How wonderful it must be to have a grandparent willing to protect and pray for her family. “The obituary mentions grandchildren but nothing about a son.”
“They were probably estranged.”
“Do you know what happened to Simon?” she asked.
Finn dropped the cuff link into his pocket. “Only speculation.”
She didn’t bother asking what he speculated.
“Come on.” He waved her toward the trees opposite Haven House, the forest shadowed by nightfall.
She hesitated. “What’s in there?”
“An answer to one of your many questions.”
“But it’s almost dark.”
When he clicked on the flashlight, curiosity drove her forward. They’dtaken only a few steps into the trees when she saw a rusty iron fence and behind it—“A cemetery?”
“It belonged to the Ashe family.”
She paused by a gate, scanning the shadowed stones. “Why did you bring me here?”
Finn didn’t say anything as he walked into the small plot, and she followed him tentatively to a stone that read Abram Manning.
“Abram was my great-grandfather.” Finn placed one of the bouquets on a mountain of old flowers. “He passed along his passion for farming to my whole family.”
Harper marveled at his knowing not only where his ancestor lived but what he enjoyed.
“Is your grandfather buried here too?”
He shook his head. “We buried him at the Lamb family plot.”
Near Abram’s grave was another stone, this one engraved withAnnabelle Leigh Ashe. As Finn adorned it with another bouquet, Harper squinted in the dim light to read the dates: 1920–1921.
Annabelle had been a year old.
“She was Graham and Olivia’s daughter,” he explained, still holding two of the bouquets. “Eli used to accompany Olivia up here to remember Annabelle and Reverend Ashe, and then he brought flowers on his own after Olivia was gone. I took over when he died.”
As he spoke, Harper was trying to reconcile the man who practically chased her off the property with the man who baked blueberry oatmeal and kept up his grandfather’s tradition of remembering Olivia’s daughter with flowers. “How often do you visit this place?”
“About once a week in the warmer months.”
“He’d be pleased to know that you continue to honor her family.”
“Thank you.” He set a bundle on the grave of Reverend Ashe before his flashlight beam swung past Annabelle’s plot, to a plain stone on the opposite side.
Harper crept closer and then gasped at the simply etched name. “She’s here?”
He nodded. “She died thirty years ago in Cincinnati.”
Numbers stacked up in Harper’s head. Thirty years meant Olivia lived a long while after police discovered her car. “Are you certain it’s her?”
“My grandfather was. He retrieved her body in 1976.”
“So he knew where she went...”
“I don’t think he knew in the early years. After she left, an attorney sent the Lamb family money on behalf of her trust to care for the property. When my grandfather turned twenty-five, he received another letter from the attorney. Olivia had a provision that Eli be given the opportunity, if he wanted it, to take over the management of her personal estate. He agreed and began to farm the portion of her land that bordered the Lamb property.”
