In this dual-timeline story, two women come to terms with seeing the future.
Living in one of the whitest counties in Texas, twenty-nine-year-old Jess Atwood is plagued by visions she doesnât want and canât control. At the same time, she struggles to keep her familyâs organic farm out of foreclosure.
In 1960s Tennessee, Jessâs grandma Anna Mae has her own visions, which she thinks are divinely inspired. Each woman deals with her own visions differently, but both find themselves in trouble due to followingâand sometimes not followingâthem.
Jess must overcome her resistance to the visions and embrace her gift of second sightâor she may wind up as the next victim of a human trafficking and kidnapping syndicate. Anna Mae needs to stop obsessing about the visions that rule her life and drag her into danger.
In this dual-timeline story, two women come to terms with seeing the future.
Living in one of the whitest counties in Texas, twenty-nine-year-old Jess Atwood is plagued by visions she doesnât want and canât control. At the same time, she struggles to keep her familyâs organic farm out of foreclosure.
In 1960s Tennessee, Jessâs grandma Anna Mae has her own visions, which she thinks are divinely inspired. Each woman deals with her own visions differently, but both find themselves in trouble due to followingâand sometimes not followingâthem.
Jess must overcome her resistance to the visions and embrace her gift of second sightâor she may wind up as the next victim of a human trafficking and kidnapping syndicate. Anna Mae needs to stop obsessing about the visions that rule her life and drag her into danger.
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Prologue
Center Point, Texas
Twelve Years Ago
Jessica Atwood groaned and buried her head under the pillow when Kat shouted something from the far end of the farmhouse. She couldnât quite make out her motherâs words, but they probably wouldnât have made sense anyway. They never did during her so-called visions. Half a minute of silence passed before Kat yelled again, something about popcorn.
âDammit!â Jess threw off her covers, climbed out of bed, and pulled on her worn Dallas Cowboys bathrobe. Was living in a normal household too much to ask?
The teasing she endured at Center Point Highâespecially when one of her motherâs visions didnât come to passâirritated her profoundly. What she hated most was the Little Orphan Annie nickname she hadnât been able to shake since middle school. The rumor around school was that sheâd been adopted. How else could a person of color have two white parents? Her half-brother Kevin being white as well gave the rumor momentum. Plus, she had the perfect corkscrew curls for the Orphan Annie roleâor so the bullies said. There were seventy-three more days until graduation, and she could hardly wait.
Already frustrated by her motherâs yelling, Jess swore under her breath when a floorboard creaked as she stepped out of her room. She trudged down the hall, its unfinished knotty pine walls lit by the glow of the armadillo-shaped night-light her stepfather Dave installed after she had a few late-night collisions with door frames.
She arrived at her parentsâ bedroom just as Kat mumbled something about a family getting out in time. Her mother looked like a wild woman, sitting up in bed with scattered blonde hair covering half her face. Dave had already switched on his Texas flag bedside lamp, and he raised his eyebrows at Jess as she walked in.
âAre we doinâ this again?â she asked, feeling a pang of sympathy for him. He tolerated more than anyone could reasonably expect, and as far as stepfathers went, he wasnât half bad.
âDonât reckon we have much choice, though you coulda stayed in bed. Kevin is sleepinâ right through this.â
âYour son always sleeps through these episodes,â Jess said. âI donât know how he does it, butââ
âTheyâre all up there,â Kat interrupted, staring at the ceiling.
Jess sighed loudly. âHere we go again.â
Kat mumbled something about a store with smoking wires. No point in asking what she meant. The drill was to wait until she was ready. That could mean three minutesâor the better part of an hour.
âDave, honey, are you awake?â Kat finally asked.
Jess face-palmed herself. Who did her mother think had switched on the light? Gremlins?
Kat told her husband to call Scott Polk, who owned the hardware store downtown. Sheâd dreamt it was on fire.
Dave yawned. âIâll do it in the morninâ. We all need our sleep. Kale harvest starts Thursday, and weâre already behind schedule. Besides, your last three visions didnât even pan out. We might be wakinâ him for nothinâ.â
âSounds like a plan to me,â Jess said, hoping the episode would end before things got too crazy for a change.
âNo!â Kat shouted, startling them both. âCall him now.â
Dave glanced at his bedside clock and shook his head. âItâs after midnight. You know how Polk is.â
âDave Atwood, you call him or I will. You know he sees you as the man of the house. If you think heâd be grumpy with you callinâ him this time of night, imagine how heâd be if I called.â
He grudgingly picked up his cell phone and searched for Polkâs number. âYou sure about this?â
Jess dreaded the thought of yet another story about her motherâs visions making the rounds. What sane person would wake their neighbor in the middle of the night to tell them about some crazy dream? âYeah, Mama. If thereâs a fire, shouldnât we call 911 instead? You could block your number and call anonymously.â
âThatâs not how I envisioned it, and theyâd ask if I actually saw the fire, which I didnât. Besides, you canât block your number on a 911 call. Theyâd still know it was us.â Kat nodded at Daveâs phone. âIt wonât work any other way. Please, Iâm sure this time.â
After a momentâs hesitation, he tapped the call button and switched to speaker mode.
A sleepy Scott Polk picked up on the fourth ring. âThis better be good.â
âHey, Scott, Dave Atwood from Heart of Texas Farm. Sorry for callinâ so late, butââ
âItâs not late. Itâs early. Way too early to be talkinâ on the phone, thatâs for damn sure.â
âI know itâs not the best time, and I hate to bother youââ
âThen why are you botherinâ me?â
âWell . . .â
âWell, what?â Polk snapped.
Kat took that as her cue. âTell him his store is on fire.â
Polk heard her. âThe hell you carryinâ on about? Look, I donât know if yâall are drunk or just playinâ some cute little prank, but Iâve got the best remote monitorinâ system money can buy, and thereâs no report of smoke or fire. Iâm lookinâ at the green âall clearâ symbol right now. Glad yâall think this is funny, but Iâm goinâ back to sleep. Donât bother me again.â
âMr. Polk, this is no joke. Iâve seen it.â
âWhat do you mean, youâve seen it?â He undoubtedly understood exactly what Kat meant. Probably half of Kerr County knew about her visions.
âThat family upstairs wonât have a chance,â Kat said, âunless you call the fire department now.â
âYou listen here, maâam. I mean no disrespect, but that there is crazy talk. There isnât one livinâ beinâ upstairs or anywhere else in that buildinâ except maybe a few mice. Our systemâs got smoke detectors, heat detectors, motion detectors, broken water pipe detectors . . . weâve got more detectors than you can shake a stick at, all reportinâ back to me in real time. If anythinâ did happen, itâd wake me right up. So yâall just go back to whatever you were doinâ before you rangâor donâtâbut do not even think about callinâ here in the middle of the night again.â
Jess heard Polkâs wife in the background ask what was happening.
âNothinâ, dear, itâs just them organic folks sayinâ thereâs a fire at the store when there isnât.â
Polkâs wife said something else that Jess couldnât quite make out.
âOf course Iâm sure,â Polk responded. âTheyâre just barkinâ up the wrong tree.â He came back to the phone with even more edge in his voice. âIâve had it with yâall,â he said and hung up.
Jess crossed her arms. âThat went well.â
âBetter than you think, sweetie,â Kat said. âGo on back to bed. Everythinâs gonna be fine.â
âSeriously? How is everythinâ gonna be fine? Didnât you just tell Mr. Polk his store was on fire? All you did was make him mad. Folks are just gonna think weâre plumb crazy.â
âYou mean theyâre gonna think Iâm crazy.â
âNo, Mama, they already say our whole familyâs insane. This will just give âem more ammunition.â Earlier that month in biology class, a girl named Rachel had joked that Jessâs family probably ate hallucinogenic mushrooms for supper, and a few kids laughed. Jess dumped a jar of wet fruit fly paste into Rachelâs lap without missing a beat. It earned Jess a three-day suspension, but hearing that girl scream was worth it.
âLetâs call it a night,â Dave said. âThis drama is officially over.â
Jess rolled her eyes. âIs it really over? You know itâs only a matter of time before she does it again.â
âPlease donât talk about me like Iâm not here,â Kat said.
âAnd where were you ten minutes ago? âCause you surely werenât here.â
Dave drew a sharp breath. âJess! Donât talk to your mama like that.â
âItâs okay. Sheâs just blowinâ off steam,â Kat said, giving her daughter a weak smile. âIâm sorry, sweetie. I know how difficult this must be for you.â
âYa think?â Jess glared at her mother and stomped out of the room.
She used the bathroom, hung up her robe, and heard the wail of faraway sirens as she climbed into bed.
* * *
Two days later, the front-page headline of the Center Point Online Gazette read: âFamily Saved from Hardware Store Blaze.â The article described how firefighters arrived at Polkâs Hardware moments after a rapidly growing electrical fire had started. They saved a family of undocumented workers living in a second-floor storeroom, hidden there by one of Polkâs employees. A shorted-out popcorn maker had been the cause, but the damage was minimal. The Gazette quoted Scott Polk saying that a high-tech monitoring system hadnât warned of the problem when it should have. When the Gazette reporter asked Polk how he knew about the fire, he simply shrugged and wouldnât say more.
The Atwoods, of course, knew the whole story. Yet Polk still hadnât called to thank them, which Jess thought was weird, considering that Katâs vision had saved his property and the lives of an entire family.
âSome folks arenât much good at showinâ gratitude, but that doesnât mean theyâre not grateful,â Kat said, putting the plate sheâd just dried back in the cupboard.
âHuh.â Jess stopped washing and stared at the soapy dishes in front of her. âDoes that mean I donât have to thank you for makinâ supper?â
âYou never have to thank me, honey. You should do it only when you want to practice gratitude and respect.â She started on another plate. âThe difference âtween you and Mr. Polk is that he doesnât have his mama there to remind him.â
âLucky me.â
Kat slid her arm around Jessâs waist and stared out the window a few moments before kissing her daughterâs shoulder. âLucky you.â
* * *
Despite the disturbances from Katâs visions and the occasional teasing Jess endured at school, for the next two years, she truly believed she was lucky, even when some mean girls started calling her Oreo in her senior yearâas if the Little Orphan Annie nickname wasnât bad enough. Her best friend Elena Rodriguez encouraged her to ignore the haters, which helped. People cared about her, and overall, life wasnât so bad.
That was before she wore the wrong shoes and turned her world upside down.
Chapter One
Center Point, Texas
Present Day
The strange dream about a choking baby had returned and kept Jess awake most of the night. Her greatest fear was not that people would see her as crazyâthe way theyâd seen her grandmother, Anna Mae, and Kat when they were aliveâbut that she really was crazy. Worst of all, Jess could do nothing to keep these hit-or-miss visions from coming. What was the point of seeing an anonymous baby in distress other than to frustrate her?
In this latest version, the dream included a neighborâs house down the highway, past the fork in the road. She was pretty sure their name was Thornton. They were Yankee transplants from Chicago who owned the Happy Platter Cafe downtown. Jess had never met them in person, but everyone in Center Point knew the cafĂ©.
She rolled over and eventually fell asleep, but the same dream woke her again around five a.m. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, thinking about the busy day that awaited her.
They decided as a family to keep the farm instead of selling it when Kat inherited the property from her uncle Rudy, but Jess often wondered if they had made the right choice. Organic production took far more effort than any of them expected. Without Kat and her organizational skills, they struggled to make a profit. They essentially lost Dave when they lost Kat. Though physically present, he was drunk more often than not. In their first season without Kat, they had hired Jessâs old high school friend Elena as their business manager. She was a big help, but she wasnât Kat, and they had been financially strained for the past few years. If they didnât turn things around, they could lose the farm.
More than anything, Jess wanted peace from visions that werenât always accurateâor relevant. Why couldnât she have a vision that would teach her how their farm could make money instead of losing it? If there was a baby choking, wouldnât the parents either deal with it or call 911? Part of her wanted to just leave it alone, but like Dave used to say back when he was sober, there were three kinds of people: those who act, those who react, and those who never act.
The last time she ignored one of her visions and didnât act, a young couple died. Jessâs dream about an orange Chevy Camaro with black racing stripes colliding head-on with a trash truck had begun early one May. It returned every two or three weeks, interrupting her sleep and disturbing her days. From the faint light of fireworks exploding overhead, the woman in the car looked like a girl who had been in her high school graduating class. Jess had dismissed it as nothing more than a recurring nightmare. Besides, was she supposed to call every trash company in town and have them warn their drivers to be careful on the Fourth of July based on her dream? They would think she was a prank caller.
In hindsight, if she had warned the sheriffâs department in time, it might have made the difference between life and death, but Jess would never know for sure. All she knew was that she didnât act, and her nightmare vision became real. On his way to load up spent fireworks and other trash from the Kerr County public display in Kerrville, the driver had his eyes on the show in the sky and didnât notice when his truck crossed the double yellow line. The couple in the orange Camaro had apparently also been distracted, as there were no skid marks from either vehicle until a few feet before they collided.
She had made no agreement with anyone to report dreams that might or might not come true. However, that did little to lessen her guilt over the coupleâs death. She never forgot Kat telling her when she was only nine or ten, âHope all you want, but the past never changes. Your future, on the other hand, is unwritten until you act.â Jess sighed and pulled on her running clothes. Time to act.@@@
Not wanting to wake her brother or stepfather, Jess made her way through the dark and quiet house, wincing every time she stepped on a creaky floorboard. Her great-uncle Rudy had built the place in the sixties, and the Atwoods were often reminded it had been a do-it-yourself job. If she was honest with herself, though, she liked its cozy, rustic feel.
What she didnât like was navigating in the darkness. When Kevin was only eight or nine, he told her she couldnât see well in the dark because her eyes were made of chocolate. Kat told Jess to ignore her annoying little brother.
The eastern horizon had just begun to lighten by the time she got outside, though a scattering of stars still decorated the navy-blue sky, subtly contrasting the moonâs pale-yellow crescent. The Kidwellsâ rooster across the road was already trying to wake the world with its crowing. Wallaby, her Australian shepherd, whined pitifully when she told him to stay and barked angrily when the door closed. Dave and Kevin wouldnât be happy about that, but they would probably be up in the next half hour anyway. She glanced at her watch. At least Kevin would. With Dave, it depended on how hungover he was.
She had thought about asking Kevin to come with her, but he wouldnât have approved. Her younger brother usually splashed cold water on anything to do with her visions, though she felt safer with him around. In her senior year, after a boy in her class started a rumor that heâd had sex with her, Kevin punched him in the nose. It was all anybody talked about for weeksâthe gay freshman with a stutter giving a bloody nose to a senior class student twice his size. However, while she liked that he was protective, he was a frequent source of unsolicited advice. The last thing she wanted that morning was to argue with him about warning the Thorntons.
The next-door neighborsâ farm took a long time to run past. Crape myrtles, their bright red blossoms gray in the predawn light, lined the road for a thousand feet. Behind them lay three hundred and seventy acres of wheat. Jess could tell from the scent of the gentle summer breeze that it had ripened and was nearly ready to harvest.
She was halfway to the fork in the road when she asked herself why she hadnât taken the pickup truck since the Thorntons lived over a mile away. At least it gave her time to think about what sheâd say when they opened the door. âGood morninâ, I was wonderinâ if your baby might be chokinâ . . .â Or better yet, âHi, I was wonderinâ if your baby was chokinâ, but for some reason you havenât called 911.â Or . . . nothing else came to mind.
Kat had earned a reputation as a crazy woman by telling people stories about the future that didnât always come true. Jess had no desire to follow in her motherâs footsteps. She slowed to a walk and looked over her shoulder, torn between doing what some dubious vision told her was right and making a fool of herself or going back home and minding her own business. She came to a complete stop. The choking baby dream may have only been a nightmare. There might be nothing to this.
Then again, there might be.
She started running again and soon arrived at the Thorntonsâ property. The sun hadnât fully risen, but there was sufficient light to see the modern three-story brick houseâa bit of an anomaly in that part of Texasâset back from the highway, just as it had appeared in her vision. Crookneck squash, zucchini, and Swiss chard grew on either side of the driveway, some of it going to seed. The Thorntons apparently produced just enough so they could advertise locally grown ingredients in their cafĂ©. Closer to the house, she passed multiple rows of fragrant English lavender, their faint purple hue just beginning to show in the early-morning light.
She knocked on the solid mahogany front door with its fancy decorative trim, first softly, then with increasing intensity. No response. She tried the doorbell and heard a muffled electronic chime deep within the house, but nothing else. She knocked harder and waited.
Still no response. At least sheâd tried.
As she turned to go, a faint sound came from inside. Jess pressed her ear against the door and thought she heard a soft noise that could have been almost anything, including the sound of a baby choking.
She tested the door handle, but it was locked. She trotted around the house, feeling a sense of urgency bordering on panic. After knocking on a few windows, she scolded herself for not bringing her cell phone. She pressed her face against the glass side panel of the back door with a âProtected by ADTâ sticker and could barely make out what looked like an old-style baby basket in the far corner of the room.
Jess pounded on the locked door with her fist and then checked under the doormat for a key. No luck there, and time might be running out for that baby. She picked up a stone large enough to break the glass, and her stomach churned as she thought about her next move. She needed a vision that would show her the right thing to doâbut nothing came. It never did when she tried to force it.
She took a deep breath, then hurled the rock at the ADT sticker, scattering bits of glass everywhere. Her hand shook as she reached in, and she swore when her fingers touched a secure deadbolt cylinder. Feeling around the wall to the side, she found a key hanging from a small nail. She used it to unlock the deadbolt, then pushed the door open. Two steps inside the house, she froze at the scent of cinnamon on buttered toast. Maybe they were home and just didnât want to answer the door. She had read about Texasâs âStand Your Groundâ law, which gave homeowners the right to shoot an intruder without having to answer too many questions afterward.
âHello?â she called out. With butterflies in her stomach and eyes fixed on the baby basket, she walked across the room in what felt like slow motion. Her heart sank when she found only a white blanket with little blue koala bears on it and a strong odor of talcum. Had she risked so much for nothing? At least the alarm hadnât gone off. Maybe they had forgotten to set itâor perhaps it was the silent kind.
Jess tried the bedrooms down the hall one at a time, her mind desperately urging her to get out of there. The third door she opened was to the primary bedroom. A crib stood on the far side of a canopied four-poster bed. She heard rustling from that direction and crossed the room in a few quick steps. In the crib lay a baby in a charcoal-gray and sky-blue onesie who seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him. A baby who was definitely not choking.
A silver SUV pulled up out front, and Jess frantically considered her options. If she ran out the back, she would look like a common thief, but trying to explain her misguided vision could be an even bigger mistake. She had to get out of there.
Jess hurried toward the back door and nearly collided with a shocked Lisa Thornton.
âWhat are you doing in my house? Are you from Child Protective Services? I was only away for a few minutes.â
âI was at the door and heard what sounded like a baby chokinâ.â Jess hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
Lisa pushed past her, ran into the bedroom, and came out holding her baby a few seconds later, her face flushed. âDoes he look like heâs choking? What are you really doing here? How dare you come in here andââ Her eyes widened as she noticed the broken glass, and her voice rose in pitch. âThatâs how you got in! What were you thinking? You were planning to kidnap little Jimmy, werenât you?â She shifted the now-whimpering child onto her hip and pulled a cell phone out of the rear pocket of her tight-fitting designer jeans. âIâve seen you around town. Whatâs your name?â
âIâmââ Jess began, then bolted out the back door.
Lisa yelled something she couldnât make out, but Jess wasnât about to stick around and find out what. Crossing the neighboring fields, she ran most of the way along the river, as far from the road as possible. She was well into a dense growth of Texas mountain laurel when a sheriffâs patrol car raced by with its siren wailing. It had been a mistake to run. Why hadnât she stayed and explained the situation to Lisa Thornton instead of acting like a common criminal? How hard would it be for the authorities to find a woman of color in a virtually all-white town?
The only reason she was in this mess in the first place was because of a stupid dream sheâd thought was a vision. She probably would have screamed in frustration if she wasnât so out of breath.
Back home, she waited in anticipation through the morning and into the afternoon, listening for a car in the driveway, which could mean the sheriff arriving to question or arrest her, or maybe one of the Thorntons coming to holler at her. How could she have been so foolish? Who in their right mind would break into their neighborsâ house based on a stupid dream?
Elena knocked on her door in the middle of the afternoon. âReady to go over the accounts?â
âSure.â Jess had forgotten their plan to go over the previous monthâs profit-and-loss statement. She didnât want to meet but didnât see any way out of it.
âWeâre not getting the numbers we need,â Elena began, âand thanks to you being behind on the accounts, we donât even know how far off those numbers are.â
It was difficult to focus, and Jess kept wondering whether sheâd be caught for the Thornton break-in. Elena eventually gave up with a dramatic sigh, telling her to reschedule when she was ready to give their meeting her full attention.
By the end of the day, Jess felt relieved that no one had shown up to arrest or yell at her and promised herself she would be more careful in the future. Just the week before, Kevin had said her visions were hopelessly intertwined with her imagination.
Maybe he had a point.
* * *
âWhy are you mopinâ around?â her brother asked after supper that evening as she watched a video of a national-level paintball competition on her smartphone.
She pulled out one of her earbuds and frowned. âIâm not mopinâ.â
âOf course not. This is what you look like when youâre happy.â
âThanks, I was hopinâ someone would come along and say that. Now, if you donât mind, Iâm kinda busy,â she said, turning her gaze back to the phone. She wasnât about to tell him what had happened at the Thorntonsâ house that morning, though sheâd decided to explain everything to Elena when she saw her next. Their business manager was more understanding and less judgmental than her brother. More importantly, she was a friend, while Kevin was . . . an annoying younger brother she happened to be in business with.
âCome out b-back and pop off a few rounds with me while thereâs still some light left. Itâll do you good.â
She glared at him. âYou should know better than to ask me that.â
âCall me a slow learner, b-but I see no reason not to ask you. We walk down to the river, shoot at some cans and targets, and suddenly feel much happier. We could even make it a competition.â
âYou know I donât touch guns.â
âAm I confusinâ you with someone else, or arenât you obsessed with a sport thatâs all about shootinâ people?â
âPaintball is nonlethal.â
âSo is shootinâ paper targets and tin cans. B-besides, I donât see any problem with firearms b-beinâ lethal, long as you make sure the person on the receivinâ end deserves to die.â
âWhich is probably what the guy who shot my daddy was thinkinâ.â
âRight. Youâre mad at whoever killed your daddy and are therefore mad at gunsâbut only the kind that use gunpowder, not paintball pellets. Maybe itâs just an excuse for b-beinâ mad at the world.â
âI think you missed your callinâ as a master psychologist, Kevvy.â
âDonât call me that.â
âWhy not?â
He shook a finger at her. âYou know damn well I donât go b-by that anymore.â
Jess just shrugged and walked away.
This book is about two women, over multiple generations, who are gifted with the ability to see the future. In the stream taking place in the past, Anna Mae's life is playing out, wreathed with uncontrollable visions that make her and her family laughingstocks - except when they are proven to be right. Her key vision is one affecting her own life. Will it come true? Or is this one of the visions that turn out to be false?
In the present, her mixed-race grandaughter Jess, living in the somewhat challenging depths of Texas, also fights to have her visions taken seriousl. She also gradually builds credibility and friendship with the local sheriff. This doesn't help her keep the family farm together, though, and doesn't given her quite enough information about the sinister forces affecting it. Pressures build up in both storylines, relationships are built and broken, and we become involved as we see the characters grow and change, assumptions be challenged and found wanting..
Groover masterfully weaves the two storylines together as the days move onwards and the women's lives come closer and closer. Each family set is well-drawn and the characters are likeable. Good guys have a back story, and the bad guys do, too - plus all are complex, something that doesn't always happen in this type of book. The situations all seem reasonable and even the visions are well-described and believable. The action gets more and more tense, and I found it difficult to put the book down as it reached a crescendo. It was easy to care about the characters and get involved in the situations affecting them.
The ending ties all up tidily and this was the only thing that seemed a bit too managed. I wanted to see a more adventurous outcome. That said, it was all very satisfactory and extremely capably done.
I recommend this book for those that like mystical fiction, romance, and thrillers. I'm looking forward to more from this author.