Page 43 of Taken Away

If you’re reading this, then Eleanor has already frightened Aubrey half to death with legal paperwork, and you’re probably hiding up on that ridge pretending none of this concerns you.

It concerns you.

So sit down and read the whole thing before you start cussing me for meddling from the grave.

My original will left Blackwood to Anne. For years, I believed it was the least I owed my sister after everything that happened between us. But Anne stopped loving this place a long time ago.

Aubrey is not her mother.

She’ll try very hard to convince you otherwise. Lord knows she inherited her stubbornness honestly. But there’s something in that girl that belongs to these mountains, whether she understands it yet or not.

Blackwood has a way of getting into your blood.

Harold loved this land with everything he had. So do I. I believe Aubrey will, too.

Don’t let her run before she has the chance to feel it for herself.

And Ben… she is going to fight this place at first. She’s going to fight you too. That girl has spent too much of her life believing she was unwanted.

Anne did not always care for Aubrey the way she should have. I suspect you already see some of the walls Aubrey built because of it.

But beneath all that sharpness is someone far more fragile than she’d ever allow another soul to see.

And I need you to do this for me, Ben.

Protect her. Protect Blackwood.

You once asked me why I trusted you with this place when there were people with more money and prettier credentials willing to take it over.

The answer is simple.

Because you loved Blackwood for what it was instead of what it could give you.

You put your hands in this soil and gave this mountain pieces of yourself when you had nothing left to give anyone.

Somewhere along the way, you became the closest thing I ever had to a son. Blackwood became part of you, too.

I love you far more than I ever said aloud.

Mabel—

Jesus.

Bennett stared at the paper, unease settling low in his chest. The words blurred. For a second, he had to close his eyes to breathe.

A sharp vibration cut through the quiet.

His phone slid across the stone, the screen lighting with a number he didn’t recognize. Pennsylvania area code.

He snatched it up. “McCrae.”

“Bennett.”

Her voice wasn’t the smooth, corporate purr from the barn office. It was thinner now, tight with a kind of fear he’d never heard from her before.

“Aubrey?” His whole frame went tight, his hand clamping on the edge of the stone. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”“I’m—I’m in the kitchen,” she said, breath uneven in his ear. Through the receiver, Bennett heard a sound that made his blood run cold—Moose’s full-throated guardian roar rattling the Victorian’s glass. “The side door. The porch latch you told me about. Someone—someone tried to force it. Moose exploded, and I saw a shadow running toward the black barn.”

Bennett was already moving. He didn’t grab a shirt. He didn’t think about anything but distance. He snatched his truck keys off the hook, shoved his feet into his work boots by the door, and slipped his buck knife into his pocket, his heart slamming against his ribs.