The Guidance - By Marley Gibson Page 0,81

explains.

Celia rushes to Becca. "Let's see." She carefully thumbs through the pages. "This one's from the time after Major Fair left."

The major slides away from Courtney and makes his way to the other side of the room. I follow his every motion while Becca and Taylor speed-read the diary.

Taylor gasps at one particular entry and puts her hand to her throat. "Oh, bless her heart. She was told that Major Fair died on the way to Savannah!"

He growls, "What?"

"Give me a minute," Becca says. She's a horrendously fast reader, so we can get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later.

"I need water," I say to Jason.

"I'm on it."

Ten minutes later, Becca lets out a huge sigh. "Okay, so here's the deal. Ada Parry married James Kenney because he said Fair had wanted it that way if anything happened to him. Kenney told Ada that Fair died, and also intercepted every letter that was sent to her. She was completely miserable in her marriage with him after she found out the truth."

I'm somehow relieved to hear this. To know that the special love that Ada and Nathan shared wasn't just a fleeting thing.

Becca continues. Fair is directly behind her, listening keenly. "She was convinced that Nathan was dead, so life meant nothing to her anymore. After she agreed to marry Kenney, for safety's sake more than anything, she heard him bragging to one of his fellow soldiers one night that he had only married her for her family's land and to 'one-up that bastard Fair.'"

"I'll kill him with my bare hands," Fair snarls.

"Um, he's already dead," I say. "Anything else, Becca?"

"Yeah ... and he ain't gonna like this."

From the expression on his face, she's right. "Go ahead."

"Kenney was the one who signed the order for Fair to be sent to Savannah, away from Ada."

With that, every door in the house slams shut and I hear Fair howl to the rafters.

Chapter Twenty-One

Glass shatters in the front hallway.

"That's my mother's gilded mirror she bought in New Orleans," Miss Evelyn shouts.

More crashing. This time it's plates falling from the kitchen cabinets. I can see it like I'm in the room watching. Drawers fly open and the chairs are tossed backward.

"Stop it!" Stephanie screams. "You're destroying everything!"

Fair is in my face, so much so that I can almost detect his cold breath on my neck, chilling me to the bone. "Kenney did this! I want my revenge on them both!"

Instinctively, I reach out for him, only to meet vast emptiness. "It's past the time for revenge," I beg.

Father Mass takes two steps toward us. "Vengeance doesn't belong to us, old friend. It belongs to the Lord."

Becca shoves the diary into my hand. "Read it to him."

Without hesitation, I glance down at the page Becca picked out and in desperation read:

"'There is no love in my marriage. I never should have married a man I had no feelings for. It seemed the best thing to do at the time. I had to save the farm. I had to save Father. I had to protect myself, and James had seemed so kind to begin with. My heart bleeds for the joy I felt in Nathan's arms. Why, oh why, was he sent away from me?'"

Fair's wrath ebbs momentarily as he's caught up in Ada's words.

"Then there's another entry.

"'Never a day or a moment goes by when I don't think of what life would be like had Nathan Fair lived and returned to me. I cry myself to sleep every night with this strange man beside me. I weep in the mornings for what could have been. I shy away from all I have known, destined to live a life without warmth and true affection.'

"Don't you see, Major. She loved you."

"But she married him. She believed his lies. She didn't trust in our love. She betrayed me!" Again, his voice roars up to the ceiling, punctuated with acidic anger.

Loreen speaks up. "I've sensed the overwhelming sadness ever since the first time I walked into this house, and now we know what it is, Kendall. No one who lives here will ever truly be happy because of the resentment with which Fair oppresses this building."

My hands shake, not from psychic sensitivity, but from nerves. "What can I do? I'm at a loss."

"We have to get him to leave the girl alone."

An image shifts in my mind's eye, and I see Ada, young and beautiful, calling out to Nathan, her hand extended for him to take. Then it