AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Blake looked him in the eyes. “Have you forgiven yourself?”
Hez sighed. “There’s only one person who can really forgive me, and she’s buried in a little grave on top of a hill a few miles from here.”
“God can forgive you.”
Hez looked away from his cousin’s steady gaze and fixed his eyes on the water. A breeze wrinkled the surface, scattering gleams of sunlight. It was a good day, and he didn’t want to ruin it.
Blake meant well, of course. So did all the people who had tried to console him with heartfelt Christianese at Ella’s funeral. But it was all white noise to him, empty phrases he’d heard a thousand times growing up. How exactly was he supposed to “accept God’s forgiveness,” “experience healing grace,” and so on? None of those platitudes would let him go back and undo that terrible day. None of them had saved Ella, and none would bring her back.
Hez could feel Blake watching him, but his cousin accepted his silence. Hez appreciated that. Blake knew him well enough to realize that pressing the subject would only result in an argument.
The pond surface swirled and Hez’s fly vanished. His line snapped taut, and the rod tip dipped toward the water. He spent the next thirty seconds battling a huge bluegill. The animal sanctuary’s ponds weren’t open to the public and had some of the best fishing in Alabama as a result. If Hez were actually fishing seriously, he’d probably be getting a bite on every cast.
Blake netted the fish and dropped it in the boat’s live well. “Here’s the thing. A week ago, all you wanted was a chance to show Savannah the new Hez. Well, now you’ve got your shot. The circumstances might not be quite what you had in mind, but she’s practically begging you to spend time with her.”
“The circumstances aren’t at all what I had in mind. And this guy she’s interested in—he’s a key witness. I’d need him to testify persuasively and hold up under cross-examination. I’d have to spend hours with him and build a good rapport, and all the while I’ll want to punch him in the face.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“So you’re ready to let her walk because you’re too much of a wimp to face down a rival? Show her how you’ve changed? You’d be a fool to walk now when you’ve got a second chance waiting for you to take it. Where’s your fight, man?”
Blake had been the one who’d found Hez’s support group, and he’d talked him off a ledge once or twice after Savannah had left. Hez had learned the hard way to listen to his cousin’s advice.
“Fine. But you’d better be ready to bail me out of jail.”
Chapter 7
Savannah eyed the run-down bungalow on the outskirts of Nova Cambridge. Peeling green paint hung in strips from the decaying shutters, and the siding held hardly any color at all. One porch post hung at an angle, and as she approached the front door, she spotted the way the bottom of the post wasn’t secured to the floorboards. The whole thing could come down in a puff of wind.
She didn’t want to be here. This ramshackle little home scared her more than any haunted house ever had. But the path to tenure went through that crooked door, and she was determined to follow it. She took a deep breath and walked up the weedy path. Once she verified a handful of facts, her book would be ready to submit.
The wood door swung open before she could knock, and a tiny woman barely five feet tall appeared. Her white hair curled around her face and highlighted her faded brown eyes that nearly disappeared into wrinkles when she smiled. She wore a pink blouse tucked into gray slacks.
“You must be Savannah Webster. I’m Helen Willard. Come in.” She scooped up an orange cat that was about to bolt through the door.
She didn’t remember Savannah. That was a big relief. Their paths hadn’t crossed since she’d left for college, but she still vividly recalled “Miz Willard’s” dislike of all things Legare. The miniature woman in front of her was a sharp contrast to the female powerhouse she’d feared all her life.
She followed Helen through a warren of pathways constructed through boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling. Savannah sneezed at the smell of must and old paper. When they reached the living room, she glanced around for a place to sit, and Helen moved a pile of photo albums out of the way.
Antiques stuffed the small room, and Savannah instantly coveted the barrister bookshelves with their glass fronts. She couldn’t identify any of the titles inside, but she edged toward that end of the old sofa in hopes of making out some of them. They might be helpful for her book.
“It’s so kind of you to agree to see me.” Savannah pulled her notebook and pen from her purse. “Nothing has been published of the early history of TGU and the Willard Treasure, and I plan to change that. You know more about it than anyone else.”
Helen gestured at the stacks of boxes. “I’m sure you think I’m just a hoarder, but someone had to save the history. These boxes contain memorabilia and newspaper articles about my family’s past. I hoped this day would come and there would be a resurgence of interest in my great-grandfather. I remember him as a dashingly handsome gray-haired man with a booming voice and a kind manner. He deserves to be remembered for the visionary he was.”
Savannah had always thought Joseph Willard was a lot like her dad—bigger than life and a hero to those who didn’t know him well. Scratch beneath those likable surfaces and the rot underneath became all too clear.
She nodded. “I’d love to hear the story of how and why he founded TGU. He was quite wealthy?”
“Nouveau riche, not inherited. Like so many after the Civil War, he was a carpetbagger, which made the woman he wanted to marry turn up her nose. She was one of the Cabots, and they only married Harvard men. He wanted to push her face in his success, so he came south with a plan. He managed to buy some abandoned plantations, and he immediately loved the one here in southern Alabama. He had a scheme to create a southern university that could rival Harvard and Yale. Grand architecture with equally excellent instruction.”
Savannah had never heard about Willard’s broken heart and motivation, and she jotted it in her notebook. “That had to have cost a lot of money.”
Helen shrugged frail shoulders. “He sank most of his fortune into the venture. Top architects clamored to design the buildings, and when they were completed, he hired the best minds to be professors. He never wanted the Harvard-educated Boston Brahmins to snub him again. And so Universitates Nova Cambridge Willardius was born.”
Savannah turned a warm, encouraging smile on Helen. “And we still have Nova Cambridge as part of the area’s heritage.”
Helen preened at the comment. “You’re a nice young lady and well versed in the events, it seems. I wasn’t going to let you see the letters about the Willard Treasure, but I’ve changed my mind.” She rose and dug through a box before she handed over a stack of envelopes.
Savannah could hardly wait to read them. She opened the letters and snapped pictures of them with her phone. “These are wonderful, Miz Willard.”
