Ties That Bind by Brenda Jackson Page B

don’t. What if they find out? What if you’re caught? What will they think of me?”
    When the car came to a stop at a traffic light, he reached over and cupped her chin with his hand. “They will think that you are the most beautiful woman in the world who has totally captured my heart. And I love you.” He leaned over and brushed her lips with his. “Relax. I promise to be on my best behavior for the next three days.”
    â€œYou promise?”
    â€œYes, I promise.” He smiled. What he wouldn’t tell her was that her definition of “his best behavior” was totally different than his.
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    Jenna felt the beginnings of a nervous lump in her stomach when they caught the ferry over to Glendale Shores. Randolph hadn’t said a lot about how his grandparents came to live on the sea island or how many other families lived there. Jenna knew from one of her history lessons that like Hilton Head, Glendale Shores was a sea island occupied since the late eighteen hundreds by free black men who formed a number of communities on the island. These communities consisted of farmers, fishermen, basketweavers and fishnet makers. Jenna also remembered that just like on Hilton Head, the Gullah culture was still preserved. The Gullah were a strong group of African-Americans, many of whom were born on the islands and spoke the Gullah dialect. However, unlike Hilton Head, which had been home to several thousand blacks since the end of the Civil War, Glendale Shores was an island once owned by a wealthy white plantation owner. He had willed the sea island to descendents of the slaves who had worked for him a number of years before his death.
    When the ferry arrived at Glendale Shores, Jenna couldn’t do anything but hold her breath when she found herself surrounded by the
peaceful beauty of nature. Everything on the remote island, every towering tree, every flowering plant, and every blade of green grass was painstakingly beautiful. And with a sweeping view of the Atlantic Ocean as the backdrop, it made a breathtaking picture.
    Rolling down the car’s window, Jenna breathed in the warm fragrances of flowers that were unknown to her, thinking that this had to be the most beautiful land on the East Coast. Sighing with pleasure she turned to Randolph. “How long have your grandparents lived on this island?”
    Randolph smiled. He understood what she was going through. Glendale Shores always had the same affect on him whenever he returned after a lengthy absence. “My grandfather was born on this island. He brought my grandmother here when they married and the two of them have been here ever since. I remember my mother sharing stories with Ross and me about her days growing up here. In order to go to school she and her cousins would catch the ferry to Beaufort.”
    He slowed the car down as he turned the corner onto the only road she saw, a long gravel road that ran the length of the ocean before winding into an area surrounded by underbrush, needle grass, palmettos and pine trees. “The island,” he continued saying, “was willed to the Denison family in the mid eighteen hundreds. For a while, during the Civil War, General Lee commanded all the islands along the coast of South Carolina. When a hurricane hit he and his troops moved inland to Savannah.”
    â€œI think it’s beautiful,” she said, her gaze returning to look out the car window. A part of her felt encompassed by nature as they drove through a dense and wooded area. “Do you have a lot of relatives living on the island?” she asked.
    â€œNo, right now the only ones living here are my grandparents and two of my grandfather’s brothers and their wives. For a long time there was no electricity. Everything was done by primitive means. So when the young Denisons could escape to modern civilization, they did. Most of them moved to Savannah and Beaufort. This island is private and the