Kathleen O'Brien - Christmas in Hawthorn Bay

Sean, who was two years older and much nicer, had always listed a detox center for their dad first. Jack had called him a moron. Betting that Kelly Killian could get off the bottle? You might as well throw the whole treasure away on a pair of tens.

“I remember,” Jack said. “That’s about a thousand hours of our lives we’ll never get back, huh?”

Sean shrugged. “Another piece washed up last month. We got six inches of rain in two hours. When it stopped, there was a Confederate coin out on the South Forty.”

Jake wasn’t impressed. Coins had washed up at odd intervals for the past hundred and fifty years. Just enough to keep the rumor alive. Never enough to make anybody rich.

“So, look, Sean, what exactly do you want me to do? I can try to get an injunction against the city council, preventing them from pursuing the eminent domain claim. But it’ll only slow it down. If they’re determined, they just might win in the end. The Supreme Court has ruled that this sort of thing, to bring in necessary revenues, is legal.”

“Slowing them down is enough.” Sean looked tired, Jack suddenly realized. “Truth is, Jack, I don’t really care about the house. I’m ready to let go of it. Too many memories, I guess. I’ve done everything short of an exorcism, but the damn place is still haunted, you know?”

Jack nodded. He’d never understood why Sean stayed in the first place. Their only living relative was their grandfather, Patrick, who had once been a strong force in their lives, but who now resided in the local nursing home.

A major stroke had brought him down—no one was sure how clear his mind was now, Sean had explained when he’d called Jack after the stroke. Patrick had almost complete loss of motor control on his left side. He couldn’t even leave his bed, unless the nurses hoisted him into a wheelchair and strapped him in.

Surely he could be moved to another nursing home, in some other city, if Sean really wanted to get away.

Jack certainly had wanted to. Once Nora Carson had made it clear she never wanted to see Jack again, Hawthorn Bay had held nothing for him. He was sick of fighting the Killian reputation—even if he had contributed plenty to it himself.

And he wouldn’t have lived in this house for all the gold in the world.

“Okay. But if you don’t want to save Sweet Tides, why did you need to import a big-shot Kansas City lawyer like me?”

Finally Sean smiled. “To slow them down, like you said. I want time, Jack. I want time to find the gold. And I want you to help me.”

Jack hesitated. Then he laughed. “You sure you haven’t taken up the bottle? You’re talking crazy now.”

“No, I’m not. A friend of mine, a woman named Stacy Holtsinger, she’s found something. You don’t know her, she came here after you’d already left. But she’s doing a master’s in history, and she’s going through a lot of the old Killian letters for her thesis. She found one that seems to talk about the gold.”

“Everyone talks about the gold,” Jack said irritably. “Words are cheap.”

“She’s got the letter now, but I’ll show it to you tonight. I think you’ll see what I mean. It feels important. It feels real.”

“Sean, look, you told me you needed a lawyer, not a treasure hunter. I’m afraid I left my metal detector at home. Besides, I’ve got a job. I’ve got cases in Kansas City that—”

“A month. That’s all I’m asking. Every big shot can get at least a month off, can’t they? It’ll mean we have Christmas together. And you can see Grandfather.”

That would be nice. He and his grandfather had been close when Jack was little. Patrick had provided the only affectionate “fathering” Jack had ever gotten. Some of his happiest memories were of walking through the marshes with his grandfather, bending over to inspect the bugs and butterflies Patrick pointed out.

When Patrick and Jack’s dad had fought for the last time, Patrick and Jack’s grandmother Ginny had moved away. Through the years, he’d visited them often—glad that he didn’t have to return to Hawthorn Bay to do it.

But he hadn’t seen Patrick since his grandmother’s funeral last year. He hadn’t seen him since the stroke. He had to admit, it was tempting.

“And hey,” Sean said, “we can clear out the rest of the stuff in the attic while you’re here. So even if we find nothing, the time won’t be a waste.”

Sean put his tea down on the bar and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He stared at Jack, and his face had that mulish look that all Killians got when they weren’t planning to back down, come hell or Union soldiers.

“Come on, Jack. I haven’t asked for a damn thing in twelve years. Can’t you give me one month?”

Jack couldn’t say no. He’d started out tough, and the Army and the law had only made him tougher. But not tough enough to say no to Sean when he sounded like this.

Besides, Jack was already here. That had been the biggest hurdle. Now he might as well look around. And if Sweet Tides was going to get bulldozed to make room for Slice O’Pizza and Yuppies R Us, he might as well stick around long enough to say a proper goodbye.

He’d say goodbye to old Patrick, too.

He stood. “Okay. I’ll stay till after Christmas. Meanwhile, I’ll go talk to the city attorney and see what this band of weasels is planning. I’ll pretend we’re going to fight tooth and nail. I’ll see if I can buy you some time.”

“Thanks, Jack. Really, thanks a lot.” Sean looked pleased, but still, oddly, a little uncomfortable. “I—Well, if you’re going right now I guess there’s one other thing I probably should tell you.”

“Yeah?” Jack raised the Killian brow. “What’s that?”

“Know how I told you Tom Dickson is on the city council?”

“Of course. That’s how you got me to come, remember?” Jack grinned. “Actually, I could probably have guessed that anywhere there’s a band of weasels, Tom Dickson will be nearby. What else is there? Have I got some other old friends on the council?”

“Sort of. Not exactly a friend, and not exactly a councilman. You see, it’s the mayor.”

“Okay. Tell me. Who is mayor these days?”

Sean paused.

“I’m sorry, Jack. It’s Nora Carson.”

1862

JOE KILLIAN WASHED UP in the river, though the December air was frigid. He was too covered in dirt and sweat to use the basin in the bedroom. Julia slept lightly on her perfumed sheets, and the stink of wet earth would wake her.

His shoulders ached. He’d worked hard all his life, but only with his mind, not with his arms and legs. Though he had inherited Sweet Tides and the one thousand acres of rice fields all around it, he’d never planted anything with his own hands.

Until tonight.

Tonight he had planted the crop that would, he prayed, secure his future. Billings and Pringle were arriving in the morning. They would take his gold for the Cause, and in return they’d give him piles and piles of Confederate paper.

Joe was a Southerner by birth, and his father before him. But Joe had married a Philadelphia woman, and he’d visited there many times. He knew facts, hard realities about the differences between the two places. He knew things that these naive Hawthorn Bay zealots—men who thought the South Carolina state line was the edge of the civilized world—couldn’t even imagine.

He knew that, unless God intervened with a miracle, Confederate paper would be worthless within the year.

And he knew that Julia, with her divided loyalties and her love of all things graceful and easy, would despise him for a fool. She had already hinted that, if foodstuff were to be rationed any further, she might have to make her way home to Daddy.