Page 63 of Horn of Plenty
Some things never change. Her father was still infuriating.
“Where did you learn to make a social media account?” she pressed.
“The library! They had a whole class on helping old-timers like me understand the internet. The Young sisters signed me up. That’s where I met Claudine,” he finished with the sweetest look on his face, and she couldn’t stay mad at him.
Her expression softened. “But why Castle King? It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Her father sighed. “It was supposed to be Casserole King, but there’s this thing called autocorrect, and I didn’t notice that it had switched casserole to castle.”
She chuckled. The man knew about autocorrect. “Old dog, new tricks,” she teased.
“Something like that,” he replied when another question popped into her head.
“How did you know about Bella Mae? I never mentioned it to you.”
“I might be a quiet man, but I’m not blind,” he began. “I saw your notebook. You used to hide it under your bed. I didn’t understand your fascination with clothes and your desire to leave home and travel to far-away cities. I didn’t know what to do. It was easier for me when you were a tomboy, but then you grew up. But one thing never changed. Just like your mother, you always burned so brightly. You were driven and focused. Even now, that’s true. But Bella Mae wasn’t you, Mabel.”
“And that’s why you went online to Bella Mae—to take it away?” she pressed. It hurt to ask the question, but she had to know.
The man shook his head. “I didn’t want to take anything away from you.”
“But you did, Dad. That post is what caused me to lose what I had been working for.”
He rested his hand on her shoulder. “Before your mother passed away, she told me that she wanted you and Jamie to be everything you could be. I wanted you to be able to have all that without having to pretend you were someone else. My heart was in the right place. Things had been strained between us for so long. I couldn’t have called and asked you to come home.”
He was right. Still, his timing was uncanny.
“How did you know to post about my true identity on the day I met with Chelsea?”
There was no way he could have known that.
Her father’s gaze grew glassy. “The day I made that post, I found one of Jamie’s notebooks in the house. It had fallen between the fridge and the side of the cabinets. I opened it to a dog-eared page that had your name at the top.”
Her name was mentioned in one of the farming journals?
No, it had to be a mistake.
Jamie had never said anything about wanting her to be involved with the sustainable farming initiative.
“I don’t understand, Dad. What did Jamie write about me?”
The man pulled his cell phone from his pocket, tapped the photo icon, then showed her a picture. “You can read it for yourself,” he said gently.
Tears came to her eyes. “Ask Mabel to set up social media for the town.”
“Your brother needed your help, Mabel Ruth.”
“I never knew that,” she whispered.
“The journal entry was dated on your twenty-first birthday,” he added with a shake to his voice.
“The day he died,” she whispered.
Elias nodded. “He didn’t get a chance to ask you. He must have made the entry early that morning. But he knew, even then, that you’d be able to help the town.”
She brushed a tear from her cheek.
“They’re always with us, Mabel,” he said, holding her gaze.
