Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

To: John Riley Beauregard ()

From: Annabel Rhodes ()

August 22, 2003 7:23 AM EST

Subject: Re: Nice meeting you

Hi Beau,

I have to admit I was kinda surprised to get your email. In a good way, don’t get me wrong. But I would think the star football recruit (yes, I googled you) had better things to do than email a freshman nerd like me. Could be my hangover anxiety talking, but how long did I go on about poetry? Not as long as you went on about Pirates, granted. But Jesus, I need a babysitter.

Glad you had fun. I did too. Maybe this makes me sound like a jerk, but you’re not at all what I expected. Not saying that jocks can’t have a sensitivity to great literature and the finer points of porn, but…yeah. You took me off guard a little. In a good way. I literally knew no one when I stepped on campus last week, so it’s been really great meeting cool people. My boyfriend, who goes to college out west, hasn’t had the same luck.

Another surprise? That you remembered I brought up my parents’ separation. I try not to think about it too much, because it’s just…yeah. Pretty awful. But thanks for offering to talk. I just might take you up on that.

But I do love to think about changing the world. Doing something I love, traveling all over, having a big family in this big, rambling house. Thanks for listening.

I’m actually swamped with work now that classes have begun. But, because I’m a nerd, I’ll tell you that I’ll be at the library tonight around eight tackling my econ homework if you’d like to join. Greer, second floor, far corner.

Random question, but why don’t you go by your first name?

I also want to hear more about this farm you keep talking about.

—Annabel

PS: Shirts AND pants are essential library wear (fight me)

PPS: I’ll bring my copy of The Secret for you. Maybe you and I could start our own little book club or something? Some poetry, some fiction? We could call it Word Porn.

Chapter Two

Annabel

We’re in the sticks.

Way, way out in the woods, a good twenty miles from where we exited I-40 just past Asheville.

“You sure this is it?” Mom asks as I make a sharp turn onto Blue Mountain Road.

It’s bisected by double yellow lines, so technically it’s two lanes. But there’s no way you could fit two cars side by side on the narrow pavement.

Makes me a little nervous.

Going slowly, I duck my head, trying to get a better look through the windshield of my Volvo. The ribbon of blacktop stretches out before us, disappearing up, up, up into the trees ahead. “Pretty sure. Last time I came up here, Beau drove, so…”

“Almost two years ago, right? In the Bentley?”

“Of course.” The memory of the freedom I felt on that drive—freedom I didn’t fully appreciate until it was gone—makes my eyes prick. I swallow, blinking hard. “That man loves his toys.”

I haven’t been up to the mountain since. “I want to make sure we have all the kinks ironed out,” he’d said when the resort first opened. Then I got pregnant, and was so sick my first and third trimesters that I wasn’t really up to the trip.

I glance at the rearview mirror to see Mom looking at me. “I always thought it was cute, how he loved showing off his cars to you. He always tries so hard to put a smile on your face.”

“He tries hard at everything.” I carefully guide the car around a hairpin turn. “That’s how he can afford the Bentley. And Blue Mountain Farm.”

“I thought you said he and his siblings inherited the farm from his dad?”

“He did. But his dad was sick for a while, so the property was pretty neglected by the time the kids got their hands on it. Beau was always determined to fix the whole place up. He had a vision for what he’d wanted to do with it back in college. And now he’s made it happen, with a slight detour along the way.”

I can hear the grin in Mom’s voice. “I wouldn’t call what he did a detour.”

My ears pop as we crest a hill. I work my jaw side to side, trying not to get distracted by the pretty mountain vista that stretches out to our right. It’s a sunny spring day, bright and crisp. Carolina blue sky above, smoky blue mountains below. The trees are in full bloom, bright green everywhere; pollen coats my windshield, and for the third time since we left Charlotte, I spray some wiper fluid to clear the view.

After I talked to Beau at the pharmacy, I called my boss, Matt. I pretty much laid it all out for him. Having him agree to another month of leave was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I have a new start date of April 1.