I started unloading the lumber and stacking it neatly where Jamie had asked before getting out the drawings I’d done at lunch. Tomorrow, I’d bring out some cement to anchor the platform. Tonight, I would dig the holes in preparation.
Jamie had asked that the gazebo be made just outside the white fence. Once I had it built, then I would put in a gate. This way I didn’t have to mess up any of the pretty landscaping. The ground was flat and smooth. Fire had destroyed all the natural plants, but small shoots and grasses had come back up, not defeated for long. Just down the path, guests would arrive at the river. From here, I imagined I could hear the flow of water over rocks, but it was only in my mind.
I shook my head, astounded the fire had jumped the river to take down the inn. We’d all hoped Jamie’s newly opened business would be safe. We were wrong. The girl had gumption, I thought for the hundredth time as I hauled another load to its temporary position.
After measuring carefully, I dug a good foot down into the dirt for the four main posts. Knowing the snow and harsh weather we often had in this part of Colorado, I wanted to make sure the posts were secure. I’d just begun digging the fourth hole when my shovel hit something hard. Probably a large rock, I thought, as I set aside my digging tool and got down on my knees to inspect further. The sun had gone down by that time, leaving me in a dim light. I dug both hands into the soil, seeking whatever had stopped my shovel. Soon, I found it with the tips of my fingers. It was something hard, but not a rock. I dug until I saw metal. A box of some kind? Maybe someone had planted one of those time capsule boxes.
My heartbeat sped up as I realized that it was indeed a box. Made of a silver metal, most likely stainless steel, and the size of a boot box. A lock held it closed. One that required a key, I noticed, rubbing away the dirt to see better. How long had this been there? They wouldn’t have found it when they put in the new landscaping because Jamie had left this part wild, clearing it of debris and smoothing the soil but without the manicured feeling inside the fence.
I brushed as much dirt off the box as I could and set it aside. Regardless of what was inside, I needed to finish before it grew too dark to work. My muscles ached already, but I must keep on. Jamie was depending on me, and we both needed the money. I would not think too much about the reasons for the gazebo. Arianna was the past. Was Jamie the future? I put that question aside and got back to work.
However, this stirring in my belly whenever I was near Jamie had me discombobulated. All day at school, I’d thought of her and the kiss we’d shared. Would there be another tonight? Or had that just been part of our ruse and meant nothing to her?
Dig, you fool. Just dig.
* * *
Between school and working on the gazebo, I’d managed to keep my mind off my father. Grateful for that and the dinner with Jamie to look forward to, I put any thoughts of him out of my mind. I’d been doing this for years and years. His absence from my life was normal. Seeing him on television had not been.
I managed to clean off the stainless steel box at home in my kitchen sink before presenting it to Jamie. After a good washing, I made out the engraved initials: ACH. Annabelle Higgins, I assumed, although not sure what the C stood for. “It has to be hers, right?” I asked Jamie.
We were sitting on the floor of her living room staring at the box. “Has to be. But how do we get this lock off?”
I rose to my feet. “Not a problem. I brought a hammer.” The latch, although metal, was thin and rusted. I’d have no problem breaking it using the claws of the hammer and pulling hard. “I didn’t want to do it without your permission.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” Jamie said, a little huskily. “I do feel a kinship with her. Sometimes I swear I can feel her presence at the inn. Especially in the area of the house that used to be her studio.”
Using the hammer, I easily broke the latch. “Do you want to do the honors?” I asked Jamie.
She was looking at it with the eyes of a child standing at the candy counter. “I can’t wait. But will you do it? I’m afraid of spiders.”
I laughed. “No spider got through here, I don’t think.” The box was a small fortress and heavy. They didn’t make things like this nowadays. Good Lord, I sounded like my grandfather. An image of him flashed before my eyes. He always wore overalls and smelled of pipe smoke and sometimes of gin. His silver hair had thinned by the time I knew him, and he often wore a cap. He’d been good with his hands too, building and repairing his house up in Oregon. I’d only been able to visit him once a year. My dad wasn’t interested in maintaining a relationship with his father-in-law after my mother died. I couldn’t blame him for that.
I had plenty of other things to blame him for. Regardless, those summer weeks in Oregon were the best of my childhood. My grandfather wasn’t much of a talker, but he loved reading as much as I did. During the day, I followed him around the property helping him as best I could. In the evenings, he would make us what he called a bachelor’s feast, usually eggs or peanut butter sandwiches. On Sundays, after church, we had cheese melted between two corn tortillas with mounds of his homemade salsa. He’d been a widower since before we lost my mother and seemed to have no interest in remarrying. The only thing he ever said to me about their deaths was one of the saddest things I’d ever heard. “I am only glad your grandmother died before her daughter. It would have killed her.”
Now, I had to tug to get the lid open but finally, it came up, and I pushed it as far back as it would go, then set it all in front of Jamie. She was still on the floor and peered into the box as she clasped her hands together under her chin. Quite adorable, I had to admit.
I sat next to her. “Do you want me to look in case there are any bugs?”
“I thought you said it was too tight?”
“I’m just teasing you.” Whatever was in there had been covered with a piece of finely knit lace in a flower pattern. The material had yellowed with age but was remarkably intact. I lifted it. Inside was what looked like a leather-bound book of some kind. I pulled it out and handed it to Jamie. “A journal?” I asked.
She opened the first page. “Yes, it says ‘The property of Annabelle Cooper Higgins. All intruders beware.’”
“I hope she didn’t put a curse on it,” I said.
“It’s dated, too: 1928.” Her eyes sparkled. “This is amazing. It’s the diary of Annabelle Higgins. But why was it in the box buried in the yard?” She pulled out a long, narrow box like one a necklace would come in. At least in modern times. I had no idea what kind of jewelry men used to give to their women back then. She popped it open, but it was empty. Only a yellowed cushion where a necklace would have been displayed remained. “This must have been a special piece of jewelry. I wonder where it went and why this box is in there without it?”
“All good questions, detective,” I said.
Next, she drew out several letters and a faded, sepia-toned photograph of a woman sitting in a wide chair dressed in a simple dress and a straw hat over what seemed to be masses of hair.
“This is Annabelle,” Jamie said. “I recognize it from the other photos I had before the fire. I had them displayed all around the inn. All that was lost, obviously.”
I inspected the photo carefully, curious about this woman from the past. Since the photo was in black and white, I couldn’t make out too many details, but it was obvious she had been a beautiful woman. She had a round, merry face, a small waist, and curvy hips. I remembered seeing a photograph of Clive Higgins that Jamie had had hanging on the wall of the inn before the fire. He had been broad-shouldered with a face as square as his wife’s was round and wide-set eyes that seemed to stare at the camera as if he expected something bad to leap out of the contraption and kill them both. “I’m remembering you had Clive’s photo up on the wall.”
“That’s right. Their wedding photograph as well.” Jamie tapped the end of her nose with her index finger. I’d noticed she did this when she was thinking. “I always thought they seemed like an odd couple.”
“How so?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure how to explain it. She seemed worldly and sophisticated and he was kind of big and rugged. Obviously, they were in love and were married for a long time, so what do I know?”
“Why do men in old photos always look wary?”
“I don’t know, but I totally agree.” Jamie peered more closely at the photo. “She was a redhead, but you can’t see that in this picture.” She looked up at me and said, as if I’d asked her how she knew all that, “I read anything I could find on her when I bought the inn. Clive was already here when she arrived to live with Quinn Cooper Barnes. Alexander Barnes had sent for her and Quinn’s mother. They’d been in Boston, practically starving.”
I nodded. This was all Emerson Pass folklore around the high school, which was named after Quinn Cooper Barnes. The history of our little town was simple but sweet. Lord Alexander Barnes had come from England and transformed a town ruined in a fire into a thriving ski community. He’d had five children before his first wife passed away and was raising them on his own until he met Quinn. She’d been hired to be the town’s first schoolteacher. They’d fallen in love and married, adding two more daughters to Lord Barnes’s five. “Trapper’s dad has a lot of information on the history as well. He let me look at some of the old letters and journals one time.”
“Lucky.”
She sounded so genuinely envious that I laughed. “I’m sure he’d let you take a look if you asked,” I said. “He’s proud of his Barnes family heritage.”
“I would be too.” She sighed and touched the silver heart that hung around her neck. “It’s all like over-the-top romantic. Don’t you think?”
“Indeed.” I couldn’t help but grin back at her animated expression.
She drew from the box a dull silver pocket watch and handed it to me.
The hands had stopped forever at four minutes to five. What day, I wondered? “This is beautiful. If we polished it up, it would look like new.”
“Does it work, do you think?”
“We could wind it and find out,” I said.
“Not yet. We don’t want to mess up the last recorded time.”
“Agreed.” I turned it over in my hand to see a small etching on the back. To my love. Forever yours. A. “She must have given this to Clive for a present.”
“It’s weird she put it in the box,” Jamie said.
“Or any of this stuff.”
“Maybe after Clive died she put it all in here? She wanted to keep it safe?”
“Could be,” I said, thinking out loud. “It could be a way she dealt with her grief. Who knows? Maybe she only meant to put it out there temporarily and then died before she could bring it all back in the house?”
“If that’s the case, then she was way more eccentric than what I’ve ever read about her. She was, by most accounts, passionate about her work and family, including all the nieces and nephews the Barnes family gave her.”
“But where’s the jewelry that was in here?” Jamie held up the skinny box and shook it. “Why is the watch here but not whatever this was?”
I looked at the small stack of letters, tied together with a red ribbon. They were addressed to Annabelle Higgins. The return address had no name but was listed as Canal City, Florida. “I think that’s about an hour south of Tampa,” I said. “Who did she know there?”
“Maybe a bride?” Jamie asked as she opened the journal. A separate piece of paper slid to the floor. She picked it up and said, “Oh, this is interesting. It’s like an intro to whatever’s in the journal.”
“Read it immediately,” I said.
“I’m with you.” She began to read.
This is Annabelle Cooper Higgins. Wedding dressmaker. The year is 1924 as I write this. I have a secret. One I cannot hold inside me another moment. I cannot tell anyone what I’ve done. Not my husband, obviously. Not even my beloved sister, Quinn. We have never kept anything from the other but my shame keeps me from telling her the details of my heart. If I don’t write it all down and confess, I shall perish. So I’ll put it all here in the contents of these pages and then I’ll lock it all away. All of it. The jewelry and letters. The watch Bromley returned to me. The one gift I gave him he could not bear to keep. Not after we’d agreed to walk away. Within the pages of this journal are the details of my indiscretion. I’ve included all the letters we exchanged as well. Per my request, Bromley sent them all back to me. He understood my need for control. My desire to pretend it never happened.
This is the burial spot for our love and my betrayal. By burying it all here under my favorite spot in the garden, I hope to finally put this love affair to rest and go on with my life. Such as it is.
I have come so often to sit on this bench in the shade. Thoughts of him always accompanied me. But they can no longer do so. I must let go or hurt the man who has stood by me through everything, who has loved me beyond measure. I must be present in the here and now with my Clive. My first love. My husband.
I keep my hands busier than ever, hoping hard work will erase the memories of Bromley and the love we walked away from. “We must do the right thing,” I’d whispered to him. “I must go home.”
“Yes, you must,” Bromley had replied. “But it will feel like death to me.”
I’ve tried to push away thoughts of him. But it is no use. He is always with me. I cannot let him go. Not all the way. But in truth, all I have left of him is the regret and angst about the impossible choice I had to make.
If only my creations could make me forget. Although there had never been secrets between us, I’ve been of two minds. Should I tell Clive what’s distracted me for these past months? Or, would it only hurt him to know the truth? Perhaps, it’s bad enough that I know it already. Whatever I decide, I cannot run from my grief or longing. It is ever present. Perhaps this is my punishment for betraying my husband?
Yes, I’ve deceived my beloved husband. Not in body, mind you. No, I couldn’t allow that to happen. Only once did I come close to allowing him to kiss me. That is the night I decided I must walk away and come home. In my mind, though, my heart, it all belonged to Bromley. It was not my intent.
I’d like to think it was only vanity that drew me to him. No man had fallen at my feet in such a way. I was thirty-four years old, after all. Beyond my best blooming years of youth to be sure. Yet he fell for me. Nor was it the lifestyle he represented. I never became caught up in his life of glamour and wealth. It might have been intoxicating to other women. Especially for one who grew up hungry as I had.
No, it was all him. Bromley Hunting.
It began with an invitation to make the dress and gowns for the wedding of Cordelia Hunting. They asked that I come to Florida to design a custom gown.
Who would have ever thought such a request would come? Not me. The Hunting family was as rich as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts.
All my life, I’ve tried to emulate my sister Quinn. I truly have. She is loyal and nurturing. A mother figure to all who meet her. I’ve failed miserably at being anyone but me. A dreamer and a romantic with the ambition of Lady Macbeth. How can all three of those qualities reside in the same woman and not do herself harm? I don’t know the answer, other than I am broken. I’m destroyed by the intensity of my feelings. I cannot simply carry on as if I am not changed by love. It would be impossible.
The ruin of two hearts, Bromley’s and mine. Now I must protect Clive. He must remain unhurt and innocent. He’s done nothing wrong except choose the wrong woman to be his bride. I am the one who must pay the penance, not him.
My story remains inside this journal. No one but God and myself knows the truth of my feelings. How ripped to bits I am. I must bury all my feelings and move on with my life. That is all I can do.
“Wow,” Jamie said, looking up at me with wide eyes. “Can you believe it?”
“Barely,” I said.
“Me either, but you can bet I’m going to find out more if I can.”
I had no doubt about that.