Brambleberry House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He had no defense against the bitter truth of her words. She was absolutely right.

  He had no defense at all. He was wrong and he had known it all along.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, hating the inadequacy of the words but unable to come up with anything better. He should leave, he thought. Just go before he made things worse for her.

  He headed to the door but before he opened it, he turned back and was struck again by how beautiful she was. Beautiful and strong and forever out of his reach now.

  “Aunt Abigail knew exactly what she was doing when she left Brambleberry House to you,” he said, his voice low. “She would have hated to see me sell this house she loved so much and she must have known that with my career in the army, I wouldn’t have been able to give it the love and care you have. You belong here, in a way I never could.”

  He closed the door softly behind him and headed slowly up the stairs, every bone in his body suddenly aching to match the pain in his heart.

  That last he had said to her was a blatant lie, just one more to add to the hundreds he had told.

  She belonged here, that much was truth. But he couldn’t tell her that these last few days, he had begun to think perhaps he could also find a place here in this house that had always been his childhood refuge.

  The words to the poem she had quoted echoed through his memory. Every house where love abides and friendship is a guest, is surely home, and home, sweet home, for there the heart can rest.

  His heart had come to rest here, with Anna. She had soothed his restless soul in ways he still didn’t quite understand. He had come here hurting and guilty over the helicopter crash and the deaths of his team members, wondering what he could have done differently to prevent the crash.

  He had been frustrated about his shoulder, worried about the future, grieving for his team and for Abigail.

  But when he was with Anna, he found peace and comfort. She had helped him find faith again, faith in himself and faith in the future.

  The thought of walking away from her, from this place, filled him with a deep, aching sorrow. But what choice did he have?

  He couldn’t stay here. He had made that impossible. He had been stupid and selfish and he had ruined everything.

  * * *

  “HOW IS IT humanly possible for one woman to be such a colossal idiot when it comes to men?”

  Two hours after Max walked out of her apartment, Anna sat in Julia’s kitchen. The children were in bed, exhausted from their journey, and Will had returned to his own home down the beach, the house where he and Julia would live after their marriage in June.

  “That is a question we may never answer in our lifetimes.” Sage’s voice sounded tinny and hollow over the speakerphone.

  “Sage!” Julia exclaimed, a frown on her lovely features.

  “Kidding. I’m kidding, sweetheart. You know I’m kidding, Anna. You’re not an idiot. You’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “So why do I keep falling for complete jerks?”

  Conan whined from his spot on the kitchen rug and gave her a reproving look similar to the one Julia had given the absent Sage.

  “Are you sure he’s a complete jerk?” Julia’s voice was quiet. “He is Abigail’s nephew, after all, so he can’t be all bad. I’ve been wracking my memory and I think I might have met him a time or two when we stayed here during the summers when I was a girl. He always seemed very polite. Quiet, even.”

  “I’m afraid I never met him so I can’t really offer an opinion either way,” Sage said on the phone. “He came to stay several years ago before he shipped out to the gulf but I was on a field survey down the coast the whole time. I do know Abigail always spoke about him in glowing terms, but I figured she was a little biased.”

  Anna remembered the solid assurance she had experienced several times that Abigail would have approved of Max and her growing relationship with him. It hadn’t been anything she could put her finger on, just a feeling in her heart.

  Fight for him. He needs you.

  She suddenly remembered those thoughts drifting through her mind earlier in the evening when she had been preparing for the celebration that hadn’t happened.

  She was almost certain that had been a figment of her imagination. But was it possible Abigail had been trying to give her some kind of message?

  She hated this. She couldn’t trust him and she certainly couldn’t seem to trust herself.

  “He lied to me, just like Gray and just like my fiancé. With my history, how can I get past that?” she asked out loud as she set her spoon back in the bowl of uneaten ice cream.

  She hadn’t had much of an appetite for it in the first place but now the cherry chocolate chunk tasted terrible with this bitterness in her mouth.

  “Maybe you can’t,” Sage said.

  Julia said nothing, though an expression of doubt flickered over her features.

  “You don’t agree?” Anna asked.

  The schoolteacher shrugged. “Do I think he should have told you he was Abigail’s nephew? Of course. Deceiving you was wrong. But maybe he just found himself in a deep hole and he didn’t know how to climb out without digging in deeper.”

  “And maybe he should have just buried himself in the hole when he got down far enough,” Sage said.

  Though Anna knew Sage was only trying to offer her support, she suddenly found she wanted to defend him, which was a completely ridiculous reaction, one she quickly squashed.

  “I’ve been lied to so many times. I don’t know if I forgive that.”

  “You’re the only one who can decide that, honey,” Julia said, squeezing her fingers. “But whatever you do, you know we’re behind you, right?”

  “Ditto from the Patagonia faction,” Sage said over the phone.

  Though she was quite certain it was watery and weak, Anna managed a smile. “Thank you. Thank you both. As tough as this is, I’m grateful I have you both.”

  “And Conan and Abigail,” Sage declared. “Don’t forget them.”

  The dog slapped his tail on the floor at the sound of his name but didn’t bother getting up.

  “How can I?” she said. She and Julia were saying goodbye and preparing to hang up when Sage suddenly gasped into the phone.

  “The letter! We’ve got a letter for Abigail’s nephew, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Anna exclaimed. “I completely forgot it!”

  “What letter?” Julia asked.

  “From Abigail,” Anna explained. “She left it as part of her estate papers for her great-nephew. Her Jamie.”

  “It was another of those weird conditions of her will,” Sage added. “He could only receive it if and when he arrived in person to Brambleberry House. I was all in favor of mailing it to him in care of the army but Abigail’s attorney stipulated her wishes were quite clear. We weren’t even supposed to tell him about it until he showed up here.”

  “Why was she so certain he would come back to Brambleberry House after her death? Especially since she had gone to such pains to leave the house to you two, leaving him with no reason to return at all?” Julia asked with a puzzled frown.

  “I don’t know. I wondered that myself,” Anna admitted.

  She remembered how sad she had thought it that Abigail seemed so desperate for her nephew, who hadn’t visited her much when she was alive, to come here, even after her death.

  “She was right though,” Sage said. “Just like she always was. He came back, just as she seemed to know he would.”

  Anna shivered at the undeniable truth of the words.

  “You have to give it to him,” Sage continued. “Do you know where it is?”

  “In the safe in my office,” she answered promptly. “I kept it there with all the other estate documents.”

&
nbsp; “I’d give anything to know what’s in that letter. What do you think Abigail had to say to him?” Sage asked.

  Anna wondered the same thing after she and Julia had said goodbye to Sage and she had returned downstairs to her own apartment and retrieved the letter from her safe.

  She sat looking at the envelope for a long time, at Abigail’s familiar elegant handwriting and those two words. My Jamie.

  For the first time, she allowed herself to look at this from Max’s perspective. He said he had loved his aunt and she knew she had hurt him tonight when she said Abigail must not have loved him enough to leave the house to him.

  It had been a cruel thing to say, especially since she knew from the way Abigail talked about her nephew that she had adored him.

  What would Anna have done if a beloved elderly relative had left a valuable legacy to two strangers? She probably would have been suspicious as well. Of course, she would have wanted to find out the circumstances. But would she have lied about her identity to investigate?

  She couldn’t answer that. She only knew that some of her anger seemed to be subsiding, drawing away from her like low tide.

  She gazed at the letter. My Jamie. She was going to have to give it to him, but she knew she couldn’t go knocking on his apartment door. She wasn’t ready to face him again. Not yet. Maybe in the morning, she would be more in control of her emotions.

  Still, some instinct told her she needed to deliver this tonight, whether she faced him or not. Praying she wouldn’t encounter him wandering around in the dark, she moved quietly up the stairs and slipped the letter through the narrow crack under the door.

  There you go, Abigail, she thought, and was almost certain she felt a brush of air against her cheek.

  The task done, she stood for a long moment on the landing outside his apartment, her emotions a tangled mess and her heart a heavy weight in her chest.

  * * *

  MAX BACKED HIS SUV out of the Brambleberry House driveway just as the sun crested the coast range. His duffel and single suitcase were in the backseat and the letter that had been slipped under his apartment door was on the seat beside him.

  He knew the letter was from Abigail. Who else? Even if he hadn’t recognized her distinctive curlicue handwriting, he would have known from only the name on the outside.

  My Jamie.

  He had stared at that envelope, his heart aching with loss and regret. It even smelled like her, some soft, flowery scent that made him think of tight hugs and kisses on the cheek and summer evening spent in the garden with her.

  Finally he had stuck it in the pocket of his jacket and walked down the stairs of Brambleberry House for the last time.

  He knew of only one place he wanted to be when he read her final words to him. It seemed fitting and right that he drive to the cemetery to pay his last respects before he left Cannon Beach. He had been putting it off, this final evidence that Abigail was really gone, but he knew he couldn’t avoid the inevitable any longer.

  He found the cemetery and drove through the massive iron gates under winter-bare branches. Only when he was inside looking at the rows of gravestones, surrounded by tendrils of misty morning fog, did he realize he had no idea where to find his aunt’s plot amid the graves.

  At random, he picked a lane and parked his SUV halfway down it then started walking. He had only gone twenty feet before he saw it, a tasteful headstone in pale amber marble under a small statue of an angel, with her name.

  Abigail Elizabeth Dandridge

  Someone had angled an intricate wrought-iron bench there to look over the grave and the ocean beyond it. Anna? he wondered. Somehow it wouldn’t have surprised him. It seemed the sort of gesture she would make, practical and softhearted at the same time.

  He sat at the bench for a long time, until the damp grass began to seep through his boots and the wrought-iron pressed into the back of his thighs. He wasn’t quite sure why he was so apprehensive to read Abigail’s final words to him.

  Maybe because of that—because it seemed so very final. Silly as it seemed, he hated that this was the last time anyone would call him the nickname only she had used.

  Finally he opened the envelope. A tiny key fell out, along with several pieces of cream vellum. He frowned and pocketed the key then unfolded the letter, his insides twisting.

  My dear Jamie,

  I suppose since you’re reading this, it means you have come home to Brambleberry House at last. I say home, my dear, because this is where you have always belonged. During the rough years of your childhood, while you were off at military school, even when you were off serving your country with honor and courage, this was your home. You have always had a home here and I hope with all my heart that you have known that.

  By now you must be thinking I’m a crazy old bat. I’m not so sure you would be wrong. I want you to know I’m a crazy old bat who has loved you dearly. You have been my joy every day of your life.

  So why didn’t I leave you the house? I’m sure you’re asking. If you’re not, you should be. I nearly did, you know. Since the day you were born, I planned that you would inherit Brambleberry House when I left this earth. Then a few years ago, something happened to change my mind.

  I began to want something more for you than just a house. You see, houses get dry rot or are bent and broken by the wind or can even crumble into the ocean.

  Love, though. Love endures.

  I knew love when I was a girl, a love that stayed with me my entire life. Even though the man I loved died young, I have carried the memory of him inside me all these years. It has sustained me and lifted me throughout my life’s journey.

  I wanted the same for you, my Jamie. For you to know the connection of two hearts linked as one. So I began to scheme and to plot. You needed a special woman, someone smart and courageous, with a strong, loving heart.

  I knew from the moment I met Anna, she was perfect for you.

  He stopped and stared at the gravestone as a chill rippled down his spine. Impossible. How could Abigail have known from beyond the grave that he would find Anna, that he would fall in love with her, that he would feel as if his heart were being ripped out of him at the idea of walking away from her? With numb disbelief, he turned his attention back to the letter.

  I wanted you to meet her, Jamie. To see for yourself how wonderful she is. I thought if I left you the house outright, you would quickly sell it and return to the army, leaving all you could have found here behind without a backward glance.

  Anna and Sage would watch over my house with loving care, I knew. And I also knew that if I left the house to them, eventually you would come home to find out why. I thought perhaps when you did, you would find something far more valuable here than bricks and drywall and a leaky roof.

  It was a gamble—a huge one. I only wish I could be there to see if it paid out. Of course, there was always a chance you might fall for Sage, but I had other plans for her, plans that didn’t include you.

  I can’t even contemplate the eventuality that you might not fall for Anna. You are too smart for that—or at least you’d better be!

  Please know that my dearest wish is that you will find joy, my darling Jamie.

  All my love, forever,

  Abigail.

  P.S. In case you’re wondering, the key is to a safe-deposit box at First National Bank of Oregon where you will find record of my investment portfolio. The proceeds are all to go to you, as the legal documentation in the safe deposit will attest and my attorney can confirm. I’ve played the market well over the years and I believe you’ll find the value of my portfolio far exceeds the worth of an old rambling house on the seashore. I pray you will put my money to good use somewhere, even if I’m wrong about you and Anna being perfect for each other.

  He stared at the letter for a long, long time, there in the
cemetery with only the wind sighing in the trees and a pair of robins singing and flitting from branch to branch as they prepared their spring nest.

  All these years, he had no idea his great-aunt was a sly, manipulative rascal.

  He ought to be angry at her for luring him here. She had set him up, had played him every step of the way.

  Instead, he laughed out loud, then couldn’t seem to stop. He laughed so hard the robins fluttered into the sky, chattering angrily at him for disturbing their work.

  “Oh, Abigail,” he said out loud. “You are one in a million.”

  How could he be angry, when her actions had been motivated only by love for him? And when she was absolutely right?

  Anna was a smart, courageous woman with a strong, loving heart. And she was perfect for him.

  He couldn’t just walk away from her, from the chance to see if he could find what Abigail wanted so much for them both.

  * * *

  HE WAS GONE.

  Anna sat on the porch swing where Max had held her so tenderly the night of the storm and gazed out at the sleeping garden, at the rose bushes with their naked thorns and the dry husks of daylily leaves she hadn’t cut down in the fall and the bare dirt that waited in a state of anticipation for what was to come.

  He was gone and she was quite certain he wouldn’t be back. His SUV was gone when she awoke and when she had let Conan out, she had found the key to his apartment hanging on her doorknob, along with a simple note.

  I’m so sorry, he had written, without even signing his name.

  The morning was cold, with wisps of fog coming off the sea to curl through the trees and around the garden. She shivered from it. She really should go inside and get ready for work but she couldn’t seem to move from the porch swing.

  Conan, his eyes deep with concern, padded to her and placed his head in her lap.

  Just that tiny gesture of comfort sent the first tear trickling down her cheek, then another and another until she buried her face in her hands and wept.