by C. M. Albert
Rosalie’s ears burned at the thought of Zade being with other women, even if she had no business getting jealous. “Different how?”
“Well, for one, he talks about you all the time at the office,” Zada said. “And, I don’t know, but his priorities seem like they’ve shifted since he’s met you. He’s acting like a man in love, not like a man enjoying a casual fling.”
Rosalie burst out laughing. He was so not in love with her. But now all she could think about was Zade with a hard on. Her cheeks flushed.
“Looks like he’s not the only one,” Zada said quietly as she grabbed her purse. “Do me a favor, Rosalie—try not to break his heart. I really like you, but I know you’re leaving in a few days. And I know your relationship is none of my business, but the two don’t seem to go too well together. Just be careful how you tread, okay?”
It was all Rosalie could think about after his sister left. With no idea how long it would be until Zade came home, she spent some time walking around the first floor, looking at the few family pictures he had out. His mother had been beautiful, and she could see where Zade and his sister had inherited their dark, attractive features from.
She read a book on her phone for about an hour, then curled up on his soft leather couch and nearly dozed off when her phone vibrated, startling her. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but she answered in case it was Zade calling from the hospital.
“Hello? Is this Rosalie?”
“It is. Who am I speaking with?”
“Oh, sorry dear! This is Agnes. I’m the 911 dispatcher you spoke to the other day.”
“Of course! I remember our conversation. How can I help you?”
“Well, it’s actually how I might be able to help you,” the woman said. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but I’m related by marriage to Inez Vega. My husband was her father’s cousin, I believe. I kept my maiden name when I married, because Agnes Vega doesn’t roll off the tongue the way Agnes Stone does,” the woman said, chuckling.
Rosalie made the appropriate noises to let Agnes know she was listening, but she had no idea why the woman was calling her.
“After I heard your interview with Inez about the Vega farm and the youth center she runs, I knew I needed to reach out to you. Could we meet in person so I can give you something?”
“Uh . . .” Rosalie was speechless, and more than a little confused. “What could you possibly have to give to me?”
“Well, dear, when my husband’s grandmother passed, God rest her soul, she left her home to us to keep it in the family. It’s a lot smaller than our old house was, but our kids are grown and no longer live with us. And her house was closer to the precinct.”
“Mm-hmm,” Rosalie said, watching Kismet march back and forth across her legs before settling.
“Well, when I was cleaning out the house—I mean, she’d lived there for over forty years!—I stumbled across some items in the attic that looked like they’d been passed down through the Vega family.”
“You know I’m not a Vega, right?” Rosalie asked.
“Of course, dear. But on air, you mentioned wanting to research Arden’s Glen someday to find out about our town’s history, since there seems to be so many stories swirling around about Arden Bisette and why the town was named after her.”
“I thought her husband did that, to honor her. What does that have to do with the Vega family?”
“Arden was never married, Rosalie. Her fiancé did name the town after her, but it may not have been for the sweet reasons we were all led to believe.”
Goose bumps raced along Rosalie’s arm—her sign that what Agnes was saying was true, and that something more needed to be discovered.
“Are you kidding me? How do you know this?”
“Well, remember how I told you about the stack of letters and old photo album I found? They were in a small metal box that was triple locked. I’m not even kidding, Rosalie! And I’m not ashamed to say I pried each one of those locks off with my husband’s bolt cutters. Damaged the box a little, but it was technically in our house, so I guess that makes it mine now to do with as I please.”
“Wow! This is exciting news, Agnes. Thanks for sharing it with me. Please let me know if you discover anything else about the town, okay? I’m actually getting ready to move to California to create my own television show about just this—discovering the secrets and history of various cities around the US using my psychic and medium skills. I haven’t gotten the network to sign off on Arden’s Glen yet, but perhaps they’ll let me if I have more details like this to share with them.”
“Oh, congratulations, dear! That’s so exciting to have a real live TV star coming from our little town. I’m going to do you one better and need to share something with you. May I come drop it off with you before you leave town?”
Rosalie considered what the woman was saying, her hairs standing on end. She was about to answer and looked across the room at a picture of Zade’s family. Leaning against it was a small bronze statue of a deer—Rosalie’s spirit animal that she always considered her “God sign.” She grinned. This was big, and the timing was no coincidence.
“I’m actually over at the Lofts on Main right now—are you at the precinct?”
“I am. Getting ready to leave, though, since my shift just ended. Can I drop this off now, then? I promise I won’t take much of your time. I actually have dinner with my church friends this evening, so I’ll need to make it quick.”
“Sounds perfect. I’m in the penthouse, so take the main elevator to the top floor. It empties into a small hallway first, so just knock. I can’t wait to see what this big surprise is!”
Agnes clucked, and Rosalie could hear her shuffling things on the other end of the phone. “I can’t wait to show you, my dear!”
Rosalie waited patiently, scratching Kismet’s ears and relaxing to the sound of her sweet purr. It felt like forever before she heard Agnes’s knock, though in reality it had been less than fifteen minutes.
She opened the door to the sweetest, tiniest woman, shocking black hair poofed around her plump face. Her blue eyes were startling and clear despite the wrinkles that gave away her age. “Hi, dear,” she said, marching inside with a small metal box under her arm.
“Is this the actual box?” Rosalie asked in awe, following Agnes into the condo as if it were her place and not Zade’s.
“It is,” she said, chortling. Rosalie could tell Agnes was thrilled to have answers for Rosalie, and that she was smack dab in the middle of Arden’s Glen’s biggest mystery. “Can we sit?”
“Sure!” Rosalie said, forgetting her manners. “Sorry about that. It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, yes,” Agnes said, patting Rosalie’s knees as they sat. “Were you at the Millers’ Celebration of Life service this morning? Such a shame I had to work and missed it. Jerry went to church with us and we were in the same quilting group.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rosalie said.
“It was such an unnecessary loss,” Agnes said, shaking her head before moving on. “Anyhoo, I want you to have these. I feel like they belong to a historian such as yourself.”
Rosalie laughed, but accepted the box Agnes set in her lap. “I’m hardly a historian, Agnes, but I’d love to see what’s inside!”
Agnes sat with anticipation in her eyes as she watched Rosalie, who was trying not to feel like she was under a microscope as she opened the box and leafed through the contents. There was a whole stack of bound letters, tied beautifully with a fraying string, its color long faded over the years. Rosalie closed her eyes and was flooded with memories and imprints and feelings that were tied to the letters. It was like watching a movie behind her closed lids as a woman’s face entered her field of vision—the same woman she saw every time she held the old water jug that was at Brecken’s café. The same woman who now haunted many of her dreams.
Rosalie gasped. “Agnes! Oh my goodness. Who did you say these letters belonged to?”
; “Arden,” she said quietly.
“I have dreamed of her before. Many times,” she admitted, her fingers delicately tracing the string. The woman’s heartache washed over her, almost gutting Rosalie. “She was in love, but she was also sad. And scared.”
Rosalie closed her eyes, not daring to fully tap into the energy of the letters yet, but wanting so badly to get answers. She took a deep breath, then blocked out all the noise in her cluttered mind. It was the strongest feeling she’d ever had after touching an artifact.
“Are you sure I can look through these, Agnes?”
“Absolutely! There are a few things I think you might find particularly interesting in there.”
“I will give them back the next time I’m in Arden’s Glen, I promise. I can make copies and give your family back the originals.”
“We’ll worry about it when we worry about it, dear.” Agnes leaned over and reached past Rosalie’s hand to pull out a small photo album. Inside, it was designed more like the family trees she’d seen in bibles, with photos and names stemming from the first known family members, which, in this case, happened to start with the scrawled cursive names of Manuel Vega and the initials ARB.
Rosalie ran her fingers over the smooth cursive ink and images flashed through her mind again. She closed her eyes and saw the same beautiful blond woman from her dreams. She looked at the letters and saw the same cursive scrawl on the front of the first letter. To my darling, A.
It was Manuel’s. She knew without asking. But why was he writing letters to Arden Bisette? Was he the man who’d entered her family’s home while she was throwing pottery? Or was that her fiancé?
She opened her eyes and looked at Agnes. “Oh my goodness, there is so much here, Agnes. I can feel it!”
Agnes looked as excited as Rosalie. “I know! I have a feeling you’ll find the answers to questions you didn’t even know you had in there.”
For some reason, that one sentence triggered memories of her own mother, the one she wasn’t sure was real or not. The one she wasn’t supposed to remember before she was adopted, but did anyway. Sadness washed over her, but Rosalie dismissed it as what she was feeling from the letters, from the blond woman of her dreams whom she now knew was Arden Bisette.
“I have to show you one last thing,” Agnes said, flipping through the album until photos started appearing with names, once cameras were available. The first were grainy and black and white, then soon moved into color, and some were even with Polaroids. But it was Agnes’s red-tipped finger pointing to one in particular that caused Rosalie to gasp.
“Holy shit!” she said, the color draining from her face. “Why does she look like me?”
TO SAY SHE looked like an angel was an understatement. Never in his life had Zade been happier to walk into his condo and see it a mess. Rosalie was asleep on the couch, curled up with his favorite chunky knitted blanket, the pale gray one that his mother made for him. It positively dwarfed Rosalie. But he could see her gorgeous, wavy locks peeking from beneath the oversized loops, and his heart constricted.
It had been a long-ass day, but he suddenly felt rejuvenated. He chuckled when he saw the opened bottle of white wine beside her on the coffee table, her wine glass beside it empty. What intrigued him, though, was the metal box on the floor with its lid open and letters scattered about. He didn’t know whether to leave her sleeping or carry her upstairs to ravish her.
Definitely ravish her.
He kneeled down beside her, brushing a curl from her eyes. “Hey, baby,” he said, watching as she opened her eyes slowly, looking around. “I thought happiness started with an h.”
She sat up, stretching. “It does.”
“Then why does mine start with u?”
“Oh my lord,” Rosalie said and giggled, hiding her face under the blanket before reemerging. “What time is it?”
“It’s past time,” he said.
“For what?”
“For you to be only mine.”
“Zade, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said, quietly, taking her hand and leading her upstairs.
“It looks like you were busy while I was gone,” he said, sitting on his bed and patting the mattress beside him. Rosalie sat next to him, surprise lighting her face when he lifted her feet up and placed them onto his lap.
Sexy little moans escaped her lips as he massaged the bottom of her feet, wrapping his big hands around her toes and rubbing gently.
“This isn’t fair,” she said, though it was only half-hearted.
“What’s not? Me getting to have the most beautiful woman in Arden’s Glen sitting on my bed, her sexy, naked feet in my greedy little hands?”
Rosalie laughed. “Well, when you put it like that . . . you’re welcome.”
Zade grinned. “So, what was all that downstairs?”
“Sorry about the mess I made. I got carried away and didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep. It’s been a long day,” she said before glancing up at Zade. “Sorry—I know it was nothing compared to yours.”
“It was your day, Rosalie. And if it was long and hard, it was long and hard. It’s not a competition. Tell me what happened after I left.”
So she did, ending with the discovery of the picture that looked like her and the letters she was able to read so far. They were in order by date, and the first ones were shy, tentative. But every time she opened a new one, Rosalie was flooded by the energetic imprints of the person who wrote the letter—sometimes from Manuel, and sometimes from A, who Rosalie now knew was Arden. Why they were writing one another when they lived in the same town was a mystery, though between a few of the letters and her own dreams, she was starting to fill in the gaps. She didn’t know why, or what happened yet, but she could feel their sadness. Which made her suspect their love story would probably end with the last letter and wouldn’t be the happy-ever-after she was hoping for.
“I’ve dreamed of her, Zade. The woman with the blond hair, the man walking into her house. He wasn’t supposed to be there. It was Manuel. I’m sure of it now. But why couldn’t he be there if they loved each other?”
Zade paused the long strokes he was administering to Rosalie’s feet and grinned when he saw Kismet turn the corner and come into the room. She hopped onto the small footstool he’d left in front of the couch for her, so she could make her way onto the couch itself. The small kitten reminded him of Rosalie as it snuggled deep into the sweatshirt he hadn’t had the heart to move yet—which he now thought of as Kismet’s.
“We don’t know their positions, Rosalie, but I suspect that back then, before the town was officially founded, the people settling here wouldn’t have been too accepting of a privileged white woman falling in love with a Hispanic man. He probably worked for the family in some capacity, would be my guess.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I need to see land deeds. I wonder if town hall would have them going back that far.”
“Or maybe Inez would know.”
“Yeah, I can check with her,” she said, though a far-off look was in her eyes.
“Hey, you still here with me?” he asked, teasing.
Her gaze focused again and she laughed. “Sorry. Occupational hazard. I see things sometimes, and I try to grab ahold of the image before it disappears. What I’m seeing doesn’t add up, but I’ll figure it out.”
“You know what else doesn’t add up?” he asked, running his fingers farther up her leg.
“Mmm?” she said, half moan, half question.
“How you’re still single.”
She opened one eye and peeked at him. “I could say the same for you. And even more so, doctor.”
“I wish everyone would stop calling me that, like that,” he said, exasperated.
“More than one person has today?”
“Yep, and I bet you can take one guess who might’ve also called me that in the same way.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You talked to Brecken today?”
Zade shrugged. “You could s
ay I ran into him. We had a nice little chat.”
“Oh, I bet you did. Well, you still have all your teeth, so I’m assuming it went better than expected?”
“I believe his parting words were, ‘You’re all right, Zampogna.’”
“Hmph,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Zade gasped. “What? The woman who believes in things every day that others can’t see is doubting until she sees scientific evidence?”
She mock punched him in the arm. “Stop it . . . doctor!
“Ooh, feisty!” he said, tickling her sides until she was laughing so hard he was worried she’d wet herself.
“Uncle!” she cried out. “Uncle!”
Zade stopped tickling her, but grinned now that he knew where her ticklish spot was. “Seriously, though,” he said, “I think I understand Brecken better now. He’s definitely just looking out for you.”
“Yeah,” Rosalie said, rolling her eyes. “You might remember me telling you I was adopted. When I lost my adoptive parents, Brecken was all I had left. He had to grow up way too fast and become both parent and guardian for a few years. And my high school years were really hard on me—so he became a little overprotective.”
“Yeah. Something about an older man might’ve come up, but he told me to get the whole story myself.”
Rosalie’s jaw tensed, and she looked as if she would’ve punched Brecken had he been there—though if she’d known about the beating he’d taken earlier, her tune would’ve changed pretty fast.
“Simon,” she said quietly. “He was my PE teacher. He also happened to be exceptionally dreamy.”
“Okay, I get the picture,” Zade growled.
Rosalie chuckled, but then cleared her throat when she met Zade’s narrowed gaze. “I didn’t have many friends in high school. Well, in any grade, really. I couldn’t hide who I was or what I could see—I didn’t want to, despite the fact that my parents were scared of me and my classmates thought I was either a liar looking for attention or a freak. They weren’t all bad—don’t get me wrong. But I could never really trust anyone.
