Chapter 13

Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Brooke's first reaction was to suspect Pete of collusion. Surely he'd worked something out with the old couple earlier when he'd walked down to ask about the dress. But even Pete wasn't that good an actor. He was openmouthed with astonishment. "Excuse me?" he finally asked.

Brooke couldn't even manage that much. Beauregard's words had lodged somewhere in her throat, getting in the way of her vocal cords. Tied up with silly hope and futile wishes and unmanageable futures.

Beauregard turned to bestow a delighted smile on his wife. "What did I tell you, darlin'? Speechless. I knew they were the couple."

"But we've only been here since noon!" Pete protested. "You haven't even had the time to get to know us."

The man bestowed that same smile on Pete. "I'm eight-seven, boy. If I don't make my decisions quick, I don't have time to make 'em at all. Now, Evaline says that your little lady here was quite taken with the old place. Asked her all the right questions, showed the proper respect. And we find that we like you both very much."

Pete actually made it to his feet. In a really bizarre way, he looked perfectly at home having this discussion in this house in that getup. Brooke kept blinking, waiting for one of the old people to furnish the punch line.

"And that's enough for you to want to sell us your home?" Pete asked carefully.

"You're a Fillihue," Beauregard assured him, clapping a hand on his shoulder before he had a chance to mount further protest. "That's enough for me."

Pete shook his head. "Have you made this offer to anyone else?"

Both of them demurely shook their heads. "I told you," the old man said. "We've been waiting for the right couple. Why, even old Ezekial likes you."

Pete turned pleading eyes on Brooke.

"The ghost," she allowed with a small shrug, wondering how Ezekial had made his point.

"It would ease the old man's mind to know the house is still in the family," Beauregard said. "I'm the only Hansard left in the world now. And even though the Fillihues weren't Hansards..."

Pete nodded his concession. "They were honorable."

"They were Southern gentlemen."

Brooke found herself battling the first giddiness of impossibility. If he thought the Fillihues were gentlemen, she was going to have to introduce him to Letitia and Emily. It still hadn't occurred to her to wonder how in the heck out of all of the South, they'd tripped over an available antebellum mansion complete with long-lost family.

Pete shook his head, still trying to make the old people see some sense. "I simply can't take your home from you," he protested.

"I'll buy it," Brooke said.

All three people looked her way. She hurried on before the urge to retreat overcame the swooping rush of possibility.

"I may not have a very interesting job," she told Pete, "but my credit is great. I can take out a business loan, use the money I get from selling my house as a down payment..." Turning again, she faced the couple who reminded her so much of Mamie in their own way. "What would you ask for the house?"

The old man took the change in tactics completely in his stride. "What would you like to pay?" he asked.

That stopped her cold. She clenched her hands in her lap and lifted a silent plea for help to Pete. It took him a minute to answer. First he had to believe that it wasn't all a joke. Then he had to assimilate Brooke's offer. By the time he smiled, Brooke knew that he really understood what was happening.

"Whatever the cost is," he said to her, "I'd like to be the one to make you that loan." Then, smiling, he continued, "I'd like to be a silent partner, if it's okay with you."

Brooke battled tears. It was just what she wanted. Just what both of them needed.

"Would we be able to work that out, Mr. Hansard?" she finally asked.

His smile was courtly and sweet. "You must call me Beauregard, my dear. I insist."

Brooke dipped her head in acknowledgment, wondering what the hell she was doing. Figuring that it wasn't any crazier than anything else she'd done on this trip. Knowing as suddenly as the Hansards had that she and Pete could have the house, that this was her chance. It was what she'd waited her whole life for, a little world of her own, for her to rebuild and cherish and share. An island of tranquility in the real world where Pete could escape. A solid, secure base from which she could attack the rest of the world.

Then, without warning, the inspiration became complete. "You would never mean to leave Eleven Oaks, would you?" Brooke asked the couple.

They exchanged quick, furtive glances, caught between their own need and the best interests of their beloved house.

Brooke turned to Pete for his support to find that he was following right with her and in perfect agreement.

"It's your house," he told her. "You are planning on continuing its tradition as a fine bed-and-breakfast, aren't you?"

There was so much she wanted to say to him, to share with him. To give him. At that moment, the best she could manage was a bright, happy smile.

"Of course you'll stay," Pete insisted to the couple. "I don't think my wife would accept your offer under any other conditions."

"If you really mean for us to have it," Brooke said to the couple.

Both Beauregard and Evaline nodded their heads decisively. "Oh, we do, my dear."

Brooke smiled at them both, content with her new family. "Then we will work to maintain Eleven Oaks together. I would so like your help in ensuring that this home remains the gracious, hospitable place you have kept it."

Beaming, bright tears swelling her eyes, Evaline reached over to pat Brooke's hand. "You are an answer to a prayer, dear. An answer to a prayer."

Brooke beamed right back. "So are you, Mrs. Hansard. So are you."

* * *

It was deep into the night when the house spoke the most, little creakings and moanings from age, the rustle of an overgrown oak against the back eaves, the whisper of the breeze through the sheer curtains at the window. Nestled in the big, soft bed, Pete and Brooke watched the shadows shift and collect, listened to the lazy chorus of insects outside, and talked about the future.

"You really don't want a big wedding?" he asked, fingering the auburn curls that tumbled over his chest.

Curled into his arms, her ear to his heart, Brooke shook her head just a little. "Families," she said. "Everybody else can read about it in the Daily World."

"I could move in a little early."

"No. You'll stay right where you are till we get married." She laid her hand against his chest, flat against his skin, as if she could better impart her feelings, as if she could somehow make them closer than they were. "Not until I've renovated the house and gotten all of Mamie's things in. I still need to accomplish this all by myself before we share it."

She felt his hand begin to stray, and it sent chills chasing before it.

"I don't know," he hedged, his fingers teasing the soft skin along the base of her throat. "I've suddenly become awfully impatient."

Brooke smiled to herself, hearing the rhythm of his heartbeat change, feeling her own match it. She let her hand do its own straying. "I think insatiable is the word you're looking for," she retorted, distracted by the play of her pale fingers against the darker, rougher texture of his chest, mesmerized by the torture a simple set of fingers could inflict with no more than a caress to her breast.

He chuckled, so that it rumbled against her. "Just making up for lost time."

"You're trying to... ah, get your way."

Her body, finally cooling from the last session of lovemaking, began to hum again, instinctively arching to Pete's touch. Pete responded by feathering kisses along her upturned face.

"It's called the fine art of compromise," he assured her.

She didn't care what it was called. She just didn't want him to stop.

"You don't mind... aah, commuting from here?"

He didn't mind. He whispered as much, just before he nibbled on her ear.

"And children?" she asked on a sigh, as much from her own explorations as his.

That brought him to a temporary halt. Brooke held her breath. "Well, that's one conversation we've never had," he admitted.

"How do you feel about it?"

He lifted himself up on an elbow, his eyes a little more serious than they had been. "Amazed," he admitted.

Brooke did her best to keep her eyes from straying to where the waning moonlight poured over his shoulders and chest. She did her best to keep her mind from wandering to the thought that she wanted to lap that moonlight up like milk.

"Why?"

"Think about it," he admitted, settling into position enough to run a finger along her breastbone and produce new shivers. "Do you realize it's only been ten days since we've buried Mamie? Suddenly we're engaged, you're quitting your job and moving from Rupert Springs to renovate and run an original antebellum mansion and Allie's going to live in Mamie's house."

"And Bud's dedicating his poolroom to Mamie," Brooke added, suddenly distracted again. "Ten days..." she murmured, her hand stilling against Pete's chest.

"What about it?"

"I don't know... are you sure you didn't arrange that little scene with the Hansards?" she asked yet again, still not quite believing their luck.

"If I had," he assured her, "I probably would have been more coherent when they made the offer. After all, what kind of coincidence would land us in a house with Fillihues in it?"

Fillihues... suddenly the bit of information she'd been trying to remember hit home like a baseball bat. "Omigod," Brooke gasped, jumping out of Pete's grasp as if he'd slapped her with a fish. "The letter!"

Pete ended up flat on his back as Brooke hopped out of bed.

"What letter?"

She was already digging desperately through her belongings. "Oh, God, I hope I didn't lose it in the tornado. I completely forgot about it."

Clothing flew into the air like shadowy birds, and purse contents rattled against the dresser. With everything that had happened in the past few days, Brooke had completely forgotten the letter Mamie had wanted her to have. The one to be opened exactly ten days after the funeral. Hip deep in her search, she didn't notice that Pete flipped on the bedside light and sat there in bed, watching like a spectator at a dwarf-tossing contest.

"What letter?" he asked.

"Aha!" She straightened from where the contents of her purse lay in an untidy pile, the crumpled, water-stained envelope in her hand.

"I think I saw this in an Agatha Christie movie once," was all Pete would say.

Still as naked as the day she was born, Brooke hopped back up on the bed and ripped into the envelope. "It's from Mamie," she explained. "Allie couriered it over from Harlan the day of the funeral. I was to read it exactly ten days after the funeral."

Coop's eyebrow quirked. "You were?" he demanded, making a grab for the missive. "Why didn't she want me to have it?"

Brooke shot him an arch look. "Probably didn't trust you not to lose it."

He let one lingering look over at her belongings answer for him.

"'Dear kids,'" Brooke began, just the sight of that handwriting transporting her right back again.

"Kids?" Pete countered.

She shrugged and read on. "'I hope I've given you enough time. By now, I imagine you've finally found each other.'" Brooke looked up, a funny chill of prescience crowding her chest. She could see that Pete was no less affected. He motioned her to read on.

"'I knew you would have eventually, but why waste time? You're good for each other, and I figured the funeral request would do the job. I imagine you went out on the road. It's why I did it. I didn't figure anybody else in that town would have the guts to fulfill those requirements. Nobody left there with any life but you two. So, now that you've sung my songs and visited different places and made love, I imagine you've discovered what I've known all along. All I ask is that you take care of each other, and have some fun along the way. It's the only way to go.'" This time when Brooke looked up, there were tears in her eyes. "'All my love, Mamie.'"

Pete was shaking his head. "Crafty old thing, wasn't she?"

Brooke shrugged. "She loved you. She wanted you to be happy... oh, wait, there's something on the back... oh... my God..."

Pete leaned over. Brooke handed over the letter, her hands suddenly trembling, her chest closing off. "How did she know?"

He read the P.S. and lifted a stunned gaze on Brooke. "She couldn't have. Not possibly."

"But the tire..."

"An accident."

"The family tie..."

"A coincidence."

Brooke shook her head. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.' 'Oh, by the way,'" she read aloud over his shoulder. "'I knew you'd take care of Beauregard and Evaline. Enjoy the old place.' You call that coincidence?"

Pete sailed the letter off into the shadows. "I'm not calling it anything," he insisted. "I'm not about to jinx the best thing that's ever happened to me."

And before Brooke could so much as protest, he swept her into his arms and rolled them back beneath the covers.

"I don't care if Mamie and Ezekial conspired somewhere on a ghostly plane," he insisted, settling back down to taste Brooke's throat. "You and I are getting married, and settling down here and raising our children to love country music and the Three Stooges, and we'll live happily ever after."

Her hands already tangled in Pete's hair, her body remembering just where they'd left off, Brooke smiled up at him in the soft light. "Is that a promise?" she asked.

And he stopped long enough to seal his words with the expression in his eyes. "Oh, yes," he assured her. "It's a promise."

"But can we still be friends?" she asked, sating herself on the sight of him, the feel of him, the promise of him.

The smile he gave her was like a gift. "Till the end," he promised. "Till the very end."

A woman couldn't ask for much more than that.

Entertainment World, October 15:

It was a dark day for Pete Cooper fans yesterday when the famed newsman traded vows with childhood friend Brooke Ferguson on the lawn of their newly renovated home, Eleven Oaks, just outside Atlanta. The ceremony was an intimate one, with just immediate family and friends. A very romantic story all around, although we might question the influence the new Mrs. Cooper wields after receiving reports of attendance by the Hell's Angels and an Elvis impersonator who assisted a country-western band in entertaining guests....

The End

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