could make a trip to the bathroom resemble a glorious adventure. And now, she’d gotten sucked into this latest scheme of Gram’s, to convert the old family home into a bed and breakfast in the far western corner of North Carolina.
Not that Linden had anything better to do when Gram announced her “retirement” plans to return to her childhood home in tiny Cartridge Cove, population five hundred. Nothing better to do in this economy after she’d lost her job during that PR fiasco.
And with her fledgling public relations company on the verge of going under, Linden had been sent by the family to act as a cushion—foil or field hand, take your pick—to balance her grandmother’s “youthful” exuberance. But at least, thanks to Gram’s influence, she’d managed to snag the Cartridge Cove commemoration as a client.
“Look, Linden, darlin’.” Marvela thrust two bundles of fabric, one in each hand, at Linden.
“A Union flag?”
Marvela’s eyes danced. “And a Confederate one, too.”
“You don’t mean . . . ?”
“One son fought for the Union. The other for the Confederacy.” Marvela fluttered a hand in the direction of the window. “A lot of families in the mountains split according to conscience.”
Linden fingered the dry, brittle fabric. She hoped her own mother would never receive a flag on behalf of Royce, Linden’s younger brother, currently stationed in troubled Central Africa.
Marvela brushed a strand of her silvered hair from her face and reached once more into the trunk. “Maybe this book I found underneath the flags will tell us more.”
Linden grabbed for the book. They swapped items. Marvela placed the flags alongside the other treasures she’d unearthed—a silver pocket watch, a doughboy-style helmet, and an Art Deco brooch.
She plopped down beside her grandmother and brushed her fingertips over the dark, leather cover, the edges and binding frayed and crumbling with age.
“It’s a journal. Somebody named Sarah Jane Hopkins.”
“Is there a date?”
Linden lifted the book toward the dim light of the lone light bulb dangling from the ceiling. She squinted, trying to decipher the spidery, old-fashioned handwriting with its flourishes and curlicues in faded blue ink. “First entry, 1837. December.”
She grinned at her grandmother.
Marvela reached into the cavernous depths of the green leather trunk. “Cool.”
Cool? She threw her grandmother a fond look before turning her attention once more to the book.
“Time period’s right for Quincy’s museum and the commemoration. But too early to explain the flags.” Linden thumbed to the last page. “Last entry is dated—huh?”
Linden let out a gust of air. “1900. Perhaps a diary where she recorded only the milestones of her life. Maybe she’ll explain the flags, after all.”
Marvela popped her head out from the trunk. “Did I tell you how much I like that young man of yours, Dr. Quincy Sawyer? I’m glad he’s going to be okay.”
Linden cut her eyes at her grandmother. “He’s not my young man, Gram. Stop playing matchmaker. Been there, done that.” She tossed her head, sending a wave of tendrils tumbling out of her chignon. “Never again. And at my age . . .”
Marvela snorted. “Twenty-nine. And just because of one jerk, you’re hardly too old to lock your hope chest away for good.”
Graduates of Miss Ophelia’s, like Marvela, refused to understand in the twenty-first century, girls didn’t have hope chests. Or dream of love and take-your-breath romance in the crazy world of modern life.
Especially not after an experience with someone like The Jerk.
Marvela patted the side of the trunk. “Why, I bet this might’ve been Sarah Jane Hopkins’s own hope chest.” She gave Linden a sly, sidelong look. “And none of us are too old for romance.”
She made a show of smoothing the non-existent wrinkles from her perfectly creased jeans. “Not even me. Why, at my advanced age,” Marvela drawled in that cultured Southern belle tone she learned at Miss Ophelia’s, “you never know what I’m liable to do.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Linden fought the urge to smile.
“’Cause,” her grandmother laid her French-manicured hand on Linden’s knee, “you never can tell what adventure might be just around the corner. When you least expect it—”
“Like a tornado or E. coli?”
Marvela rolled her eyes toward the rafters.
Smothering her laughter, Linden stuck her nose into the pages of Sarah Jane Hopkins’s diary.
***
“Like this, Eli.” Walker tossed the small, deer hide-covered ball into the air and lobbed his netted hickory stick, propelling the ball in the direction of Eli’s outstretched stick.
“I’m open,” yelled Matt, another one of Walker’s stickball recruits. He sprinted forward, and then side-to-side dodging his opponents in the scrimmage match.
Eli spun and leaped, stick stretched high, into the air. With a whoosh, he sent the ball careening through space, over the head of a charging player straining for the interception. Matt, fending off another player in this down-and-dirty Cherokee version of lacrosse, made a leap worthy of the great Michael Jordan. Catching the ball in his net, he shook off his impending foe like a coon dog shook off bath water.
Walker, Eli, and their team cheered, hickory sticks stabbing the air, as Matt blasted the ball between their opponent’s goal posts to score. Amidst much jubilation, Eli and company performed a small victory dance with Matt perched atop their collective shoulders.
The rest of Walker’s Boys Club crew leaned over, hands on their knees, drawing in great gulps of air as sweat dribbled down their bare backs. Walker ambled over and clapped a hand on the nearest teen’s shoulder. “Better luck next time, Owle.”
Jake Owle straightened, mischief in his brown eyes. “Better luck if next time Matt Cornsilk’s on our side of the scrimmage.”
Walker laughed. It was true. Matt Cornsilk possessed an incredible agility coupled with explosive bursts of speed.
“I promise we’ll mix it up next time.” Walker caught sight of his mother, Irene Crowe, leaning against the chain-link fence that surrounded the high school baseball field they used to practice for the stickball tournament.
Walker’s smile faded.
He understood why she’d come. And it wasn’t to watch him coach Cherokee stickball.
Walker angled as the guys gathered around for further instructions. “Great practice. Don’t forget we play Wolftown next Saturday.”
Several of the guys groaned. “They’re big.”
“And
