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“Yes,” Hattie said. “A friend of mine, Atticus Cameron, found me a house to lease.”
The girl’s brows rose almost to her hairline. “Wow, Uncle Atticus never does that. O’Hara land is for family only. Y’all must be close. Or maybe a long-lost cousin?” Mac asked hopefully.
“He’s your uncle?” Hattie couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice.
“Well, not really,” she said. “But he might as well be. I’m Mac O’Hara, so I know right where this house is. You’re not too far.”
“You’re an O’Hara?” Hattie asked.
“It gets complicated if you think about it too hard,” Mac said, grinning. “Basically, my great-grandpa settled here. And he had two sons. My grandpa was one of those two sons. And Atticus is the nephew of my grandpa’s wife. But Atticus is like some crazy-rich security military guy, and sometimes my uncles do some work for him.”
“How many uncles do you have?” Hattie asked, feeling her brain start to short-circuit.
“Four,” Mac said. “My mom is the only girl. But I told you my grandpa had a brother. And he has five sons too. So what I’m saying is Uncle Atticus is technically family, though I have no idea what he really is to me. Maybe a cousin?” Mac shrugged. “And this is his house on the property, though he’s never there. He lives in Dallas full-time. But most of the rest of the family lives on the land. There’s a lot of us.”
“Lord, isn’t that the truth,” Alice said. “You could throw a dart into a crowd and the odds of hitting an O’Hara are pretty high.”
“Though we prefer not to have darts thrown at us,” Mac said.
Another loud rumble of thunder made the glass in the windows tremble. “Can you tell me how to get to the house?” Hattie asked.
“I’d recommend you don’t,” Alice said. “It’s not an easy drive on a sunny day. You sure don’t want to tackle it in this weather. You sit right there in that booth and let me bring you some breakfast.”
“I do appreciate the offer, but I can’t stay. I really need to get settled.”
Alice nodded sympathetically. “You’re plum worn out, aren’t ya? I can see it in your face.”
Another rumble of thunder, this one closer than the last, had her looking out the front windows. The sky was getting darker and had a greenish tinge so it looked like an ugly bruise.
“There’s only one way to get there,” Mac said, taking a pen and drawing a map on the paper. “Just keep going down Main Street, and don’t turn off on any of the side streets. The buildings and everything will eventually end and the road will turn from two lanes into one. That’s where O’Hara land starts and there’s a big sign that says private property. You’ll see the cameras.”
“Cameras?” Hattie asked.
“Uncle Atticus is a stickler about privacy, and it gets a lot more intense the longer you drive.”
Hattie remembered the security she’d had to go through when she met with Atticus at his office in New York. Security was Atticus’s business, and though she didn’t know exactly what his job entailed, she knew that it was high risk, high profile, and the protection was probably more than warranted. But considering she was here to hide, maybe the privacy intrusion was welcome.
“You’ll pass some fenced-in pastures for a couple of miles, and then you’ll come to a fork in the road with an enormous tree that splits the fork. You can’t miss it. Now,” Mac said, with a dramatic pause. “Make sure you take the right side of the split.”
Hattie was going to ask what was so bad about the left side of the split, but knew the quickest way to get moving was to keep her mouth shut. Mac certainly didn’t need any prompting to keep the conversation going.
“The house Uncle Atticus has you in is on Tribulation Pass,” Mac continued. “That’s not too far from where I live. You’re in one of the lake houses. The numbers are on the doors, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“I appreciate your help,” Hattie said, reaching in her bag to pay for the coffee.
“It’s on me, honey,” Alice said. “Welcome to Laurel Valley. And make sure you come back and see us. I want to hear all about what brings you here.”
Hattie fought the panic that rose inside of her, and told herself to relax. She and Atticus had talked over what she’d say when people asked her that question. His advice had been to stick as close to the truth as possible without giving too much away. It was easier to remember the truth than too many lies.
“I’ll be back once I get settled,” Hattie said.
She took her coffee and map and hurried back to the car, putting it in reverse before she got her seat belt fastened. The coffee went forgotten as she put the car in drive and headed down Main Street.
“Just stay on Main Street,” Hattie muttered. “You’d think that’d be easy enough to do.”
But she soon saw it was more complicated than that. The street opened up into what should have been chaos and there was a large roundabout that somehow tied it all together. Thank goodness there was no traffic. She and roundabouts didn’t have the best track record. She’d had a close call in Chicago, but she’d somehow passed through unscathed. Only terrified.
There was a sweet-looking church on the left with an A-frame front and a bell tower on the attached building. There were green wreaths on the front double doors and a lone black car parked to the side. On the right was a library built of wood and stone and glass that was as beautiful a structure as she’d ever seen. She decided it would be one of the first places to visit now that this was her home.
