Refuge on Leebrick (The Hills of Burlington Book 4)

by Jacie Middlemann

  “I know that, Liana,” Mary said, not pretending she didn’t know what the other woman was talking about. “We’ve already talked about this. It’s not a big deal,” Mary said kindly then turned and led them both towards her car.

  “Mary, we have to talk about this. I can’t tell you what it means to me that you believe me. More than that how much you’re doing for me and my girls. I just need you to know that. God, I still have to somehow resolve this situation with Leslie.” She twisted her hands together without realizing it as they both stood at the curb by Mary’s car.

  “Liana,” Mary wanted to ease her worries but didn’t get very far.

  “I don’t know what to do about it. I honestly don’t even know how it got to this point.”

  “I don’t think you’re alone on that one, Liana.” Mary stepped closer and took her hands, pulling them apart from the tight grip the younger woman had them in. “I’ve already talked with Leslie and I’ll be talking with her again. Between the two of us I feel certain we can work this out. I think at this point you don’t need to worry about having to play any role in it.”

  “Sawyer’s somehow involved in this, isn’t he?” Liana asked in almost a whisper.

  Mary took in the expression on the other woman’s face. If she hadn’t been standing as close as she was to her she wouldn’t have heard the nearly inaudible words she’d just spoken. For all that they had talked about they still hadn’t talked much about her former husband and Mary knew at some point they would need to. But that time wasn’t now. At this point she wasn’t at all certain exactly what role Sawyer Farrell was playing in dealing with the situation Leslie was working diligently to put a lid on. She would find out but for now she simply wanted to allay Liana’s concerns.

  “I can promise you this, Liana. Leslie is very picky about who she represents. I can guarantee you that who you’re related to…however indirectly at this point…has absolutely nothing to do with how she came to represent you and that she’ll continue to do so.” Mary took a deep breath and ordered herself to calm down. “The woman is funny that way. She really doesn’t have any real sense of her own influence and cares little for that of others.” She pinned the other woman with a steady stare. “But once she takes you on, and believe me, in her mind you are hers from that point forward regardless of situations that come up including this one. She is scrupulous about protecting those she represents. And for the same reason she’ll give you advice that sometimes you’ll appreciate and just as often not. It can range from what to wear at signings to more lofty tidbits such as that fame and fortune, however one comes by it, is far from any gateway to happiness. Far, far from it. If anything the combination can bring more from the other end than not.” Mary sighed knowing she’d gotten far from how they’d gotten started on the subject. “What I’m really just trying to tell you is that even if Sawyer talked with Leslie about how to quash all this, while she might take what he has to say into advisement, her decisions wouldn’t be influenced by it. Leslie would never have gotten to where she is if she’d allowed that.”

  Liana nodded slightly. She understood and agreed with what Mary was saying. But she also still wondered what role her former husband might be playing in resolving this. Knew too she might never know. Wasn’t certain she wanted to. Whether or not she should be, the entire situation embarrassed her more than she cared for anyone to realize.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jake stepped into the small office and closed the door behind him. He and Tom had talked numerous times since he’d begun working at the newspaper but this was the first time he had searched him out in his office. Several thoughts came to him as he walked through the door and none of them were good.

  “Not for a moment do I believe we can’t do better than this,” he said as he took in the small room that he’d be willing to put good money on didn’t measure more than the walk-in closet of his college dorm. Standing in the middle of what barely fit any definition of an office, he could literally reach out and touch Tom’s desk, the single chair positioned in front of it, and the small compact refrigerator that looked like someone else’s reject sometime in the last twenty years or so. Anger simmered just below the surface but he banked it down as he turned back to face his most recently hired employee. This was something he needed to think about before he discussed it with Mark. The only thing he was certain of was that they would be discussing it. Unacceptable didn’t even begin to define the office Tom had been assigned. Hell, no one, not even a summer intern should have been stuck in these small confines.

  Tom pushed back slightly from his desk and turned in the swivel chair that was the only thing he’d been adamant about. Catching his old friend’s eyes he nodded toward the window behind him. “I like the view from here. The others looked out over the downtown area which is an impressive view as well but I’ve had plenty of those before. This,” he nodded again to the window that looked out over the river in the distance with the massive bridge that brought travelers from one side of the Mississippi to the other. “This is easily worth the additional space I don’t need.” What he didn’t mention was that both the other offices he’d been shown hadn’t been all that much bigger and each were positioned next door to one of the many restrooms in the building. He didn’t question the need for them but didn’t particularly care to be sitting next door to one day in and day out.

  Jake took in the view from the window and had to agree with him. It was impressive with the bridge prominent in a way he knew would be even more so at night. He’d leave the other man to find that out for himself. He turned to sit in the chair that also looked like someone else’s reject. “Where the hell did all this furniture come from?”

  “It was already here except my chair. I bought it at a huge place Mary sent me to. They’ve got three floors of just about anything you could ever hope to find and a whole lot you didn’t know existed.” He leaned back and swiveled at the same time. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”

  “I’m surprised it works,” Jake commented, giving the antique wooden desk chair a thorough study. “I tried one out once and just about landed on my head when I leaned back in it.”

  “Yeah, well this one had some similar issues,” Tom admitted, smiling as he did. “Your cousin also gave me the name of a guy that repairs anything that can be taken apart and be put back together again. He said he could fix it and he most certainly did.” Tom gave his old friend who was now also his new distant family member and on top of that his boss a curious look, wondered which one of those was visiting with him. “So, what brings you to this part of the neighborhood?” Because he knew something must have. Something out of the ordinary that caused his old friend to be searching him out instead of picking up the phone and requesting his presence upstairs.

  “You’ve heard about the plans for tomorrow night, right?”

  “Yeah, your cousin called me about it.” He took in the expression on Jake’s face and understood the question before he asked it. “Sorry, Mary called me,” he said realizing the man had numerous cousins in the city that now included himself.

  “What do you think about it?” Jake asked not at all concerned with how he sounded to the other man.

  “I think that your daughter is strong in a number of ways. I don’t know that I completely understand this or even whether I believe anything will come of tomorrow night but…” he broke off as the other man interrupted him.

  “It’s everything that comes after that word, but, that worries me. I understand their desire to learn more about what this is all about but I’m not real keen that it comes at the expense of my daughter.” Jake struggled with his raging emotions. He found himself worried in a way he’d never before experienced and had no knowledge of how to deal with it. No where to put it all.

  Tom studied his old friend, a man he’d known for most of his adulthood. He had a pretty good idea what the other man was thinking even though he didn’t have any personal experience with what he was talking about since he
had no kids of his own. “You’re going to be there, right?” he asked. At Jake’s nod he continued. “I’ll be there as well and will stay close by just in case anything unexpected comes up. I don’t know whether it means anything to you but I think that whatever Beth has plans for, that it’s better that we’re there as well rather than she try it all on her own.”

  “You think so?” Jake asked almost desperate for any reassurance about something he didn’t completely understand. He’d seen a lot, more than any one person should, but he was all but clueless when it came to this. He accepted what he felt when he walked into that room, it would be hard not to, but that didn’t mean he understood it.

  “I think I don’t know a hell of a lot more than you do. But I also think that being the case, that asking questions and thinking it out instead of going in as if it were some party game and we’re just going along for the ride, well…I think that gives us the edge. Just like I think us being there gives Beth one hell of an edge as well. I don’t know that there’s much more we can do.”

  Jake took that in, let it sink deep into the jumble of his thoughts. It made sense. Just as much sense as anything did when it came to all this. “Okay, I can get that.” He shook it off or at least as best as he could. He knew there was nothing more he could do to prepare for what neither of them had ever dealt with before.

  As he turned with the thought to leave he looked around the small office again. Thought to himself again that small wasn’t even close to being all that accurate. He’d seen closets bigger than this. “I know I gave instructions to show you bigger offices than this.”

  “It’s not a big deal. This works as good as anything else for me,” Tom said simply. It did and there was no way he was going to let himself be dragged into any form of the usual office politics that ran rampant in any company. He most definitely wasn’t going to with the man who’d given him a job without blinking.

  “I’m sure it does, that doesn’t answer my question though.” And Jake knew enough about the other man as well as the office politics that swirled around him to know there was more to this than he knew. It wasn’t unusual for Tom to keep his answers short. And while he had no doubt Tom enjoyed the view he knew for a fact there was another larger office available down the hall with the same damn view.

  Jake shifted slightly towards the door. This was something he would look into on his own. Tom might be happy in this little hole in the wall but when he gave instructions he expected them to be followed unless there was a damn good reason they weren’t. In this, he couldn’t think of a single one. And that was something he could take care of but first he needed to get some answers and have a serious talk with Mark. Even as his thoughts were elsewhere he gave the other man a slight nod. “If I don’t see you before I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Sure thing,” Tom said somewhat offhandedly as his interest was already back on the opinion piece he’d been working on when Jake came in.

  Jake left him to it. He knew what he was working on. The piece he wanted on decisions journalists had to make when they were out in the field. Decisions that were forced by unforeseen events. The need to judge what weighed more, being first on the scene or saving lives literally feet from where you stood ready to report the news playing out in front of you. He put that out of his head as he considered how he wanted to approach the office space issue that had come to light. He hated damn office politics. But he could play them. And knew damn well he could win them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Beth ran her hand gently along the edges of the book that lay open in front of her. “Every single one of these books is filled with so much more than just the words that tell the story of the lives chronicled within them. And not just their lives but also the times they lived in.” She glanced over her shoulder at her father. She knew he wasn’t thrilled about what she was going to try to do. Nor would it ease his mind if he knew, had any idea of how many times, how many books she’d already gone through. She also had no doubt he wouldn’t be thrilled were he to know how many of those lives that she’d already reached out and felt connected to despite the passage of time. She had been able to do so through the myriad of emotions that were still bound within these pages waiting through so many centuries to be shared.

  “Beth,” Jake began but she interrupted him almost immediately.

  “They hold within them remnants of their feelings…joy, sadness, fear, and sometimes unspeakable despair. All those and so many more are still held within the pages of each book.” She sighed, she knew they all had questions, many the same as hers. But she still didn’t have all the answers they needed. Not yet. “I don’t know how.” She turned in the old chair away from the desk to the others in the room. As she did so she forced a smile in their direction understanding that they all worried about what it was they had gathered here for at her request. It still caught her off guard at times this was her family. A family she’d lived most her life without. Couldn’t imagine her future now any other way than having them near. She let her gaze shift to that of her father’s. Wished she could ease his worry. She took a deep breath before continuing.

  “I didn’t realize at first that what I was feeling was their long ago emotions…their memories. I thought I was just caught up in the story of their lives. Some of the writings are very detailed. And so often tragedy filled their lives. Too often…”

  “Beth, we don’t have to do this.” Casey walked over to stand next to her niece. She wasn’t certain all what she believed but she knew her niece did. She knew too whatever it was took a huge toll on her both physically and emotionally.

  Beth took the hand offered. Smiled weakly. “Talking about it isn’t anything compared to feeling it.”

  “I bet,” Dave said dryly from where he stood near the single small window in the room. He thought about his long ago conversation with Mary on his thoughts about what they were all beginning to consider as something more than a product of their overactive imaginations. He’d half expected his sister to scoff at him. She hadn’t. None of them had.

  “Beth, what is it about this book out of all the others that makes it so important?” Carrie asked from where she sat near Mary. The two of them along with Casey were positioned closest to Beth except for Jake and Wes who were close enough to reach out and touch her if they wanted to. She glanced over worriedly at Court who stood with Tom in the doorway with Addie and Rob standing in front of them. Her mother and Mallie sat together on a small bench they’d brought in for her.

  Beth ran her hand over the ragged edges of the book as she thought about how to answer what on the surface seemed a simple question. “I think this one was written by one of the woman both Tom and I have seen.”

  “The one who died so young?” Mary asked thinking of what they’d learned from her the other night.

  “No,” Beth said without any hesitance. Then continued on thoughtfully. “But it’s possible that she was this woman’s grandmother or great-grandmother. Like her, as both Tom and I have seen, she bears a tremendous resemblance to both me and your great-grandmother.” She looked at her father. “And to yours and Casey’s mother.”

  “Leslie,” Charlie said her sister’s name in a strong but trembling voice. Took both Carrie and Mallie’s hands even as they reached for hers.

  “Yes,” Beth agreed softly. “And while much of what she writes is of her own life, the joys and the challenges that filled it, she writes also quite a bit of her mother’s life. And it’s in those passages I found much more than I expected. From some of that information I was able to determine which of the books here was that of her mother’s.” She paused for a moment before continuing. She was tempted to turn to the pages that had caused her the most pain and the greatest understanding of who she…who they all came from. Despite the pain it had brought her, she also felt a tremendous admiration for the woman who’d lived and died hundreds of years ago.

  “What is it, Beth?”

  Again she heard the worry in her father’s voi
ce. Knew without having to hear his thoughts he wanted this done and over with. He also wanted her somewhere else. Anywhere else but here. But he understood. He didn’t like it one bit but he understood and that meant the world to her.

  She knew too that Wes felt much the same as her father and though he didn’t feel a connection to this room, this family as she did, he had felt one to her from almost the moment they’d first met. He hadn’t been alone in that. “There’s a passage that tells about the death of her mother. In itself it’s not very long but is filled with a tremendous range of emotions that are still unbelievably strong. She lived a long life, more so than many of the women of our line in those days when fear of the unknown often led to eliminating the source of it.” She sighed and shook her head slightly at the unfairness of it even as she reminded herself it was done. It couldn’t be changed…and it had been so very long ago. “Even though what she wrote isn’t that long her emotions remain strong in the pages. They’re overwhelming in places. Stronger than any I’ve felt in all of the other books so far. Even more so than that of her mother’s.” She stopped. It had been heartbreaking to feel…to see as if she’d been there. As if she had walked with them. Grieved with them. And in a way she had done both, then…and now. She didn’t look up from the book. The room was completely silent. No one would ask. She knew they all wanted to know but not a single one would ask. The choice was hers. Would always be hers here with this family who not only loved her but understood the cost of what was to come. And because of that she could.

  “Her mother had only three children of her own. Not really a large number for those times. But she was in so many ways everyone’s mother. She was so loved by all those who knew her that her loss was felt by everyone every bit as much as it was by the children she’d given birth to. All those people, so many of them, walked with her on her final journey. They walked with her family. They were her family. And she was theirs. The connection was so strong I can’t begin to describe it.”