I broke down the conversation to its most basic element. “He invited me to Sunday supper.”
“To Sunday supper,” she repeated woodenly.
She opened her mouth, closed it again. Put her hand on her chest, muttered something about Mama and stroke. She looked away. Looked back at me.
“To be perfectly honest, I’m beyond confused, Anna Kate. It’s been a day. First my mother was lurking at the café, then my father actually went into the café? And a supper invite…?”
My palms began to sweat. “Your mother was at the café?”
“Yes, peeking in like a stalker, when she’s refused to even look at that place for decades. Sorry,” she said, suddenly giving me a sweet smile. “I’m rambling. It’s just that you took me by surprise. Sunday supper is reserved for family only. Always has been, at least. Inviting a Callow is—”
She shook her head as though unable to finish the thought of exactly how unheard of it was. Then her eyes flew open, and her cheeks slowly turned from pink to red.
Smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her dress, she said, “I’ve made a mess of this situation. I’m terribly sorry if I made you feel unwelcome, Anna Kate.”
I’d have laughed if she didn’t look so miserable at the thought of hurting my feelings. “I said no to the invitation, if it makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t. I know better than to blather on like that.”
“Like you said, you were surprised.”
Nodding, she said, “Exactly. Surprised. Confused. Take your pick. Thank you for understanding.”
It was obvious she had been kept out of the loop as well. She had no idea I was her niece. Natalie and Ollie Walker might be the only two people within a ten-mile radius who hadn’t been clued in that I was AJ’s daughter, and I wondered what rock they’d been hiding under this past week.
I could see a dozen questions written on Natalie’s face, but it was clear she thought better of asking any of them. I should’ve said it was nice to meet her and then been on my way, but I was sick to death of secrets, and she deserved to know the truth. “What do you know about me?”
“I don’t know anything, really, other than your name and that you’re a relative of Zee’s who’s taken over the café. Why?”
“I’m Zee’s granddaughter.”
Dark eyebrows shot upward. “Her granddaughter? I didn’t know she had a granddaughter.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m Doc and Seelie’s granddaughter too.”
“You’re … wait. What?” Natalie’s mouth fell open.
“My mother—Eden—was pregnant when she left Wicklow.”
With laser intensity, Natalie studied my face. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Oh. My. Lord. I’ve got to go.”
Without another word, she rushed over to Ollie and started tossing all her playthings into a backpack hooked on the arm of the stroller. But before I knew it, Natalie had picked up Ollie and jogged back toward me.
“Hihi!” Ollie said as they neared.
Natalie threw her free arm around me and squeezed me tightly in an awkward hug. Ollie joined in, setting a chubby arm on my shoulder. I didn’t quite know how to react, so I stood there, uncomfortable with the affection.
Natalie smiled and said, “I forgot to say welcome to the family, Anna Kate.”
Stunned, I said, “Thank you.”
Natalie pulled back. “Now, I really must go have a word with my mother. Bye!”
Ollie flapped her arm in my direction. “Bye!”
I finger-waved.
Welcome to the family.
All I’d ever wanted growing up was to have a normal, stereotypical life. Two parents, a pet. Sleepovers at my grandparents’ houses. A house that had a growth chart penciled on a doorjamb, marking height milestones from toddlerhood to teenager. A garden that didn’t need to be planted in a container on a small balcony because apartments didn’t have yards. Sunday dinners with generations gathered around the table. Big family holidays, with everyone gathered around, laughing and squabbling and loving.
My childhood had been so drastically different from what Natalie had undoubtedly experienced, and I couldn’t help the envy that came over me. Not to say that my childhood had been bad—it hadn’t. I was loved. Clothed. Fed. I’d seen many places, learned to take care of myself. But it had always felt as though I’d been cheated out of something everyone else tended to take for granted.
As Natalie buckled Ollie into the stroller, she yelled, “Don’t forget to save me a piece of pie! See you tomorrow.” And off she went, half walking, half jogging down the sidewalk.
As I turned toward the foothills, I took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the fact that I was starting to regret not accepting Doc’s invitation.
6
Anna Kate
I was lost.
Truthfully, it wasn’t the worst place to lose one’s way. I stood in the middle of a rutted golden-orange dirt-and-gravel lane riddled with fissures that resembled cracks on an overbaked gingerbread cake. A breeze swooping through the valley cut the humidity and brought with it a burst of pure, clean air swirling with pine scent.
Soaring oaks, pines, and black walnut trees cast long shadows. Butterflies skimmed colorful wildflowers standing brightly among the tall weeds and grasses that hugged the lane. I often found peace in the woods, thanks to Zee. For as long as I could remember, whenever she would visit, she’d find a way to sneak me out to the woods to teach me the magic of nature. She lovingly shared how plants, shrubs, trees, and flowers offered alternatives to traditional medicine—all things my mother had also forbidden.
“Callows have always been healers and nurturers, Anna Kate, but you must remember that there are many ways to doctor people, physically and emotionally.”
It was a sentiment she drilled into me whenever I saw or spoke to her. My mom had shied away from holistic medicine, which had caused endless strife between mother and daughter. It was a conflict that had begun before I was born, but I’d been caught in the middle of the emotional tug-of-war between their differing philosophies.
A hawk climbed high, rising on an updraft, and a chickadee chirped a warning call from somewhere in the dense woods.
“Birdie,” I called out. “Calm down. I’m just passing through.”
My assurance did little to soothe the bird. In fact the dee-dee-dee’s seemed to grow louder.
Using my wrist, I wiped sweat from my forehead and checked the map again. I’d passed the stand of six mailboxes that leaned shakily to the right as though ready to fall over if burdened by a heavy letter. I’d turned right at the black walnut tree, split down its middle from a lightning strike. I’d gone past two dirt lanes on the right and two on the left that snaked up the hillside. I turned onto the fifth lane, on the right, which should have been the Pavegeau’s long driveway. But after walking twenty minutes, and taking two forks, backtracking, and taking the other options, there still wasn’t a house to be seen.
There hadn’t been any signs of human life, either, except for deep tire ruts that I’d come to suspect were made by a four-wheeler.
Flecks on black rocks in the path sparkled in patches of sunlight as I trudged along, hoping something would look familiar soon, but it seemed to me the further I walked, the more everything began to look exactly the same. Every bush, every tree, every rut in the dirt.
My gaze caught on a barberry shrub, and I eyed its ashy bark, knowing it could be used in a tea to help with jaundice, which started me thinking of Doc Linden again. With a sigh, I told myself to stop worrying about him, and continued on my way, leaving the bark behind.
The chickadee’s cries kicked up in their intensity, and I suddenly picked up the sound of rustling and the awareness that it hadn’t been me causing the bird’s distress. I stopped dead still, peering into the woods. I backed slowly away from the tree line. Whatever was making the undergrowth shudder was bigger than the squirrels that had been racing around, keeping me company for most of my hike.
<
br /> Waving away a black fly from my face, I walked backward, trying to distance myself as I braced for the worst. A rabid raccoon. A wild boar. Did Alabama have bears?
I’d freaked myself out so well that when a gray cat leaped gracefully out of a patch of thick fern, I jumped and screamed.
I took a moment to enjoy the hilarity of my overdramatic reaction and realized the cat, with its charcoal-gray coloring and milky blue eyes, looked like the one who’d been sitting in Zee’s garden this morning.
The cat, as if it didn’t have a single care in the world, sauntered toward me and passed on by without so much as twitching a whisker in my direction.
About ten feet from me, the cat stopped. Sat. Looked over his shoulder. He took another few steps. Sat. Glanced back. “Reow.”
It could have been my imagination, or perhaps heat exhaustion setting in, but I could have sworn there was a hint of impatience in the cat’s voice.
As I took a tentative step toward him, he took one away from me. We repeated our odd dance until he finally stuck his tail in the air and strutted off down the dirt lane.
I dutifully followed, and twenty minutes later, the path widened, flooding with sunlight. Ahead, I caught sight of asphalt.
The cat had led me back to the road I’d come in on.
“Well, okay,” I said to him. “Thank you. I should probably head back to town at this point.” Considering I knew where that was.
Instead of turning left, toward town, the cat went right. A few steps away, he stopped, sat. Waited. His ear twitched, and I noticed it had a notched scar, probably a long-healed battle wound.
“All right, I guess we’re not going back to town. Lead on.”
As we walked the berm of the road, in my head I ran down the warning signs of heat exhaustion. Confusion and hallucinations were two of the symptoms, but I wasn’t dizzy, and I didn’t have a headache. My heartbeat was fine once I realized I wasn’t under attack from a wild boar. Still, I didn’t rule out the condition at this point.
After all, I was letting a cat lead me around.
If that wasn’t confused, I wasn’t sure what was.
We’d gone only a short way when the noise of an oncoming car sent the cat darting into the woods. The rumble of an engine grew, along with the thumping bass of a loud stereo. I stepped to the side as a dust-covered red pickup truck came up the hill. The music quieted as the truck rolled slowly to a stop beside me. I recognized it immediately. It belonged to my neighbor, Gideon Kipling—he’d been the one who’d picked me up at the Birmingham airport nearly a week ago.
The windows were down, and Gideon leaned toward the passenger side. “You okay, Anna Kate? You look a little … flustered.”
I could only imagine how I looked. Hair and T-shirt sweat-plastered to my body. Flaming red cheeks. Alternating expressions of bewilderment and defeat. “I was lost for a while, but…” I glanced toward the woods. No sign of the cat. “But now I’m not. At least I don’t think so.”
A smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “If you’re looking for town, you’re going the wrong way.”
“I was looking for the Pavegeau place? I have a piece of pie for Summer.”
“Want a ride? It’s not too far from here, but it is hard to find if you don’t know where to look.”
An understatement if I ever heard one. “Sure. Thanks.”
Reaching over, he opened the door from the inside, and as he pushed aside an iPad and several jars of honey, I climbed in. I buckled up, wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, and let out a breath. “Is it always this hot and humid?”
He put the truck in gear. “Nine, ten months of the year, it is. It’s actually a little cooler up here in the mountains than it is downstate.”
“Cooler? You’re kidding. How do people survive? My skin feels like it’s trying to melt off my bones.”
His accent, which wasn’t all that pronounced in regular conversation, thickened when he said, “Some around here will feed you lines about hydratin’ and usin’ air-conditioning or fans, but the simple truth is…”
I enjoyed the way he played up his Southern. “Is what?”
“We survive on sweet tea and complaining, plain and simple. Mostly the sweet tea, if I’m tellin’ it to you straight.”
My mom had given up a lot when she left Wicklow, but she hadn’t left behind her love of sweet tea. It had been a staple in our house, all year long. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The cab of the truck had a small backseat that was covered with assorted fishing gear, a box of zucchini, a couple of folded shirts and pants, and two pairs of shoes—one a pair of sneakers, the other dressy—and a dusty black satchel.
“How did your first day with the café go?” he asked.
I thought of the last time I was in this truck. Gideon’s low, smooth voice telling me the terms of Zee’s will. Of how, in order to inherit her estate, I had to live in Wicklow and run the café for a full sixty days. After that time was up, I’d inherit. From there I could do what I wished with the property, and I’d already asked Gideon to start putting out feelers to real estate agents.
I still couldn’t believe the terms Zee had laid out. What if I had already been in school? Or had a full-time job? Had she really no qualms about expecting me to put my life on hold for two months?
I laughed inwardly. Of course she had no qualms. Zee had been trying to get me to Wicklow for as long as I could remember. Through her will, she’d made sure it would happen.
Zee was anything but a quitter.
“It had its challenges,” I said, thinking of Mr. Lazenby’s tirade and of all the dishes I’d broken, “but overall, it went well.”
“I imagine it’ll get easier over time.”
“By the time I get used to it, it’ll be time to leave.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Wicklow has a way of holding on to you once you’re here.”
Why did that sound like a warning of some sort? One I didn’t need. I was starting medical school in August. My deposit had been paid. An apartment had been rented—my move-in date was August first. My destiny, as Jena would call it, was all mapped out. It wasn’t a confusing hand-drawn map from Bow, either. It was Garmin-worthy, even though I’d taken an unplanned detour through Wicklow along the way.
“That’s what happened to me,” he said. “I came over from Huntsville six years ago to do some mountain biking, and Wicklow didn’t let go.”
Up close, I could see he had some age on him. I guessed early to midthirties. Shallow crow’s feet spread from the corners of his eyes even when he wasn’t smiling, and strong lines bracketed his mouth under the hint of a five-o’clock shadow. His hair was short, sandy blond with a patch of silver near his right temple, and his eyes were nearly the same color as the amber honey sitting between us.
“I heard Doc Linden stopped by to see you earlier. So he knows about you?”
I didn’t even pretend to be surprised Gideon had already heard. I knew how fast news traveled in this town. “He knows.” I held up a jar of honey to change the subject. I didn’t want to think about Doc, let alone rehash the conversation. “Do you keep bees?”
He slid an assessing look my way. “No, a client does. She pays me by way of honey.”
Grateful he hadn’t pushed the Doc subject, I turned the jar, warm from the heat of the day, examining the way the sunlight played on the color. “It’s not going to pay the bills, but it’s a form of payment I wouldn’t mind. It’s beautiful.”
“Take a jar. Two. I have plenty. Do you need any zucchini?”
“No! I mean, no thank you. Zee’s garden has a couple of plants.”
The blinker ticked as he turned right onto a dirt strip nearly hidden by sweetgum branches arching across the driveway. I wasn’t sure I would have seen the turn even if I had made it this far up the hill.
“No one had a green thumb like Zee.”
Branches scraped the truck’s roof as we bumped along the lane, and I swallowed back th
e sorrow that bubbled up, thick as the honey I still held. “True.”
A dog’s bark carried into the truck, and he said, “That’s Ruby. She’s sweet but also a jumper, so brace yourself.”
The driveway stretched into a clearing, and a milk chocolate–colored dog bounced around. I’d been expecting a small cabin and was surprised to see a rather large cottage with a wraparound porch and a pitched metal roof topped with solar panels. A man stood on the front steps, a fancy, hand-carved walking stick in one hand. No sign of a shotgun. Thank God.
“That’s Aubin. Have you met him yet?”
“No, but Bow and Jena told me a little about him.”
“I’ll introduce you.” Gideon cut the engine. “Do you want me to stick around to give you a ride back to town?”
“You don’t have to do that—I’ll find it easy enough now that I know the way.”
“I wouldn’t want you melting into a puddle on my account.”
I pushed open the door. “I’ll be okay. Thanks.”
“All right, then.” He hopped out of the truck and Ruby made a beeline for Gideon, jumping all around him. He gave her a good petting, and then came to stand by my side.
Aubin spoke around some sort of stick in his mouth. “Wasn’t expecting you, Gid.” He glanced toward me and gave a firm nod. “Ma’am.”
I bit back a sigh at the salutation and nodded back.
Ruby rushed toward me, sniffing and bouncing. I kept the pie box out of reach and tried to keep her from knocking me over.
Aubin took the stick out of his mouth, tucking it into his back pocket as he whistled sharply. Ruby immediately ran to his side and sat. Her tail swished the ground, stirring up a cloud of dirt.
“Hope you don’t mind us dropping in. Anna Kate is looking for Summer.” Gideon made quick introductions before saying to me, “You sure you don’t want me to wait?”
I turned to him. “I’m sure. Thanks for the rescue.”
“Anytime, Anna Kate.” He gave Aubin a wave and hopped in his truck. Ruby took off after him as he drove off in a cloud of dust.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe Page 7
