Which was exactly why Rachel had avoided coming back to Honoria for so many years. She’d dealt with too much scandal in her teen years. She had allowed gossip to dictate her actions then, but she’d long since stopped basing her behavior on what anyone else might say about her.
She’d also grown accustomed to spending her Christmases alone in her apartment in Atlanta, except for brief, stilted visits with her mother in Carrollton every Christmas Eve. She would have been perfectly content to spend this holiday the same way, had not family obligations interfered. Her maternal grandmother had grown too frail to live alone, and planned to move into a retirement home close to Rachel’s mother after the first of the year. Feeling a bit guilty because she’d stayed away from Honoria—and her grandmother—for so long, Rachel had volunteered to help settle the details.
She braked when she came to a gate blocking the road, yards short of the bluff she’d impulsively decided to visit. The gate hadn’t been there fifteen years ago. The McBrides had apparently gotten serious about keeping people off this land.
Turning off the engine, she sat with her hands on the steering wheel for several long moments, staring at the gate and the road beyond. The same impulse that had brought her here made her open the door and climb out of the car, zipping up her lined denim jacket against the cold morning air.
She’d met Lucas here on winter mornings like this during her senior year of high school. Bundled in coats, scarves, hats and gloves, they’d snuggled together for warmth, their breath mingling in the air as they’d gazed off the bluff and planned a future together.
Lucas had been two years older than Rachel, and she had adored him. He’d been handsome and exciting, tough and complex. His notorious temper hadn’t concerned her, since he’d never turned it against her. With her, he’d been gentle, caring—sweet, even—a side of him she knew few people saw.
She’d actually admired his rebellious spirit, envying him his freedom and courage. No one had made Lucas McBride do anything he didn’t want to do. Rachel had been just the opposite. Back then, she’d been the dutiful daughter, the teacher’s pet, the honor student and role model. Sneaking around to see Lucas had been the only act of rebellion she’d ever committed.
Feeling a touch of that old recklessness now, she approached the gate, noting that it would be easy enough to climb over. She put a hand on the top rail. She knew the gate was there for a reason, just as those Do Not Enter signs had been—but she wasn’t in the mood to meekly follow rules at the moment.
She was still telling herself what a bad idea this was when she rested a booted foot on the bottom rail and stepped up. It was as if she were compelled to finish this pilgrimage into the past.
Maybe if she faced the memories again, they would stop haunting her. Surely fifteen years was long enough to pay for the foolish mistakes of her youth.
She dropped lightly onto the ground on the other side of the gate, pleased and rather surprised by how easily she’d scaled it. Not bad for a thirty-three-year-old accountant.
She didn’t race up the path as she had at eighteen, but took her time walking the rest of the way to the overlook. It really was a beautiful morning. Birds sang from the tree branches overhead, and something rustled in the underbrush to her left—deer?—squirrel? She paid little attention to the noises, her attention focused on her objective.
The lane ended at the edge of the rock bluffs that loomed thirty feet above a wide, rushing creek. On the other side, the land rose again, climbing into more wooded acreage that had once belonged to McBrides, but had since passed into other hands.
Lucas had talked of buying that land, she remembered now. He’d wanted to build a house at the very top of the rise, with a deck overlooking the bluffs and the creek. He’d be able to feed the deer and squirrels from his porch, he’d said. Drink his morning coffee in the serenity of a crisp Georgia morning.
She wondered if Lucas had ever found the peace he’d craved.
A narrow footpath, worn by generations of hikers, ran along the edge of the bluffs. Rachel’s steps slowed as she followed that path, her boots crunching on rocks and twigs. She wondered if the old stone structure she and Lucas had spent hours in would still be standing after so long. Had the McBrides torn it down to further discourage trespassers?
But when she pushed past a straggly evergreen half blocking the little-used path, she saw that the old building was still intact, if considerably more weathered than the last time she’d seen it.
Built in the fifties by Lucas’s grandfather, Josiah McBride Sr., the ten-by-twelve structure resembled a gazebo or small pavilion built entirely of native stone. She and Lucas had always called it “the rock house.” Small openings in the walls allowed fresh air to circulate through. Moss had formed on the floor and walls, making the shelter look as though it had sprouted from the forest floor. Rock benches lined the inside walls, providing shaded rest for weary hikers, a quiet place to commune with nature and escape the stress of everyday life.
It had made a very romantic meeting place for two young lovers kept apart by family hostility.
Rachel realized she was holding her breath as she slipped through the open doorway. Her heart was suddenly, inexplicably racing, the way it had on those earlier, happier visits to this place. She exhaled deeply when she stepped into the shelter to find it predictably empty, except for piles of dead leaves, as well as evidence of four-legged visitors.
Lucas had always kept the shelter swept out. He’d made sure the benches were clean so that Rachel’s clothes wouldn’t be soiled when she sat on them with him. The last time they’d been together here had been a stormy Saturday, a week after Rachel graduated from high school. The rain had fallen steadily outside, showering musically from the leaves of the trees surrounding them, but they’d been cozy and dry inside the shelter.
Lucas had brought a picnic lunch, and they’d spent several stolen hours talking, laughing, kissing—and reading aloud from a book of poetry Rachel had brought with her.
A wan smile curved her mouth as she remembered Lucas’s initial skepticism about the poetry. He’d listened at first to humor her—he’d have done anything to please her then—and had read to her when she’d asked with halting self-consciousness. But by the end of that day, Rachel had thought Lucas was developing a budding appreciation for the verses she loved.
That day had been so innocent and romantic, so incredibly perfect that Rachel still got a lump in her throat when she remembered it. At the end of the afternoon, Lucas had told her that he wanted to marry her—as soon as she obtained her degree from Georgia Tech and he earned enough money to support them.
Crossing her arms tightly over her chest, Rachel leaned against a cold stone wall and gazed through one of the window openings. She was only marginally aware of anything she saw outside the structure; her mind was focused on the memories she’d hoped to exorcise by coming here.
Twenty feet from where she stood, an outcropping of mossy rock jutted over the sheer drop to the creek below. Rachel drew her jacket more snugly around her, feeling the cold penetrate to her bones.
Her older brother, Roger, had died in a fall from that very spot, soon after that blissful afternoon.
Rachel hadn’t been very close to Roger, who’d been a moody, argumentative, difficult young man of twenty-one, but his death had shattered the world as she’d known it at eighteen. She had lost her only sibling. Her mother, Jane, already embittered by the desertion of her husband years earlier, had drawn so far into herself that no one had truly been able to reach her since. And Lucas, the man Rachel had secretly loved, was the prime suspect in Roger’s death.
Rachel had never been alone with Lucas again. Less than eight weeks after Roger’s death, Lucas was gone, leaving without a word of explanation. Rachel had escaped to college that fall, and before the year was over, her mother, too, had moved away from Honoria and its tragic history.
Rachel suddenly realized that if she’d hoped to put the past behind her by visiting this place today, she’d wasted her time. The memories were as painfully vivid as ever. It wasn’t hard to imagine Lucas standing in the doorway, watching her with that brooding, hungry look that had always made her tremble in response.