Echoes in the Bayou (4 page)

"I
knew it then, but I ignored it," she said out loud and took a sip of wine.
How could
I have been so stupid?
She asked
herself.
It's over and done with
, her
conscience soothed her.
You've much better and more important things to look
forward to.

Magnus sat
in front of his laptop trying to think of a first sentence, that’s all he
needed was a first sentence. Once he got that first sentence out of the way,
the rest of the words would flow freely, of this he was sure. Ever since his
fiancée Jeanette dumped him six weeks ago, he’d been suffering from severe
writers block. The old place was something that he thought would be a dream
come true, it was out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest neighbor was miles
away and the history of the place was enough to stir up even the most skeptical
imagination. But here he was, six weeks in and nothing. He had a deadline; he
had to show his publisher something, anything.

I should have stayed in New Orleans
, he
thought to himself.  "That’s what I get for buying something on a
whim," he murmured as he looked around the old place.
Oh stop lying to yourself Magnus
, his conscience scolded him.
You left New Orleans because you needed
solitude, and when Jeanette told you that she didn’t want to go with you, well
let’s just say that put quite a damper on things. Then she dumped you claiming
that the distance was too great.
"Yeah right, distance my ass,"
he mumbled to himself.  He knew the real reason why his fiancée had
refused to move in with him, she had told him that she’d changed her mind about
getting married and that deep down she thought him incapable of loving her.

Magnus
knew what she meant, it wasn’t the physical love he had a problem with it was
the emotional love, the most important kind of love. He had spent several years
getting to know Jeanette and all the wonderful things about her but time and
time again he found himself lost. By the time they had reached their third
anniversary she had given him an ultimatum, either he propose or she was out of
his life for good, so feeling pressured he proposed.

He loved
her, or at least he thought he did but he just couldn’t come out and say the
words, he would always tell her that he was quite fond of her and when he
proposed he simply told her that she knew more about him than any other woman
and would she do him the honor of becoming his wife. He was surprised when she
accepted; he thought for sure she’d say no. But as the planning commenced,
Magnus soon realized that she wasn’t in it for love; she was in it for the
money.

What was
supposed to be a small ceremony, ended up becoming the social event of the
season and that was something he wasn’t prepared for. When he tried talking to
her about it, she’d simply guilt his loveless proposal on him.  She told
him that since he couldn’t say the word, he better show it and what better way
than to go all out for the wedding ceremony.
That was all it took, his fiancée had quilted him into paying for the entire
wedding, everything from the horse drawn carriages, to the opulent honeymoon in
Paris. She had it all planned out, the entire venue rivaled that of a Hollywood
wedding. And up until six weeks ago he was willing to shell out the money for
it all, anything so he wouldn’t end up alone. But when she broke it off, it was
all he could do not to beg her to come back to him.

For
Jeanette, living life anywhere that wasn’t New Orleans was not something that
she was willing to do, so when he bought the plantation she was beside herself.
"When will I see my friends? What am I supposed to do all day while you’re
writing? I hope you don’t expect me to just sit here all day and do nothing
while you write, because that’s not going to happen!" She argued. Even
though they were only an hour or so from New Orleans, for Jeanette the distance
was too far. "And what if there’s another hurricane like Katrina?"
She asked. "We’ll be dead before anyone even thinks to come and check on
us."

It was
then that he knew he’d be living at the plantation alone.

And when
he moved to Corinth without her, he realized that she wanted to put the miles
between them and not just the driving kind. Each time that he would make the
trip to see her, she would end up being busy or having other plans; it got so
bad that he found himself staying at her apartment alone most weekends.
Finally, she told him that she'd had enough; there was no use in continuing a
long distance relationship she told him. He knew then, probably even sooner
that she had been seeing someone else.

So Magnus
lied to his friends when they told him to come on back to New Orleans. He told
them that he needed to get the old place ready to sell and that it would take a
long time to take care of the renovations. He also wanted peace and quiet to
write his novel. And since Jeanette no longer wanted to be with him, he saw no
reason to go crawling back to New Orleans with his tail between his legs, no
way. He was going to stick it out alone, as long as he possibly could.

Just look at how far you’ve gotten Magnus, not one
goddamn word has been typed on your computer, you’re smart, real fucking smart.
"Well, there’s no going back now," he replied to his own conscience
. I made the choice to move out here, now I
have to live with that choice for a very long time. Everyone thinks this place
is haunted and after what happened to that older couple, not one person has
come to even look at the place. No one interested in actually buying it that
is.

He knew
how hard it was going to be to sell the place plantation or not, people
nowadays couldn’t afford a plantation, let alone a semi-dilapidated, haunted
one. The plantation was out in the middle of nowhere and if and when a good
rain came there was no way out because the one road that led to the plantation
almost immediately flooded. That was just one of the many problems the place had.
Anytime a potential buyer would come to view the property, they always ended up
being too spooked to even finish looking around.

He
remembered one evening several weeks ago when his realtor had brought an older
couple out to look at the place. They were retiring and were in the market for
an old plantation, something that they could refurbish and turn into a bed and
breakfast. Magnus had been excited to meet the prospective buyers; he was even
willing to lower the price if he had to. 

But the moment
they stepped over the threshold and into the large plantation, the older
gentleman got violently ill and his wife said she felt as if she’d been slapped
in the face. They all stood in awe as a large red mark appeared on her skin.
Needless to say, they didn’t wait around to see if anything else was going to
happen, and they certainly didn’t want to hear any explanation from Magnus, he
simply did not have one.

Shortly
after that particular incident, he told his realtor that if she kept what
happened to herself, that he would pay the fee and cancel his contract. She
wholeheartedly agreed, so that left him in search of a new realtor, he needed
someone who could be discreet and hands on. But before he’d put the house back
on the market, he’d hire a staging designer. He needed someone who would spruce
up the entire place and make it look inviting. And after searching online, he
found a real estate office that employed an in house staging designer. 
Even though the office was located in Savannah, some twelve hours away, he
decided to give Gavin a call. There weren’t many staging designers that were
willing to come out to the old place, let alone move in temporarily, so when
Gavin told him that he had the perfect woman for the job, he was glad that he
had gone outside of his usual comfort zone.

Magnus
hoped that with the offer to pay for her time and free room and board that she
would be willing to stay as long as possible in order to get the place looking
good as new. He trusted that all the renovations wouldn’t deplete his bank
account; he wasn’t really worried about that though, because there was no lack
of money. His latest book sales were doing phenomenal according to Steve, his
friend and agent and that was something he enjoyed hearing.

Even
though his father was a very successful oil tycoon, Magnus was glad that he had
made his own way and was pursuing his dream.  But now he was more inclined
to worry about the designer, this Ava Montgomery. He wondered if she’d take one
look at the place, turn hard on her heels and haul ass out of there. 

He
couldn’t tell Gavin or anyone else for that matter that he too thought that the
place was haunted. The last thing he needed or wanted was ghost hunters
prowling around or calling him to ask if a camera crew could spend the night.
He may be a bestselling author of historical, sometimes haunting romances, but
this was different, this was his home. If anyone was going to investigate it
was going to be him, and he would start by looking into the history of the
Montieu family.

He had
already managed to find out that there had been a suicide inside the house back
in its hay day, when it was an operational plantation. But that something bad
had happened that left the Montieu family virtually penniless. Magnus believed
that is was the suicide of their son, William Jr. that led to the family’s
ruin. It’s documented that his mother, Amelia Montieu found their only son in
the kitchen with a bullet hole through his head.

When some
of the house slaves were questioned, they said that he killed himself because
of a young slave girl with whom he had fallen madly in love with. But when his
mother told him that she had run away, he got hold of one of his daddy’s
pistols and blew his brains out. Magnus believed that William Jr.’s spirit was
still haunting the place. What he couldn’t put his finger on was why? And who
was the slave that he was in love with?

His mind
suddenly filled with unconscious insight.  The forbidden relationship that
went on behind plantation doors would be the premise of his new novel. The
master’s only son falls in love with a house slave from the plantation; their
love was so strong that when he finds out that she’s run away, he decides that
he’d rather die than live without her.
It’s
timeless
, he told himself. 

He knew
that if he wanted another best seller that he was going to have to do some
serious digging into the past of Montieu Plantation.  Just then, he
realized that calling Gavin and getting Ava to come out to the plantation had
been perfect timing. He would give her free reign over the entire house and
allow her to oversee the renovations while he busied himself doing research.
"This is going to be perfect," he said out loud as he began writing
the outline for his new novel.

Chapter
Four

It gave
Ava unexpected pleasure to pack the rest of her remaining bags, leave the key
on the dining room table and simply drive away. Everything she packed fit
perfectly into her car so there was no need to put anything else in
storage.  There was nothing, absolutely nothing that could make her want
to run as far away from Savannah as she could like being betrayed and used by
the man that she loved.

Even
though Magnus wasn’t expecting her for another day, she figured that there was
no time like the present and she wanted to put some distance between herself
and the betrayers, that's what she liked to call them. It was a new name she
had come up with last night while she lie awake going over what had happened.
To her, there was no other word that best fit the two of them.

Gavin had
told her that Magnus had been stricken with writers block and almost never left
the plantation, so she figured she’d take a chance and arrive there a bit
early. And if he wasn’t home, she’d simply go into town and get a room for the
night. Either way, she wanted to get the hell out of Savannah. It was six
o’clock in the morning and according to her gps, she would be arriving in
Corinth at about seven o’clock that evening.

She had
driven straight through to Alabama, and was in Tuscaloosa when her stomach
began to rumble. Glancing at the time, she realized that there was no rush;
Magnus wouldn’t be expecting her tonight anyway so she could take all the time
she needed. Although, she did want to reach her destination before nightfall,
and maybe she’d give him a call to let him know she would be arriving a bit
earlier than expected. "I gotta eat something first," she whispered
as she pulled into a local fast food restaurant.

  With
a full belly and gas tank, Ava hopped back onto the interstate, drove through
Tuscaloosa and headed towards Jackson Mississippi. She found it quite
liberating to be making the long trek to Louisiana alone. It was something that
she never would have thought of doing, ever.
Mom and dad would be so proud
, she thought to herself.
If only they were around to see it
. Her
parents had both passed several years ago, but she remembered when they had
informed her that she was adopted. It was at a time when they knew she’d
understand; they also told her that they loved her as if she was their own and
Ava knew that they had meant it.