“Just like the Tarleton twins!” Dev whispered. “I told you there’d be two of them!”
“I’m with the Sixth Alabama Cavalry,” Luke said, and saluted.
“Luke’s been telling me all about riding those ponies.” Dev almost purred.
Much to my surprise, Luke winked at him. Dev winked back. Well, at least someone’s romantic future looked promising.
“Ma’am.” Luke touched his hand to the brim of his cap. “Sir.” He winked again, then walked out into the sunshine.
“Well, well, well.” I shook my head. “I’m impressed. Look at you. Do you always get everything you want?” I teased.
“Oh, hush your mouth, Little Miss Thing.” Dev swatted me away. “Go sell some skirts.”
I obliged. The day passed slowly. I had no interest in the Battle of Bentonville raging outside; I could only think of the one I’d had with Garrett. How could he keep lying to me like that? To my face? Why wouldn’t he just tell me what had happened?
We sold a lot of dresses, even more after Dev finally let me change—apparently my outfit was attracting too many husbands and not enough wives. I was more than happy to put on a more demure white lawn dimity number. When the battle ended at five, Luke stopped by to see if Dev wanted to “go walkin’.”
“Libby,” Dev said, with his patented puppy-dog eyes. “Do you mind if I—”
“Go.” I shooed him along. “Go on, go. I’ve got everything covered.”
“Merci, merci!” Dev sang as he skipped off with his man in uniform.
I spent the evening packing up products, itemizing receipts, and putting all the money in order. I borrowed a well-battered copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from the canteen sutler next door and was all set to hunker down for a quiet night of reading by lamplight, when, several hours later, Dev burst through the tent. “Come, come!” he said with a grin. “I have a surprise!”
“What?” I struggled up to sitting, fighting my petticoats. “What are you talking about?”
“Stand. Let me see,” Dev ordered. “Not bad, not bad …” He popped open the trunk at the foot of his bed and pulled out some silk snowdrop flowers. After briskly putting up my hair, he pinned in the snowdrops. “Now we’re ready.”
He pulled me out of the tent.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Hi there, Libby.” Luke was waiting outside the tent and joined us as we walked briskly away from the battlefield, into the woods.
“Uh, hi there, Luke,” I said. “What’s going on?” I asked Dev in an undertone. “Do you need a chaperone or something?”
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “Libby, what’s my philosophy on dating?”
“Men are like coffee,” I recited. “The best ones are rich, hot, and can keep you up all night.”
“No, no, my other philosophy. Although that is a good one,” he amended. “The only way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“Dev! Eeuw!”
“Sorry, sorry, pop back into your romantic fantasy bubble,” he said, waving his hands. “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard …”
He stopped and pointed.
“Oh my,” I gasped. There was a small clearing in the woods illuminated by lamps hung in the trees. Garlands of silver fabric and ribbons also hung from the branches. Willie sat in a corner, a big pink bow tied around his neck. And directly in the center stood Beau, looking more handsome than ever. Even though he didn’t have a jacket, he’d tied his officer’s sash around his belt.
“Looks good, doesn’t it?” Dev said proudly. “Luke and I may have helped with the practical details, but you should know, it was all soldier boy’s idea.” He nodded at Beau. “We’ll leave you two to it.”
Luke and Dev took hands and disappeared into the woods. Slowly, I walked into the glow of the lamplight.
“The Boone Hall Plantation Ball is next weekend,” Beau said, as he stepped forward. “I figured we could use one more real good practice.” He held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”
Wordlessly, I placed my hand in his. I heard a violin tuning up. Looking around, I noticed a small bald man playing a violin half hidden behind the tree.
“Behind the tree, Curly!” Dev hissed from somewhere in the darkness. “You’re supposed to pretend you’re not here, remember?!”
The man scuttled deeper into the woods.
“I’m sorry.” Beau laughed. “I wanted this to be real special, but, well …” He shrugged. “It was the best I could do on short notice.”
“It is special,” I told him. I put my other hand on his shoulder, and he put his around my waist. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.”
“Well,” Beau said, as we began to waltz, “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so all I did was dance.
“Is this”—I listened carefully—“is this a Taylor Swift song?”
I could hear Dev singing “Today Was a Fairytale” from inside a bush somewhere.
“It is!” I laughed.
“Well, I wouldn’t know.” Beau laughed along with me. “Blame my event coordinator. You’re a sellout, Curly,” he addressed the bald guy playing violin.
“What can I say? She writes songs with feeling!” Curly shot back from behind the tree.
We laughed and kept on dancing. I felt like I had never seen so many stars, had never felt like I could float before.
As the song slowed, so did we. Beau leaned down, closer and closer, and closed his eyes. A breath away from a kiss, I placed my hand on his chest and stopped him.
“Beau,” I said, as his eyes fluttered open. “I’m sorry. I—I can’t.”
“All right.” He nodded slowly. “I respect that. I understand. I’ll wait.”
“Beau, you don’t have to wait … I mean I don’t know when, or if I’ll ever, or … I don’t know …” I trailed off.
“I do,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You and I both know the North should’ve won the war. Immediately. In a matter of weeks. Maybe less. They had all the advantages on their side. But you know what the South had, Libby?” He picked up my hand and held it to his chest. “Heart. They fought harder and wanted it more. That’s the only reason they hung on as long as they did. Heart.”
“Oh, Beau, I—”
“So I’m gonna keep on hangin’ on. Keep fighting. ’Cause that’s the only thing I know how to do.”
At that moment, a manic scream rent the night air. Beau and I sprung apart, as Willie howled along.
“That some kind of coyote or something?” Beau asked, scanning the woods.
“Nope, that’s some kind of Dev. I’d recognize that shriek anywhere!” I cried. “He made the same noise when Lady Gaga’s The Fame lost Album of the Year at the Grammys!” I started heading into the woods. “Come on! Let’s go!”
Beau followed me. Dev was shivering in a bush less than twenty feet from the clearing.
“Libbbeeeee!” Dev shrieked. “It was back! She was back!”
“What? Who? She? The ghost?” I panicked. “Are you okay? Where’s Luke?”
“He went after it!” Dev climbed out of the bush. “I was all ‘Billy, don’t be a hero, don’t be a fool with your life,’ but he just went after it!”
“Hell,” Beau cursed. “I’m gonna go after him.”
Before Beau could take off, Curly the violinist stumbled into our little area from behind his tree, followed closely by a rumbling Willie, and Luke jogged in from the other direction, holding a scrap of white fabric that glowed eerily in the moonlight.
“Did you get it?” Dev asked eagerly.
“Part of it.” Luke held up the fabric scrap.
“All right, what exactly the hell happened here?” Beau crossed his arms.
“Well, we were having a lovely evening, dancing to ‘Today Was a Fairytale,’” Dev began, “until this thing came along and ruined it!”
“She was streaking toward the camp,” Luke continued.
“She noticed us and seemed real interested in me. Started walkin’ toward me real menacin’ like.”
“Probably ’cause she thought you were Beau,” I supplied.
“Brill.” Dev rolled his eyes.
“But then I started chargin’ her,” Luke said.
“You should’ve seen him—he was magnificent!” Dev jumped in.
“And wouldn’t you know it, that thing just turned and ran! Real scared. I tried to get ahold of it, but it was a slippery little thing. And fast, too. I managed to get a piece of it, but it tore clean off, and the ghost got away.”
The sound of twigs crashing and breaking interrupted Luke, as we all turned in the direction of the noise.
“Ghost!” Dev shrieked. Willie rushed to his side to protect him.
“We should be so lucky,” I muttered, as a slightly out-of-breath Garrett thundered into the clearing.
“What the hell is going on?” Garrett said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I said.
Garrett looked around at the assembled company, clearly bewildered.
“What is this, some kind of double date?” he asked.
“Yes, with a ghost and a bald violinist,” I said, indicating Curly. “It’s been very romantic,” I added sarcastically. “Are you kidding?”
“Ghost?” Garrett said. “Wait, the ghost was here?”
“Emphasis on ‘was,’” Dev said. “But she left behind a party favor.”
Luke held it up. It shone in the moonlight.
“You know,” I said, contemplating the fabric, “that looks awfully synthetic.” I rubbed it between my fingers. “I’m pretty sure this is polyester … Dev?”
Dev took the scrap. He rubbed it. Sniffed it. Darted out his tongue to lick it. “Definitely polyester,” he agreed.
“And the first polyester fiber wasn’t created until 1941,” I said. “So that can only mean one thing …”
“Zoinks!” Dev held the polyester up to the lantern light as Willie nuzzled closer to him. “That’s no ghost, Scoobs. We’ve got ourselves a real live villain.”
eight
It was a full four-hour drive to Boone Hall Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina. And there were no reenactments to stop at on the way, because pretty much all the major battles in South Carolina had been fought in or right near Charleston on the coast. So after a much-needed trucker shower, we careened, full steam ahead, farther and farther south, speeding past acres of trees where Spanish moss fell eerily between their branches. Everywhere we passed looked like a ghost town, and I couldn’t help but feel like a ghost myself. Like I wasn’t completely solid.
Dev had elected to ride with Luke to Boone Hall, which left me alone with Beau in the truck. Luckily, Willie had seen this as an opportunity to stretch out to his full length, resting his head contentedly in my lap as I played with his ears. I wasn’t ready to sit too close to Beau. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. We had come so close to kissing before the ghost interrupted things, and although I had stopped it, it still scared me how close we had gotten. We passed most of the drive in companionable silence as I drifted in and out of sleep, my dreams green and eerie, as if Spanish moss were hanging from the corners of my mind.
“Hey, now.” A large, rough hand shook me gently. “You’re gonna wanna wake up for this.”
I blinked my eyes, waking up to a long road framed by a row of enormous oak trees dripping Spanish moss.
“Twelve Oaks,” I whispered.
“Naw.” Beau laughed softly. “This isn’t Gone with the Wind. And we’re not havin’ a barbecue with Ashley Wilkes.”
“But it looks just like it,” I said, pointing out the window to the brick mansion with the giant white columns at the end of the alley of oaks.
“Twelve Oaks isn’t real. Boone Hall Plantation was the inspiration for Twelve Oaks in Gone with the Wind, though,” Beau explained. “This right here is one of the most iconic southern things you can see. Well, that and a fried green tomato, maybe. Only they’re not much to look at.”
“I can’t imagine they’re much to eat either,” I said absent-mindedly, gazing with admiration at the beautiful house. It really was Gone with the Wind come to life. I’d never seen anything so elegant.
“None of that Yankee snobbery, please, miss,” Beau admonished, as he turned away from the house and drove into an extensive parking lot already filling up with reenactors’ cars. “Best damn things you’ll ever eat, I promise you that. I’ll have to get my mama to fry you up some. Next weekend, maybe. Although … wait …” He trailed off, suddenly realizing that our days were numbered.
“Summer’s almost over,” I mused, as I realized it too. “Crazy, isn’t it? It went by so quickly. It feels like just yesterday your mom picked Dev and me up at the airport.”
“A hell of a lot has happened, though,” Beau replied, as he parked the car. “I mean, who ever heard of spendin’ the summer with a ghost?”
“Well …” I said drily as I hopped out of the truck. Who ever heard of spending two summers with a ghost? Ridiculous.
“Don’t think that’ll bother us anymore, though,” Beau said confidently, as he strode to the back of the truck. Willie clambered out of the truck and followed me around to join Beau. “Think Luke gave whatever it was a real scare. Haven’t seen hide nor polyester hair of it since then, have we?”
“No, we have not,” I agreed, as Beau began unloading things out of the truck bed.
“Knew all it needed was a good run at the thing, whatever it was. Why bother figurin’ out what it was doin’ there when you can just get rid of it?”
“Dunno,” I muttered awkwardly, looking away, sidestepping that vague barb at Garrett. My eyes wandered to the front of the truck, where something that hadn’t been there before was fluttering under a windshield wiper. “Beau, did you get a ticket?” I asked quizzically. “How could you get a parking ticket on a plantation?”
“Dunno. That’s odd.” He scratched his head under the brim of his kepi cap. “We just got here.”
Beau hauled the last bag out of the truck, then we walked around to the front to see what it was.
“Not a parking ticket,” I said, as Beau lifted it out from under the windshield wiper. It looked like some sort of old parchment, not like a ticket at all.
Beau scanned the note quickly. “Aw, hell,” he muttered, then crumpled the paper and threw it to the ground.
“Hey!” I protested. “I wanted to read that!” I squatted awkwardly, my enormous skirts billowing about me, reaching forward to retrieve the note. Hastily, I uncrumpled it and read aloud: “Anderson: You’ve Been Warned.” I looked up at Beau. “This—this looks like it was written in blood, too.”
“We don’t know that,” he said stubbornly. “Might’ve just been a red pen or somethin’. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
“How does it not matter?” I asked, rising and smoothing my skirts.
“Well, you and Dev figured it out. It’s no ghost. Just some weird girl in a costume.”
“That doesn’t mean that whoever’s doing this isn’t dangerous!” I said somewhat shrilly, folding the note into neat, perfect quarters, with more force than necessary. “This … this woman, whoever she is, has targeted you from the beginning. She destroyed your jacket. Who knows what she’d do to you? Anyone who’d write notes in blood is clearly deranged!”
“Why, Libby.” He stepped toward me, speaking softly. “You worried about me?”
“Of course I’m worried about you!” I threw my hands in the air. “You’re being stalked by a psychopath! Frankly, I would’ve felt better if it were a ghost! A ghost can’t hurt you!”
“You don’t want me to get hurt?” He moved closer.
“Of—of course not,” I stuttered.
“So you must care about me, at least a little,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Beau, I—”
“Oh, Libby.” Beau sighed softly, pushing a curl off my face and tucki
ng it gently behind my ear. “Give me somethin’ to hope for.”
He leaned in, slowly, and I watched him come closer. But before I put my hands up to stop him—
“What the hell!” Tires screeched, I heard a car door slam, and I jumped away from Beau, turning around. A frighteningly livid Garrett had parked next to us and was storming out of his car, right toward Beau. “Seriously, man, what the hell!”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that kind of language in front of a lady,” Beau said stiffly.
“Yeah, well I’d appreciate it if you and your bullshit southern chivalry backed the hell away from my girlfriend,” Garrett shot back sarcastically.
“You lost the right to call her that,” Beau replied, his accent thickening as he got increasingly upset.
“Garrett—” I started.
“Really, Libby?” Garrett turned to face me. “This is how you end it? Letting Bo Duke feel you up next to the General Lee?”
“How dare you talk to her like that!” Beau interrupted. “Considerin’ how—how—deplorably you’ve conducted yourself.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Jethro Bodine?” Garrett said snidely.
“Hannah,” I whispered. Both men immediately silenced and turned to face me. Garrett looked paler than I’d ever seen him; he was nearly translucent. “I saw you with her,” I said softly. “I know, Garrett. I saw you kiss her.”
An excruciatingly long silence descended on the three of us.
“I’ll, uh, leave you two to it,” Beau muttered quietly, and walked off toward the reenactment.
“How did—I don’t understand—I—I didn’t,” Garrett said finally, shaking his head. “Libby, what?”
I sighed heavily. “Dev and I took Beau’s truck. Because he wanted coffee.”
“Starbucks,” Garrett said quietly.
“Starbucks,” I confirmed. “We saw you through the window. We saw the two of you together. We saw you—”
“Hug her,” he said firmly. “That was all that happened. I didn’t kiss her. I would never, Libby, never. I swear.”
“Why did you even see her?” I whispered, blinking back tears. “And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, she—she’s doing a summer internship at Duke.”
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