Aunt Alexandra insisted on giving her graduation dinner in a small private room at the Pandora country club, but all Sam could think about was Jake, with whom she most wanted to celebrate this day but who would never be invited to the elegant club or any other place her aunt controlled. I’ll be eighteen next month I’m going to work. I’m going to make money. I won’t have to worry about Aunt Alex’s hold on Mom and Charlotte then, she told herself.
But that prospect seemed so distant.
Morose and resigned, she sat at the head of a glittering table dominated by a Christmas decoration of holly and red candles laced with gold mesh. She could barely see Mom over it, and just the top of Charlotte’s shaggy blond head. Charlotte was bent over the last bite of an amaretto birthday cake—trying, Sam suspected, to determine every ingredient and store the information for her own baking experiments. Mom looked tired and distracted, and the red velvet sheath that had fit her smoothly when Sam made it last Christmas hung shapelessly on her thin torso.
Sam had agreed to this dinner because Mom wanted it.
Orrin, tall and stately, with debonair white wings shading his hair at the temples, sat beside Charlotte, smiling at her as he watched her study the cake. Tim, who did not look pleased to be spending several hours of his Christmas break from the university this way, hunched over a glass of champagne.
Sam wished he hadn’t come to the dinner, and assumed her aunt had insisted. He was finely dressed in a tailored suit, but his thick, muscled neck strained at his shirt collar, and a beautiful tie bulged over the collar’s gold tie bar. Over the years he had barely spoken to her, and when he did, there was a sarcastic edge to it. She kept catching him staring at her with thinly veiled contempt, and when she stared back, his eyes shifted away quickly.
Aunt Alex commanded the table from Sam’s right side, and she looked immensely sophisticated in a gold brocade suit with shimmering gold piping down the front. Her favorite gold necklace, a heavy piece with a filigree pendant the size of a pecan, gleamed in the light from the candles and a chandelier.
“Time to open the presents,” Aunt Alex said happily, clapping her hands. A white-coated waiter glided in and removed the last of the dessert dishes. Charlotte darted to a small table in one corner, where several boxes made a rainbow stack of bright paper and bows.
Charlotte made certain her present came first. Sam opened a tiny box with a flattened, lopsided bow. “What a beautiful thimble,” she said, giving Charlotte a wide smile.
“I know you’ve got lots of thimbles, but this one’s old, and it’s made of porcelain. I traded three cakes for it at an antiques store.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“Open Mom’s gift next.”
Sam nervously took a large, heavy box, recognizing the Christmas paper Mom bought every year from a shop that sold only recycled paper products. It was decorated with fresh pine sprigs tied with a red cloth ribbon. Sam hoped Mom hadn’t spent much of their money on the gift. She opened it carefully. Sam sighed with awe as she unfolded yards of downy, white material. “Cashmere,” she whispered.
“I knew you’d never buy cashmere,” Mom said, her voice tired and wistful. “I want you to make something beautiful for yourself.”
Sam nuzzled the incredibly fine cloth and gave Mom a liquid look of appreciation. “Thank you.”
“Mine next,” Aunt Alex said. “It’s the tiniest box with the gold silk bow. And what, by the way, is that other box beside it? Who brought that?”
Sam eyed the alien box curiously as she plucked at Aunt Alex’s gift. “Mr. Gunther left it at the store this morning,” Mom explained. “I hid it. I thought it’d be a nice surprise.”
Mr. Gunther. Sam’s heart pounded. It could be from him, or he could be only the courier. Eager to get to it, she barely paid attention as she opened her aunt’s gift. Sam looked at the pair of keys dangling from a gold key ring, which bore a handsome gold oval monogrammed with her inititals.
“A car,” Charlotte yelled. “Aunt Alex and Uncle Orrin gave you a car!”
Aunt Alex returned Sam’s stunned look with a beaming smile. “There’s a powder-blue Mercedes sports coupe waiting for you outside.”
Sam’s head swam. She couldn’t force herself to touch the keys. I don’t want it, it’s a bribe, she thought bitterly. But the gift alarmed her in other ways too. If Aunt Alex could pass Mercedes out like toys, she had more money than Sam had ever imagined. And money in Aunt Alex’s hands meant power.
What would she do to Jake if she knew I love him? Sam was dimly aware of the expression in Mom’s eyes—shock and wonder mixed with something painful, and she knew that Mom must be comparing the cashmere to a brand-new Mercedes. Sam met Tim’s gaze. He looked furious. She remembered suddenly that he’d totaled Aunt Alex’s Jaguar when he was sixteen; after that she refused to buy him a new car of his own, and he’d been relegated to a big, embarrassingly sedate Lincoln given to Orrin by a political crony who owned a dealership.
“You’ll turn everyone’s heads at college,” Aunt Alex said.
“I’m not going to college,” Sam said. “And I’m going to buy a used van from Mr. Gunther. I need something big enough to carry bolts of fabric and supplies.”
Aunt Alex stiffened, and pink splotches marred the perfectly contoured blush on her cheeks. “I’m not going to ruin your graduation celebration with a serious discussion. We’ll talk later.”
Charlotte flapped her arms, setting off a rippling cascade of swinging earrings and resembling a startled angel in a bright green dress that draped almost to her ankles. “I get my driver’s license in two years. I’ll drive the Mercedes, Sammie! Don’t give it back!”
“The car is a very generous gesture,” Mom interjected quickly. “I’m sure Sammie appreciates it.”
Silence descended, and everyone looked at Sam. Sam studied the pleading look in Mom’s eyes. “I do,” she told her aunt dully. “Thank you.”
Aunt Alex settled back in her chair, her eyes slitted, and her mouth set in a thin line. She stroked the pendant of her necklace. “Never settle for less than you deserve,” she said. “I’m underwhelmed by your enthusiasm.”
Sam said nothing, and tension crept into the atmosphere like a bad odor. Charlotte, deflated, brought Sam the gift from Mr. Gunther. It was a narrow box wrapped in dark blue paper with a matching bow. Sam forced a neutral expression and willed her hands to move casually as she opened it.
Inside, on a bed of tissue paper, was a strange, beautiful hoop. The delicate hoop was wrapped in leather, and strung tightly across was a pattern of woven white string that looked like nothing so much as a spider’s web. Several tiny, colorful beads were strung in it. Three long leather thongs decorated with soft white feathers dangled from the hoop.
Her breath caught in her throat. She lifted the dainty hoop from the box. Beneath it was a folded sheet of paper. Sam opened it, scanning the bold, dark script and wondering if it was Jake’s handwriting.
“What have you got there?” Orrin asked. “Looks like some sort of Indian gewgaw.”
She read aloud in a husky tone, “ ‘The idea for this comes from the Oneidas, up north. But even if it isn’t a Cherokee custom, it touches the same spirit.’ ”
“What is it?” Charlotte asked, plaintively fingering the car keys.
“A dreamcatcher.” Sam swallowed hard and continued reading. “ ‘Hang it over your bed. It will catch the good dreams and let the bad ones go. The blue bead is a sapphire, for hope. The green one is an emerald, for life. The red one is a ruby, for love and loyalty.’ ”
It is from Jake. She melted inside, a slow, sensual appreciation for him and his brand of sentimentality. But she felt Aunt Alexandra watching her closely. When she looked at her, Aunt Alex was frowning. “May I see that note, please?”
Sam didn’t move. No perched on the tip of her tongue, with Hell, no behind it.
“Sammie?” Mom’s voice had a thready tone of alarm.
Slowly, reluctantly, Sam handed the note
to Aunt Alex. Her aunt held it by the tips of her fingers as if it might burst into flame, and studied it with unblinking intensity. Sam swore she saw a slight twitch at the corner of her aunt’s left eye. Aunt Alex thrust the note back at her, and Sam took it just as abruptly. “Those are quality gemstones,” Aunt Alex said. There was a strained pitch to her voice. “I really think this is an inappropriately expensive gift from someone who’s not family. I suggest you return it to Mr. Gunther.”
Sam gazed at her steadily, tiny muscles tightening behind her expression, holding back a show of fury that would only upset Mom. “No, I believe I’ll keep it,” she said evenly. It’s all I can have, Sam thought. Maybe all I can ever have.
“Then I believe I’ll keep the Mercedes until we reach an understanding.”
Sam pushed the keys across the table to her. “I hope the car dealer takes returns,” she said.
Joe muttered to himself about Alexandra Lomax as he drove the winding gravel road through the Cove. The tips of wintry brown broomsedge stroked the arm he had cocked on the sill of the car’s open window, and he snatched angrily at them.
Charlotte Ryder was a sweet, lonely kid who desperately wanted a daddy to talk to, and she talked Joe’s ears off whenever he stopped by her mother’s shop. Charlotte had told him about the graduation present Alexandra had given Sam, and what Sam had done when it came to a choice between keeping that present or the dreamcatcher.
Joe fumed. He turned off on a dusty new driveway several hundred yards before the one that went to Jake’s parents’ house. The new path curled through deep gray forest, skirting a massive red oak before it rose along an incline where dried brown leaves skudded in the cool breeze. A startled buck bounded across the road; squirrels scattered from the roadway.
Joe’s mood darkened even more. This old valley was a special place, and Jake belonged here like the Raincrows always had, and for three years now Joe had watched him labor almost single-handedly on the big log house that loomed up as the forest opened on the cleared knoll.
It was less grand than his folks’ place—one-story, but sprawling, with wide porches all around and two thick stone chimneys at either end. The logs were hand-hewn and square, fitted together at every corner with expert dovetail joints. Every inch of the house was stamped with Jake’s work and devotion; Joe had watched him build it, alone, one log at a time, over the past three years.
Bo padded up from the spring ahead of Jake as Joe crossed a yard dotted with tree stumps and cords of neatly stacked firewood. The bloodhound looked like hell—muddy and wet, his long tongue nearly dragging the ground as he panted. Joe distractedly patted the dog’s jowly muzzle and halted, frowning at Jake’s appearance. It would have made a stranger take a step back.
He wore no jacket. His jeans and faded cotton shirt were stained with sweat and dirt; the shirt hung completely open, revealing muddy rivulets that streaked the black hair over thick chest muscles. Spring water dripped from his large, veined hands. There was a tired slump to Jake’s shoulders, and a measured fatigue in his stride. His dark hair was slicked to his head, with long shanks of it plastered to the sides of his neck, and the collar of the shirt was drenched. Without a cap of dry, full-bodied hair to soften his features, the angles of his face were too raw, the set of his jaw unconsciously threatening. There was a jaded, troubled look in his eyes.
Joe’s gut twisted with apprehension and curiosity, but he knew better than to ask Jake for information. Jake said no more than he had to about himself, and offered details in his own good time. “Nice day for a mud bath,” Joe said.
Jake’s intense gaze remained on him. “You’ve got some kind of bad news about the Ryders.” The words seemed to weigh him down a little more.
Joe sighed. He’d probably never figure out how Jake sensed these things. “Their business is going to hell in a handbasket. I made up an excuse to cut their rent again, but I don’t think it’s going to do much good. Even with the money the Queen Bee gives them, they’re barely stayin’ afloat. I get the feelin’ Frannie would cave in and take more help from Her Highness, but she knows it would break Sammie’s heart. And let me tell you, Sammie’s doing every damned thing she can to get them out of the hole. The only young person I’ve seen work that hard and play that little is, well, you.”
Jake raised hands that looked too large and rough to have made something as delicate as the dreamcatcher. He shoved them through his wet hair, then let them drop by his sides. “I’ve tried every way I can think of to help them through you. I’m tired of hiding.”
“I figured a long time ago that keeping your distance is the hardest thing you’ve ever done. If you’d stepped in the way you wanted to, Alexandra would have cut them off without a penny—cut off her own sister. And I don’t doubt she’d have made poor Frannie miserable in other ways to boot. You’ve done the right thing, because Alexandra is as cold-blooded as a snake.”
“She can’t keep a hold over them forever.”
“I’ll tell you what she did when Sammie opened your present. Alexandra didn’t know it was from you, of course, but it must have made her nervous. Because she told Sammie it was too nice a gift to take from somebody who isn’t family. She didn’t want her to keep it. From what I heard, she grabbed your note and scrutinized it like it might be secret code. I’m warning you, she’s suspicious.”
“What did Samantha say?” Jake never called the girl anything but Samantha. He’d decorated her in his own private way, Joe supposed, and Sammie deserved decoration. “She said she wasn’t giving it back,” Joe replied proudly. “And you know what Alexandra did? She gave Sammie a choice—keep the dreamcatcher or keep her gift.”
“What did she give her?”
“A car. A damned Mercedes.” Joe hesitated, studying Jake’s expression intently. Jake looked pleased but not surprised. That kind of faith—between two people who’d seen each other only a handful of times—would have seemed foolish if the people hadn’t been Jake and Sammie. “You got yourself quite a lady there,” Joe added.
“She knows it’s me,” Jake said under his breath as if talking to himself. “And that means the line’s already been crossed.”
“Who knows?” Joe asked. “Alexandra? Nah, she’s too sure of herself to think you and Sammie would go against her.”
Jake frowned, still lost in thought. “It’s time. I always said I’d know.” His attention was suddenly riveted to Joe again, the meaning of the vague, unsettling words locked inside him. Joe didn’t like the uncompromising gleam in his eye. “Don’t lose your patience now,” Joe told him anxiously. “You don’t look like you’re in the right mood to make up your mind about anything. You look like you been rode hard and put up wet.”
“Bad work.” Jake’s voice was hollow and slightly hoarse, and once again he seemed to be distracted by other thoughts.
Joe pressed carefully. “You been doin’ some tracking?”
“Just got back from Tennessee. Went up to Nashville. Police called me to help find a kid who disappeared from a nursery school playground two days ago.”
“Tennessee, huh? You and Bo are gettin’ a wide reputation.”
“We go where we’re needed.”
“Find him?”
“Yeah.”
From the look on Jake’s face, Joe didn’t think he wanted to know the details, but he couldn’t help himself. He had a grandson in nursery school. “Alive?” Joe asked.
“No. Stuffed under a creek bank. Somebody’d strangled him with a piece of wire.” Jake’s troubled gaze finally settled solidly on Joe. “His clothes were all gone. He’d been … messed with. You know?”
Joe grimaced. “Do they have their sights on the bastard who did it?”
“They do now. I tracked him down.” Jake stared into space, as if seeing something no man wanted to see. “Do you believe in ravenmockers?” he asked slowly.
Joe grimaced. “Hell, yes. Some of them have been president.”
“I caught one today. He couldn’t get away from me
, and he couldn’t kill me.” Jake smiled thinly. “I learned a good lesson today.”
Chapter
Thirteen
“Happy New Year,” Mr. Gunther said the second he walked into the shop. “Sammie, have I got a birthday present for you.”
Sam, who had been going over the day’s mediocre receipts before she left for her night job at the fabric store, peered at him anxiously. “My birthday’s not until next week.”
Charlotte, halfheartedly working on algebra problems at a table in one corner, perked up at the sight of him. But Mom turned from stacking bottles of vitamin E on a shelf, a pensive expression on her thin face. “Joe, I asked you not to—”
“Aw, this isn’t anything that’ll raise your sister’s hackles. I got Sammie a nice little job, if she wants it. A hundred bucks for about an hour’s worth of easy work.”
Sam dropped the receipts on the counter so fast they scattered like confetti. “A hundred dollars an hour? How much of my clothes do I have to take off? I’ll sew sequins on my underwear.”
Mom gasped. “Sam.”
“I’m only kidding.” Sam looked at Mr. Gunther shrewdly. “I won’t go farther than a tight T-shirt.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Charlotte chimed in. She fluttered her hands in front of the largest bosom in her tenth-grade class. “You were standing behind the door when God passed out big—”
“Charlotte,” Mom warned.
Mr. Gunther laughed. “The only thing Sammie has to uncover are her hands.”
Sam frowned at him. “You really are just teasing.”
“I’m not, I swear.” He plopped down in a folding chair beside the counter, hooked the heels of maroon cowboy boots over the chair’s crossbar, and pulled a business card from the breast pocket of his pink western shirt. “I’ve got a second cousin over in Yonah Lake. Name’s Marie Path Walker—well, she was born Marie Walker, but she’s a full-blood, and back in the seventies she took up the Indian cause in a big way, so she went back to the old family name—anyhow, then she went out west for a while and studied jewelry-making with the Navajos, and for the past fifteen years or so she’s made some of the finest turquoise and silver jewelry you’re ever gonna see.”
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