivy Log

Wiley Hanson and his old truck lumbered down the narrow mountain road as if glued to the earth, around treacherous hairpin turns, through passages where, during heavy rains, rocks tumbled down the mountainsides like meteorites.

The motor of his truck whined when he swerved and braked for a lone cow standing in the middle of the road. He cursed and blew his horn. She merely looked at him and slung her wet tongue into her nostril, then continued chewing her cud and batting her huge brown eyes as though she were a famous movie star.

He got out of the truck and waved his arms. After a deliberating moment, she turned her bony rear around and walked into the nearby woods, but not before one last insult as she lifted her tail and released a trail of hot, wet manure.

All this for Paula Jennings, the city girl who had him wrapped around her finger. Her beguiling smile and seductive eyes beckoned him as if she were Delilah, a woman who desired him as though he were a king. Irritated, he returned to his truck and continued down the mountain.

She told him not to be late. 8:00 o'clock on the dot and she would be waiting for him. On the edge of town, near the tavern. She had instructed him to wear dark clothing.

Tonight was the night.

He pulled into the parking lot of the tavern and waited. He was on time. She wasn't. The thought of spying on Adela Harper and Frank Carberry was unnerving to him. He knew Frank owned a shotgun. A twelve gauge. What he didn't know was how Frank could shoot a gun when he was half-blind. Truth was, he decided, there was no way he could aim and hit a dang thing. Then again, shotgun pellets covered a lot of territory. He felt a slight shudder as his eyes searched the highway for Paula's headlights.

At last, twenty minutes late, she guided her car alongside his and smiled. He waited while her window glided down – he smelled her perfume and wondered why a woman would wear perfume while snooping in the woods. "Paula, you're late."

"I know, I know. Just keep your pants on. It'll be dark for another ten hours. What's the big deal?" She left her car and crawled into the seat of the truck, her skinny butt scraping across the torn plastic seat covers.

"Ouch! If I get a snag in my pants, you're gonna buy me a new pair." She wore a tight black pull-over sweater, dark polyester slacks and sneakers. Her flaming red hair was shoved under a kerchief and tied in the back. The kerchief was bright purple. Clandestine, she wasn't.

"Damn it, Paula!" Wiley twisted in his seat and grabbed a bag she was carrying. "What is this?"

Paula snatched the bag away and held it to her chest. "Wiley, I am not going to do anything without some snacks."

"Snacks?" Wiley slapped the steering wheel. "This is getting too complicated." Wiley's nervousness was evident, his head bobbing with every word. "I'm tellin' you, Paula. I don't know how I let you talk me into this."

She grinned at him. "Wiley, you know very well you've never told me no." She reached out and rubbed his thigh.

Wiley slumped in the seat. "Dang it. Let's go." He jerked the gear into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot.

"Heck, yeah, Wiley. Just let ever'body know we're here. Squeal them tires again, will you." Paula pulled out a bag of pork rinds. "Look what I brought you."

Wiley looked over and saw the bag, then smiled at Paula. "Well," he said, bobbing his head, "all's I can say is you know pork rinds makes me horny."

Paula squealed with delight. "That I do, Wiley. That I do."

They ate pork rinds and listened to Willie Nelson as the battered truck headed west on Highway 325 toward the lake.

"Tell you what, Paula. I don't feel too good about what we're doing."

Paula sighed. "Wiley, do we have to talk about this again? I thought it was settled." The crunch of pork rinds filled her words. "All we're going to do is spy a little bit. See what's going on out there."

Wiley's hands gripped the steering wheel. "But, why do we care what's going on out there?"

He turned and saw the purple kerchief come off Paula's head and a wild tangle of red hair spill across her face. She looked like a she-devil. He felt the rise of hair prickle the back of his neck. It surprised him when her words came soft, like a morning shower.

"Wiley, I've been in this town all my life. I truly thought I'd leave one day, but that never happened." Paula turned and looked out the window at the darkness of the mountain woods. "So, here I am. The only excitement I feel is when you and I get together in that big bedroom upstairs and...." She stopped and rearranged the kerchief on her head. "and...well, you know."

Wiley chuckled and reached over and patted her knee. "Yeah, I know."

The drone of the truck motor and a song by Randy Travis filled the cab of the truck as they followed the asphalt highway toward the lake. Then, as if nudged by the devil himself, Paula's voice changed into the woman whose vile reputation caused shivers among the most staunch citizens of Ivy Log.

"Adela Harper may be your friend, but she's not mine." The bitterness fell on her tongue and swished around like poison. "'sides that, Frank Carberry is no friend either."

Wiley slowed the truck and turned off the main highway and onto the narrow gravel road that circled Frank Carberry's eight hundred acres. He pulled to the side and turned off the motor. When he looked at Paula's shadowed face, he saw something he'd never seen before. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there – a something that caused him to pause and wonder if he knew the real Paula Jennings.

"Now, Paula, neither one of those folks has ever done anything to you."

She turned and looked at him through slitted eyes. "Wiley, you're just a mountain man. What do you know?"

# Chapter Fifty

Frank

Frank's love affair with Rip Van Winkle bourbon pulled him into places that he had long ago buried, had covered up with the clandestine missions for the military, had drowned with naked women in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and had obscured with the bullets of his assassin's weapon. He fell into the dark world of espionage and then wondered where he had lost himself.

Yesterday, he was twenty-eight and virile, afraid of nothing – a heart that beat with the rhythm of youth. Now, he had come face to face with the reality of who he was: a man alone. And, he asked himself if this was _all there is?_

He walked out under an October moon and looked at the mountain sky. Like no other, it spread exactly as Galileo had described it – an arching white band across the night sky that held the mysteries of the Universe. He saw it with his newly found eyesight and was humbled. It was so much more than he could have imagined.

He stood for a long moment, his eyes sweeping across the skies and finding the constellations one by one, a habit he had established during the long lonely nights spent in all the obscure places he had been. It was like counting sheep when sleep wouldn't come and his frenzied mind needed rest.

He left the yard and walked past the tree line that bordered the lake and found the path leading to the dock. The fragrance of mountain laurel drifted through the air, a sweetness that pulled him into a melancholia and made him still and wonder of the meaning of it all.

From the shore of the lake, he walked onto the dock that his grandfather had built. Cypress poles held thick planks that spread outward and formed a path over the water. He looked across the lake and felt a longing. For what, he didn't know. He sipped from his glass and listened to the call of night birds. Perhaps they were lonely, too. He laughed as he called across the lake. "Yahoooooooooooooooo. I love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu?"

He was drunk. Along with his newly found eyesight, along with a quart of Pappy, his Saturday evening became joyful – joyful in the drinking, joyful in the seeing. He pulled Pappy from his back pocket, refilled his glass and toasted the heavens.

At the end of the dock, he sat in a wooden chair, leaned back and stretched out his long legs.

He had told his son he was dying. Well, hell, yes, he was dying. Just didn't know when. Didn't know when the Almighty would call his name. He laughed. "Here I am, God. Anytime you're ready, I'm right here." He emptied his glass and felt the warmth of the whiskey on his tongue.

"Excuse me, but I think that's my chair." Adela seemed to hear the strength in her words and took a step closer. "As well as my dock...a dock which is on my land." A step closer. "I believe it's called trespassing."

Frank didn't move as he smiled a smile she couldn't see. If he turned around, would he see the lovely, naked body of his neighbor? He hardly thought so. Should he ignore her? What could she do? Throw him in the lake? He sipped long and slow.

"Ah, it's the squatter come to protect her dock." His laughter tumbled across the smooth water of the lake, becoming a far-away echo as it faded quietly on the opposite shore. Still he didn't move.

"Squatter? Must I educate you? It seems you are not only obstinate and possess the character of a bully, but you are also uneducated in the laws of property ownership." A step closer.

Frank thought about the word "obstinate" for a moment and wondered if he had ever been called obstinate before. He smiled. Yes, he had. Many times, but only by those who exceeded him in rank. Never by those underlings who suffered the ravages of his temper. He had to be obstinate to survive the responsibilities of leadership. If he hadn't, men would have died. He pushed away the memories of those times and settled deeper in his chair.

"My, my Ms. Harper. You bring up the testy subject of property ownership and it delights me so." He continued with confidence, an air of blatant superiority. "For you see, my education in that regard is exceedingly astute." He stood, his back to her, and pulled his bottle of Pappy.

Pouring more whiskey into his glass, he remained aloof. "The facts are simple and quite understandable. What confuses me at this point is why you don't get it." He lifted his glass. "Your grandmother whored with my grandfather and, lo and behold, she birthed a cottage and twenty acres."

He felt the strength of her hands on his back, then the force of the shove that catapulted him into the lake. Even as his body hit the cold water, he was thinking about the touch of her warm hands on his back.

# Chapter Fifty-One

Adela

She had just pushed a blind man into the lake. Obstinate, but half-blind and floundering before her, his whiskey glass held high in the water, obscenities flowing from his mouth like water down the side of a mountain. How could she do such a thing? Easy.

"It would _delight_ me if you would swim in your part of the lake as you're still on my property." She stood at the edge of the dock and watched as Frank Carberry relinquished his whiskey glass to the lake waters and swam to shore, a curse word for each time his arms pulled his body through the water.

She called to him, laughing all the while.

"Thank you, Mr. Carberry, for letting me educate you on the rules of property ownership." The lake breeze caught her hair and the hem of her skirt. "Do _you_ get it now?"

Frank swam to the shallow edge of the lake and stood, his pants clinging to his legs, his bare feet sinking into the soft shore. His breath came in short spurts, his hand sweeping across his face and slinging the water from his hair.

"Get it? Why, Ms. Harper, I've _always_ gotten it. I have no trouble recognizing truth."

Adela saw Frank's hands move to his zipper and push his pants down his legs. Saw his naked body in the moonlight as he walked a few feet toward her, noticed a watch on his right wrist, a patch of hair on his chest that ran down his body to meet the hair that circled the place that caused her to look away and turn back toward the cottage.

"And, where are you going?" he called. "Never seen a naked man before?"

Laughter rang out into the night, through the trees, and up into the mountains, like a run-away train. "You owe me a bottle of Pappy bourbon!" He walked after her. "Mine's at the bottom of the lake."

Adela stopped and turned. Yes, he was still naked, so natural in the night, where soft shadows enticed a glimpse of his secret place. The moonlight caught his silver hair, grazed his shoulders, found the tip of his nose and chin. She was spellbound.

"At the bottom of the lake?" she asked. He was only twenty feet from her. "Your property or mine?"

She saw his grin.

"Not sure. Could be on either one. Nonetheless, it was an almost full bottle. And, Pappy isn't cheap."

"Really? Almost full bottle?" Against her better judgment, Adela moved a step closer. "I'm surprised you have a full bottle of anything, Mr. Carberry." Her sarcasm was at full-steam.

Another grin.

"I wouldn't lie to you about my whiskey."

Adela felt the cool of the October night brush her face. "If your lost bottle of whiskey is on my property, then it's mine." She turned away quickly. She had had enough of the obstinate Frank Carberry.

# Chapter Fifty-Two

Ivy Log

"Well, I sure wish he'd turn around. I'd like to see more than his butt."

"Paula, would you just hush." Wiley pulled her back into the bushes and cursed for the hundredth time. What had he been thinking? He pressed her shoulders closer to the ground and prayed she'd stay there.

"I knew it. A naked Frank Carberry standing right there in front of the innocent widow. Wonder what they were doing before we got here?" She edged a little closer and squinted her eyes. "What a butt. Go on, Frankie Boy, show us some more," she whispered.

"Paula, I swear to you if you don't shut up, I'm going to drag you back to the car." Wiley wiped the sweat from his forehead and debated whether or not to clamp his hand over Paula's mouth.

"Oh, you hush, Wiley. It's pretty obvious to me that our little widow is not as pure and innocent as she'd have everybody think."

Wiley bowed his head and sighed heavily. "It appears to me that Miss Adela has all her clothes on so you haven't proved anything as far as I'm concerned."

Paula turned her head and looked over at Wiley. "Now, you tell me this, Mr. Hanson, is that a naked butt out there or isn't it? Don't it seem to you like maybe ole Frank has some plans for his neighbor? I mean standing there buck naked means just one thing to me." She grinned and edged even closer.

"Well, it takes two to tango," Wiley whispered, "and right now it looks like Frank is dancing by himself."

"Give it time, old boy. Give it time. He keeps inching towards her like a magnet." Paula licked her lips. "He'll get there. Just give him some time."

"Well, we ain't staying. Let's back outta here before they see us."

"Frank can't see a thing, Wiley. Even if he could, he'd never catch us."

"Well, his 12 gauge'll catch us. Come on. Let's go." Wiley tugged on Paula's sleeve.

"Not going anywhere, Wiley. Staying right here."

Wiley slammed his fist onto the ground. "Hell, if that's so," he hissed. He reached out and grabbed the back of Paula's hair and tugged, only to have her squeal like a pig. They lifted their heads at the same time and looked toward Frank who turned around and looked their way.

"At last," Paula whispered. She stilled and watched as Frank moved a few steps closer. "Well, one thing's for sure. He's all man." She paused. "Let's go!"

# Chapter Fifty-Three

Frank

Frank's gaze remained on Adela as she hurried along the path to her cottage. He watched her with his new eyes and found himself hesitating, as if he would follow her, smell her and then...And, then what?

He left the path and walked through the grass to the fence, lifted his leg over the pickets and headed home. Home? Where was home? For forty years, home had been jungles and deserts, tents that leaked and trees that harbored scorpions and snakes.

Now, in the supposedly golden years of his life, he contemplated the importance of clean, cotton sheets that smelled of sunshine. What was happening to him? Soft. He was getting soft. So soft, he wanted the warmth of a woman above all else.

_Where the hell is another bottle of Pappy?_ He had never locked the liquor cabinet and was relieved to see a new, unopened bottle of his favorite bourbon as he walked naked through the house and to the library where everything important was waiting. Liquor. Books. Photographs. He hesitated. " _Photographs_."

From the drawer of his grandfather's desk, he pulled an album, leather-bound, with a thin satin ribbon the color of Georgia clay separating some of the pages. He opened the book and his eyes fell on a picture of Ahyoka Kree. She was smiling, but her eyes were solemn, questioning. _Why didn't you love me?_ Frank opened his mouth to answer, but realized it was only a photograph. He felt her presence. Could almost touch her. His fingers twitched as he looked at her hair, long and straight. He had seen that hair before. Had seen the eyes. Had seen the smile. He had seen them all just an hour ago as he stood naked in front of Adela Harper.

# Chapter Fifty-Four

Adela

The hush of late evening fell dream-like across the lake, over the cottage and into the thoughts of Adela Harper. The sky spread above her in blue-black colors, highlighted by teasing stars that darted in and out of the galaxy and played a familiar song from her childhood.

Her wine glass was empty; she had drunk more than usual and wondered why. She need wonder no longer: _Frank Carberry_.

For the first time since the death of Andy, she had felt lust. Yes, there was no other word to describe it. _Lust. Lust. Lust_. It crept up her spine, then into her stomach and then into the place that had been dormant for so long.

What was happening? Did the presence of a naked man insite lustful behavior? Or, was it Frank Carberry? Tall, lean, certainly handsome. But, blind, of course. Ha! She lusted after a blind man. _Oh, my_. The thought of it caused her to retrieve another bottle of wine and settle down to think. Just think. That's all. Just think. Sip of wine. _Think_. Sip of wine. _Think_. Sip of wine...vision of a naked Frank Carberry. Yes. There was no other word for it: _lust_.

At last, the bottle was empty and her thoughts dimmed. A numbing of her body, of her mind, as she curled up in her chair on the terrace and wished for...

# Chapter Fifty-Five

Frank

_Holy shit!_ No way. No way was he having anything to do with the granddaughter of Ahyoka Kree. He'd die first. Throw his body off a cliff. Drown himself in the lake. Kill himself with Pappy's bourbon. But, never, no, not in his wildest dreams, would he ever subject himself to a woman who was spawned from the blood of the Cherokee woman.

He threw back another glass of Pappy and walked out onto the porch. "Why?" he screamed to the Universe. "Why?"

Night moved to morning and found Frank asleep on the back porch in his grandfather's rocker, his empty whiskey glass still in his hand, still naked, a smile on his face. His dreams were of Adela Harper.

# Chapter Fifty Six

Ivy Log

"For Pete's sake, Paula. You're killin' me. Just get over it."

Wiley pushed his truck at full speed down the highway toward Ivy Log, a wild, frenzied woman in the seat beside him. She chomped on pork rinds, spit out words as fast as a pea sheller and then laughed like a hyena in heat. Please, he begged the Gods in the Universe, deliver him from Paula Jennings.

"Now, Wiley, there's no doubt in my mind the lust that is going on at the lake. _Sin! Sin! Sin!_ Why, I'm thinking _Sodom and Gomorrah_. We both are going to turn into a pillar of salt if we ever go back to that place." She paused to catch her breath. "But, you can count on it...I am going back!"

The despair Wiley felt weighed heavy like the rocks that formed the mountains. What in the hell was he doing with Paula and her demented fixation on Adela Harper and Frank Carberry? It just didn't make sense.

"Paula! I beg you. Let's be reasonable about this. They are two adults; two people who can make choices that are good for them." He took a breath. "They don't have to consult with you or me for our approval on what they do. I'm just sayin'."

"Repeat," said Paula.

"Repeat?" Wiley turned and looked at Paula. "I don't get it."

"Repeat," she said again.

"Damn it, Paula. Don't talk in riddles. Just say what you're thinkin'." Wiley's irritation filled the cab of the truck, his hands reaching for the pork rinds to calm him.

"Now, Wiley. I want you to follow me here. Keep up with me. Okay?"

Paula stuffed a handful of pork rinds in her mouth and chewed like a pig on corn cobs. "Think back. Think back when Frank's grandfather ran off with that Cherokee woman. We got the same thing here: Carberry's grandson lusting after the Cherokee's granddaughter. Now, doesn't that strike you as...." Paula searched for the right words. "...as...what's that word...karma?"

"Karma?" Wiley hollered. "What the hell is karma?"

Paula raised up in the seat and brushed the crumbs of pork rinds from her mouth. "Karma? Why, karma is like...well, karma is like what goes around comes around."

"Shit, Paula. Talk English."

She laughed. "That's right, Wiley. You're a mountain man. What do mountain men know about karma?" She stretched out her legs and pulled off the purple bandanna that locked in her red hair.

Wiley looked over and saw she had unzipped her polyester pants. Oh, God. The pork rinds were working. On him. On her.

"Here's the deal, Wiley. Frank Carberry is suffering from the sins of his grandfather. And, Adela Harper is suffering from the sins of her grandmother. It's so simple. The both of them are going to collide and, God Almighty, I want to be there!"

She reached over and grabbed Wiley's crotch. "Pull over, big boy. Your mama is ready for you."

# Chapter Fifty-Seven

Adela

The sun found the terrace and a sleeping Adela. Her body curled inside the large rattan chair as if cocooned, waiting for something or someone to waken her, release her from a long sleep. She squirmed and felt stiffness in her neck and stretched. When she opened her eyes, she saw a house wren perched on the edge of a flower pot across from her.

"Good morning," she said, her voice husky with sleep. _Coffee_.

From the kitchen window inside the cottage, she looked across the fence and to the house where the naked man lived. The man who lost his whiskey bottle in the lake, whose swim to shore required seventeen curse words and whose lean body had been only twenty feet from hers. There was no movement at the house, only the soft wave of an American flag in a flagstaff near the front of the house.

She poured her coffee and returned to the terrace, a slight headache inching its way up her neck and to her forehead. An empty wine bottle leaned against her chair and she was reminded of her long night.

She filled the bird feeders, swept the stone floor of the terrace and pinched spent flowers from their pots. _Andy, I pushed a man off our dock last night. Not only that, I saw him naked_.

# Chapter Fifty-Eight

Frank

Frank woke to the sound of his whiskey glass hitting the floor of the porch and watched as it rolled down the steps and into the yard without breaking.

He stood, stretched, then groaned at the stiffness in his back, his legs, his arms. When he looked down, he saw he had no clothes on, no shoes, no nothing. Then, he remembered. The lake. The swim. The woman who pushed him off the dock. His lost whiskey bottle. The dream he had of her, her long hair lifting in the wind, the touch of her hands on his back as she shoved him into the water.

"Nothing but a squaw," he muttered, as he walked inside and found the coffee pot.

Frank Carberry was no different whether drunk or sober. Sober or drunk, his anger flared and captured any semblance of peace that remained in his life – if there was any at all. He slammed bread into the toaster and opened a jar of marmalade.

With a vengeance, he pulled a banana from a bunch that had begun to turn brown. He peeled it, ate it and then wondered if he should put some clothes on. No, he decided, and walked out onto the porch. And, that's when he saw it.

His half-empty bottle of Pappy, as well as his Glencairn whiskey glass. Not the new quart he had opened near midnight, but the pint-sized bottle he had lost in the lake. _Rip Van Winkle, Family Reserve Bourbon_ , he read from the water-soaked, wrinkled label. _Well, the squaw not only can swim, she can also dive_. He looked across the fence and there she was. Clothes on and a cup of coffee in her hand.

_You'll not get into my heart_ , he thought, as he walked inside and poured coffee along with a good dash of Pappy.

# Chapter Fifty-Nine

Ivy Log

There was extra zip in Paula's walk as she hurried to The Boarding House, her heels clacking along the sidewalk as if they were motorized. The swish of her skirt matched the swish of her tail, prissy and oh so sexy as she flipped her hair away from her face and felt the joy of new gossip, gossip so delicious she was almost giddy.

She burst through the doors of the restaurant like a northeast wind and scurried to the table in the corner that had been known as the Paula Jennings table for more than thirty years.

She brushed past a surly Pyune Murphy and pulled out a chair, the queen's chair, and, with lipstick as red as a county fair's candied apple, smiled at the members of her Sunday school class.

"Well, girls. Glad to see you're on time." She waved for iced tea and pushed her chair closer to the table. Her hands rested beneath her chin as her eyes swept her subjects with a wickedness that would make the devil cringe. The florescent lights above the table flickered. There was evil in the air.

"Lawdy, lawdy, my dearest friends. It has been a harrowing few days." She licked her lips. "Words cannot describe all that I have been faced with."

Her lips lifted upward, her eyebrows raised into her forehead. "Faced with?" She released a heinous laugh. "Darlings, I have been faced with none other than a naked Frank Carberry."

A wind of shocking breaths blew around the table, while pursed lips and the wrinkle of foreheads contorted the faces of five women who squeezed their butts into their chairs and leaned forward. They wanted to know more.

Paula savored the moment. Savored the adoration of the four women who dared not look away as she lifted her chin and nodded in triumph. "I'll say it again...a _naked_ Frank Carberry." Oh, how she loved saying it. _Naked. Naked. Naked_.

Sally Crowe swooned at the word _naked_ and wiped her brow with a napkin. "Just how close was he?" she asked in a shocked whisper.

Paula closed her eyes, the color of her turquoise eyeshadow garish from the overhead lights. "Oh, my. Quite close."

"How close?" asked Ann Crabtree, ducking her head, somewhat embarrassed.

Paula became irritated. "Well, heck, I didn't have a measuring tape, Ann." She grinned and looked around the table. "Of course, I would have measured something else if I could've."

Laughter bounced from plate to plate as Paula leaned back in her chair. An image of Frank Carberry's butt emerged, then the image she saw when he turned and faced her.

Conversation stopped when Pyune brought their iced tea and stood glaring at Paula.

"Thank you," Paula said sweetly. She looked away, fiddling with her napkin and waited until Pyune returned to the kitchen.

"And Adela?" asked Sally.

"Ah, our sweet, darling Adela." Paula felt the ire rise from her gut and cleared her throat. "It seems –"

"What..." Carole interrupted. "What about that erotic thing you were telling us about...you know, the –"

Paula pushed away the salt and pepper shakers, placed her elbows on the table and dropped her voice. "Who knows the sins that are committed way out there. It's so isolated – no telling what they are doing."

She closed her eyes as if praying, her lips moving silently. After a moment, she moaned, a flush in her cheeks. Then, slapped her hand on the table, the forks and knives rattling like a tambourine.

"I think we should all go out there and set those people straight."

# Chapter Sixty

Adela

Adela refilled her coffee cup and returned to the terrace, a book in her hand, a wide-brimmed hat the color of straw shading her eyes and face. Her favorite chair, a weathered rattan covered with faded blue fabric, sat waiting for her. She settled in for a few hours of reading while the sun warmed the early autumn air.

Her gaze traveled around the yard and finally to the white fence. She wished the fence could shut out the rabble that came from the wandering, frequently drunk Frank Carberry. Though he could not pass through the vertical boards, he could climb over them. His midnight bellowing easily swept through the rails like the ill winds of a storm.

From the edge of the terrace, she saw movement and turned as Frank stepped onto the stone and stood looking at her from blue, steely eyes.

"They tell me you are a stubborn woman, Ms. Harper."

Adela noticed his jawbones were as rigid as the rocks of the Appalachians. She wondered about his heart. Was there any dust of humility hiding somewhere in the crevasses of his heart? For what did he hunger?

She half-smiled. "I can't imagine your having a conversation about me with anyone, Mr. Carberry." Were his eyes bluer?

He stepped closer and she smelled Old Spice, saw he was fresh shaven, had not realized he was so tall.

"The proximity of your cottage to my house places upon me the unwanted awareness of your presence." Such a formal presentation of words seemed out of place in the sweetness of morning.

Adela leaned forward and placed her book in her lap. "You may choose to ignore me."

From across the terrace, Frank walked to the stonewall, sat on the edge and lifted one eyebrow.

"Ah, an impossibility, I assure you."

"Why is that so?"

A forced smile, a quick flick of a bug off the knee of his faded khaki pants where paint stains the color of barn wood ran the length of one leg. Adela watched as he glanced around the terrace, his eyes settling on a hanging birdhouse.

Finally, he turned and faced her, leaving no doubt his words were well chosen. "Rest assured I can ignore _you_ , Ms. Harper. It is the cottage I cannot ignore."

"The cottage?"

He shook his head in frustration and laughed. "Oh, well, perhaps I should have said _love nest_. You know, love abode...a trysting place. Just use your imagination." He paused, sarcasm breeding on his tongue.

"I'm sure you can conjure up an image of your squaw grandmother and my grandfather fornicating."

Adela remained still while Frank stood and walked down the steps of the terrace, his back stiff. When he turned and faced her, she smiled.

"Fornicating? Mr. Carberry, it is called _love_. Your grandfather and my grandmother were in love." She stood and walked to the edge of the terrace, only a few feet away.

"I'm sure you have fornicated before, but I'm wondering if you have ever _loved_ someone." The softness of her words fell like the morning dew, unbridled and destined for the doubting ears of Frank Carberry.

Before he could reply, Adela moved even closer. "Tell me, Mr. Carberry, is this a social call or just another occasion for you to demonstrate your mulish behavior?"

Adela saw a shadow fall across Frank's face, a slacking of his jaw. They stood looking at each other for a long moment. She could see his heartbeat throbbing in his neck.

"My whiskey bottle," he said. He reached behind and pulled it from his back pocket. "Looks like some's missing." There was no smile.

Adela squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Why, yes. After I dove eight feet down into the cold, dark waters of the lake and found your precious bottle, I swam to the surface, unscrewed the cap and took a huge swig."

The cold from the lake waters seeped into the void between them as Frank slowly slipped the bottle back into his pocket, never taking his eyes from hers, a lingering stare.

"I thought so." He left without another word, his long legs easily lifting him over the fence as he headed up the hill.

The sun was straight up, a cool breeze from the northeast as Adela watched Frank's tall, lanky body step up on his porch. Again, she felt something was different about him. What, she didn't know. But, definitely different.

# Chapter Sixty-One

Frank

_Love?_ As impossible as a rooster pulling a freight train. Frank slammed the screened door behind him and placed the near-empty whiskey bottle in the liquor cabinet. His new eyes ran across the bottles and counted out the Family Reserve labels of Pappy Van Winkle. Four remaining. He'd have to make a trip to Kentucky to replenish his store. After all, he could drive now. Or, he could have Wiley Hanson find it somewhere nearby in Tennessee. Who cared as long as he didn't run out?

The Harper woman bothered him. She was unlike the men in his troops who quivered at his every move, their bodies shrinking as he dared them to even breathe.

Not once did he perceive frailty in the squaw's granddaughter, not even a flicker of intimidation. He glanced through the kitchen window just in time to see a breeze catch her straw hat and blow it across the terrace out into the yard. A glimmer of sunlight touched her hair as it lifted into a tousle of red and blew about her face. She was smiling as she chased the hat, finally picking it up as it landed against the base of a holly tree. She brushed it off and placed it on her head. He saw her fade away when she walked down the path to the lake, a slow walk and he imagined her humming. He felt the beat of his heart quicken and, for an instant, wanted to follow.

# Chapter Sixty-Two

Ivy Log

The excitement at Paula Jennings's table at the Boarding House was riveting. The very idea that five, bible-toting women from The Church would visit the Carberry Plantation was nothing less than divine. But, of course, there was the possibility that, if you're guided by the alleged sanctity of _the church_ , there's nothing to stop you.

Perhaps their elite status in the realm of religion entitled them to a direct line to God. Nonetheless, it was the catalyst that caused them to huddle over Pyune Murphy's pie and rejoice in their perceived, if not misguided, holiness.

"You mean...you mean...just go out there and...do what?" Ann Crabtree's face flushed pink.

"Well, let's put it this way," said Paula in her best authoritative voice, "it's our responsibility to deliver ' _the word_.'"

Sally nodded slowly, her prim lips setting like an immovable hen on her eggs. "I see." She looked across the table at Paula, careful not to appear ignorant. "I'm not sure what we would say to them."

Paula's face pulled into her best smile. "We don't really have to say _anything_ – the _bible_ will say it all."

All at once Ann seemed to understand. "Oh, I see. We're going to quote scriptures?"

"Exactly," said Paula. She wished she had her bible with her. It would be so easy to open the pages and find the perfect scripture that would apply to the sinners who resided at the Carberry Plantation. Her piety seemed to erupt from every pore. "I'm thinking...maybe the book of Isaiah or Proverbs."

Shirley squirmed in her chair. "Isaiah." What verse?"

"Hmmmmmmm. Don't know. Think I'll study on that tonight." Paula looked across the restaurant and saw Pyune watching her. _How in the world could she know Wiley visits me in the magnolia room of my house?_

"When?"

"When what?"

"When do we visit out there?"

Paula looked around the table, her eyes bright and brimming with the knowledge that the sins of Adela Queen Harper would soon be revealed, exposed to those who thought she was as pure as the teachings of the Beatitudes.

"The sooner, the better. Say...before Wednesday night prayer meeting?"

One by one, five pair of eyes blinked hard, followed by a vigorous shake of heads.

# Chapter Sixty-Three

Ivy Log

Bill Casteel's horse Cody lost a shoe when he crossed a rushing stream near the Nottely River. He sent word to Wiley Hanson to come quick – Cody was his favorite horse, his only means of transportation to the little shack where Evaline Porter's front porch hung out over the water, where she fished with a pole that her granddaddy had fashioned from the large canes that grew along the edge of her land.

"Got to shoe that horse right away, Wiley. Evaline's waitin' on me."

Wiley lifted his tools from his truck. "Won't take long, Bill. Just stand back and give me some room."

Bill walked to the front of Cody and rubbed his nose. "It's all right, Cody. Wiley's here."

Wiley cut the nail heads, his clench cutter and hammer moving quickly. "Why don't you just marry Evaline, Bill? Every damn time you go see her, Cody loses a shoe."

"I know, I know. Just can't work up the nerve." Bill's hands shook; Evaline was waiting on him.

Wiley cleaned the bottom of Cody's hoof carefully. "This horse is tired of crossing that creek with all them stones. Either marry Evaline and bring her to your house or shack up with her at the river. After you two fool around awhile, you could throw a line out into the water and fish all day."

Bill nodded and shook his head. "That's just it, Wiley. With Evaline, there won't be no time for fishin'. She'd have me pinned to that bed from sunup to sundown."

Wiley looked up and grinned at his friend. "And what's wrong with that?"

Wiley left Bill and Cody and decided to drive the three miles to town. Monday was meatloaf day and the idea of meatloaf and coconut crème pie was too good to pass up. He parked his truck near the post office and walked past John's barbershop. He looked through the glass and sure enough saw John with his short leg propped up on the bean pot. Why he just didn't get the other leg shortened so they could be even was a mystery to Wiley.

At the Boarding House, he ambled through the double doors and came face to face with Paula.

"Wiley Hanson," she frowned. "You here for Pyune's meatloaf or for Pyune?"

Wiley's head bobbed. He pushed back his hat and glanced over at the doorway to the kitchen. Sure enough Pyune stood glaring at him, her black eyes darting like bullets toward him. Looked like the smokehouse was getting farther and farther away.

"Hello, Paula." He noticed her hair seemed more red, her eyes greener. A flicker of desire ran through him.

"I'm hopin' some of that meatloaf is left. Am I too late?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm sure Pyune will have everything you want."

Wiley ignored her remark. "Come have a glass of tea with me." Without waiting for her reply, he found his favorite table near the kitchen as well as the dessert table. _No coconut crème pie, he noticed._

When he pulled out a chair, he felt the warm body of Pyune near him as she placed a glass of tea on his table. "Hello, Pyune."

"Wiley." She wiped her hands on her apron before she turned and walked back to the kitchen. His eyes followed her and he knew from her stiff back that once again he was in trouble for drinking iced tea with Paula.

"So, here you are again. In town. Whose horse you workin' on?"

"Got a call from Bill Casteel. Cody's done lost another shoe."

Pyune glowered at Paula as she slammed a glass of tea on the table, knocking over a salt shaker in the process.

Paula smiled sweetly and squeezed the lemon into her glass.

"Our Sunday School class has decided to include Adela Harper in our visitation this week."

Wiley's turtle head bobbed twice. "Visitation? For whatever reason?"

Paula puffed up. "Reason? Why, ever'body needs to hear " _the word_."

Wiley's shoulders slumped. "Now, Paula. You know good and well that's not the reason you're going out to the Carberry place." He caught his breath. "It ain't got nothin' to do with _the word_."

Paula's haughtiness surfaced again. "Why, Wiley. Are you saying Adela is in no need of...of spiritual renewal?"

Pyune left the kitchen with a plate of meatloaf and set it before Wiley. Her strong hands gripped another plate filled with biscuits. "Mr. Hanson," she said.

_Oh, my_ , thought Wiley. _Mr. Hanson?_ There would be no peace on this day.

"Spiritual renewal is a personal matter, Paula. It's not up to you and your church friends to ensure that Adela Harper gets into heaven."

"Oh, but it is. We have a responsibility to fulfill and that's why we're going out to that sinful place." Paula's words were as hard and sure as the rocks that formed Brasstown Bald.

Wiley sighed heavily. "I wish I could believe that." He lifted a forkful of meatloaf.'

"I just have a feeling you have other reasons." He plopped the meatloaf in his mouth and chewed a moment before he said what he really thought.

"You're just goin' out there to snoop."

Paula leaned back in her chair and stared at Wiley. When she spoke, her voice had been orchestrated into an angel's whisper, sweet and cajoling.

"I can assure you my heart is in the right place, Wiley."

She reached over and patted his arm. When she leaned over, he saw she was wearing a pink bra.

"Want to come by later?" she asked softly, her eyes wide and inviting.

He could never tell the city girl no. He watched her leave the restaurant and knew Pyune was watching her, too. When he turned around, Pyune was lifting a plate of chocolate cake from the dessert table and heading his way. He noticed the chocolate was exactly the same color as her beautiful skin. He had loved Pyune for as long as he could remember. Trouble was, he also loved Paula.

# Chapter Sixty-Four

Adela

Adela walked the length of the dock and propped her cane pole on a piling. She had dug worms earlier in the morning and already tasted the crisp, fried fish she'd have for dinner later. She baited her hook and dropped the line, the cork drifting away with a slight bobbing motion. From the dock's edge, she swung her legs down to the water and watched as the cork floated a few feet away.

She smelled him before she saw him – a whiff of Old Spice drifting through the trees and settling in the afternoon air. Her instincts were to leave the dock and walk the path to the cottage and avoid him. Of course, if she did that, she wouldn't have fish for dinner.

Her decision was made for her as she heard him step onto the opposite end of the dock, then the sound of a masculine voice. She steeled herself .

"Ms. Harper, I would like to approach the dock if I can be assured I will not end up in the water."

Adela turned and saw him hesitating, his pants the same khaki pair from the day before. Barefooted and shirtless, he inched forward.

She felt trapped. No way out except down the worn boards of the dock and the path that led back to the cottage. She faced him but wasn't sure he could see her.

"Mr. Carberry, your swim last evening was brought about by your own actions." She hesitated. "Yes, I pushed you. Yes, you deserved it."

Frank moved closer, cautious. "If my memory serves me correctly, I was accosted from behind with no chance of defending myself."

"I hardly think you ever have trouble defending yourself. Even with your poor eyesight." Adela continued to watch the cork, Frank fifteen feet away and watching her. "You had no trouble swimming to shore," she added.

The cork bobbed quickly and stayed under the water, the line putting a crease through the water as the fish pulled itself deeper into the lake. Adela stood and leaned over to grasp the line. It was then that she felt the hands on her back and a shove that sent her into the waters of the lake.

She plunged to the bottom, eight feet at least, and felt the heaviness of her ruffled skirt keep her from swimming toward the surface. She quickly pulled it off and kicked herself toward daylight and broke water. She gasped as she surfaced. Then cursed. She heard Frank's boisterous guffaw as he leaned over the end of the dock, his hands on his knees, watching her.

"Well, now, Ms. Harper, it seems to me turn about is fair play. Would you agree?" He seemed delighted that his unwanted neighbor was treading water, her hair strung across her face, her mouth sputtering.

"I suggest, Ms. Harper, that you swim to shore just as I did last evening." His words boomed across the lake like a Baptist preacher's sermon.

Adela felt the anger welling and lifted her arms to swim to the shoreline, thirty feet to Frank Carberry.

His laughter followed her for the entire minute it took her to reach the shore and find the same place he had come ashore the previous night. There was only one difference; she was not drunk.

She stood and oddly thought about her beautiful white skirt at the bottom of the lake, such a womanly thing to do. A skirt she had bought in Atlanta, layers of frilly ruffles that bounced when she walked. How could she wear such a prissy skirt fishing?

The next thing she thought about was her panties. Was she wearing any? She looked down and saw a pair that was the color of cotton candy. Pink. Feminine. Small. Sheer. Her anger moved her from her panties to Frank Carberry.

She walked toward him and saw the blue eyes that seemed no longer cloudy, but sharp and alert.

He remained on the shore at the edge of the dock, watching her walk the length of the boards.

"It just plain mystifies me, Ms. Harper. Your trust? Did you really think I would allow you to push me into the water without some sort of retaliation? Why I've had all night to think about this. I thought about how much I would enjoy seeing you hit the water, flounder, choke, spit and finally swim to shore. Oh, my! Such a tremendous delight for me." His face swam with joy. His chest shook with laughter.

Adela ignored him and found the end of the cane pole. The fish was still floundering and pulling the line back and forth through the water. At least a three pounder. A brim. Fat and just right for frying.

From the shoreline, Frank stepped onto the dock and eased himself to the edge where the fish swirled through the water. He leaned over to grasp the heavy line when Adela shoved her body into his. He hit the water with a splash, but not before his right hand grasped the ankle of Adela Harper.

# Chapter Sixty-Five

Adela and Frank

She kicked wildly, his hand like a vise around her ankle. Through the water, she could see his grin. It made her kick harder. Her foot found his stomach and then his chest. His arms reached around her and she felt the length of his body against hers. All she wanted was air.

They broke water together, her mouth wide open, gasping and spitting the water of the lake. "You bastard!" she screamed.

"Oh, my, Ms. Harper. Such profanity. And from the dear sweet widow."

Adela butted her head backwards and found Frank's nose. "Let go of me."

"But, of course." Frank pulled his body away from Adela's and treaded water behind her. When she turned toward him, she saw where her head butt had bloodied his nose. He seemed unaware as he flipped on his back and began singing.

My Blue Heaven...whippoorwills call, evening is nigh, hurry to my Blue Heaven.

"Mr. Carberry, you're on _my_ property."

"The dock is _your_ property. The lake belongs to _everyone_."

He lifted his arms and began to croon like Bing. " _The moonbeams belong to everyone. The best things in life are free_." He turned over and swam a few strokes toward her.

"Ah, Ms. Harper. Your pomposity gives me cause for concern."

Adela swam away from him, to the edge of the dock and held onto the piling. "My pomposity?" Her brows lifted. She let go of the piling and treaded water, her shoulders bare, her legs free from her skirt, the pink panties clinging to her as if painted on.

"And what do you expect of me? To tolerate your obnoxious ways." She pulled a strand of wet hair from her face. "I hardly think so." She dismissed him and returned to the dock piling.

The sun slipped behind the tree line, a soft warm glow wrapping itself around the woods and slipping into a peaceful prelude to night. A white heron lifted from the shore and flew across the lake, its long storky legs stretched behind him as he glided into the shadows.

"That's the second time you have referred to me as ' _obnoxious_ '. Usually, it is accompanied by _'bastard.' Obnoxious bastard_ , to be exact." The water churned around him as he kicked his legs. "Why, had I been called that by anyone else but you, my feelings might have been hurt."

"Feelings? You have _feelings_?" Adela threw her head back in mock surprise.

Frank flipped over and dove into the water. Ripples swirled where he had been. Long seconds passed before he speared the water with his head, the water rushing around his shoulders, his body scraping Adela's.

"I'll show you feelings," he said. He grabbed her wet body and pulled her into him. His lips found hers and she tasted the lake waters and smelled Old Spice.

"Feel that?" he asked.

Adela's right hand grasped the piling, her left hand pressed against Frank's chest. Her eyes found his and the moment became electric. She breathed in short gasps, then let go of the piling. Her swim to the shore took only seconds. She stood and turned toward him.

"No, I didn't feel that. I felt absolutely _nothing_."

Frank reeled, stunned. He had kissed her in anger, yet felt a different kind of emotion; _lust_. It was called _lust_. The granddaughter of the squaw had captured him as though she had a rope and he was tied to the end it. He watched her walk down the path to her cottage, the wet t-shirt falling to the edge of her pink panties. He smiled. For the first time in forty years, he felt a flicker of happiness.

# Chapter Sixty-Six

Adela

A shower brewed in the west and was soon pounding the tin roof of the cottage. Behind the rain, a cool front would follow; then winter, its arrival announced by the scurrying of squirrels and the call of Canadian geese. The warm days of an Indian summer would only be a sweet memory. The lake waters would become cool and the trees along the shoreline would stand bare and leafless.

Adela removed her wet tee shirt and panties and flung them across the towel rack. Then, the tears came. Why, she wasn't sure. They streamed down her cheeks and merged with the water as she showered and shampooed her hair. _The kiss_. It was the kiss. _She had lied_. She told Frank she felt nothing. Absolutely _nothing. Such a big lie_.

When he touched her, she wanted more. When he kissed her, she wanted to kiss him back. When his body leaned into hers, she wanted to wrap her legs around him, devour him and...and...

Her tears stopped. Then, the anger began all over again.

A towel wrapped around her wet hair, she found a new bottle of red wine, a bottle from her daughter. Wine to toast Andy and her remembrance of him. Though Daly had never met her father, she loved him. Mostly because she knew her mother loved him.

In the kitchen, Adela poured the wine and headed to the terrace where the smell of rain and the sound of far-away thunder hung in the air. She walked out onto the wet grass and saw the sky had cleared. Above, her favorite constellations hung constant, never failing to move her, their mysteries pulling her into another place, a place that took her back to Andy. _I'm here Andy_.

Across the picket fence, the big house was dark. She wondered if her obnoxious neighbor sat on his porch, his fingers wrapped around his whiskey glass, and fueled the ire he felt for her.

She had left him at the dock, had walked away from him. Away from the kiss. Away from his touch. She had told him she felt nothing when he kissed her. She wished she hadn't felt anything, but the truth was she had felt many things. Even the smell of him captivated her.

_What was happening?_ She would pack up! Leave early in the morning. She couldn't stay. She couldn't stay when he was so near. She drank her wine too quickly and returned to the terrace. _She must pack. Now. Tonight_.

On the terrace, she hesitated. "That's not my platter."

In the center of a small round table near the stone wall of the terrace, an oval platter, the color of corn silk, set in the center, its edges overflowing with perfectly filleted fish. A bright yellow lemon had been sliced and carefully laid on top, a sprig of parsley arranged delicately at the end. A note. "Enough fish for two."

Adela stared at the note for the longest moment, then looked across the fence. And thought... _it will be a cold day in hell before I fry fish for Frank Carberry_.

# Chapter Sixty-Seven

Frank

Frank watched the rain drip from the eves of the porch roof, heard the rush of water through the gutter as it hit the bottom step and spread along the ground. Lightning flickered in the east as the storm galloped to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. So far away, yet still visible in the night, it flashed as though signaling the universe. _This is earth. There is life here_.

He lifted his whiskey glass and pulled long and hard as he leaned against the porch post and watched the cottage, saw the kitchen light on. Saw the widow walk out onto the grass, barefooted. A towel on her head. Saw her when she found the fish he had filleted. Saw her look his way. He wanted to wave, but knew she couldn't see him. And he waited.

He had struggled with the note. The first one he wrote invited himself to dinner. _It would be my pleasure to have dinner with you_. Hogwash! Would it be his pleasure? He wasn't even sure about that.

His next attempt was even worse. _Shall we share this fish?_

His third attempt was non-committal. _Enough fish for two_. It was a statement. Not a question. The 'two' could be the widow and her cat. Or, the widow and anyone who might be invited. A stranger walking out of the woods. A boater from the lake. He certainly did not intend for her to think it was he who expected an invitation. Just because he cleaned the fish didn't mean she had to cook it for him.

He had cleaned the fish carefully, the scales spitting off quickly as the sharp knife pulled along the edge of the backbone. He filleted it like a master chef at the Cordon Bleu, the meat white and firm. He wondered if Adela knew how to fry fish. Of course, she did. She had been taught by Kree, the Indian squaw who lured his grandfather into the mountains. He could hear Douglas Carberry whistling for her as she waited in the woods near the mansion. One whistle: stay. Two whistles: come.

Maybe slicing the lemons and adding the parsley had been too presumptuous. An attempt to impress the widow. If she thought he was trying to impress her, she might think he wanted to be...to be friends. To mend fences. _Ha! Mend fences_. What in the world was he thinking? Damn, he wished he could get the note back. Get the fish back. Take it all back. Even take back _the kiss. No, no_. He didn't want to take back the kiss.

Even though she said she felt nothing, _he_ had certainly felt something. What that something was was a little disconcerting; yet, he was a truthful man and truthful men had an obligation to...to, of course, tell the truth. Truth was her lips were the sweetest lips he had ever kissed. Not that he would tell her that, but it was still the truth. And, Frank Carberry was known for telling the truth.

Frank saw the kitchen light go out and the cottage fall into a quiet darkness. He refilled his glass and walked out into the yard toward the fence. _Don't do it, Frank. Don't climb that fence. Don't start that path thing like granddaddy did. No, don't be a fool like granddaddy_.

At the edge of the fence, he hesitated. Above him, the sky's billion stars lay like pin pricks in the universe, a wink here, a wink there. A feeling of loneliness edged into his chest, to his heart, to the place that had been still for so long. Where were his troops, his tent, his cot, his M-1 rifle, his canteen? He felt his throat tighten, ache. He sipped his bourbon and cursed the squaw's granddaughter.

# Chapter Sixty-Eight

Adela

It was midnight when Adela saw Frank's silhouette. He leaned on the fence, moving only to lift his glass. Once, she heard him clear his throat. It would be so easy to call out. _Come over and let's fry fish_. Could she do that? Did she want to do that? She left the stone wall of the terrace and walked a few feet into the yard. _The kiss. That damn kiss_.

She heard a whistle. She had heard it before. Had seen Frank walk out into his yard and look toward the woods and whistle. She thought it odd. And, now, the same whistle. She eased closer to the fence, then heard him speak.

"Did you enjoy the fish?" His words were smooth, almost kind, coming from the dark, with light only from the stars.

She stood a long moment without moving. "Was that whistle for me?"

Frank was quiet, deliberating. "No." He sipped his whiskey. "The question was for you, though."

"Question?" she asked.

Frank laughed. "Yes, about the fish. I asked if you enjoyed it."

Adela smiled in the dark. "I haven't eaten it."

From the dark, a chuckle. "Why not?"

She stammered. "I...I didn't want to be obligated to you."

"Obligated to me? Why would eating fish require you to be obligated?" His words floated through the night air. Soft, beguiling words that tilted one's head and made them want to hear more.

"Because you cleaned it...and the polite thing to do would be to invite you to dinner."

"Do you always do the polite thing?"

"Yes. But, I'm sure you would not understand that kind of behavior." Her words were short.

He ignored her sharp tone. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Are we talking about the same person? The same person who talks about his grandfather and my grandmother fornicating is polite?" Adela turned around and stepped toward the cottage. The air had changed, a whiff of confrontation.

"You don't think there's hope for me?" he called.

Adela stopped and backtracked a few feet. "Hope?" She breathed deeply and smelled the sweetness of the bourbon he drank. "Possibly."

Frank paused, emptied his whiskey glass. Then, ever so softly. "Well, let's pursue that possibility."

He moved closer. "I do believe, Ms. Harper, that I am going to fry that fish."

He lifted his long legs over the fence and walked the few strides toward the cottage, leaving a bewildered Adela in his wake.

# Chapter Sixty-Nine

Frank and Adela

"Grease hot?" he asked. "What about hush puppies?" It was half past midnight.

Adela sat about ten feet away, on the edge of the stone wall, and felt the presence of a man. The short, to-the-point questions that contained no fluff. _Where's the fish? Table set? Whiskey?_ One-word, uncomplicated commands that ired a woman like herself. She wanted conversation, melodic sentences that enticed her. _Where's the fish_ was not her idea of a man-woman conversation. _I want real conversation_.

His kiss in the lake had surprised her, but it didn't change anything. He was still the _obnoxious bastard_ she had proclaimed earlier.

"I am confused about something."

"About what?" Another short, to-the-point Frank Carberry question.

"Your eyesight. Sometimes I think you are not half-blind. May we talk about it? Or, is it too personal?"

Frank checked the temperature of the grease. "Not too personal. Ask me."

"How well can you see?"

"Last week? Not at all. Now? Perfectly."

"Perfectly since when?"

"Since last Monday."

Adela reached over and picked up the bowl of hush-puppy batter. "Interesting. Surgery?"

"Yes. For cataracts."

"Successful?"

"Very."

She studied him a long moment while he refilled her wine glass. His fingers were long, his hands large. From the collar of his shirt, she saw a tuft of hair. Up close, he seemed different; not the bear of a man who growled at her every word.

She swirled the wine in her glass. If he had had surgery on Monday, then she knew he had seen her with no clothes on, pruning her roses, reading on the terrace. She had been totally oblivious, assuming his poor eyesight had prevented him from seeing more than ten feet away.

She stood and began dusting the fish with corn meal. Without looking at him, she said. "I will assume your newly found eyesight allowed you to see me sunbathing in the nude."

Not a question; an assumption. "I feel as though my privacy has been compromised." She turned toward him, her voice steady. "First, you return after a forty-year absence and —"

"Ms. Harper, I am a gentleman. Despite my belligerency at times, I do know the bounds I must keep. Granted, I did see you without your clothes, but —"

"There are no buts, Mr. Carberry. I —"

"What would you like for me to do, Ms. Harper?" Frank held her gaze, steady and unyielding, his question firm.

Adela heard the call of the night heron, felt a breeze from the mountains, saw brilliant light in Frank's once-cloudy eyes. One side of his face was shadowed in the starlight, a candle flickering nearby illuminating the silver in his hair. _What did he want_ _her to do?_ She felt herself floating toward him, a lightness that settled in her chest and kept her feet from touching the stone of the terrace. She wanted to touch him, kiss the corner of his lips, the line of his brow. She couldn't breathe.

She lifted the platter of fish and heard herself speak, the words sounding as though they came from a deep well. "Right now, I'd like you to fry this fish."

# Chapter Seventy

Ivy Log

The thin prissiness of Paula Jennings hid the streak of pure meanness that wrapped around her entire body. It was disguised by her flaming red hair, the glow of her rouged cheeks and her signature eye shadow, a shimmering turquoise the same color as jade.

At first glance, her ruffled blouse and flowing white skirt might have fooled one into thinking she was an angel, perhaps an angel who had fallen to earth to spread unending joy. Nothing could have been further from the truth: Paula Jennings spread nothing but rampant gossip. It was her passion in life.

Her dislike of Adela Harper began in the first grade at Ivy Log's elementary school. It was that damn pair of tap dancing shoes that clicked their way down the school halls and deemed Adela the queen of dance that came between the two six-year olds. Paula's ugly pair of old brown shoes coupled with her red hair and freckles placed her in the back of the class picture while Adela stood in the center of the front row, her shining tap shoes glistening from the flash of the camera.

It was all about shoes and at noon on Wednesday, Paula, in her red spike heels with little black bows, breezed down Main Street, past the hardware store and onto the sidewalk in front of The Boarding House.

Her bible was tucked under her arm, the handbag that matched her shoes strung across her shoulder. She was in a hurry. The morning had passed quickly, her well-laid plans to drive to Adela Harper's lake cottage later that day finalized. She had read her bible for almost two hours, her fingers flipping the pages as she sought the perfect verses to quote during visitation later that evening.

Pyune glanced up from her dessert table when she heard the Boarding House doors open. Her face turned sour when she saw Paula, then she retreated to the kitchen. Paula greeted her with a flutter of her fingers.

"Tea, Pyune. Lots of lemon," she called and pulled out a chair at her usual table. She sat primly, pulling her skirt up to her knees and dangling her foot, her bible in her lap. When Pyune set the tea on the table, Paula smiled sweetly.

"What kinda pies did you bake this morning, Pyune?"

Pyune ignored her for a few moments while she wiped her hands on her apron. Then, with a orchestrated sneer, she folded her arms across her chest. "Apple, pumpkin, pecan."

"Well, put me a piece of pumpkin aside and make sure nobody touches it."

Pyune didn't answer. She turned and walked away.

"I don't want it if you put too much nutmeg in it," she hollered at Pyune's back.

The restaurant door opened and Wiley Hanson bobbed his head twice as he looked around the room. He saw Paula and headed her way.

"Paula," he called. "I thought I'd find you here." He pulled out a chair and cringed when he saw Pyune poke her head around the kitchen door. The look on her face said there would be no rendezvous in the smokehouse today.

"Well, my goodness, Wiley. Seems like you been coming to town more than usual."

Wiled bobbed his head. "Every horse in the county needs shoeing. It's those damn rocks in the fields." He didn't look up when Pyune set a glass of tea at his elbow. He noticed Paula's face held a wry smile.

"Good to see you." She licked her lips and leaned forward. "Coming by after lunch?"

"Naw. Ain't got the time. Just here for Pyune's chicken and dumplings." He hesitated and lowered his voice. "I hope you done forgot about going out to the lake today."

"Oh, no. We're all going. Sally, Ann, Shirley, Carole."

Wiley rolled his eyes and shook his head back and forth. "Please, I beg you, Paula. This is not the right thing to do. You do not need to mind Adela's business. She's on vacation. 'sides that, the gate's always locked."

Paula lifted her tea glass and held it in mid-air, her eyes slitted like a snake. "Do you really think a locked gate is going to stop me from delivering God's word."

"God's word?" Wiley released a huff of air. "Paula, the only words you want to deliver are your words. You've had it in for Adela since the beginning of time. Give it up." Wiley clamped down on his jaw, his stance that of a stubborn mule.

Paula's face flushed pink, her eye shadow seeming to flicker like a neon sign. "Wiley, don't you go telling me what to do. I am divinely led and don't need no heathen like you to tell me otherwise."

Wiley pushed away from the table and stood looking down at Paula for a long moment. Then, his voice somber, said, "Paula, I'm gonna get in my pick-up truck and ride out to the lake and tell Adela what you're doing."

Paula reached out and grabbed Wiley's wrist. "You do and you'll never see that magnolia wallpaper in my guest bedroom again."

Wiley stared at Paula until she released his hand. "You do what you gotta do, Paula. I don't go to church like you do, but I sure know what's right and what's wrong." He turned and left the restaurant and Pyune's chicken and dumplings.

Paula picked up her bible and held it tightly while she waited for her Sunday school class to arrive. She looked down at her bright red shoes. One of the bows had fallen off. She felt the beginning of tears. Quickly, she wiped them away and looked up in time to see the restaurant doors open. Ann Crabtree and Sally Crowe waved at her and she smiled back. "Hi, girls!" she said with false cheer.

# Chapter Seventy-One

Frank

At daylight, the geese found their glide path and streamed onto the lake, one after the other, until the entire west side of the water was filled with their feathered bodies and their incessant honking.

Frank sat at the end of the dock, a cup of coffee in his hand and the remains of a cold biscuit in his shirt pocket. He tried to count the geese, but ended his count at fifty-three. He couldn't concentrate.

_The kiss_ had changed everything. It had softened the hardness around his heart and unlocked a place that had for so long been dark and dormant. How could something so small, so seemingly insignificant, change things? He had not slept, was tormented by the woman who was linked so indelibly to his past. He had spent his life hating her, hating her grandmother. Hating the grandmother even more. Almost as much as he hated his grandfather.

Several geese glided toward him, a soft quacking following them across the water. A car door slammed behind him. He stood and turned around. Adela loading luggage into her car. _She was leaving._

Frank ran the length of the dock, down the path to the cottage, jumped over a shrub and skidded to a stop just as Adela slipped in behind the steering wheel of her car. He was out of breath.

"Where are you going?" he panted.

The Rita Hayworth eyes were smiling. The red in her hair caught the rays of the rising sun and shimmered like a halo. Her smile was timid. "Where am I going?"

"Yes! Yes! Where are you going?" He was impatient, his eyes darting from her to the luggage in the back seat. "You must tell me," said the man who, as a commander in the army, made demands that no one ever denied. His voice softened. "Don't leave."

Adela stilled. She glanced at the lake and the flaming colors of the trees. When she turned back to Frank, her eyes were questioning.

"I don't understand why you want me to stay. Remember? You hate me. You have always hated me."

He reached out and touched her arm. "No, no. That's not true...exactly."

"Exactly?"

Frank looked down at the ground, then back to Adela. He half smiled. "It's complicated."

"Not for me." Adela put the car in reverse.

"Wait! Please." He let out an anguished breath, his eyes pleading, his hands on the car door. "I would like to...to make things different."

"Different?"

"Yes, different."

"How?" Then, a pause. "Why?"

Frank was silent for a long moment. His voice cracked. "I really don't know." His handsome face, tormented and pleading, turned and looked toward the sky. He felt the car move and heard the tires crunch on the rocky lane. _She was leaving_.

# Chapter Seventy-Two

Adela

She saw him in the review mirror, a lonely figure, lean, barefooted. Behind him, the trees bled the colors of a Monet painting. The sky, cloudless, lay waiting for the winds of winter.

When Adela stopped to unlock the gate, she looked down the lane. He was still there, unmoving, watching her. She hesitated. Her fingers found the lock on the gate, but still she watched him. She saw him grin, then call out to her.

"Adela Queen Harper," he yelled. "Let's go fishing."

# Chapter Seventy-Three

Ivy Log

"Sin?" Ann asked. "What is their sin?"

Paula's eyelashes fluttered in irritation.

"Sin, period! It doesn't have to be specific sin, Ann," she said, with her usual infinite wisdom. "We are all sinners. The bible says so."

"I know, but —"

"Look. All we're going to do is ride out there. Adela is on our visitation list and, as members of the church, we are going to visit her. What do you think the visitation committee is supposed to do, anyway?"

Sally picked up her bible. "Which verse is that again?"

"It's Romans 3:23. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Paula said smugly.

Shirley pulled her chair closer to the table. "I'm just wondering...why don't we wait until Adela returns from the lake?"

Paula pulled her shoulders back, raised her chin. The ire in her voice spewed like venom "Sin does not wait. Salvation does not wait. _We_ are not going to wait on Adela Queen Harper."

Paula stood and tucked her bible under her arm. "I'll see you at the church at 5:00." Her white ruffled skirt twirled behind her as she passed the dessert table, ignoring the piece of pumpkin pie Pyune had saved for her.

# Chapter Seventy Four

Frank

Frank saw her hesitate and look his way, the winds of autumn picking up her skirt hem and blowing it upward like the Marilyn Monroe skirt of yesteryear. She stood a long moment, her hand still holding the gate lock, the key poised to open it. Should she go or should she stay? He could almost hear her thinking, feel her indecision.

_Come, Adela_.

And, she came.

# Chapter Seventy-Five

Adela

Adela left the car at the gate. Maybe she left it as a means of escape, a quick get-away. She walked slowly down the lane. Closer.

Closer to Frank Carberry, the grandson of Douglas Carberry. Douglas Carberry, the man who had loved her grandmother with his every breath.

She stopped a few feet away and studied the slight smile that hovered around his mouth. Was he mocking her? No, he wasn't. Even though his lips curved slightly upward, his eyes were beseeching.

"Fishing?"

"Yes." He reached out his hand, a beckoning wave of his fingers. "The brim are feeding. I saw them down by the dock, in the grass, right at daylight."

He stepped closer and she saw the prickle of beard along his jaw. And then the top half of a biscuit sticking out of his pocket.

"That biscuit has to be hard and cold."

His smile widened. "Yes. Very."

"I'm out of flour or I'd bake some hot ones," she said, her voice smooth and cajoling, a thing women did so well.

"I have flour. Self-rising."

"Buttermilk?"

"No, but I have Crisco and milk."

She smiled into her Rita Hayworth face. "Coffee?"

"I'll make a fresh pot for you."

She stepped back a little. Afraid. _Where had the obnoxious bastard gone?_

He stepped forward a little. "Let's sit on the porch and talk."

She sent him a slight smile. "Yours or mine?"

Frank looked across the fence to the Carberry mansion. Never in his wildest dreams did he think Kree's granddaughter would set foot on his land.

"Mine," he said, his blue eyes teasing.

# Chapter Seventy-Six

Frank and Adela

She had spent a lifetime peering over the white fence and knew from the beginning it was more than a fence, a divider of two properties. Its significance lay in the man who built it, his anger evident with every blow of the hammer used to nail the pickets.

Adela had been a teenager when she watched Frank Carberry dig the holes for the posts. He was only two years older, on his way to the war across the ocean, his clandestine career for the military just beginning. Of course, no one knew it at the time. He was just one of millions who fought the enemy; his role a little more complicated.

He completed the fence, never acknowledging her as she sat on the front porch of her grandmother's cottage just a few yards away. When daylight came, he was long gone. Gone for almost forty years to places no one in Ivy Log had ever even heard of.

Now, she followed his steps down the length of the fence to the lake, turned at the end and walked behind him through the trees and field to the big white house that sat at the top of a rise — the house that held Carberry secrets, each one a locked box without a key.

"Watch your step. There are ant beds all over the place."

They arrived at the back steps and Adela hesitated. It was though her life would change forever if she lifted her foot and touched something that belonged to the Carberry's. She stared at the row of red bricks, deliberating. Behind her, she felt Frank's hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him.

"I've invited you to sit on my porch with me," he said softly. "That is all."

Adela looked away, across the fence to her small cottage. It was the first time she had seen it from this side of the fence, from under the rambling eves of the big white house. "I know," she nodded.

"Come inside and I'll make more coffee." Frank opened the screened door and waited for her to walk the length of the porch and into the house. The sound of music drifted from another room. _Harry James' trumpet._

"I usually hear that trumpet at 3:00 in the morning," she teased.

At the top of the massive foyer, a chandelier hung with prominence, at least a hundred small globes arranged delicately in tiered circles from top to bottom. On the walls, there were oil paintings in various sizes and spoke of European artists, a small Van Gogh by itself, near a pastoral that depicted playful lambs jumping a small creek. Adela smelled the wood of the polished walnut floor, felt the cool of the tall silver urn that stood guard at the entry door. Her thoughts were of her grandmother. _Had she ever been in this house?_

She entered the library where family portraits lined the walls. Frank's ancestors, she assumed, as she studied the eyes, noses and lips. She knew immediately which one was Douglas Carberry. _Frank looked just like him._

They made biscuits together. She measured everything and he mixed it in a large wooden bowl made from a black walnut tree. The bowl had been in the Carberry family since before the Civil War, its worn bottom evidence of serious biscuit making. They slipped the pan into the hot oven and set the timer.

"Let's drink some coffee on the porch while these bake." Frank took two cups out of the cabinet. "Black?"

"Yes."

"Me, too."

They left the kitchen for the back porch, Frank leading and holding the door for Adela. "Nice out here. Cool. Feels good."

Adela nodded and followed Frank to a row of rocking chairs painted the color of buttercups. He sat the two cups on a small round table. "This is the first time I've had any real company since I've been back." He lifted his cup. "Well, except for my son."

"When was he here?"

"A few weeks back. Took me to Chattanooga for my eye surgery. Lives in Alaska. A Russian linguist for the Air Force."

"Grandchildren?"

"Yes. Two. Teenagers now. Not babies anymore." His gaze went to the well where a mockingbird flitted along the edge of the stone. "Never seen them."

Adela held her cup in mid-air. "Why not?" she asked in a bewildered voice.

Frank's jaw tightened. "The military thing. No life. Just work." He sighed. "Not sure how forty years went by so quickly."

The sound of wind chimes drifted from the opposite end of the porch. "Don't...don't quite know what to do at this point." He laughed. "Just waiting to die, I guess."

He stood and walked to the edge of the porch. "Got my eyes fixed so I could see. See what? See the cemetery?" My tombstone?"

Adela sipped her coffee and pushed the chair into its rocking motion. "Why so cynical?"

He turned and looked at her a long moment. "Why not?"

"I recall your conversation in the middle of my leaving. I believe you said you thought things could be different." She stood and walked to where he stood, leaning against the porch post. "You asked me not to leave. Why?"

He faltered, his hand swinging up to his brow and rubbing across the top of his head. "I told you I don't know."

"Well, perhaps I should leave after all."

She saw his face flush, the gold flecks in his pupils darken. He reached out and pulled her to him, his arms wrapping around her, his hands gently finding her hair and pulling her head back. She watched his lips linger above hers, then the slow caress of his mouth onto hers. Tender. Long. Soft. She tasted coffee, then...then lust.

Her words to him were whispered. "This cannot be."

# Chapter Seventy-Seven

Frank and Adela

"Jelly?" he asked

"Yes."

"What kind?" he paused. "Nevermind. You like peach."

Adela looked surprised. "How did you know that?"

Frank smiled. "Every Georgia girl likes peach preserves."

The morning found them again in the rocking chairs, their hands filled with a biscuit, their cups full of hot coffee. They rocked without talking and watched the noon sun move toward the west. The sound of honking geese slipped through the trees and rode up the hill to the house.

"Why can't it be?" he asked.

Adela wiped the biscuit crumbs from her lap. "There are too many unanswered questions."

"Ask away." He reached over and took her hand. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"There's really only one question, Frank."

He let go of her hand and leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. "Fire away," he said.

"Why do you hate Kree and your grandfather so much?"

The man who left Ivy Log forty years ago leaned back and closed his eyes. He rocked back and forth for a few moments.

"I was ten. Just a boy. All I had was granddaddy. No mother. No father. He was my world. We hunted together. Fished together. Stayed up late and played checkers by the fire." The movement of the rocker stopped.

"Then, he left to go hunting by himself one day. Came back a different man. Even as a boy, I saw it in his eyes."

The rocking began again. "It was the Indian woman. Kree. He had seen her in the woods hunting deer."

Frank let out a long breath. "After that, things were never the same. He went away for long periods of time. Once, when he returned, he stayed long enough to build the cottage. For her, of course."

The porch fell quiet as the two rockers moved back and forth together.

"He was a philanderer from the beginning. One time, when I was about eight, he took up with a woman twenty-five years younger. A city girl from Ivy Log. I'll never forget the two of them running naked in the front yard. She had flaming red hair and a cackling laugh." Frank shook his head. "Granddaddy thought I was asleep."

A cynical laugh. "But, the red-head was the end of his womanizing. Not too much later he found Kree." He paused, his words barely audible. "After Kree, there was no one else."

Frank left the rocker and walked down the length of the porch. "I watched from my upstairs bedroom window. He'd go to the edge of the woods and whistle. One whistle meant stay. Two whistles meant come. He was her lookout, but I saw it all."

Frank said no more. His gaze roamed the woods, saw the cloudless sky and finally searched for the long-ago path that led from the woods to the cottage. It had faded away, replaced by summers and winters that stopped for nothing and no one.

From behind, Adela touched his shoulder. "Love is a powerful thing, Frank."

When he turned, his eyes, the gold flecks darkening, looked into hers. "Is that what it was? Love?"

"Yes, Frank. It was love."

"Well, if love is so powerful, why couldn't he love both of us?"

# Chapter Seventy-Eight

Ivy Log

Paula heard the knock on her door at 4:00. She looked out the window at the top of the stairs and saw Wiley's pickup parked on the street a block away. She smiled to herself. She was irresistible.

She left the stairs in only a towel, her hair pinned up and no make-up. He had seen her before without it, counting the freckles on her nose, her cheeks. Then, her eyelids, where no turquoise eyeshadow or mascara painted them.

She opened the door. "Wiley Hanson. What a nice surprise." She stepped back, lowered the towel to the floor and smiled when Wiley gasped and closed the door behind him.

"Dang it, Paula. Why do you do that to me?" He stamped his foot and turned around. With his back to her, he sighed in exasperation. "I'm not here for that."

"No? Then, why are you here?"

"I'm here to tell you and the visitation committee to stay away from the lake."

"Now, haven't we been through this before? Wiley, I have a duty to God to spread the word."

Wiley turned around and lifted his hands. "All I ask is that you wait until she comes back to town. There's no need to drive all the way out there."

"Wiley Hanson, are you trying to hide something from me?"

"No, no, Paula. It's just wrong. Just plain wrong. You aren't going out there for the right reasons."

"How do _you_ know the right reasons? You've never even stepped inside a church." She sneered at him. "What do you know about any of this?"

She leaned over and picked up the towel and wrapped it around her. "I think you'd better go. I'm meetin' everybody at the church at 5:00."

Wiley pulled on the door knob. "I have a feeling you'll regret this, Paula." He left without waiting for Paula to say anything more.

# Chapter Seventy-Nine

Frank and Adela

They sat rocking for hours. She made tea. He made grilled cheese sandwiches. They laughed together at their escapades at the dock. He claimed she tried to drown him.

"Oh, I almost forgot." He left the porch for a few moments, then returned carrying her ruffled white skirt, freshly laundered. "Almost as good as new."

Adela reached out and picked up the hem of the skirt. "I'm sure it was difficult to find it."

"Almost as difficult as your finding my bottle of whiskey."

# Chapter Eighty

Ivy Log

The five women met at the church, each one stiff with resolve, their bibles grasped tightly in their hands. Paula pulled her navy blue Lincoln into the church parking lot and waved.

"Everybody ready?" she called, her voice shrill.

"We're coming," yelled Shirley. "I've got a run in my hose."

"Take 'em off. It's hot today." Paula turned the volume up on the radio and caught the tail end of Neil Diamond's _Love Lifted Me_ and sang along, her high soprano voice holding the notes... _looooooooooooove lifteeeeeed meeeeeeeee._

Paula may have been singing about love, but inside she steamed over Wiley's admonishment of her. It was rare that anyone questioned her judgment. Even if they did, they never dared say a word to her. Wiley was different. A mountain man was not bound by the same rules as the citizens of Ivy Log. He allowed her to be dominant in the bedroom, but it ended there. Naked and under the covers, he was at her mercy. He was her secret lover when he climbed the stairs to her wall-papered guest room and found her waiting for him. In the mountains, he became a true mountain man, impervious to the ways of the city girls.

"We're runnin' late. You girls hurry."

"Does Adela know we're coming?" Ann Crabtree seemed hesitant.

"Ann, you know we never make visitation appointments. We just drop in and pray. Who would not want us to pray with them?"

Sally Crowe opened her bible. "What were those scriptures again?"

"Oh, Sally," said Carole. "We all know they're about sin."

Paula laughed. "Oh, yes. It's about sin all right."

"What if....what if we..." Carole felt the rise of doubt in her stomach. "What if we visit at an inopportune time?"

"Inopportune time?" Paula laughed with shrill chirps from her throat. "It's never an inopportune time for God, Carole."

"Yoo, hoo! Anybody home?"

Frank and Adela looked across the fence and saw five bible-toting women parading across Adela's yard.

"Over here," Frank yelled. He watched as they turned in unison and stared, their mouths open.

"You'll have to walk down to the end of the fence and cut across that way." He looked over at Adela and smiled. "Are you ready for this? I think they're from the church."

Adela smoothed her hair and brushed the front of her blouse. "Not really. I...I'm surprised to see them."

"Who are they?"

"The red-head is Paula Jennings. The others are members of the visitation committee." She paused. "It looks as though we are about to be...shall we say...spiritually uplifted." Adela stepped back and readied herself for the onslaught.

Paula stepped onto the porch, a wide smile on her face. Her bible rested in her hands.

"My goodness. What a surprise to catch you two together this evening." Her eyes flicked from one to the other. And, she waited. Behind her, four women pressed themselves together, their bibles open, their eyes ever-watching.

"Hope we didn't catch you at a bad time." She presented her most saintly face. "We'd like to pray with you."

Frank turned and looked at Adela, his expression one of discord. From behind, he heard Paula's shrill, loud voice.

"Oh, heavenly Father, we bring you two sinners who are in need of your forgiveness. We ask that you take them into your fold. Give them the strength to mend their wayward ways. To stop sinning. To live by your word. We ask in thy precious name. Amen."

Frank stared blankly at Paula. "Mend our wayward ways?"

Paula flipped open her bible. "Proverbs 28:13," she almost yelled. "People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy."

Frank held up his hand. "Excuse me —"

Paula quickly turned the pages of her bible. "Isaiah 64.6. We are all infected and impure with sin. Like autumn winds, we wither and fall and our sins sweep us away like the wind."

"Paula, please —"Adela lifted her hands.

"John 1.9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness"

Paula shut her bible with such conviction that the floorboards of the porch seemed to shudder. She bowed her head, her lips moving rapidly in silent prayer. The committee members stood with their eyes closed, their hands wrapped around their bibles.

Adela found her voice. "May I serve you some iced tea?"

The ladies of the church smiled graciously. Paula's red lips pursed together for a moment. "Why, I think that would be lovely."

They gathered in Frank's large kitchen, a country kitchen with a table that accommodated twelve. The ladies of the church ohhhhed and ahaaaed over the antique ceramic pitchers, the walnut biscuit bowl and the tall silver urn that held umbrellas in the foyer.

Adela served tea and smiled. Frank scowled at every mention of scriptures and the bible. He eyed Paula as she squeezed lemon into her tea. There was something familiar about her. She swept her fingers through her red hair and when she laughed it sounded like hens cackling. He knew he had heard that cackle before. In fact, he had heard it almost sixty years ago. But, even more familiar was the small cleft in her chin.

# Chapter Eighty-One

Frank and Adela

The ladies of the church marched along the fence line, turned at the lake and headed down the lane to the highway, their mission accomplished. They had invoked in the sinners scriptures in the bible that touted their sins, called forth the consequences of sins and promised there would be no glory in remaining sinners.

Paula Jennings's smug face had glistened with righteousness as she hugged Adela and held her at arm's length. "My dear, I worry about you so."

Before Adela could reply, Paula turned on her heels and, with a grand wave, left the porch.

The sun eased behind the tree line and left the porch in shadows. Frank opened a bottle of wine for Adela and poured himself his usual Pappy. They sat without conversation and listened to the distant chatter of a pileated woodpecker. The temperature had cooled and left the air crisp. Frank pulled a quilt from an upstairs bedroom and placed it across Adela's lap, a gentlemanly thing to do. More gentlemanly than calling her grandmother a whore and accusing his grandfather of illicit fornicating with an Indian squaw.

He had said those things – but, that was before yesterday. Yesterday, he had kissed the widow.

After the kiss, he was no longer Frank Carberry. In an instant, he had turned into a sixty-seven year-old man who was completely helpless, captured by the scent of a woman. Maybe that was the way it was meant to be.

One day he intended to ask God why he had made women so soft, smell so good. Instead, he became angry and wanted to know why God made woman so stupid. God's reply would be interesting. Perhaps his reply would be that women were stupid so they would like men. How appropriate and he surmised he fell headlong into that category of men.

He studied Adela's profile. It was the same as Kree's. Her eyelashes black and smutty like the shell of a walnut. Her lips seemed in a perpetual pout, pink even without lipstick. He wanted to reach out and rearrange a lock of hair that hung down her cheek, pick it up and tuck it behind her ear. Then, more than anything in the world, he wanted to pick her up and take her to the upstairs bedroom and make love to her.

He had been as much a philanderer as his grandfather. After the death of his wife, he never remarried. He could have had any woman he wanted. But, there was none who captured his heart and kept him for very long. His grandfather had found Kree and she was his until he died. Frank reached over and touched Adela.

"Something is happening here."

She said nothing. Her eyes searched his.

"I'm not the man I used to be."

Her eyes widened. "In what way?"

Frank felt it was difficult to answer her question. The changes in him had become a matter of the heart, void of a description worthy of what he was thinking and feeling. Dare he call it love? If so, could he ever tell her that?

"I'm not sure." He paused, feeling himself falter and search for something that seemed just on the verge of who he had always wanted to be – a man who could love a woman as much as he knew his grandfather had loved Kree.

What a travesty; he had hated Kree because she took his grandfather's love. He hated his grandfather because he gave his love so freely to Kree. One day his grandfather was all his and then the next day, the Indian woman had stolen his heart and a little boy was left behind.

Frank cleared his throat. "The things that used to satisfy me no longer do so."

"And those things were?"

He sighed and looked toward the woods and watched the tops of the trees sway as the winds raced through the hills.

"My work, of course. The power that came with my position." He smiled when he looked at her. "Perhaps a little ego was involved to be honest.

Then, when I went into the subversive world of the military, I sorta lost myself. Who was I? A no-name man who could get away with just about anything when it came to fighting an enemy who was just as deadly as I."

Adela pulled the quilt around her legs and leaned back. Her eyes roamed Frank's hard jaw line, saw the dark stubble of beard.

"You're older now. Your perspectives have changed."

"Maybe." There was doubt in his voice as he struggled with the possibilities of a different life, a life that allowed him to be the tender man he wanted to be. How could he love a woman as she should be loved if he himself remained the bitter person he knew he was.

His voice turned soft, beseeching. "Adela, could things be different between you and I?"

Adela looked away from Frank's questioning eyes for a long moment, across the darkened field, to the dilapidated barn and finally to the man who sat beside her.

"No. I don't think so."

# Chapter Eighty-Two

Adela

Adela left the Carberry estate, the grand house, the sprawling porch and the man who had caused her so much hurt. Her walk down the fence line was hurried, as if something was chasing her. Something was – a fear of feeling something other than contempt for Frank Carberry.

She crossed the property line at an almost dead run, her feet finding the path to the cottage, her heart beating fast and her mouth dry. What was happening to her? The cottage seemed so far away as her breath struggled and her lungs gasped for air.

She must leave. She must return to Ivy Log, away from him. Frank Carberry, the man whose hate for her grandmother had filled her with such sadness, so much so that she doubted there could be any forgiveness.

The cottage was dark, the rooms cool. It was near midnight. A quietness that invited sleep pulled Adela into her bedroom, where the window faced Frank's house. She saw only a faint outline of the rooftop as it met the sky. There was no light, no sound that crossed the fence and made their way to the cottage.

She undressed and slid into bed, exhausted, surprised when tears came. The tears were cleansing, almost as if the last teardrop would mean peace, would mean all the pain would be gone. Pain from the loss of Andy, pain from the enduring hatred of Frank Carberry. Perhaps the last teardrop would also set her free.

She had no doubt that he was the same man he'd always been. A kiss could not change a man nor would it change her. His hard heart had not softened when his lips met hers. It was an impossibility. The kiss had only disguised the real Frank Carberry. His question to her had been almost laughable. _Could things be different between you and I?_ Yes, when roosters sniffed snuff.

At daylight, she would pack her car once more and Highway 325 would take her home.

# Chapter Eighty-Three

Frank

The reality of his vulnerability struck Frank like the butt of a rifle. The sting of rejection numbed him, but, more than anything, the pain of loss and of what could have been tore at his very soul.

As if the universe had wobbled and taken a wrong turn, Frank felt himself pulled into a frightening darkness. He had been there before and now he was back.

He left the porch and found his whiskey bottle. The pain. He must diminish the pain, forget all that caused it. He filled his glass to the brim, lifted it high.

"To all the bastards in the world," he said. "Myself included."

On the porch, he found his favorite chair but sat only a moment before pacing the yard and finally the line that ran down the fence. He left long enough to pour another whiskey, then back to the fence that seemed to be mocking him. _Don't cross over this fence. A woman who is as beautiful as Scarlett O'Hara lives over there in that small cottage. She's sweeter than cotton candy, her eyes like gold nuggets that have been washed in warm rum. Naked, she is the Cleopatra of the mountains, irresistible and captivating._

Frank emptied his second pour and returned for a third. He laughed as he jumped off the edge of the porch and once again found the row of fence that stood sentry-like between him and Adela. _By God, this fence is coming down_.

He half-ran, half-staggered to the barn, falling twice, and pulled himself into the seat of an old Ford tractor that had belonged to his grandfather. Wiley had cleaned the battery a few weeks back and pronounced the tractor good as new. _Start, you bastard_.

The engine sputtered, then caught and Frank let out a howl. As if the gods in the universe had proclaimed the night belonged to Frank Carberry, he stomped the gas pedal and backed out of the barn, a rear tire catching the edge of the door and pulling it to the ground. Frank turned the wheel and, with a determination that defied all the cowards in the world, headed straight for the fence he had built forty years ago.

The wind in his face, the fumes of the exhaust filling the air, Frank revved the engine into high speed. The beat of his heart matched the roar of the motor when, at thirty miles an hour, he crashed the fence. A moment later, he turned the tractor around and ran forward for another pass. This time, he took out ten feet at one swipe and howled like a mountain coyote.

In only seven and one-half minutes, the entire fence was destroyed. Forty years ago, it had taken him two days to build the fence that had seemed to liberate him from his dark memories. Now, its destruction had also been liberating. He turned off the ignition and stepped down from the tractor. It was then that he noticed he was totally naked.

# Chapter Eighty-Four

Adela

Instead of Harry James' trumpet, the noise of crashing lumber and a roaring engine woke Adela. It was 3:00 a.m. and she had been in a deep, dreamless sleep. She ran to the terrace and watched as Frank rammed his tractor time and time again into the fence, whooping and hollering at every turn. _Crazy. Crazy drunk. He's going to kill himself._

At last, the engine died and, only a few feet away, Frank stumbled down from the tractor. Naked as the day he was born, he yelled into the night sky.

"Come out, Adela Harper. Come see the new Frank Carberry. There's nothing between us now. No fence. No fence. Adeeeeellllllaaaaaaa."

Adela took a few steps forward, closer to the naked man who had called her. "I'm here, Frank."

He became quiet and still. She smelled the whiskey; saw his lean body and the crumbled fence behind. He stepped closer with outstretched arms. "Adela," he said softly. "Come to me."

And, she came.

He held her tightly, kissed the top of her head, whispered _my love, my love_ , while the stars above them danced in the sky.

Adela stepped back. She, too, was naked.

# Chapter Eighty-Five

Frank and Adela

She helped him to her cottage, holding her arm around his waist and guiding him through the screened door, the same door on which he had placed his hateful note to her just a short while back. He had begun singing the moment she led him to the shower, his voice robust and in perfect key. _Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes. I'll never love blue eyes again._

She washed the smell of diesel fuel from his skin, scrubbed the grass and dirt from his legs and wondered how a drunken man could have such an erection. She ignored it as best she could and lathered him with Ivory soap and washed his hair. It was like bathing a baby, so pliable, so sweet.

She rinsed his hair and watched as his skin became pink and soft. When Frank reached out and touched her breasts, she stilled and looked at him. His expression was one of wonder, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. He was almost child-like as he slowly caressed her and then picked up the bar of soap. He said nothing as he gently rubbed the soap over her. His blue eyes never left hers and when he reached that pleasurable place, he closed his eyes and whispered. "Ms. Harper, would you be mine?"

# Chapter Eighty-Six

Frank and Adela

They made love until daylight. Frank had dried her with a soft, blue towel, combed her wet hair, removed the remnants of smudged mascara from beneath her eyes and rubbed Jergen's on her feet. She had put alcohol on a scrape on his knee, ran her hand across his backside while he shaved, and filled a cup with hot coffee.

In her bedroom, the light from a waning moon fell across the bed, where they lay and simply looked at each other. Frank traced her face with his finger, skimming her lips, then the tips of her breasts. When his tongue found a nipple, Adela's breath caught. "Please," she said, as she touched him and felt herself falling into a place called love.

"I cannot live without you, Adela."

His words were like his grandfather's words to Kree. He meant them, would die by them. There was no turning back.

She leaned forward and kissed him. When she pulled away, even in the moonlight, her eyes shone bright, her lips wet and shining. "Frank Carberry," she said. "I do believe you mean that."

# Chapter Eighty-Seven

Frank and Adela

They slept until noon, their bodies pressed together, him holding her back. Occasionally, they stirred and changed positions, but always clinging to each other. He woke first and kissed her hair. When her eyes opened, he smiled.

"Want to go fishing?"

"Are you going to clean them?"

"I believe I cleaned the last catch."

"That you did. However, you cleaned them expecting something in return. It was not done out of kindness."

Frank looked shocked. "It was most certainly done out of kindness. Besides, what in the world would I have wanted in return?" His grin widened. "I fried fish, you made hushpuppies. A square deal for both of us."

Adela sat up, her breasts round and soft, her nipples the color of an overripe peach. Frank leaned over and nibbled tenderly.

"We don't have to go fishing," he said, his voice low.

He pulled Adela on top of him and smiled when he heard her whisper his name. "Yes, Adela. What is it?"

She leaned forward and kissed him. He knew what she wanted.

# Chapter Eighty-Eight

Adela

They fished later in the afternoon, almost dusk, when the brim snapped hungrily at their baited hooks. The sun had set in a cloudless sky when they pulled a stringer of fish out of the water and headed back to the cottage. Frank hummed softly, a bucket in one hand, the stringer in the other. Adela followed close behind and smiled at the simplicity of their day. Lovemaking and fishing.

Frank cleaned the fish and Adela made hushpuppies, her grandmother's recipe – a prize of a recipe with tiny bits of onion and green pepper.

While Adela breaded the fish, Frank, a towel wrapped around him, retrieved a bottle of Pappy from his house as well as a bottle of wine. He walked where the fence had once been. He whistled along the way and, now and then, sang " _Adela, my sweet Adela_."

Adela poured oil into the cooking pot and happened to look toward the screen door where she saw a large white envelope stuck between the frame and the screen. She walked over and pulled it out and read the words in the top left corner of the envelope. Clerk of the County Court, Union County, Georgia. Her fingers shook slightly as she opened the envelope and retrieved its contents. She read slowly

In the Court of Georgia

Union County Superior Court

In the matter of the estate of Ahoya Kree,

Case No U000780987

It is the power of the Court to hear and determine the case. It hereby commands the defendant to appear before the court on October 30, 1987, to answer a complaint by the plaintiff: Franklin B. Carberry

The defendant, Adela Queen Harper, has Twenty (20) days to respond to this affidavit.

Claim Against Estate

1. The undersigned states that the claimant is a creditor of the estate of A. Kree

2. The Claimant hereby states that said estate is indebted to said creditor in the amount of $50,000 for the fraudulent acquisition of twenty (20) acres and cottage assessed by the estate of Douglas Franklin Carberry.

3. The undersigned swears that the matter set forth in the foregoing pleading are true and correct according to the best knowledge and belief of the undersigned and subject to penality for making a false affidavit or declaration.

Franklin D. Carberry

Frank D. Carberry

Date October 1, 1987

She looked at Frank's signature again. Strong, fluid and very readable. _Franklin D. Carberry_. A sinking feeling filled her stomach, her ears begin to ring. Across the field, she saw Frank walking toward the cottage, a lightness to his step. He was walking the same path his grandfather walked years ago when he wanted to make love to Kree. Frank was coming to his grandfather's love nest. Only this time it was Frank and Adela's love nest.

"Don't come any farther, you son of a bitch." Adela's words were venomous, seething words that stopped even the invincible Frank Carberry.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. Go back to your house."

"I don't understand," he called.

Adela held up the court summons. "Oh, this paper says it all, Frank. Says how you're filing suit to reclaim these twenty acres."

She stepped closer and shook the paper in the air. "Well, guess what, Frank. You can have it all – the land, the cottage." Through her tears, her voice broke. "But, you'll never have me."

# Chapter Eighty-Nine

Ivy Log

Paula Jennings lay on the bed in the guest bedroom of her house, her fingers rubbing her chin. She felt for the small indentation, the cleft. The Carberry cleft. So her mother had not lied after all. Douglas Carberry was her father, the result of a fling with her mother over sixty years ago. It also made sense that her mother had left her a significant amount of money, most likely from Douglas Carberry for the daughter he never acknowledged.

She had seen herself immediately in the portrait of Douglas Carberry when she walked through the Carberry library the day before. Saw herself in his eyes, the shape of his face, his cleft the final clue that cemented her suspicions.

And, Frank Carberry saw it, too. She caught him watching her, his expression confirming his own suspicion. She wondered what else he knew. Now what? Do nothing? The people in Ivy Log assumed William Jennings had been her father. He had certainly treated her like a daughter. Her mother had never loved him, but, then again, what choices did she have when she learned she was pregnant. William was delighted to marry such a beautiful woman.

Paula heard a soft knock from the floor below. She looked out the bedroom window and saw Wiley Hanson's truck parked down the street. "Damn you, Wiley."

She went downstairs and opened the door. "Wiley."

Wiley smiled shyly. "Hello, Paula. Can I come in?"

"Yeah," said Paula. "Little cool out, isn't it?"

Wiley fiddled with his hat.

"I come here to apologize to you, Paula. I never should've told you what to do. That was your choice." He looked down at the floor. "I feel kinda bad about it."

Paula hung her head. Then, her shoulders began to shake.

"Paula! What's wrong?" Wiley pulled her to him while she blubbered out words he did not understand.

"Now, hold on, Paula. You're talking too fast."

"The...wha....you....you said I'd be sorry for going out to the lake." The tears flowed, her nose ran and the words kept coming. "Well,...I...am sorry."

Wiley pushed back her fly-away hair and wiped her face. Her mascara had smeared as well as her red lipstick. The freckles on her face grew to the size and color of pencil erasers. "Now, now, Paula. It cain't be all that bad."

Paula squeezed her eyes tight and screwed up her face. "Oh, but it is, Wiley. It is." Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor. "What have I done?" she moaned.

Wiley squatted on the floor next to her and rubbed her shoulders. "Well, let's talk about it, Paula, and I bet you'll feel better."

She rocked back and forth and took deep gulps of air. "Well, you know Roy over at the courthouse? He's had a crush on me forever so I asked him to do me a little favor."

Wiley's eyes widened. "A favor? What kind of favor?"

"You're gonna hate me for this, Wiley."

Wiley shook his head. "No, no, Paula. I can't hate you. I love you."

Paula stilled and her teary eyes widened. "You never told me that before."

Wiley blinked hard. "Well, I might never have told you, but it's true."

Paula smiled through her tears. "Wiley, you know no mountain boy can ever love a city girl. That's just a fact."

"True. But, I'm breaking that rule."

Paula tears returned. "You ain't gonna love me after you find out what I did, Wiley."

Wiley laughed and squeezed Paula's hand. "What kinda favor did Roy do for you that's so bad?"

Paula took a deep breath. "I asked him to deliver a fake summons out to the lake. To Adela."

"A fake summons. That don't make sense."

"I know," Paula sniffed. "But, when I was at the lake, I saw how Frank looked at her. I could tell he was falling for her. It's always Adela. Pretty Adela. Sweet Adela. So, I had Roy issue a summons that filed suit against Adela."

"A suit? I just don't get it, Paula. What do you mean a suit?"

"A claim by Frank Carberry to regain the twenty acres and cottage Douglas Carberry gave Kree. He's always wanted that land back. I'm sure he was going to file suit at some point."

"What?" Wiley hollered. "What a mean thing to do, Paula. Do you know what kind of trouble this is going to cause?"

"I know, Wiley. That's why I'm so upset. I'm in trouble. Roy's in trouble. And, I promise you Frank Carberry is in trouble with Adela Harper."

"Dear God, Paula. We've got to go out there and set things straight."

# Chapter Ninety

Frank

She was too angry to talk, to explain her words, the shaking of a paper in the air. Frank watched her turn her back to him and stomp into the cottage and obeyed her command to stay away. He stood at the end of his porch and watched the cottage as if watching it would take them back to their sweet murmurings of love just hours ago.

He had opened his heart to her, an evolution that made him want to soar across the sky, dance in the moonlight and sing to high heaven. All he wanted was Adela. Adela Queen Harper, the granddaughter of Kree. It was as if loving her would take away the pain he felt when his grandfather rode up the mountain to the Cherokee woman. His love for her would wipe away all the hurt, diminish the inequities in his young life. She was a balm, a salve that smoothed away the anger and left behind love.

The sky had begun to lighten when he left the porch and slowly walked the stairs to his bedroom. He stretched out on the bed, weary, confused and most certainly hurt. He would give Adela time to settle down and then he'd try to talk with her. He closed his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep filled with dreams of the beautiful widow, her gold-brown eyes, her smile with a slightly crooked front tooth and the hair that felt like corn silk when he ran his fingers through it.

# Chapter Ninety-One

Adela

Adela closed the trunk lid and looked one last time at the cottage, then the lake. She would never come back.

She had been unable to sleep and had paced the small cottage until the sky lightened and the singing birds told her it was morning. Several times, she looked across the field and saw Frank Carberry leaning against a porch column and looking at the cottage. _Look all you want_ , she thought.

When he left the porch, she hurriedly packed her car and drove down the lane where she locked the gate and threw the key into the bushes. On Highway 325, she drove away from Nottely Lake. She had driven only three miles when the tears came and she felt herself slipping away. Her chest heaved and she banged the steering wheel with her fist. _The bastard_.

George Straight's _Am I Blue_ rang out on WCNG from Blairsville and Adela turned up the volume and listened as the words filled the air. _Am I Blue? Yes, I'm blue_.

An hour and a half later, she topped the rise that led into Ivy Log. Below, the small town seemed smaller than usual. She felt no happiness returning to the place she had lived all her life.

The steeple of the Baptist church rose into the morning sky and proclaimed the town was a godly place to live. From the east side of town, the copper dome of the small courthouse captured the sun. Across the street, five liberty oaks over a hundred years old lined the small town park where a statue of Robert E. Lee and his horse, Traveller, stood in gallant pose.

Adela opened the car window and immediately smelled Pyune's biscuits baking at the Boarding House, the aroma snaking its way down Main Street, enticing anyone who may be up early and looking for breakfast. She saw the lights go on in John Reece's barbershop, a busy place on Friday's – everyone wanted a haircut before church on Sunday.

From Main Street, Adela turned south, bypassing her house and catching the Murphy Highway toward Youngstown. She was running away.

She drove past Youngstown and headed for Blairsville. At high noon, she looked into the rearview mirror and saw puffy eyes, a pale face and fly-away hair. In the past twelve hours she had become a shrew, an ill-tempered woman who had lost a part of herself to a man who had pretended to love her. How could she have been so naïve? So vulnerable? Yet, she had done exactly that. Exposed her heart to the one man who had spent his life hating her. _The damn kiss_. It had been as deadly as a teaspoon of arsenic.

She followed the Nottely River to Joe's Fish House and found a shady spot under a tree that leaned toward the river. Joe's was comforting to her. She and her grandmother had eaten their fried catfish and hushpuppies for as long as she could remember.

She sat a long time and listened to the murmur of the water and watched as the wind bent the trees that lined the river. She would have to go home at some point, but, for now, she would just listen to the radio, wait for the puffiness around her eyes to disappear. Or, maybe not. The tears began again; then, the hurt. _Am I blue? Yes, I'm blue_.

# Chapter Ninety-Two

Ivy Log

Wiley stayed the night with Paula. They went to the wallpapered room full of magnolia blooms and large, green leaves that swirled along the crown molding and made one think of Tara. He undressed her and pulled up the covers over her thin body, plumping her pillow and then brushed her hair. He placed a box of tissues next to the bed and crawled in with her. When he pulled her next to him, she sighed. "Wiley, I think I love you, too."

"Well, that's good to hear. 'course, you and I got a lot of talking to do."

"I know. I know," she sniffed.

She turned toward him. "But, before we talk, I wouldn't mind a kiss."

Wiley smiled. "I wouldn't mind one either."

They made love, sweeter than ever before. She didn't straddle him and whip him like a mule. Instead, her hands tenderly touched him and smoothed his beard, all the while whispering, "My sweet Wiley."

He pulled the covers back and found her small breasts. They fit just right in his mouth and he never tired of their taste. Their bodies fit together just right. Maybe that was why they were so perfect together. He was surprised when she spoke.

"Wiley, I don't want you takin' Pyune to the smokehouse anymore." Even in the dark, he could see her wide eyes.

Pyune. Her meatloaf. Her pies. Her....her way with him. He turned and spoke through his smile. "You know, Paula," he teased, "if you can make meatloaf like that I think I might ask you to marry me."

They slept a few hours and woke up at daylight. "You know what we're gonna have to do, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know," Paula said through a yawn. "Might as well get it over with." She crawled out of bed and Wiley watched her slim hips as they sashayed to the bathroom.

She hollered through the door. "Wiley, since Douglas Carberry was my daddy, you reckon some of that estate could be mine?"

# Chapter Ninety-Three

Frank

It was noon before Frank came down the stairs into the kitchen and plugged in the coffee pot. His every move seemed sluggish, without energy or motivation. Before he left his bedroom, he looked in the mirror and saw a man who had succumbed to the ire of a woman. Adela Harper had raked him over the coals, stomped him to the ground and spit him out as if he were poison.

The military had treated him much better than a woman ever had. In his role as a subversive operative, he knew where he stood, knew what his orders were and, best of all, he was in charge. Adela had done nothing but make him weak, confused and out of sorts. He felt himself disoriented, with no idea if he was coming or going.

He opened a new bottle of whiskey and poured a generous amount in his coffee. He would begin the afternoon the best way he knew how. Pappy bourbon.

The air was crisp, the pine tops swaying, as he stepped onto the porch and found his rocker. His bare feet were cold, a chill on his shirtless body. He saw the quilt he had placed across Adela's knees and willed himself back into yesterday, into her laugh, her voice, lips that were as soft as rose petals. It was no use — even willing something did not make it happen.

He looked across the field at the cottage and saw Wiley Hanson and Paula Jennings walking toward him.

"Howdy, captin." Wiley removed his hat and swept it through the air. Along side him, Paula stepped gingerly around the wooden fence that lay on the ground.

He watched them with suspicion as they approached. Odd to see them together. Hand in hand, for that matter.

"Wiley. Paula." He was not smiling, no warmth coming from his voice. His eyes were slitted as if he was preparing to spit.

They walked onto the porch, each of them seeming puzzled.

"Where's Adela?" Wiley asked.

Frank jerked and spilled the coffee with the precious bourbon. "How should I know," he growled.

"Her car's gone. No sign of her. Looks like she left in a hurry." Wiley nodded toward the cottage. "Left her hummingbird feeders empty. No bird seed out."

Frank said nothing. Just stared and sipped his coffee. He was being rude and he knew it. Just didn't care.

Finally, Wiley cleared his throat and looked at Paula. "Captin, we got some things to talk with you about." He paused. "Well, mostly Paula does."

The face of the ex-military man hardened even further. His eyes seared Paula's face. "'bout what?"

Paula stuttered. "Well...I...we....it's about...."

"Get on with it!" boomed Frank.

Paula shuddered and hung her head.

"She's a little nervous, captin. Why don't we sit down and have a little talk."

For a long moment, Frank didn't move. When he did, it was obvious he was perturbed. He motioned for them to sit in rockers on the porch. "Over there," he said, and pointed to two wooden rockers that set across from his own.

Wiley and Paula shuffled to the chairs and sat, Paula fiddling with her hands while Wiley tugged on his beard.

"Well?" Frank lifted his hands in a questioning gesture, impatient and thinking of more bourbon. He looked at Paula and waited.

Paula squeezed her hands together, prayer like. "Well, Frank, I've done something really terrible and I wanted you to know about it because it involves you."

"Me? How so?"

Paula looked at Wiley. "Go on," he said and patted her knee.

Without looking at Frank, Paula took a deep breath and opened her mouth. "I was kinda mad when I left here a few days ago. I saw how you looked at Adela. Saw how she looked at you." She glanced quickly at Frank. "It made me jealous. So jealous I decided I wanted to do something mean." She paused and played with a thread on her skirt. "Something real mean to Adela...and you."

"And?"

"And that something was to have Roy at the courthouse deliver a summons to Adela stating you were going to take her twenty acres and cottage away from her."

The sound that came from Frank Carberry was like an animal in pain. He jumped from his chair and threw his coffee cup across the yard. When he turned back to Paula, his face was twisted into a snarl, his eyes blazing like the devil. "By God, Paula, how could you do such a thing?"

Paula cringed. "I know. I know. I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" Frank yelled. "So help me, Paula, you're going to pay for this."

Wiley stood from his chair. "Now, captin. It ain't all that bad. We'll just tell Roy at the courthouse it was a little joke and everything will be all right."

"All right? Allllllll riiiiiiight?" Frank walked to the edge of the porch and looked across the field. "You tell Adela that." He stood watching the cottage, hoping that at any moment she would walk out on the terrace and wave to him. When he turned back to Paula, he pointed his finger at her. "I don't know how you're going to fix this, but fix it you will!"

Paula nodded meekly and looked at Wiley. "Let's go find Adela."

Wiley stuttered. "There's something else Paula's gotta tell you, captin."

"There's more?" Frank asked, his words dripping with sarcasm as he rolled his eyes.

"Well...." said Paula, barely audible. "The other day when I was here with the visitation group, I walked into your library and saw some family portraits of your grandfather." She paused and bit her lip. "I'm thinking your grandfather is my daddy."

Frank walked a few steps closer to Paula and leaned forward, almost nose-to-nose. "Well, ain't that something. We're related," he said, a sneer forming on his lips. "How convenient for you. Guess you'll want some of the Carberry estate."

Paula stood, her face calm, the Carberry cleft sitting in shadow. "Not a dime. I don't want a dime."

# Chapter Ninety-Four

Adela

The rain was accompanied by violent winds. Lightning cracked the sky and its thunder rattled the windows in the Episcopal Church in Blairsville. Adela, asleep in her car, yelped at the sound of thunder as the storm swept down the Nottely River and crossed Joe's parking lot.

She looked at her watch. Five o'clock. She had been asleep for three and a half hours, her neck stiff, her legs cramped. She tried to stretch, but there was little room. It was almost dark when she pulled out of the parking lot and drove north on the Murphy highway toward Ivy Log.

She listened to the Judds sing their hearts out about lost love and broken hearts. She felt every note, every word. In only twenty minutes, she was on Main Street and turning into her driveway. When she stepped out of her car, the air was fragrant with mountain laurel and fresh cut grass. Weary, she walked up the steps and unlocked the front door.

The house smelled of the potpourri she had left on the dining room table, a mixture of lavender and orange. She turned on a lamp and opened the windows. She was home.

Upstairs, Adela undressed and showered. She looked in the mirror. "Who are you?" Her hair was a mad tangle, dark circles ringed her eyes, her skin splotched and sallow. She saw her eyes fill with tears. _Oh, no. Not again_.

The linens felt cool and soft as she slid between the sheets and closed her eyes. She lay a long time in the dark, her mind deadened. She could not think; she must not think.

Outside her opened window, she heard voices. Was she dreaming? When she looked out her window, she saw two dark figures standing at her doorstep. "What's going on down there?"

From below, in a shrill voice that bordered on hysteria, Paula Jennings answered. "It's me, Adela. Me and Wiley."

"My goodness," Adela said, her voice hoarse from fatigue. "Are ya'll lost?"

Paula's laugh traveled from the stoop to the rooftop. "No, Adela! We're here to see you."

Adela leaned against the window frame. "What about?"

Then, Wiley's voice boomed into the bedroom. "Let us in, Adela. This is important."

They gathered in Adela's living room, Wiley and Paula on her green and gold striped sofa. Adela sat across from them in a cream over-stuffed chair and leaned back.

"I'm a little confused. I don't think either of you has ever visited me before. Especially this late at night." She looked from one to the other and noticed Paula's mascara was smeared and she wasn't wearing lipstick. "Must be important."

Wiley smiled. Paula did not.

"Adela, there's been some things happenin' that Paula wants to tell you about." He cleared his throat and looked sideways at Paula. "We hope you'll be understanding."

Adela leaned forward. "I can't imagine what you're going to tell me."

Paula took a breath. "Adela, I have done a really mean thing to you...and to Frank Carberry."

"Frank Carberry?"

Paula's voice rose. "Yes. To both of you."

"I....I don't quite understand."

Paula looked down at her folded hands. "We've known each other a long time, Adela, and you've always been kind to me so there's really no reason for me to dislike you and everything. It's just...it's just that I...I have always been jealous of you. And, the other day when I saw you with Frank Carberry, I knew he loved you and you loved him. And, I guess I kinda went crazy."

"Crazy?"

"Yes, crazy. It's like this — I had Roy over at the courthouse draw up a fake subpoena that said Frank was taking back your twenty acres and cottage. And, then –"

Adela stood and lunged at Paula. "Paula! Stop! How could you do such a thing?" She pressed her hands against her mouth. "No. This can't be true. It was an official document."

"Now, Adela," said Wiley. "Please let Paula finish."

Paula pursed her lips for a moment. "I know it looked like one, Adela, but ole Roy just made it look that way. It's all my fault and I'm so sorry."

"But...but, I....I left the cottage. I left Frank."

Wiley stood. "Here's the thing, Adela. We done been out to see Frank. We was looking for you but you wasn't there so we walked across to Frank's."

"You talked with Frank?"

"Yes, we did. We told him everything."

"Wha...what did he say?"

"He said for Paula to fix it and that's why she's here. To fix it."

Adela paced the room, looked at the ceiling, wrung her hands and, finally, stopped long enough to look at Paula.

"Paula, your _joke_ is devastating to me. I don't quite know what to do."

"That's not all, Adela," said Wiley.

"There's more?" Adela's body slumped.

"'fraid so."

"What?"

"Paula found out that Frank's grandfather is Paula's daddy."

Adela looked from Wiley to Paula. She felt numb, a pain in her head, no strength in her legs. She sat down and put her head in her hands. Through her fingers, she spoke, her words muffled. "I must go back out to the lake, talk with Frank. Try to clear things up."

A silence fell in the room until Wiley hemmed and hawed for a few agonizing seconds. "Don't want to make things worse, Adela, but when we left, the captin was packin' a bag."

# Chapter Ninety-Five

Frank

It was like going off to war again. The sweats. The anxiety. The sinking into himself. There lurked a disappearance of normalcy while he slipped into a place that was dark and smelled of demons.

Frank zipped up his luggage, found the keys to a car he had not driven since his return to the lake. He moved with a studied carefulness from task to task. After Paula left, he had spent the afternoon walking from room to room, a nervousness creeping into his limbs that belied his usual calm. His heart beat with a steady rhythm, but ached all the same. He had admitted his vulnerability, chastised himself for it. _Close it up, Frank. Go back to the real you_.

A woman. Always a woman. It was a woman who abandoned him by dying at his birth. It was a woman who took away his grandfather. Now, it was a woman who had entered his heart, then slammed it shut and disappeared after a tirade that would have made the devil cringe.

He loaded his luggage in the car and walked out into the yard. The sun was behind the trees that lined the lake, a prelude to sunset and then a cool evening. The sky had dimmed, its blueness turning a soft gray, the clouds moving slowly east. East. Maybe that's where he should go. East toward the ocean. Get on a boat. And drink. He had packed three bottles of Pappy in his luggage and had every intention of drinking every last drop.

The sound of a night bird's croon drifted from the lake, a requiem for the end of another day. Or, perhaps a call to the slumbering who awaited resurrection in the Antioch Church cemetery only a mile away.

The boards from the picket fence lay in tumbled confusion on the path to the lake. Frank almost smiled. Tearing down the fence had destroyed not only the fence, but also a part of him.

He stepped over the pickets and found the worn path to the lake, where he meandered through the trees and stopped at the dock's edge. He carried his usual whiskey and drank while his eyes roamed the water and the skyline. Two cane poles lay propped on a piling along with a kerchief that belonged to Adela. The remnants of an old tackle box, rusted and without a lid, lay half-way off the dock's edge.

From the bank came the swishing sound of a flopping fish. A bass maybe, with its sights on a floating bug. A breeze blew across the dock and Frank watched as Adela's kerchief waved as though telling him good-bye. _Goodbye, Adela_ , he thought, as he emptied his glass and walked back to his car.

# Chapter Ninety-Six

Adela

Wiley and Paula left the two-story house on Mulberry Street where Adela Queen Harper had lived for forty years. The house had been built by one of the Conley sons before he went off to war and now lay buried in a cemetery somewhere in France.

Adela stood on the front stoop and watched Wiley's truck until it disappeared around the corner toward Main Street, the red taillights dimmed by a lingering mist in the air. She shivered as she left the stoop, returned to the living room and turned off the lamp. The dark of the room seemed comforting as she sat on the couch and closed her eyes.

_Frank Carberry_. What would she say to him? That she was sorry for the misunderstanding? Those words seemed so lame. Would she tell him she loved him? Her throat began to ache and she breathed deeply to keep the tears away. _Frank, I think I love you. Frank, I love you. Frank, don't go. Frank, come to me._

_No! I will come to you_.

# Chapter Ninety-Seven

Adela

Highway 325 seemed endless as Adela sped down the narrow asphalt road that meandered through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The moon waned in the western sky, its soft light a beacon as she hurried toward...toward what? The steering wheel felt sweaty in her hands as she guided the car around sharp turns and ups and downs of the mountain highway.

Just a mile later, she turned onto the gravel road that led to the cottage lane. At the beginning of the lane, the heavy iron gate stretched across the entry, the gate that had locked her in and now locked her out. She searched for the key with trembling hands. _The key_.

The key lay somewhere along the lane to the cottage, among the bushes, in the bushes, on top of the bushes, under the bushes. Just not in her hand. She had thrown them in anger. _Remember, Adela, you said you'd never go back to the lake. Never back to Frank Carberry. If you were never going back, why would you need the key?_

She'd climbed fences before. There was nothing to a three-strand barbed wire fence. Paula and her friends had obviously climbed through it and walked down the lane so they could carry their important message to the sinners who lived at the lake.

Adela spread the strand of wire and crawled through, caught the back of her sweater on a barb and yanked it free. Off balance, she stumbled forward and fell into the bushes, scraped her knee on a rock, bit her lip.

She crawled on all fours through the brush to the lane where she stood and picked the brush out of her hair and brushed off her pants. Her trek to the cottage was a quarter of a mile and she limped the entire way. Her knee hurt, her hand had stickers in it and her lip began to swell.

The Carberry house was dark, the outline of its peaked roof sitting against the star filled sky. Adela paused where the fence had once been, her eyes resting on the pile of boards strewn along the ground. Tearing down the fence had changed Frank's life. And, hers, too. It had divided them for forty years and, in just a few swipes, it had disappeared, opening up more than just the two properties. To Frank, it meant forgiveness, not only for himself; but, for all the inequities he felt had been dealt him by his grandfather and Kree.

He had been a little boy. That's all. A little boy who had experienced the pain of loss. And, he had blamed it all on the Cherokee woman.

Adela stepped onto Frank's porch and knocked on the door and waited. There were no sounds; nothing to indicate anyone was home. She pressed up against the glass and saw only dark. _He was gone._

She felt herself weaken, hot tears on her cheeks. _It had all been for nothing._ For just a short while, she had let go, loved another man. After so many years, she felt passion and desire. And, wanted more. It was all so fleeting. Snatched away in seconds. He had left her, retreated into a place he considered safe. And it seemed that safe place was most certainly away from her.

Adela sat a long time on the porch and rocked. Hummed to herself and tried to gather enough strength to walk back to the car. She would not go into her cottage. Not now, not ever.

She left the porch and followed the path through the trees from Frank's house and to the shore of the lake. At first she thought it was a bird. She stopped and listened. _A whistle. Two whistles._

And that's when she saw him standing on the dock watching her. She remained still. Another two whistles. _Two whistles meant "come."_

And she did.

# Chapter Ninety-Eight

Frank

Frank stood at the end of the dock that stretched out over the lake and watched Adela walk toward him. A breeze left the high peaks of the mountains and skimmed across the top of the water, to the end of the dock, and brought the spirit of Kree. Her love wrapped around him, touched his skin and whispered... _love Adela like your grandfather loved me_. The wind swirled around him. _Adela loves you like I loved Douglas_.

He smiled. _Thank you, Kree_. At that moment, his anger vanished, the beat of his heart slow and sure. He lifted his arms and waited until Adela walked into them, her body warm and sweet.

# Chapter Ninety-Nine

Frank and Adela

They stood a long time, not speaking. The wind stopped and the night became still. In the sky, a shooting star streaked toward the north where winter lay waiting to begin its slow move south to the Georgia mountains where the Indian summer would fade away as would the leaves on the trees. From across the lake, Canadian geese tittered between themselves as they sought a spot of ground. The slap of a beaver's tail on the water echoed across the lake and announced its presence.

Frank lifted Adela's chin and quietly whispered her name. " _Adela_." He kissed her, felt love in her lips and the beating of her heart. "You came."

She smiled. "I heard you whistling for me."

# Epilogue

It was Tuesday. The three angels languished among themselves and decreed that their heavenly influence on Adela Queen Harper had been quite successful.

"Now, was that so bad?"

"Well, all I can say is, she certainly met all the challenges we sent her way. She was not a push-over, that's for sure."

"Now, now. Not so fast. Ole Frank was certainly not a push over either."

The shyest of the angels dipped his head toward earth and scanned the Georgia mountains.

"Ah, there they are. Naked as two jay-birds, swimming in the lake together. Looks to me like they both found what they needed."

It was all about love.

**The angels became reflective. "Now, what about that red-headed woman...** _Paula Jennings_ **...**

# Sue CHAMBLIN Frederick

She is known as a sweet Southern belle, a woman whose eyelashes are longer than her fingers, her lips as red as a Georgia sunset. Yet, behind the feminine facade of a Scarlett-like ingénue lies an absolute and utterly calculating mind – a mind that harbors hints of genius – a genius she uses to write books that will leave you spellbound.

A warning! She's dangerous - only six degrees from a life filled with unimaginable adventures – journeys that will plunge her readers into a world of breath-taking intrigue. Put a Walther PPK pistol in her hand and she will kill you. Her German is so precise she'd fool Hitler. Her amorous prowess? If you have a secret, she will discover it – one way or the other.

The author was born in north Florida in the little town of Live Oak, where the nearby Suwannee River flows the color of warm caramel, in a three-room, tin-roofed house named "poor." Her Irish mother's and English father's voices can be heard even today as they sweep across the hot tobacco fields of Suwannee County, "Susie, child, you must stop telling all those wild stories."

She divides her time between the piney woods of Florida and the lush mountains of North Carolina where she is compelled to write about far away places and people whose hearts require a voice. Her two daughters live their lives hiding from their mother, whose rampant imagination keeps their lives in constant turmoil with stories of apple-rotten characters and plots that cause the devil to smile.

A special tribute to grandmothers everywhere. Here are a few special ones I have the pleasure of knowing.

Aingeal "Grandma" Rose O'Grady

Ann Crabtree

Ann Morgan

Ann Zucca

Anne Schuyler

Beth Lindquist

Beverly Fencik

Beverly Simpson

Brenda Cochrane

Candis "Memaw" Whitney

Carole Johns

Carolyn Jones

Dana Jackson

Debbie Coleman

Debbie Stang

Dee Dee "Mem'E" Price

Diane "GiGi" Moore

Edith Metzler

Ellen Rice

Emma Frances

Faye Black

Gayle Mowry

Gloria McLean

Grace Medders

Ilona Phillips

Iris Myers

Iris Whittington

Jan Keeling

Jean Crawford

Jeanne Sasser

Jerri Porter

Jill Hysell

Karen Perkins

Kelly Kalata

Linda "Nana" Reynolds

Linda "Oma" Richardson

Linda Proctor

Lois Kaupa

Marca Kemp

Marie Carberry

Marilyn "Grandma GG" Thiesen

Marilyn "Nana" Kilpatrick

Marilyn Ossman

Mary Ann Betts

Mary Banks

Mary Barber

Mary Jane Fachko

Nancy Fenton

Nancy Mager

Nancy Miller

Norma Lyon

Ophelia Thompson

Pat McCarthy

Patsy English

Paula Jennings

Penny McIntyre

Ronnette Morris

Roxanne Williamson

Sally Crowe

Sharon "G-Ma" Pfister

Senthia (Me Plus 3) Hill

Sherry Chambers

Shirley "Grandma" Brechler

Shirley Altwater

Susan "Granny" Beal

Susan Frazier-Jones

Terry Wilkenson

Virginia Hollowell

Waunell Myers

To those Grandmothers who have left us, but are still in our hearts:

Ematine Frederick

Lucy Frederick

Erma Jean Chamblin

Essie Chamblin

Gladys Landing

Joyce Meyer

Lorraine Williams

Lula McLeod

Nettie Moxley

Rita Quinn

Uldine Moxley

Special Tribute:

There are many grandmothers who also assume the role of "mother" and care for their grandchildren on a full-time basis. One such special mother is Senthia (Me Plus 3) Hill who is grandmother to a set of twins and their sister. Senthia is an extraordinary grandmother and deserves a salute from all of us.

