He was a goner.
And if he caught any other guys staring at her, he’d bite off their heads.
“So. Where to?” He pulled out of her driveway and headed for I-20, which was one of the reference roads he’d memorized. In every city he scouted in, he scoped out the two main freeways. That way, he never felt lost, which meant he never felt out of control.
As for being alone in a lot of strange places, he’d gotten used to it. Came with the territory.
Eve pulled a piece of paper out of her sleek leather backpack. He caught a glimpse of a sun hat and a digital camera tucked away in there, as though she’d come prepared for an excursion. An adventure.
“I printed a map before I left the office last night,” she said. “Head east and turn south at Social Circle. The plantation is about fifteen miles south and then east again.”
Following her map, it didn’t take long before the Lexus slowed to a stop at a wrought-iron sign that swung next to the country road.
“Mirabel,” Eve read. “Est. 1858. Property of the Ashmere Trust. That’s the same people who organized the benefit we went to last week.”
“I have fond memories of that benefit,” he said. “Personal reasons aside, they seem to do good work.”
He pulled into a driveway that was more like a lane, winding off into a tangle of trees and some kind of voracious ivy that covered the ground. Eve sat forward in her seat, gazing intently out the window.
“Recognize anything?” he asked. “Any ancestral memory?”
With a flash of a smile, she said, “I’m interested in everything, that’s all. It’s a shame we’re too late for the rhododendrons.”
He was a desert rat, transplanted to the concrete jungle. All the trees and shrubs looked pretty much the same to him, but if she said those tall bushes with the dark leaves were rhododendrons, he’d take her word for it.
And then he forgot about the plants. He was too busy watching Eve’s face from the corner of his eye as the house came into view.
“Wow,” she breathed.
It wasn’t your standard Old South icon, with marble pillars and tall windows. Mirabel had been a working farm, and its spreading, clapboard lines showed it. But still, its two stories and eight front windows looked welcoming, as did the wide verandah, where Mitch had no doubt some previous generations of Bests had taken an afternoon whiskey and played games.
As they got out of the car in the parking lot, the front door opened and a petite woman of about seventy stepped out. “Are you folks here for the eleven o’clock tour?” she called.
Eve exchanged a glance with Mitch. “Uh, no, but we’d love to take it,” she said.
“Come right this way. My name is Adele Pierce and I’m a volunteer docent at Mirabel.”
They shook hands and Adele ushered them into the front hall. Then she looked Eve full in the face. “Pardon me for saying this, but you look terribly familiar. Have we met before?”
Eve smiled, and Mitch realized she probably got that same question every time she went to the grocery store. Look what had happened at the mall last weekend.
“I have a show on CATL-TV called Just Between Us. Do you watch it?”
The woman shook her head, eyeing Eve as much as politeness would allow. “No, I don’t have a television. My husband tells people I was born late…by about a hundred years. He was in the computer business, but I’ve never even turned one on. Never mind. It will come to me. It always does.”
Mitch waited for Eve to tell the docent that she was a member of the Best family, but when Adele showed them into a room that she explained was one of the parlors and Eve still said nothing, he concluded she didn’t want to go public about her interest in her family.
When Adele led the way across the hall to what was obviously a formal dining room, Mitch leaned in and whispered, “Not going to out yourself to our guide?”
Eve shook her head. “How weird would it look? I mean, what old-line Southerner doesn’t know everything about their family heritage, right down to the last twig on the family tree? Nana told me some stuff about my mom and dad’s generation when she was alive. And yes, I got the tour of Uncle Roy’s family photos, but as far as the family that lived here, I know next to nothing.”
“So you’re a tourist in your own backyard, huh?”
“Literally.”
Adele stopped next to the fireplace, where a massive mantelpiece was held up by a pair of Art Nouveau nymphs. “The house has had a number of renovations,” she explained, “the most extensive of which took place in 1910 after Artimas Best made a killing on the stock market.” She ran an affectionate hand over the lines of a nymph’s flowing tunic. “This mantel, which even I have to admit looks completely out of place in a structure that was essentially a farmhouse, was imported from England. And over it you’ll see the wedding portrait of Artimas and Evalyne Best. Evalyne was one of the Eden sisters, who were the belles of their generation. She married Artimas in 1903.”
Dutifully, Mitch looked up at the black-and-white photo, which was a little blurred with age.
And he blinked. Looked from Evalyne to her…what? Great-great-granddaughter? And back again. There was the sensual mouth and the wide-set eyes. Evalyne’s hair was pulled up and poufed out in Gibson girl style, but it was dark like Eve’s, and while she was nearly lost to sight in a cascade of ruffles, there was no mistaking the corseted hourglass figure.
He couldn’t tell if Eve was having the same sense of déjà vu. She stood on the Turkey-red carpet, gazing silently at her ancestors as if they were a puzzle she’d figure out if they just gave her long enough.
Mitch glanced at Adele, who had obviously made the same discovery he had.
“Miss, if you don’t mind me saying so, I now know why you seem so familiar. I’ve been looking at your face for about nine months, that’s why.”
Eve turned to her. “My face?”
The older woman gestured at the portrait. “You’re a dead ringer for Evalyne Best. Are you a member of the family, by any chance?”
Mitch waited for Eve to fib and end the odd moment with a suggestion that they move on with the tour.
“I am,” she said instead. “My name is Eve Best.”
Adele put a hand on her heart. “Mercy sakes. You don’t say.”
“And from what I can figure out, that lady up there is my great-great-great-grandmother.”
“Great…Let’s see now.” Adele did some figuring in her head. “Artimas and Evalyne had a boy and two girls. The girls married men from Savannah-brothers, they were-and moved away, but the boy stayed on to run the family business, which was a savings and loan outfit until the crash of twenty-nine. He had two boys, Cecil and Merlon.”
“My grandpa was called Cecil.”
“Well, there you go. Cecil had two boys, as well. Your dad must have been Gibson, because your Uncle Roy is on the board of the Ashmere Trust and I know both his girls.” Eve nodded. “I was so sorry about your parents, dear. Such a tragedy.”
“It happened a long time ago. But thank you.”
“When you’re as old as me, ‘a long time ago’ is relative,” Adele said with some asperity. Then her voice softened. “So you’ve come back to Atlanta and have a television show, do you? I’m glad to hear it. Your aunt and uncle will be glad you’re home, too.”
“They are. Do you know them well?”
“Roy and my husband did some business together. A start-up, I think you call it. I never pay much attention to that kind of thing. It’s much more interesting to learn about lace-making patterns and how to preserve quilts, in my opinion.”
Eve laughed. “My aunt might agree with you. She tried to teach me to sew when I was a kid, but I was never very good at it.”
“Your mother wasn’t, either, poor thing. But lands, she was a beautiful woman. Talk about the belle of her generation. The family had fallen on hard times by the time she married into it. Your grandpa had to give up this property and they moved to a place in town when your dad and uncle were boys. In fact, I babysat them when I was a teenager. Now, that was a long time ago.”