Heart of Gold

by J. R. Ward

  CARTER WAS making a beeline for the front door, muttering under her breath, when the teenager leapt out in front of her.

  “Hi! I’m Cort!”

  She pulled up short to keep from running into him. “Er—pleased to meet you.”

  In contrast to when he’d been around his father, the kid was smiling widely. “Are you sure you’re not staying for dinner?”

  “I’m sorry but I have to go.”

  And she was never coming back. The world was safe only if she and Nick Farrell didn’t get into another enclosed space together.

  Cort’s face fell and she noticed again how much he and Farrell looked alike. The major deviation was their wardrobes. Whereas his father had been wearing linen pants, handmade loafers, and a monogrammed button-down, the kid had on ratty shorts and a T-shirt that read, SPAM: THE OTHER PINK MEAT. She decided not to inquire what the first kind was.

  Still, they were obviously related. The younger Farrell was lanky, but he was clearly going to fill out to the elder’s size. And the bones of the teenager’s face, which had not yet hardened into the planes and angles she could see in his future, held the promise of Farrell’s stunning looks.

  “I think I better get going,” Carter said in a rush.

  Cort followed her out the front door, his hands and feet flopping around as he walked. She imagined he’d grow out of that, too, and move as Farrell did. Like an elegant prowler.

  “So where are you going?” he asked.

  “Home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  Carter looked around and remembered she’d left the Jeep by the service entrance. “Burlington.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “In back.” They started around the mansion.

  “What do you drive?”

  “A Jeep.”

  “The army kind or the SUV?”

  “SUV.”

  “The army kind is cooler. What color is it?”

  “White.” She had to laugh. “You always ask so many questions?”

  “Pretty much. When are you coming back?”

  “I’m not.”

  His expression darkened. “Because of him, right?”

  Trying to seem casual, she shrugged. “I don’t really have a reason to—”

  “You wanted to dig, didn’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I looked in your car.”

  “So why did you ask me what kind I drove?” She shot him a dry look and the kid flushed. At least he had the grace to be sheepish, she thought with a grin.

  “I wasn’t sure it was yours. Anyway, most people don’t show up with surveying equipment and four different kinds of shovels if they aren’t interested in setting up shop on the mountain.” Cort sent a baleful look toward the house. “He always does that. He always turns people away.”

  “I’m sure your father has his reasons—”

  Cort grabbed her arm.

  “He is not my father.” Anger clouded his eyes, and she was surprised at the depth of the animosity.

  “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I assumed because you look alike—”

  “He’s my uncle. And I don’t look like him.” The words were short and emphatic.

  They started walking again, more slowly.

  “I really am sorry,” she told him. “I’ve always hated it when people tell me I look like my father. I should have known better.”

  Cort was silent until they stopped in front of her car. Abruptly, he smiled. “If you do look like him, your dad must be real handsome.”

  “He is.” Now it was her turn to grow quiet. She covered up her awkwardness by getting out her keys.

  “I don’t know why,” the teenager said with frustration, “but my uncle hates anyone digging up on the mountain. You should have seen what happened when that other guy was here. Ivan was ready to shoot him, and Uncle Nick was going to let it happen. I was there. I saw the whole thing. Hey, you want to see where the guy was digging?”

  Carter had her car keys ready, even had her hand on the door. She wanted to say no. She really wanted to say no.

  “Okay.”

  With a wide grin, Cort led her behind some barns and a garage, through the meadow and over to the edge of the forest. In between a white birch stand and some honeysuckle bushes, there was a break in the undergrowth. No more than a foot wide, the path cut through the brush and guided them into the cool refuge under the trees. Ferns, lady slippers, and bright green elf grass grew beside the thin trail and, as they walked along, the sounds of moving creatures mixed with the cracks of snapping twigs under their feet. The forest’s perfume was a blend of good earth and growing things, an ancient scent full of life.

  The ground began to rise and boulders appeared, casualties of the glacier that had carved out the lake and then receded thousands of years before. At a steady clip, they climbed the mountain, and Carter noted that the grass and ferns disappeared and the deciduous trees changed to heartier hemlocks and pines.

  A half hour later, they came to a clearing close to the top of the mountain and Carter gasped at the view below. Cradled between twin mountain ranges, the lake was a shimmering valley of water that stretched out in both directions as far as the eye could see. Over to the left, on a peninsula that jutted out into the lake, she could see the magnificent stone walls and buildings of Fort Sagamore.

  One of the oldest military fortresses in the United States, it was a national treasure and a popular site for tourists and scholars. After the stronghold had been built by the French in the early 1700s, it had changed hands a number of times and was eventually captured by the Americans in the Revolutionary War. This final, successful coup had been led by Nathaniel Walker, a man who figured prominently in the mystery of the missing gold and lost men.

  As she took in the vista, Carter let out a low whistle.

  What she was looking at mirrored a description General Farnsworth, the Brit who had been escorted by the colonialists, had scribed in his journal. He’d detailed a clearing exactly like the one she was now standing in, including the landscape down to his fort and the flat-topped mountain across the lake. It had been, he’d noted, close to where the slaughter occurred.

  Her heart rate shot up.

  “Some kind of pretty, isn’t it?” Cort asked. “The guy was digging back here.”

  They walked a couple hundred yards farther up the mountain until they were confronted with an uneven circle of huge boulders. The bulky sentries guarded an inner sanctum that was about a square acre in size. Carter was astounded as she stepped inside.

  This was it, she thought. This had to be where the slaughter occurred.

  She began to pace over the coarse grass and the pine needles, trying to imagine what secrets might be hidden in the earth. Farnsworth had described the spot where the party had set up camp as a Stonehenge in the Adirondacks. With handy access to a nearby stream and the boulders offering protection from the wind and potential enemies, it was the perfect place for a party of weary travelers to rest their heads.

  Carter caught sight of a bottle and went over to pick it up. Aside from the empty Bud Light, there was other evidence of modern visitations. The fire pit in the middle, created by a cloister of stones, had relatively fresh ashes in it. More significantly, she saw ragged gashes dug carelessly here and there in the ground all over the place.

  It was typical Lyst, she thought. Raping and pillaging his way through the site.

  Carter bent down and plied the earth with her hand, letting the dirt fall through her fingers.

  Damn you, Farrell.

  She stayed on her haunches a moment longer, wishing for a chance she wasn’t going to get.

  “Well, thanks for bringing me up here,” she said as she got to her feet.

  Cort beamed. “If you want, I can show you a place no one knows about.”

  “Where—”

  “What are you doing there, boy?” Out of nowhere, a man appeared in the circle. He was small, built like a bulldo
g, and had dark eyes crowned by a disapproving brow. More significantly, he had a shotgun cradled in his arms and the look of someone itching to use it.

  “Hi, Ivan,” Cort mumbled.

  “You know you’re not s’posed to bring anyone up here.” The man moved with the quiet grace of an expert woodsman, his footsteps silent over the ground.

  “I know.”

  “So what’re you doing up here?”

  “He was just showing me the view,” Carter said, hoping to deflect the criticism.

  The man looked at her and shifted the gun up to his shoulder. Closer to firing position.

  “And I think I’ve seen enough,” she added quickly.

  “So do I,” came his dark answer.

  The march back down the mountain was grim. The woodsman followed behind them like a prison guard, and Carter was thinking it had been a mistake to go up to the site. Farrell wasn’t going to change his mind and all she’d done was torture herself with impossibilities.

  As well as volunteer for a brush with death.

  When they cleared the forest, Carter thanked Cort and got in her car. As she drove off, she saw in her rearview mirror that the woodsman was watching her go.

  It was obvious who almost shot Lyst, she thought.

  Heading to the ferry that would take her home, she burned with frustration. It was a hell of an opportunity, and she wished her meeting with Farrell hadn’t gone so badly. But how could she have expected anything different? Her reception had been no better than others of her ilk had gotten and at least she hadn’t faced down the business end of that shotgun.

  The side view had been more than enough to get her attention.

  When she got home, she called Grace with the disappointing news.

  “It’s a no-go,” Carter said while going out to the back porch. She looked over her meadow as the sun set. “I guess my negotiating skills aren’t what they used to be.”

  Although she seemed to have acrimonious arguing down pat, she reflected, remembering the sparks that had flown in Farrell’s study.

  “Well, maybe it’s for the best. Lyst’s cross is a fake,” Grace muttered. “We gave it a thorough examination this morning. It’s no older than the chicken salad I had for lunch at the club.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Still, I feel like there’s something up there.”

  “Is that optimism I hear?” her friend teased. “From the woman who announced that finding anything on that mountain would be like winning the lottery?”

  “Grace, I saw the site. It’s amazing, just as Farnsworth described it.”

  Her friend laughed with admiration. “How’d you pull that off?”

  “I had a tour guide.”

  “Farrell?”

  “Not bloody likely. His nephew sneaked me up.” Carter paused. “I’m telling you, there’s something at that site. I could feel it in the dirt.”

  Grace sighed. “Too bad Farrell’s so difficult.”

  “‘Difficult’ is too nice a word for that man.”

  Their conversation drifted in other directions, but when Carter hung up later, Farrell Mountain was all she could think about. When the phone rang again, she figured it was Grace calling back, still on the fence over whether or not to buy a painting she loved.

  Carter picked up with a laugh. “Look, I told you to accept your fate. If you’re going to buy the Thomas Cole, you need to belly up to the fact that you’re a Hudson River School junkie. Just because everyone else is buying modern, doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “Thanks for the advice but I collect Old Masters.” Nick Farrell’s deep voice burned in her ear. “Even the turn of the nineteenth century’s too new for my taste.”

  “How did you get this number?” Carter blurted, jerking to attention.

  “James Earl Jones said I could be connected for an extra charge but I dialed it myself.”

  “What do you want?”

  In the background, she could hear voices and the clinking of crystal.

  “I’ve been thinking about our conversation,” he drawled.

  His arrogance made her prickle. “Funny, I’ve been trying to forget it.”

  “I understand you went up the mountain.”

  She hesitated. “Don’t blame Cort.”

  “Tell me again why you want to dig.”

  Frustration swelled in her chest.

  “What for? You’ve already turned me down. And you should know that Lyst’s find wasn’t legit. That cross was a fake.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you calling me? If you don’t want anyone on that mountain—” Carter paused. “How did you know it wasn’t authentic?”

  “Because I have the real one.”

  She fell silent as his words sank in.

  “And I’m rethinking my earlier decision. How would you like to come back tomorrow and take a look at my little slice of history?”

  She stayed quiet while ambition warred with her instinct for self-preservation. “I don’t trust you.”

  He laughed. “That’s smart, but I have something you want, don’t I? Shall we say noon?”

  Even though his lure was bordering on irresistible, she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re busy.”

  “What am I coming for? So you can dangle an artifact in front of my face and turn me down again? As you so aptly put it, that would be a waste of our time.”

  “Aren’t you just a little curious about my cross?”

  Curious didn’t go far enough. Try desperate, she thought ruefully. Still, she’d be damned if she was going to present herself as some kind of amusement for him again.

  “Farrell, I don’t believe in conversions, at least not with people like you. There’s no way in hell I’m driving back into New York State again just so you can shut me down. I did that earlier today. I don’t need to reprise the rejection or put additional miles on my car.”

  “Fine, I’ll come to you. We don’t need to be near the damn thing to discuss your coming to work on my mountain.”

  Carter hesitated, wondering what kind of game he was playing.

  The feel of the dirt in her hands came back and temptation rose. It would be the chance of a lifetime to get to do a real study of that site, to find out what had happened. But she had to wonder if he was setting her up somehow. Why would a man who had turned away so many, including herself earlier that very day, suddenly call up and ask her to come dig? It just didn’t make sense.

  “Farrell, if you’re toying with me, I’m going to have a lot to say about it.”

  “It couldn’t be anything I haven’t heard before.”

  “Don’t knock innovation,” she muttered.

  There was a long pause.

  “So do we have a date?”

  Reluctantly, feeling as if she’d tripped and was falling into thin air, she gave him directions to her house.

  “I’ll see you at noon,” he said and hung up.

  How appropriate for a standoff, she thought.

  The next morning, she couldn’t settle down to accomplish anything. She had a paper she wanted to finish and she should have gone into her office at UVM, but she did neither. Instead, she ended up in her garden, weeding as if possessed. Surrounded by blooming irises and lilacs, hands deep in topsoil, she lost track of time, and when she heard a car approach, she looked up in surprise. A black Porsche was coming up her driveway. The man behind the wheel looked as though the car had been made with him in mind.

  Carter got to her feet, pushed her hair out of her face and tried to brush the grass off her bare knees. Mud was caked on her shorts and her T-shirt and she flicked some of it off.

  Not much of an improvement from yesterday’s outfit, she noted. At least the other pair of cutoffs had been clean.

  She watched with trepidation as Nicholas Farrell unfolded his long legs from the car and got out with a stretch. She was surprised to see he was wearing a dark suit and wished she didn’t notice how
the pale blue shirt under the jacket emphasized his tan. He looked her way and smiled but she couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses.

  With an economical movement, he bent down and picked up something from the front seat. As he strode across her small lawn, a black leather briefcase in one of his hands, he exuded masculine power.

  Unlike myself, she thought; I’m just exuding the need to take a shower.

  “You like dirt, don’t you?” he said in a husky voice when he was standing in front of her.

  She caught a whiff of cologne, something sophisticated and fitting for a man like him. Expensive but elemental.

  Dammit, did she have to like the way he smelled?

  She could feel him looking at her, even through the sunglasses, and was disturbed by the way her body flared in response. Resenting the reaction, because it was strong and unconscious, she couldn’t prevent the sharpness in her voice. “Let’s get down to business.”

  She started to turn away and walk toward her house, but he didn’t move.

  “You’ve got a beautiful garden.”

  Carter wheeled around impatiently and he flashed her a smile that took her breath away. The sun was high overhead and the angle of the light emphasized the hard lines of his face and highlighted that stupid dimple.

  Was he flirting with her?

  She shot him a prim look. “I’d like to see the cross now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t I get a grand tour first?” He nodded at her house.

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  Carter blew a piece of hair out of her face with frustration. Things were not going well. Farrell seemed to have the upper hand even though he was on her turf. Her plan had been to take a look at the cross, figure out whether he was serious about the offer to dig, and then shoot him down the road. All of this was supposed to be accomplished without her losing her temper or doing something really dense. Like becoming attracted to him.

  Unfortunately, the reality of him standing in front of her was more of a challenge than she’d bargained for. As far as she was concerned, the sooner he packed off in his ridiculously overpriced car, the better. She hadn’t been in his company for long at all and already she was feeling distracted and woozy.

  Maybe it was just heatstroke, she thought hopefully.