“She’s a piece of work,” he replies. “But at least she left me alone for the most part. Didn’t make hating me at least eighty-nine percent of her personality like the others did.”
“It is impossible for anyone to hate you.”
“You only think that because I go down on you so often,” he jokes, but his shoulders are tight again, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. Overhead, the sky is starting to darken, thunderheads forming on the horizon. It’s still summer here in the South, no matter what the calendar says, the heat and humidity thick outside. Camden says it will be cooler in Tavistock, but nothing like Colorado this time of year.
“I am not the most unbiased of women, no,” I reply, trying to keep things light, but we were so close to actually getting somewhere that I can’t help but add, “So out of the two who are left, Ben and Libby, which one hates you the most? I need to know so that I can adjust my fighting strategy accordingly.”
That gets me a genuine smile, and he glances over again. “God, I would pay a lot of money to see you take on either one of them. Both of them. But you’d have unfair advantages.”
Lifting his thumb off the steering wheel, he wiggles it. “One, Ben thinks he’s hot shit because he played football, but he played for a small private school that played against other small private schools, which means they all sucked.”
“Ah, so he’ll overestimate his skills, and then I’ll strike,” I say, nodding.
“Exactly. And two”—another finger––“Libby is a fuckup. Fucked up school, fucked up the two or three different careers she’s attempted, fucked up two marriages, and she’s not even thirty yet. I have no doubt she’ll also fuck up fighting. So.” He shrugs. “You should be set.”
“Thanksgiving just got extremely fucking real,” I say, and now Cam laughs, reaching over to take my hand, his fingers lacing with mine.
“It’s stupid, but it’s like I keep forgetting that I’m going back there with someone,” he says, and then he squeezes my hand. “With you. Whenever I think about being back there, I picture it like it was before. All of them as this … united front. And me. Alone.”
He lifts our joined hands, kissing my knuckles. “But now, I’m not alone.”
“Never will be again,” I tell him, meaning it.
With my free hand, I reach over to tuck his hair behind his ear. It’s longer than he usually wears it, more like it was when we first met, and I feel a sudden rush of affection.
He’s doing this for me. Walking back into the lion’s den because I asked him to. Because he loves me.
Guilt is oily and hot in my stomach.
Tell him, an insistent voice whispers. Tell him now, while there’s still time. Because if he finds out after you arrive …
But we’re almost there. We’re so close now, and soon, everything I’ve done will be worth it. And I will tell him. All of it, the whole story, no lies between us, just like it’s always been.
But not now. Not yet.
North Carolina has its share of beautiful homes. This is, after all, where you can find the world-famous Biltmore Estate, palatial home of the Vanderbilts.
Ashby House, just a few miles away in Tavistock, is not as grand and certainly a good deal more private—no tours here, I’m afraid!—but should you find yourself in the area, it’s worth the time to drive as far as the gates. In spring and summer, you’ll be lucky to see a chimney, but once the leaves fall, glimpses of the magnificent McTavish family home can be seen.
Built in 1904 by lumber magnate Alexander McTavish, the house is as eccentric as the family who owns it. Part Victorian, part Palladian, it features smooth gray stone and peaked roofs, marble patios and leaded windows. It should not work and yet, miraculously—almost mystically—it does. Guests of the home have commented that there’s something about Ashby House that makes you feel as if the rest of the world does not exist. As if you could stay safely tucked behind its walls forever and want for nothing else.
Originally called, rather fancifully, The Highlands, it was renamed in 1938 by Mason McTavish in honor of his （much younger） bride, Anna Ashby. Tragedy struck the home in 1943 when Mason and Anna’s young daughter, Ruby, was kidnapped from the forest surrounding Ashby House, but, as is befitting such a magical home, the story had a fairy-tale ending when Ruby was safely returned to her parents nearly a year later.
Ruby McTavish would eventually marry several times, and inherited the home when her father passed away in 1968. Widowed for a final time in 1985, Ms. McTavish resided in the home with her younger sister, Nelle, and several other family members before passing away in 2013.