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The Innkeeper’s Sister
by Linda Goodnight
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day. Honey Ridge, Tennessee
SECRETS ARE LIKE BOILS. They fester and throb, but until the hard core of truth is released, there is no relief.
Valery Carter lived every day with that festered, throbbing boil.
With trowel in hand, she poked at the weeds springing up around headstones tilted and shrunken by time. The Portland family cemetery hadn’t been used as burial grounds in a century, but something about its quiet dignity, about the way it had honored the dead for nearly two hundred years, compelled Valery to tend the small space. Hidden to the south of Peach Orchard Inn in a quiet, shady glen, the gravestones had long since faded to either barely visible or impossible to decipher.
Four of the graves haunted her. Baby graves. She couldn’t leave them unattended. Charlotte Portland Gadsden, who’d lived through the Civil War clinging with delicate British fingers to this land and the antebellum mansion that now housed Peach Orchard Inn, had lost four children and buried them here, marking their tiny graves with white stones, now gray, and the dates of their births. Only one infant had survived more than a day. Anna Cornelia had breathed five days before the angels carried her away.
Tiny baby, pink and pretty and helpless. Five days wasn’t enough for Anna to know how desperately her mother had loved her.
Valery rubbed a gloved hand over Anna’s headstone, scraping away the bird droppings and lichens, tracing the name with her fingertip. She dug fresh dirt to bolster the tilting stone and removed every weed that tried to hide the memory of the baby’s short life. The knock-out roses she’d planted last year looked dead, but she remained as hopeful as the bluebird flitting through the trees in search of a nesting place. Babies deserved sunny daffodils and sweet pink roses.
She felt a kinship with the lost babies and with the mother who had, no doubt, knelt in this very spot to weep and mourn and wonder why.
Tears blurred Valery’s vision. She understood a little about weeping and wondering why, about bearing the unalterable. Perhaps that explained her affinity for the cemetery every bit as much as her need to numb the memory.
She knew she had a problem. What she didn’t have was a solution. Julia and Mama frowned their disapproval, but Lord forbid either of them sit down for a long discussion. Mama claimed she’d be happier if she attended church more often, otherwise feigning ignorance as if she wasn’t as much to blame as Valery. Julia simply pretended the problem didn’t exist. The elephant in the room loomed large in the Carter family.
The Carter women held their secrets close to the vest, even the ones they didn’t know.
A capricious wind rustled the overhead tree branches so that they rubbed together like dry bones. Valery shivered against the chill, though not from superstition or fear. The cemetery was a place of peace and rest for her as much as for the generations of Portlands and a few Civil War soldiers who’d died at Peach Orchard, then a thriving farm. Except for the deep, festering boil that ached continually, Valery was, she sometimes thought, as dead as they were. She’d felt alive once, but she didn’t dwell there any longer.
Inside her zippered fleece jacket the cell phone vibrated. She sat back on her heels, pulled off a glove and fished the device from her pocket.
Don’t forget, the text read, guests arriving at four.
Playing hostess at the bed-and-breakfast was Valery’s responsibility today, but even when Julia was away in Knoxville with her new husband and son, she worried that Valery would let her down.
Sad but true. She’d let them all down in so many ways, most of all herself, but she still clung to her sister’s new marital happiness as proof that she could do something worthwhile. Hadn’t she been the one to exonerate Eli, Julia’s husband, and save him from another prison term?
She sighed heavily. None of that mattered. She was who she was.
It was hours yet until four o’clock and the guests’ arrival. Julia’s vote of no-confidence loomed loud and clear.
She texted back. Got it covered.
Shoving the device back inside her jacket, Valery rose, touched each little stone and murmured soft reassurances to the babies before turning toward Peach Orchard Inn—the house where all four had been born and all four had died.
* * *
“THIS PLACE IS a disaster.”
Grayson Blake cast a doubtful glance toward his brother and then toward the old grist mill, a relic of days gone by—many days gone by—on the outskirts of Honey Ridge, Tennessee. Grass and weeds choked the entrance, the roof sagged, the water wheel was a tangled mess of moss and rust.
And good grief! Was that a snake sunning himself on the rocky walking path?
“I’ve wanted this place since I was a kid.” His brother, Devlin, leaned forward in the seat of the Jeep, every bit as eager as he’d been twenty years ago when they’d spent summers in Honey Ridge with Grandma and Pappy. “It’s perfect for a restaurant. It’s historic, quaint, magical—”
“—Falling down,” Grayson muttered.
“A minor inconvenience. Just look at those bones and this incredible setting.” Devlin’s hands waved in exuberant demonstration. “Right across the road from Peach Orchard Inn, close to the river and to town. People have to eat as well as sleep, don’t they, and the feasibility studies looked promising. Envision the possibilities, my skeptical brother.”
When Devlin got like this, Grayson knew he should stop arguing and let his brother run until he ran out of gas, but Grayson was the oldest and the most rational. Devlin was a wild man.
“Requires more thought,” Grayson said. And his overriding thought was to hit the road, get out while he could, because if he didn’t, his brother would suck him into another money pit that gave him ulcers and kept him pushing a pencil all hours of the night.
“Remember the funeral parlor?” Devlin cocked an eyebrow, black as sin’s underbelly and every bit as devilish.
Grayson snorted. Devlin knew when to toss out successes like throwing free bubble gum from a parade float. A piece here and there to generate enthusiasm.
“I remember.”
“And the jail and the rusty railroad car and the bank with private dining in the former vault.”
Grayson held up both hands in a double stop sign. His platinum watch glinted in the sun. Out of long habit, he glanced at the hands. Time was money, and they had already been in the small rural town of Honey Ridge for two hours without accomplishing much.
He sighed. “Must I admit it?”
“A little humility will do you good,” Devlin said, crossing his arms over the suit and tie he wore only when Grayson warned him they might have to wrangle with locals who didn’t want an influx of strangers into their quiet countryside. Proper image, in Grayson’s view, was power.
Grayson released a huff, but his cheek
s twitched. “You were right.”
All those unlikely, falling down, pathetic venues had been converted by the Blake Brothers into successful restaurants. People flocked to the unusual.
“And I’m right about this one, too. You’ll see.”
Their brotherly business partnership had coalesced during their college days when they’d flipped houses to pay tuition and buy the occasional beer and pizza. Creating restaurants had, quite simply, evolved. Grayson and Devlin Blake, the nerd and the adventurer. Like peanut butter and jelly, they were as different as could be, but together the brotherly combo worked.
“Want to take a look?” Devlin reached for the door handle.
“I am looking.”
“Up close. Inside. Come on, let’s check it out.”
Since Devlin was already out of the Jeep and picking his way through the dead vines and dagger-like weeds, Grayson exited, too. He might as well. Devlin was going in, heedless of danger or the fact that they had no authority to do so.
“We could get arrested,” he called to his brother’s back.
Dev held up a hand but didn’t turn around. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Grayson snorted. “Maybe not for you.”
Devlin had been busted the first time right here in Honey Ridge for trespassing at the ripe old age of nine. He’d climbed old lady Pennington’s fence to release a pen full of pedigreed dogs.
“I couldn’t let those puppies suffer, could I?”
If he’d considered the animals in peril Grayson would have gone along with Devlin’s harebrained rescue attempt. “They weren’t suffering.”
“I thought they were.”
True. That was Devlin. If he thought an injustice existed, he was right in the middle of it, usually to his and to Grayson’s detriment. In the case of the puppies, Grayson had warned Devlin that no puppy mill existed on the grand estate of Marybelle Pennington, but his tenderhearted brother had seen an animal rights TV special and could not be deterred. That the boys were nine and eleven could have had something to do with their naïve enthusiasm. Grayson, as Pappy always said, had been born old and wise for the express purpose of looking after his impetuous younger brother. Old and wise meaning stodgy and serious.
Up ahead, Devlin tromped on, shoving aside low-hanging branches and avoiding a thorny vine. Grayson wasn’t so lucky.
The vine slapped his cheek and scraped deep, stinging.
He touched the spot and came away with blood. “I’m wounded. Let’s give up the venture.”
“Don’t wimp out. The end is in sight.”
Smiling now, enjoying, as he always did, the brotherly yin and yang that flowed between the two of them and made them who they were.
“Hey!” Devlin came to a sudden stop.
“What?” Grayson trotted to catch up, trying not to consider that he’d probably itch half the night.
“I thought I saw someone in that window.”
Grayson peered up at the dirty glass above them on the second floor. “I don’t see anyone. Maybe a trick of the light and shadows.”
“Maybe.” Dev didn’t sound convinced. “The woman at the courthouse said the place was haunted.” He pointed. “Someone thinks so. There’s a bottle tree to capture the haints.”
Grayson peered at the strange apparatus, a collection of cobalt blue bottles inverted on the branches of a dying tree. “Superstitions.”
“Or someone doesn’t want people exploring, and the bottle tree is a kind of no-trespassing warning to scare people off.”
“In which case, you and I should not be here.”
“Sure we should. Come on.” Devlin pushed at a set of tall, heavy, graying doors. They creaked open on rusty hinges to reveal a dark, dank interior. Devlin grinned. “Creepy.”
“You love it.”
“Absolutely. Remember when we were kids and explored this place? Scared the pants off me.”
“That didn’t keep you away.” Or him, for that matter. Where Devlin went, Grayson felt compelled to follow, and more than once they’d both ended up in hot water.
“I like being scared.”
Grayson barked a short laugh. The sound echoed eerily through the dark interior.
“I’m not sure about this, Dev.” He bounced a foot gingerly against the floor. “The mill’s in a lot worse condition now than it was when we were teens. Could be unsafe.”
Devlin, as usual, was full speed ahead and already inside the mill looking around with a rapt expression on his face, the one that said he was seeing the finished product. He had a gift that way, and Grayson had learned to follow his creative lead.
Grayson tapped the walls, smoothed a hand over the ancient lumber. “Aged oak, hard as a rock. We could salvage enough to give the place character and age.”
Devlin spun around. “So, you’re onboard?”
“Let’s say I’m softening to the idea.”
Devlin’s teeth flashed as he pumped his eyebrows. “Want to have a look upstairs and in the basement?”
“If we’re going to get arrested, we might as well get our money’s worth.”
“We won’t get arrested. You taking notes?”
Grayson gave his brother a quelling look. He never left home without the high tech gear of business. The tablet was in the Jeep, but his smartphone would do. “Do you have to ask?”
Wielding a pin light, Devlin jogged lightly up the stairs as if they weren’t rickety and two hundred years old. “Get a load of this.”
Grayson came up beside him. “Your ghost sleeps in a sleeping bag.”
The large open space was mostly empty, whatever milling equipment once used here gone except for a rusted conglomeration of overheard pulleys. On the floor in one corner near the dirt-caked window was a well-used sleeping bag, a hubcap of water, and an assortment of empty plastic containers.
“Squatters?”
“Maybe kids camping out for the scare effect,” Grayson said. “We did that once, remember?”
“No, we didn’t. I wanted to, but you wussed out. You had a crush on some girl and thought you’d see her if you hung around the Dairy Queen.”
Grayson wagged his head. “That was you, Romeo.”
“No, no. I remember well. It was the summer before—” Devlin stopped, grimaced “—you know.”
“Yeah.” Dev knew he didn’t like to talk about that time or the difficult year to follow when Devlin had returned to Honey Ridge without him.
“Anyway, I was only eleven and couldn’t care less about girls.” Devlin smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “What was wrong with me!”
Grayson laughed. “When the love hormones finally stuck—around thirteen if I remember correctly—you never looked back.”
“True. Nothing so wonderful on this planet as the female gender. God knew what He was doing.”
“None of which relates to this obvious sleeping place. I tend to think someone has been camping here. Notice how the space has been cleared, as if someone moved things out and swept up?
“I see what you mean. This room is mostly empty.”
“A construction zone is no place for trespassers, kid or otherwise. We’ll need signs.”
Devlin’s face lit up. “So you’re onboard for the new project?”
“I want to push some numbers first and look at cost versus return.”
Devlin shifted on his feet, stuck his hands in his pockets and then took them out. Finally, he went to the filthy window. “Take a look at the view. We can rebuild this upper level as a special venue, cater for parties, rehearsal dinners and such. Maybe a wall of windows here.”
The view below encompassed the water wheel and the small falls tumbling into the clear, rocky creek. Woods and nature stretched as far as the eye could see. “The view does h
ave potential. People will want to walk down there.”
“I like the natural feel, but we’ll do some landscaping, add romantic benches and mini gardens.”
“We’ll have to clear an area for parking.”
Grayson started to turn away, eager now to push a pencil on the project and see if a new restaurant on the site was feasible. Something in the brush caught his eye. He squinted. “What’s that?”
“Where?”
He put a fingertip against the window. “There in the tangle of kudzu above the creek.”
Devlin frowned, peering closely. “I don’t see...”
“It’s gone now.” Grayson pivoted away, his head already filled with schedules and numbers and contractor contacts.
“What was it?”
“Probably a wild animal. A coyote maybe. Or a bear.”
“Or our squatter?”
“Possibly.” The squatter was the least of Grayson’s concerns. Whoever it was would have to find another place to play. He looked at his watch. “Our check-in time is four. We should go.”
“The Peach Orchard Inn is across the road, Grayson. We aren’t going to be late.”
“I don’t like to keep people waiting.”
Devlin rolled his eyes upward and shook his head. “If you weren’t such a genius with your schedules and spreadsheets—”
“Admitting my genius, are you?” Suspicion sprouted in Grayson and grew faster than kudzu. He paused at the top of the stairs to squint at his younger brother. “You only do that when you want something. What gives?”
Devlin stacked his hands on his hips, suit jacket pushed back on the sides. “So what do you think? Won’t this make a great Blake Brothers Restaurant?”
“Maybe. After we check in at the B and B, I’ll give the owner a call and talk numbers.”
“Uh. Grayson. I sort of already did that.”
Grayson’s eyebrows rose high. “You did?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Negotiations are your thing, but I got wind of a possible competitor. And I’m sentimental about anything connected to Grandma and Pappy. I want this place. I couldn’t let it get away.”
The Rain Sparrow Page 49
