by Kristy Tate
Declan snagged a Twinkie off the counter and headed for his room. His phone buzzed with a text. He waited until he was flat on his back and eating his Twinkie before he reached for his phone and saw the message was from Nicole.
Did you know that the Duke Lemur Center is the largest sanctuary for prosimian primates in the world?
He didn’t know how to respond. Was a simple wow enough to be considered polite? Would it be rude to be honest and ask who cares? But maybe thinking about Nicole and lemurs would be better than dwelling on Lizbet and her secrets. Why did she have to lie to him? Why not just say she wasn’t interested? For a distraction, he looked up the Lemur Center on the Internet.
According to Wikipedia, the lemurs occasionally escape from their natural habitat enclosures, he texted Nicole.
Things can get wild in Durham, Nicole shot back.
Okay. He really didn’t know what to do with that. Declan polished off the Twinkie, changed out of his work clothes, grabbed his basketball, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” his dad asked.
Declan paused, his hand on the door. “Shoot some hoops.”
“In the rain?”
Declan swore.
His dad raised his eyebrows. “You want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Declan growled.
“About why you need to shoot hoops in the rain?”
Declan dropped the ball, kicked it to a corner of the mudroom, and looked in the pantry for something other than a Twinkie. He sat down at the table with a bag of barbeque chips. “You’ve known the Westmoors for a long time—what do you think of Lizbet and her mom?”
His dad’s face drained of color and his gaze skittered toward his computer. It was the NBA playoffs and the Lakers were ahead by twenty. “Why do you ask?”
“Lizbet... I don’t get her.”
His dad chuckled. “Okay, that’s your problem right there.”
“What?”
“You aren’t meant to ‘get’ her. No one ‘gets’ anyone else, but especially not her.”
“Why do you say ‘especially not her’? What’s so special about her?”
His dad pushed the laptop away. “You tell me.”
Declan popped open the bag of chips and buried his hand in it. “I can’t.” After chewing but not tasting a few chips, he said, “Why would her mom live on a deserted island? That’s bound to make anyone strange, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure she had her reasons.”
Declan slowly set down the bag of chips. “Why did you say it like that?”
His dad struggled to make his expression blank. “Like what?”
Declan shook a chip in his dad’s face. “Like you know what her reasons are! You’ve known the family for years. How well did you know Daugherty? Did you ever meet Lizbet?”
John sighed. “I’ve known Daugherty since high school. She and your mom both went to North Coast Academy.”
“Yeah, so what happened? What made her go off her rocker?”
He shook his head. “I never said she went off her rocker.”
“But you knew where she was? This whole time, her family thought she was missing—even dead—and you said nothing?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.” John held up his hands. “I never said that! You’re reading things into this.”
Declan slammed the table so hard his palms stung. “That’s it! Lizbet changed the moment she saw you!” He squinted at his dad. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! Listen, Daugherty had her secrets. And just like everyone else, I don’t know where she’s been or who she’s been hiding from all these years. End of story.”
Declan leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Whoa. That is not the end of the story. That sounds like the beginning of a story.”
“You’re right. We don’t know how the story will end.” John’s voice sounded bleak.
“But you know how it started, right?”
John shook his head. “I really don’t. I’m not sure anyone does. Even Daugherty.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you do know?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Herbology- Herbalism. Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts.
From Declan’s Research
While Lizbet crushed the basil leaves and ground the ginger root, she thought about Mr. Neal talking to his plants. Was it so very different from her talking to animals? Did it cause the plants pain when she pulled off their leaves? If she tried to pull a whisker, or any other body part, off an animal, they would cry. But maybe for a plant, losing a leaf was like losing a hair or shedding skin. She considered the tiny leaf beneath her pestle. “Thanks, anyway,” she murmured.
“Who are you talking to?”
Lizbet shot a surprised glance over her shoulder at Josie. Even though Josie had moved in several days ago, she and Lizbet had rarely crossed paths. Josie worked long hours, and seemed to be about as interested in being at the ranch as Elizabeth and Lizbet were to have her there.
“You,” Lizbet said.
“You’re thanking me?” Josie went to the cupboard, pulled out a mug, and shuffled to the coffeemaker. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a pair of slouchy sweats. Instead of heels, she wore fluffy pink socks, which made her seem like a totally different person.
“For letting me stay.”
“Not my choice,” Josie grumbled, letting Lizbet know that if she had been given a choice, Lizbet would be staying elsewhere.
Lizbet ground the rosemary and thyme with such force her arm began to ache.
“What are you doing?” Josie asked.
“Making a poultice for my mom,” Lizbet said without looking up.
“Are you going to feed it to her?”
“No, I’m going to put it on her.”
Josie shook her head, turned her back on Lizbet, and stared at the coffeemaker as if the power of her stare could make it brew faster. She spoke so quietly that Lizbet could barely hear her over the whoosh and swirl of the machine. “When I find out you are not my sister’s daughter, you and your creepy cat will be out of here so fast your head will spin.”
Lizbet didn’t know how to respond so, feeling cowardly, she pretended she hadn’t heard, but inside, she thought, If I am not my mother’s daughter, it will be a relief to know I’m not a blood relation to you. She finished grinding the herbs, wiped her hands on the apron she’d borrowed from Elizabeth, and with shaking hands she poured the poultice into a glass jar. After cleaning up her workspace, she left the kitchen without a backward glance.
Outside, the cold air stung her face. The sun hovered on the mountaintop, settling into the trees and threatening to disappear. The jar containing the poultice felt heavy in her hand. She needed to take it to her mom but she didn’t want to ask Matias for another ride and she wasn’t sure where Elizabeth was. Of course, finding her was as easy as asking a bird, but the creeping feeling on the back of her neck warned her that Josie might still be watching. She strode for the barn.
There, in the dim light, the being-watched skin-pricking sensation eased but the tightness in her spine remained. Would she ever feel comfortable living with Josie? If her mom were awake, she could prove that Lizbet was her daughter. But without her mom, Lizbet had no proof. Did she blame Josie for being suspicious? No, not really. According to Tennyson, even the police had suspected her.
Lizbet shivered and moved deeper into the barn, out of the path of the cold breeze blowing through the open door. She spotted Elizabeth sitting on a hay bale, looking pale and dazed.
“Elizabeth? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine, just a little shaken.”
“Are you sure? Because you don’t look so fine.”
Elizabeth pointed at a large metal pulley system lying in the middle of the wooden floor. Lizbet recognized it as the device used for hoisting hay bales to the loft. The metal lifter was like a
pitchfork attached to a rope with eighteen-inch curved tines with pointy ends. The pulley was a steel contraption about the size of a small microwave. It had to weight about thirty pounds. Normally, it hung harmlessly from the rafters. Since storing hay was typically done in the fall, Lizbet hadn’t seen the pulley in action.
“What happened?”
“This fell.” Elizabeth’s voice quivered. “If it wasn’t for an owl darting at me, it would have hit me.”
“An owl? In the middle of the day?”
Elizabeth rubbed her eyes, looking tired. “It was a freak accident...but...”
Lizbet reached for Elizabeth’s hand. “Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”
Elizabeth mutely nodded and followed Lizbet into the house.
Lucy had joined Josie in the kitchen. While both women fussed over Elizabeth, Josie shot Lizbet poisonous looks as if she were somehow to blame.
“Tell us exactly what happened,” Josie said, hovering over her mom.
“I’ll make some tea,” Lizbet said.
“No!” Josie barked. “Lucy, you do it.”
Did Josie think Lizbet would try and poison them? Lizbet sank into a chair, overwhelmed by Josie’s hostility. Did she really think that Lizbet would try to harm Elizabeth? Why would she do that?
“Well, I was passing through the barn, heading for the stables, when the pulley system fell,” Elizabeth said in quivering voice. “It was so close I felt the air whoosh around me. If it wasn’t for a large white owl, it would have fallen on my head.” Elizabeth shivered.
Lucy made the sign of the cross over her heart while she filled the teapot with water. “In many cultures, owls are a harbinger of death,” Lucy said.
“Not helpful,” Josie muttered.
“But this owl saved my life,” Elizabeth pointed out.
“And where were you when all this happened?” Josie asked Lizbet.
“I came in afterwards. I found Elizabeth sitting on a hay bale.”
Josie sniffed.
A knocking on the door interrupted them. Lucy went to answer it.
Declan stood on the back porch, his jaw tense and his eyes full of determination. He smiled and nodded at the other women in the room, but when he turned to Lizbet the resolute look returned. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” Lizbet said slowly, rising from her chair when Declan nodded his head outside.
“I wonder what that’s all about,” Josie said.
Lizbet didn’t mind closing the door on Josie, but she was worried about Elizabeth.
“Let’s go where no one can overhear us,” Declan said.
Lizbet followed his gaze to the fields where Matias was working with a small cluster of horses. She was sure he was out of earshot, but she wondered if Declan wanted him out of eyesight, as well.
“Let’s go to the barn,” she said. “I want to see something there, anyway.”
He silently followed her through the tall grass and the cavernous barn doors. She felt keenly aware of him behind her as she made her way to the center of the barn to gaze at the wooden beams running across the ceiling.
“What are you looking for?” Declan ask, his gaze following hers.
“Today, the pulley for the hay lift fell and nearly landed on Elizabeth. It really shook her up.” From such a great distance, it was hard to see anything. “It could have been an accident, but it seems really coincidental.” She placed her hands on her hips and frowned at the ceiling. “I have to get up there.”
Declan shrugged and followed her to the ladder running up the side of the back wall. He held it for her while she climbed to the loft before coming after her. Chinks of sunlight filtered through the wooden slats and dust motes flitted through the air.
Lizbet went to inspect the scars left behind on the beams where, until just recently, the pulley had hung. She couldn’t get directly beneath the beams because of the gaping hole that allowed the hay bales to pass through. “I still can’t tell anything,” she said.
“What were you hoping to find?”
“Evidence of tampering, of course.”
He reached out and rubbed her back. “Do you think it’s possible your experience with your mom has made you...cautious?”
She peered at him. “You were going to say paranoid, weren’t you?”
He folded his arms and met her gaze. “How reasonable is it to assume that someone snuck into the barn and waited until Elizabeth walked by before dropping a pulley system on her head? Why would anyone do that? What could they stand to gain?”
“Josie and a man named Godwin want to turn the ranch into a resort.”
Declan blanched. “Do you know Godwin?”
“No, but...”
“Well, I do. He’s my stepfather.”
“Oh, Declan...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
He cut her off. “I’m sorry, too—that he’s my stepfather. But even though I don’t like him, I know that he would never try and kill your grandmother, or anyone for that matter, to build a hotel.”
“You don’t like him?”
“No. But how I feel about him doesn’t really matter. The point is, he’s smart. And he’s rich. He would never risk a prison sentence for an attempted murder just to build a resort.”
Lizbet sat down on a hay bale. It let out a huff of dust as if to complain.
“Do you honestly think Josie would try and kill her own mother?”
“No,” Lizbet said slowly.
Declan picked out a hay bale across from her and sat so close their knees almost touched. “So—who does that leave? Who would want to hurt Elizabeth and why?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded and looked pleased with himself. “It was a freak accident.”
“Maybe...” Lizbet drew out the word. Maybe she had to concede that her mother’s warnings still rang in her head. Maybe she couldn’t be trusting because of the things her mother had taught her from an early age. Would she always see boogeymen around every corner and monsters beneath every bed? Was she doomed to a life of paranoia? Sure, Declan could call it being cautious, but wasn’t that just a kind word for anxious and delusional? Did she really want to be like her mother and spend her life cloistered on a deserted island? Feeling slightly ill, she pressed her hand against her forehead.
Declan reached over and touched her knee. She gazed at his hand, wondering what to say that hadn’t already been said. He squeezed her knee softly.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, his voice soft.
She nodded, waiting. He didn’t remove his hand, and she didn’t ask him to, guessing that siblings could and would touch each other’s knees.
“My dad wants to meet you.”
“What?” She bounced up, turned her back on him, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Why?”
He stood and placed a hand on her shoulder. “He wants to meet Daugherty’s daughter.”
“Why?” Lizbet asked, her throat tight.
“I think you know why. He didn’t know about you.”
She blew out a breath, knowing that she should have foreseen this, knowing that John was right. So why did this feel like a betrayal to her mom? She must have had her reasons for keeping John away. She slowly turned back to Declan and was surprised by his nearness.
He met her gaze with an intense blue-eyed stare. “We’re not siblings.”
“You can’t know that.”
“My dad insists it’s impossible—and I believe him. But he’s still willing to take a paternity test, if you are, even though his affair with your mom, according to him, was all in his head.”
“All in his head?” Her thoughts returned to that first stormy night and the ginger root tea.
“But I know we’re not siblings. Brothers and sisters don’t feel like this.” His hand came up to graze her cheek.
She pulled away. “You can’t know that,” she said with a tight voice. “Neither one of us can. We’re both only children.”
He grinned.<
br />
“What?”
“Don’t you see? If we’re siblings, we can’t be only children. You know as well as I do we’re not related.” He drew closer, pinning the backs of her legs against a hay bale. “I really want to kiss you,” he said in a hot breath.
“It’s a really bad idea,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because once we start, I’m not sure we’d be able to stop.” She back-stepped over the hay bale and maneuvered away from the gaping hole in the center of the loft. “Why don’t you tell me about my mom and your dad? You must have talked to him about it.”
Declan nodded. “But that’s his story to tell, not mine. He wants to meet you. He didn’t know you existed. He admitted to fantasizing about your mom, but that’s it.”
She watched his face. “That’s not it, is it? And you know it.”
Suspicion flickered over his expression. “What do you know?”
She sighed. “I know how to make ginger root tea.”
“What?”
“Ginger root tea. I’ll make you some sometime.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“That’s probably wise.”
“Do you want to know what’s not wise?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Hanging out here with you and not kissing you. Come on, let’s go meet my dad.” He held out his hand and she took it.
#
John stood in front of the stovetop stirring a simmering pan of spaghetti sauce. The room that was kitchen, living room, and entry hall all rolled into one smelled of roasting garlic. Declan could tell that Lizbet was not only hungry, but also impressed.
While he believed his dad’s story, he could, if he imagined it, see the resemblance between him and Lizbet. They were both dark with deep green eyes and thick nearly black hair, but Lizbet was tiny while John had quarterback shoulders, a barrel chest, and burly muscles.
John put down his spatula, wiped his hands on his jeans, and came to give Lizbet a brief hug. He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I don’t see it,” he said slowly. After giving a mental shrug, he returned to his place behind the stove. “I was hoping you would come, so I made us dinner.” He nodded at the kitchen table.
Declan smiled that his dad had even found a tablecloth in some dark corner of the linen closet. The books, newspapers, and books of logic puzzles that normally hung out on the table had been piled up on the counter and replaced with three place settings with full sets of silverware and even matching glasses. Maybe Lizbet wasn’t John’s daughter, but he was still obviously trying to make a good impression.