It was a good thing she had found the opening when she did, Kenna thought to herself. She couldn’t put on any more weight after spending a month in Chocolate Heaven. She pushed the thoughts of the past back in her mind and opened her eyes again. Mayberry was still there. When she was in Hershey the week before, waiting to hear back about an interview, a memory floated up to the surface from some hidden depth of her mind. That memory was Will Ashton. What the hell, Kenna thought. It’s not like she had any place else to go and no idea what the future held besides a job application for an assistant district attorney position. Kenna knew her subconscious had led her here to Will Ashton and to Keeneston, Kentucky.
Kenna pulled herself out of her thoughts as she drove up the driveway, surrounded by Bradford pear trees, and made her way toward the bed and breakfast Paige had recommended. “It's picture perfect,” Kenna said to herself as she got out of the car and looked up at the three- story, white brick Victorian.
The green front door opened and a little woman with a helmet of white hair stepped out. "Can I help you, dearie?" she asked Kenna with a soft, Southern tilt to her voice.
"Are you Miss Lily?" Kenna asked as she started up the steps to the wrap-around porch.
“Yes, surely I am,” Miss Lily answered, her hands clasped in front of her and with a dishtowel casually draped over her shoulder.
"Paige Davies said you had a room to rent for a couple of nights?"
"Yes, I do have a room for you, dearie. Come on in." Miss Lily turned and walked into the house, presuming Kenna would follow right behind.
Kenna turned back to her car, grabbed some of her bags out of the trunk, and hurried into the bed and breakfast just behind Miss Lily. The house was huge with a grand entranceway whose focal point was a wide sweeping staircase. There were large, square shaped rooms off to her right and left.
"Over here are the private quarters," Miss Lily said, pointing to the right. "This first room here on the left is the sitting room for our guests. There are books and such in there, and we have a fire at night in the old fireplace. The room behind the staircase is the dining room.”
“I love it.”
“Well then, I'll put you on the second floor. If you go up these stairs here, there will be another sitting room. Your room is off to the left."
“Thank you, Miss Lily. I'm McKenna Mason. It’s nice to meet you, and thank you for making me feel so welcome in your lovely house.”
“Not a problem, dearie. I'll give you a moment to settle in and lunch will be served in an hour,” Miss Lily said as she turned to head into what Kenna guessed to be the kitchen.
Kenna grabbed her bags and headed up a staircase obviously made for a different time, a time when ladies wore ball gowns so large they needed the six-foot wide stairs to sweep down while making a grand entrance for a ball.
The sitting room on the second floor was as large as the entranceway and full of overstuffed furniture and a braided rug on the floor. It was the perfect place to curl up and read a book. Two large windows overlooked the front yard and the street. Kenna turned to her left and opened the door to the Man O' War room. She had seen a lot of Man O' War names and couldn't figure why a large and deadly jellyfish was so prominent in Kentucky. Oh well, another Southern mystery she thought as she tugged her bags into the room.
In the center of the room stood a huge, king-sized, four-poster bed so high up, it had little steps to climb up to get into bed. A TV was on top of an old oak dresser that ran the length of the opposite wall. A window seat looked out to the side yard and down toward Main Street. A private bathroom with an iron clawfoot tub finished off the room. It was amazing. Just sitting in the room with the white lace curtains billowing softly and a spring breeze coming in the open window was enough to make her feel safe for the first time since she had left New York City.
Kenna unpacked some of her clothes, put them into the drawers, and went to wash up. It was almost time for lunch and amazing smells were coming up from the kitchen. Her mouth started to water as she thought back to the last meal she had at McDonald’s the night before in West Virginia. She finished putting the clothes away and opened the door to head downstairs. The door across the hall from her opened and two impeccably dressed people stepped out. They were dressed casually, well, as casually as you can be dressed in Ralph Lauren, Kenna noted.
"Oh, we have another guest!" sang the woman. She was a couple of inches taller than Kenna and in her early forties. Her makeup was perfect in that understated way only movie stars could manage. Her blond hair was pulled into a perfect ponytail tied off with a white ribbon. Kenna realized that if one weren’t used to shopping the expensive department stores like she was, one would never know the woman was wealthy, well, except for the eight-carat diamond weighing down her ring finger. Compared to this bubbly woman, Kenna felt much older than her twenty-nine years after the pressure and stress of the last month. Kenna pasted on a smile and turned to face the perky couple.