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“I know it’s what you would do, but I’m not like you.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? Because there’s no way, no way I would ever mope around for a boy, not even Weston Taggert. It’s just not healthy. Believe me. No boy, especially not Harley Taggert, is worth it.”
Claire rolled her eyes and decided the conversation wasn’t worth having. Everyone, including Tessa and Randa, disapproved of her seeing Harley. Like he was Judas or something. The atmosphere in the house seemed cloying, and she decided, as she always did when her sisters bugged her, that she’d leave Tessa to her makeup and Randa to her books and go for a ride in the hills. She’d always loved the outdoors and sometimes couldn’t stand being cooped up.
Passing by Miranda’s doorway she spied her older sister tucked in a corner of the window seat, a book in her hands, but her eyes turned toward the open window, as if she were looking for someone. Lately Miranda had been different, not quite so bossy, and there were times when she disappeared for hours. No one knew where she went, but she always had a book with her and Claire assumed she’d found a secret spot in the woods where she read. The strange thing was that Miranda was still reading the same novel, The Clan of the Cave Bear, that she had been reading for weeks. Randa could usually knock off a book in a few days. Something was going on with Miranda, but Claire didn’t have the time or inclination to wonder what it was as she hustled down the back stairs.
It was a muggy day, all the windows were flung open, and the strains of some love song from a Broadway musical echoed through the halls. No doubt her mother was at the piano again, adding music to a house that she hated.
Oh, Dominique tried. There were always freshly cut flowers in the foyer and dining room, classical music often wafted from hidden speakers, the silver was polished each week and used, with the crystal and gilt-edged china, at every evening meal. Tutors of French and violin, teachers for ballet and fencing, instructors for riding English style all paraded through the hallowed halls of this old house.
Claire ran her fingers down the smooth stair rail to stop at the bottom step, where the top of the final post had been rounded and worn from the touch of loving fingers. But not Dominique’s. She thought everything about the house disgusting; the rock fireplace, charred by years of blazes in the grate rustic; the antler chandeliers barbaric.
Claire loved them all.
Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, she dashed down the back hallway and through the kitchen. Ruby Songbird was kneading bread with her thick fingers while quietly humming in soft counterpoint to the piano’s sorrowful notes. Ruby was a statuesque woman with a smooth flat face, dark flashing eyes, and a rare smile that could light up the room. Her hair, if ever unbound, would probably fall to her knees, but as it was, the gray-streaked black strands were wound in a tight bun at the base of her skull, where, Claire was certain, she had a second set of eyes. Nothing seemed to escape Ruby’s detection.
In Claire’s opinion, not that anyone else seemed to notice, Ruby had changed a little, and lately seemed preoccupied as she went through her daily tasks of cooking or cleaning or keeping “that miserable caretaker and his stepson” in line. She had help, of course, but Ruby was in charge of seeing that the old lodge was kept the way Dominique demanded.
“Hi,” Claire said, snatching an apple from the fruit basket that had been left on the kitchen island.
“You’re going off riding again?” Ruby asked as she slanted a glance over her shoulder, her fingers never losing their rhythm in the soft dough.
“I thought about it.”
“Hmm.”
It was unnerving how the woman could guess her thoughts. Sometimes Claire wondered if she had ESP or something. Ruby claimed to be a descendant of the last shaman or chieftain or some bigwig of her tribe, and maybe she’d inherited some of his magic. Not that Claire really believed in all that stuff.
“Be careful.”
“I’m not going far.”
Ruby clucked her tongue. “But sometimes these woods . . .” Her lower lip protruded and she stopped herself, as if she’d said too much.
“What? What about the woods?” Claire took a bite, and the apple cracked.
“They’re haunted.”
“Oh, sure.”
“This was once sacred ground.”
“I’ll be fine,” Claire said, refusing to be baited and drawn into an argument. Ruby insisted, and maybe rightfully so, that the Indian tribes around these parts had suffered mightily at the hands of the white man. Claire didn’t want to argue the point. She’d read enough history to know that atrocities had been waged against the tribes, but she didn’t really feel it was her responsibility to right some age-old wrong, even if her ancestors had been bigoted rednecks. Fortunately Ruby’s kids, Crystal and Jack, didn’t seem to feel as persecuted as their mother. A pretty girl and free spirit, Crystal didn’t wear her Native American heritage as if it were some kind of badge of honor. Neither was it her personal burden. As for Jack—he was a hellion, pure and simple. The color of his skin didn’t have a whole lot to do with it.
“Just take care,” Ruby warned over her shoulder again as she deftly rolled the dough and split it into two loaves.
On the porch, Claire stepped into her favorite pair of boots and noticed a mud dauber building a tiny nest under the eaves. The wasp worked feverishly, its shiny black body in constant motion, its jaws chewing endlessly.
What did Tessa know about love, Claire thought, as she tossed the rest of her apple aside, followed a flagstone path to the stables, and slung a bridle over Marty’s wide head. Her father had bought the horses already named, and the two geldings—a pinto and a paint—had already been christened Spin and Marty after the heroes of some old TV show that Claire had never seen or even heard of before. The bay mare was Hazel, after an old character from the comics as well as a television show. Dumb names, Claire thought as she clucked her tongue and led Marty out of the stables and through a gate.
She didn’t bother with a saddle, just flung herself over Marty’s broad back. His ears pricked forward eagerly as they trotted through the stands of old growth Douglas fir. Shafts of sunlight pierced through the canopy of thick boughs, dappling the shadowy hills as they followed an old deer trail that snaked upward along the Illahee cliffs.
The air was thick and breathless, smelling of salt and seaweed and, motionless in the sky overhead, a few gossamer clouds clung to the tops of the coastal hills. Claire tried to shake off Tessa’s warnings about Harley, but couldn’t. Her sister’s observations lingered stubbornly in her mi
nd, echoing her own worries.
Since when did she care what Tessa thought? Chiding herself, she slapped the reins against Marty’s shoulder. The horse responded, his legs stretching into a quick gallop that snatched Claire’s breath and caused her eyes to tear. With pounding hooves, Marty sprinted through the trees, vaulting fallen logs that had toppled across the path, shying only once when a startled grouse, wings flapping wildly, flew out of a clump of ferns.
