From inside the barn came the dense thud of a stall door being slammed. A squeak of a gate. Around the side of the barn, Radcliffe’s bridled head emerged. Julia pulled herself up into the saddle and swung her leg over his back.
“Julia!” Alison cried upon seeing them. “Please, wait.”
There was a flash of chestnut flank and golden hair, and then the pounding retreat of hoofbeats reverberating against the green morning.
The dirt beneath his feet seemed to tilt, and Wendell steadied himself against his senses, the smell of fresh-cut grass fermenting in his nostrils.
NineRoberta
Roberta had heard about it that first morning in the IGA market. She was standing in the produce section, selecting tomatoes for a garden salad she planned to make, when she learned of it.
“Their car went off the road up on High View,” Mike Lanzi, the market owner, told Sherry Whiting, one of the local realtors. He shook his head sadly. “Such a tragedy. Both good people, both so young.”
Sherry put a hand to her mouth and gasped. “I just saw them at the gala! What about the children?”
“They were home,” he said softly. “Asleep in their beds.”
Roberta tilted her head in their direction, wonderingwhohad suffered such a terrible accident.
Sherry turned to her as if reading her thoughts. “Can you believe it? The poor Lancasters.”
Roberta had set down her tomatoes and exited the store.Wendell,she’d thought.
She’d gotten straight in her car and called him from the front seat. His cell rang seven times, then went to voicemail. Wendell’s voice was lilting, like his mom’s, and tears pricked her eyes as she listened to the recording. But Roberta did not leave a message. She went home and put on her apron.
Whenever she was stressed, she ate.A lot.And since she couldn’t very well eat for Wendell (though she’d done a bang-up job trying), she’d made him food. A roasted pepper-cheddar-chicken casserole she figured would fill a man up. The dish was still warm from the oven as she pulled it off the passenger seat of her car and carried it up the walkway to the front door. How long had it been since she’d walked up this path?
Before she could knock, Wendell opened the door. Roberta held up the tray and smiled sadly. “Sorry to drop in, but I wanted to bring you something.”
He looked down at the casserole, then up at her in surprise.
“I heard about the Lancasters.”
Wendell held the door for her.
They ate together on the porch in silence. After, Wendell mopped the last bit of creamy chicken off his plate and set his fork down. “That was delicious, Roberta. Thank you.”
Like his plate, his work boots, she noticed, were polished spotless. She wondered if this was a habit left over from his years in the Guard.
Wendell eased back in his rocking chair. “I don’t know what happened up there on that road. It’s a terrible corner, sure. But Alan was a skilled driver. From the tractors on the property to the vintage sports cars, he could drive anything. And he was with Anne. No way would he have been going fast.”
Roberta stared out at the green undulation of perfectly mowed lawn. It was as crisp as she imagined he kept the lawns at White Pines. “What will become of White Pines and the children?” she asked suddenly.
“There’s just one relative, Alan’s estranged sister,” he said. “Candace Lancaster is her name. She’s flying in from London. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Wendell looked down at his teacup, which she realized he hadn’t touched. “There’s already talk.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Roberta wished people would mind their own business, but facts were facts: the Lancasters were a big name in town.
The Lancasters’ fingerprints were all over Saybrook. The library had been founded by Alan’s grandfather. There was the village shopping center, with the IGA market, coffee shop and bakery, bookstore, and bank. The town marina, adjacent to the local beach, had recently had new docks put in. As it was, resident boat owners had to put their name in the lottery system just to get a slip. Only the summer before, the Village Playhouse, whose lavish productions were known to draw audiences from surrounding towns, had been revived with cedar shake shingles and a fresh coat of stark New England white paint. If Saybrook had been a charming New England village before, the renovations had delivered the past right to the present, straight out of the history books.
The Lancasters held positions on the Historical Society Board, funded the town’s higher-education scholarship committee, served on the Candlewood Lake Water Safety Commission. While all of those boards would certainly survive without them, the Lancaster Foundation was a tremendous investor and supporter.
The first rumor was that the family foundation would maintain White Pines for the daughters, and they’d stay on with the mysterious aunt everyone was wondering about, finish school, and move on with their lives as best as two orphaned girls could. It was tragic, but at least they’d remain in the community and school system, where they were known and loved.
A close second rumor was that the estate would be turned into a nature preserve for the town, and the main house into some sort of museum. This, of course, was popular with many who loved the large property and had always longed for the opportunity to sniff around the gardens and cultivated nooks and crannies of a place many had only heard about from those who were invited or couldafford to attend the social events held on the property over the years. As far as Roberta was concerned, there was a lot of nosiness behind that plan. Saybrook was lovely enough, and it was just plain selfish to sacrifice the home of two innocent children for a bunch of busybodies who were too cheap to pay for the garden-tour tickets the previous year. People should be ashamed of themselves.
She really hoped Wendell knew well enough to ignore all the talk. He’d been through enough in his young life as it was.
