Part 13 (1/2)

”You and money,” she said, but I could see she was laughing. ”I hope it's okay, but I invited a few people over so we need to go.”

The very last thing I wanted was more company. I wanted to go back to my library and- ”Don't give me that look,” Jackie said. ”I invited nice people.”

I have to say that she did. Allie came with her nine-year-old daughter, who turned out to be quite self-sufficient. She disappeared into my weedy garden and we rarely saw her again. ”Probably inventing something,” her mother said.

A couple my age, Chuck and DeeAnne Fogle, also came. They didn't live in Cole Creek, but had been driving through town, seen the party, ”And crashed it,” Chuck said. He was an engineer, so he was interested in the equipment I'd bought, and we spent some time together inside the house exploring what it could do.

When Nate and his injured girlfriend arrived, Jackie sent them off in my new truck to pick up pizzas while she and Allie and DeeAnne went for beer and wine. An hour later we were all outside, eating and laughing. Except for the two teenagers, that is. They disappeared into the house as soon as it was dark. I was a bit uncomfortable with whatever they were doing but not so Jackie. She stood in the entrance hall and shouted upward, ”No clothes are to be removed. Got it?” After a few seconds' pause, Nate's voice came from upstairs. ”Yes, ma'am,” he said meekly.

It was a nice evening. When Tessa stretched out on an old-fas.h.i.+oned metal glider and went to sleep, Jackie covered her with a blanket and the adults kept on laughing and talking.

”So what was Miss Essie Lee on at you about?” Allie asked me.

Allie had a sharper brain than I'd thought when I first met her. Earlier, she'd told us that she'd grown up in Cole Creek and met her husband while he was in the area doing some soil testing for a mineral company. But when he'd been transferred to Nevada, Allie and Tessa hadn't gone with him.

Jackie asked, ”Why not?” but Allie had shrugged in answer, revealing nothing.

”Edward Belcher,” I said. ”Miss Essie Lee was telling me about Edward Belcher and The Great Love Story.”

At that Allie snorted in a way that made me sure there was a story there.

”You're in for it now,” Jackie said. ”You'll have to tell him every word of the story or he'll never let you go home.”

”Is that where you get your ideas?” DeeAnne asked. ”From real life stories?”

”He gets them from reading everything,” Jackie said before I could answer.” If it has printing on it, he reads it. He spends whole days locked in the library reading, then he goes upstairs to his bedroom and reads. If I want to ask him a question, I have to make sure there's nothing to read within fifty feet or he doesn't hear a word I say.”

Chuck put his head back, closed one eye, and said, ”Me thinks thou art trying to escape from something.”

”Yeah,” Jackie said. ”Work.”

Everyone, including me, laughed, and I noticed both Allie and DeeAnne looking from Jackie to me speculatively. Before they started matchmaking, I said to Allie, ”So tell us about old man Belcher's saintly son.”

”Saintly, ha!” Allie said, sipping her wine. ”Edward Belcher wanted to marry Harriet Cole only because the town was named after her family. He seemed to think that uniting the descendants of two of the seven founding families would raise his status. He had his eye on the governors.h.i.+p.”

I was thinking of this in writer terms. ”Those seven families seem to be important here in Cole Creek,” I said. ”Besides old man Belcher and Miss Essie Lee, are many of them left in town?”

”Yes,” Allie said softly. ”Tessa and me.” She looked at me. ”And Rebecca is from one of the families.”

DeeAnne looked at Allie. ”It's amazing that any of you are still here.”

The smile left Allie's face. For a moment she hid her face behind the big balloon winegla.s.s, and when she set it down, she was solemn. ”There's a blood descendant of every family still in Cole Creek. Except for the Coles, that is. The most important family is missing.”

Her tone seemed to take the joviality out of the party, and I started to ask what was going on, but Jackie nudged me under the table.

”So tell us about this great love story,” Jackie said brightly.

”There's nothing to tell. Sometime in the 1970s, fat old Edward decided he was going to merge his family name with the Coles' through marriage, and rename the town Heritage. But Harriet eloped with a handsome young man and had a baby. The end.”

”What happened to them?” I asked, watching Allie closely and wondering if she'd give the same answer as Miss Essie Lee had.

”I don't really know.”

She's lying, I thought. But what was she lying about? And why?

”Edward died not long afterward, and I think Harriet did, too,” Allie said at last. ”And I think Harriet's handsome young husband left her.”

”What happened to their child?” Jackie asked quietly and I hoped I was the only one who heard the odd tone in her voice.

Allie finished her gla.s.s of wine. ”I have no idea. She didn't grow up in Cole Creek, that's for sure. No more direct descendants of the Coles live here, and I'd stake my life on that!” She said the last so emphatically that the rest of us looked at each other as though to say, What was that all about?

Except for Jackie. She was sitting very still and I was willing to bet that she was doing some subtraction in her head. Seventies, Allie had said.

Harriet Cole had had a baby, a ”she,” in the 1970s and her young husband had left her.

Jackie had been born in the seventies and her father had left her mother.

And they had lived in Cole Creek when Jackie was very young.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Jackie I didn't want to tell Ford but there was a big part of me that wanted to run to the nearest bus station and get as far away from Cole Creek as I possibly could. There were too many strange things happening to me, too many things that I seemed to remember.

On Sunday I put on a 1940s dress and walked to church. It was about three miles from the house but I ”knew” a shortcut through the woods.

When I got there, I saw the charred stone foundation and brick chimney of what had once been a large building, and I felt sad that ”my” church had burned down.

When I got back to Ford's house, he asked me if I'd enjoyed the service, but I just mumbled a response and went up to my room. I changed clothes and cooked a big dinner, but I couldn't eat much. How had I known my way through the woods? When had I been in this town before? Oh, Lord, what had happened to me here?

”Want to talk about whatever's bothering you?” Ford asked.

He was being sweet but I didn't want to tell him anything. What could I say? That I had a ”feeling?” Kirk had laughed at me the one time I'd said I'd a ”feeling” about something.

In the afternoon I puttered in the garden while Ford watched some long movie on TV, and I wished I'd invited Allie and Tessa over. Long ago I'd found that sticking my nose into other people's business made me stop contemplating my own problems. I could have spent the afternoon asking Allie why she didn't leave Cole Creek when her husband was transferred.

And in spite of my vow never to speak of it to anyone, maybe I could tell her what Kirk had done to me. But then, I was ready to talk about anything except how I was feeling in this little town.

When Ford spoke from behind me, I jumped.

”You scared me,” I said, jamming the little trowel into the dirt around the roses.

”Why don't you call your old friends?” he asked as he sat down. ”Have a few laughs.”

”Maybe I will,” I said. ”Here, move your foot. You're on my glove.”