Willene shook her head. “Now you sound like those two children,” she said. She turned back to the eggs on the stove and the toast that had popped up.
“What do you mean?”
“That woman they see in the woods.”
“What about her?” Connor felt the heebie-jeebies touch the base of her spine.
Willene shrugged her heavy shoulders. “It’s just children’s foolishness. But they think they know all about her and how she feels. They talk about her likes and dislikes. They say she warned them that something bad was going to happen to you. Some terrible accident.”
“The woman I saw wasn’t a phantom. She was in my room and she was staring at me. It wasn’t some make-believe character those kids concocted.”
Willene slowly buttered the toast on the counter. “Have you listened to the stories those children tell about the woman in the woods? Really listened?”
“Endlessly. I hear how smart she is and how entertaining and how much Renata loves her as a friend. Even Danny parrots everything Renata says.”
“Exactly. She’s becoming more and more real to those children. Aren’t you even a little concerned?”
“I thought at first it was a good idea to play along with Renata’s imaginary friend, but now I’m wondering if I made a mistake. Renata seems obsessed by the woman.”
Silence fell across the room like a soft sight. Willene prepared Connor’s breakfast, and Connor sat at the table watching Willene’s back. The silence grew until it was awkward.
“For God’s sake, what is it?” Connor finally said. “Have you really listened to Renata’s description of the woman?” Willene turned around and put the plate on the table. Then she filled her coffee cup and took a seat.
“Obviously not as closely as you think I should have,” Connor said. “She’s young and pretty and nice. That’s the gist of it.”
“Connor, she sounds exactly like the description of your great-great-grandmother. Even down to the funny accent. Renata imitated it for me. It’s Scandinavian of some type.”
Connor’s spine tingled warningly. “That’s ridiculous, Willene, and I’m surprised you’ve encouraged Renata in this.”
“I haven’t.” Willene’s voice was calm, with a degree of sadness. “Believe me, I haven’t. But there’s always been talk that Hilla Lassfolk roamed the woods. Plenty of folks have seen her, wanderin’ around in those long dresses, like it was still 1850. I never wanted to tell you this, but maybe I should have.”
“Hilla roamed these woods? Why on earth? She left here and went on to marry and raise a family. Her past here was long forgotten. Even if there was such a thing as a ghost, which there isn’t, Hilla’s wouldn’t be here in Mobile, Alabama. This place was nothing but an unhappy memory to her.”
“Perhaps to everyone but her. It was said her love for that outlaw was extreme. She ruined herself and her family over him. And when they took her away, she was crying and screaming and vowing that she’d come back, even if she was dead. You see, they forced her away while James was in prison, due to be hanged.”
Connor swallowed a sip of coffee. “How horrible!”
“Exactly. That’s the tragedy of romantic legends. There’s always reality buried under there somewhere, and that usually means human suffering. Poor Hilla suffered. She was scorned and abused before she left, and then she was taken from town, a prisoner amidst her own family.”
Connor pushed her mostly uneaten breakfast away. “I know the local stories around here tell things a certain way, but I don’t think my family would be handing down the tale of Hilla’s great love for an outlaw if it had been as gruesome as what you say. But whatever the truth about the past, Hilla Lassfolk is not running around in the Oaklawn woods.”
Willene sighed. “I wish you were right, Connor, but I don’t believe you are.”
“Good Jesus Christ! What’s gotten into you?” Connor heard her voice rising. Willene was acting like some backwoods moron. Next thing anyone knew, she’d be handling snakes. “What are you saying, Willene? Would you listen to yourself? You were just after me for encouraging those children. What are you doing?”
“I know how it must sound, especially to someone from a place like California. Nobody there knows the story of the land or the people. Everybody there has just moved in. Here, folks know the past. They know each other.”
“Okay, so I’m from a geographically and historically inferior place. That still doesn’t give credence to ghosts walking, around Alabama.”
“I saw her, Connor.”
Whatever Connor intended to say, the words jammed in her throat. “What?” she finally managed. “What did you say?
“I saw the woman in the woods.” Willene pushed her glasses up her nose. “I won’t admit it to Mr. Clay, but I did see her.”
“You’re kidding.”
Looking down at the table, Willene sighed. “Well, I didn’t actually see her. Not up close. Not so’s I could identify her face-to-face. But I saw someone. She was hiding, like she’d been watching something up at the house.”
“When?” Connor was getting her feet back under her. She’d thought for a minute that Willene was actually going to claim she’d seen a ghost.
“Christmas Eve.”
“What time?”
“It was late afternoon. I’d just gotten the bird in the oven and I was leaving here. When I drove by the barn, I caught sight of her. She was sort of hiding beside the barn. Then she turned and ran off, quick as a flash.”
“And you’re certain it was the ghost of Hilla Lassfolk?” Connor couldn’t help the sarcasm in her voice.
“No. I’m not exactly certain. But she looked just like the woman Renata talks about in the woods. And that woman sounds as much like Hilla Lassfolk as the devil sounds like Satan.” Willene laid both hands, palm down, on the table. “And there’s something else.”
“What?” Connor had a feeling she didn’t want to hear this.
“She was staring up into the bedroom window.”
Connor twirled her cup around. She didn’t believe a word Willene said, but she couldn’t deny that a definite chill had walked up her spine at Willene’s conclusion.
“So you think she’s trying to warn me to leave Oaklawn?”
“Maybe.” Willene reached across the table and captured Connor’s hands. She held them tightly, squeezing them until Connor looked up at her. “You saw a woman in your room, a woman that no one believes exists. You saw her. And she sounds like the woman in the woods. She might have been trying to tell you something, not to hurt you.”
Connor pulled her hands away. “I think we’d better let this subject drop.”
“If she’s in your room, she must be very worried about you. Hilla has never before come into Oaklawn.”
The image of the woman standing at the foot of the bed came back to Connor. She could remember the woman’s white knuckles as she gripped the bed, her brown eyes extraordinarily large in her pale face. Had it been fear in her eyes, or anger?
Connor stood up abruptly. “Richard Brian is coming out this morning. I think he might stay for lunch.”
“He hasn’t been here since Ms. Talla died,” Willene said, as she forced her bulk from the chair. Suddenly she was an old, tired woman, more stooped than Connor had ever seen her. “He was a favorite of Miz Talla’s and the children.”
“Did he, uh, visit here often?” Connor hated the way her mind leapt to a dirty little conclusion. But hell, Talla had screwed everything else in pants that had come on the premises. Richard, too?
“Oh, not so often.” Willene put her hand on her hip as if she had a sudden pain. “Not nearly as often as the children would have liked. I’m glad he’s coming today. This has been a good Christmas for those two.”
“I’m going down to the barn,” Connor said. “If Richard comes up here, please tell him to join me.”
“He’ll go to the barn first. He always did.”
Connor didn’t ask any more questions. Whatever h
ad gone on at Oaklawn was in the past, and that’s where it was going to stay. She had her own past with Richard. What she was interested in was the present and the future. Willene—and almost everyone else she’d met in Alabama—lived too much in the past.
“Breakfast was good, as always.”
“Stay off those horses. You aren’t in any condition to go hightailing it through the woods.”
Connor smiled. “I haven’t had anybody to worry over me like you do since my mother died.”
“And I’ll bet you gave her gray hair before she was thirty.”
“I probably contributed my share.” On an impulse, Connor walked over and gave Willene a hug. “You do care about me, and I thank you. It makes me feel like I’m part of something.”
“You are, Connor. You most certainly are. But I’m worried about you. There’s some strange things happening at Oaklawn. Terribly strange. Not too much bothers an old woman like me, but I’m worried. Since you’ve been here, things have gotten stranger and stranger.”
“Things are going to be fine,” Connor assured her. “Whoever I saw, Clay will find her.”
Willene shot her a look, then turned away. “I’m sure you’re right. I’m just foolish, with the past nipping too close at the present. That’s what happens when you get old. Now, run along and do whatever it is you have to do down at that barn.”
Connor walked out the back door whistling softly under her breath. With each step she took, she felt less stiff. She was, indeed, a very lucky woman.
The white shells crunched under her feet. Pecan leaves, curled into brown crisps, had escaped the orchard and drifted across the drive. They disintegrated beneath Connor’s boots as if they’d never been there. It was a perfect morning, the sky a clear, translucent blue that made the few puffy clouds look as if they’d been cut out and hung by some child.
As Willene had promised, the camellias were in full bloom. Connor stopped at one enormous shrub. The deep pink and white varigated blooms were beautiful against the rich green of the leaves. To her way of thinking, the only flaw was the lack of perfume. The blossoms had no scent that she could detect. But they were magnificent, full-petaled and frilly. And there were white ones, pale pink, dark burgundy, red and everything in between. As she bent her face to an especially beautiful bloom, hoping that she’d find the scent she wanted, she stopped. Someone was staring at her. She could feel it as surely as if they were tapping her on the shoulder. Someone was watching her intently.
The bloom slipped from between her fingers, springing back to the shrub as she released the stem. Very slowly she stood, then abruptly turned.
Up in the third-floor window, Renata was waving to someone on the other side of the orchard. As soon as she saw Connor looking at her, she stepped back and dropped the blind.
“Shit!” Connor wheeled around, her gaze searching over the orchard. “Shit!” She started forward in a run, but her sore muscles and the cut on her foot were major handicaps. Up ahead, she saw a glimmer of blue disappear into the trees at the edge of the woods. Connor ran another twenty yards before giving it up. Whoever Renata had been waving to was gone.
Looking back at the house, Connor searched for some sign of the little girl. The windows on the third floor were covered by the blinds. Connor had the uneasy sensation that the old house had closed its eyes against the morning.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“The best buns in the forty-eight contiguous states! How I’ve missed them.”
Connor straightened up from bending over the feed bin and whirled around, making every sore muscle twitch. She was face-to-face with the devilish grin of Richard Brian, his hand still firmly planted on her butt.
“Coming home hasn’t improved your terrible manners,” she said, flinging her arms around him and giving him a hug. She groaned softly as all of her muscles protested.
“Is that a moan of pleasurable anticipation, or dismay?”
Connor eased back and gave him a stern look. “A groan of sore muscles, you clown. But it is wonderful to see you.” She hugged him again. “I was just about to feed. You’re here bright and early.”
“I couldn’t sleep all night, thinking about seeing you. First Saint Nick and then Connor Tremaine, two biggies in a young boy’s life.”
“You’re a fool,” Connor said, shaking her head, “and I’ve missed you like crazy.” She cast a mock-critical eye at him. “My, my! You’re looking fine. Let me guess, you have some young starlet taking care of all your needs, and you’re working steady.”
“I wish my parents could be as happy for me as you are.”
There was a note of wistfulness in Richard’s voice that Connor chose to ignore. No matter what Richard accomplished as an actor, it would never be enough for his family. He’d made that abundantly clear, and Clay, in several instances, had confirmed it. “The Brian family cross to bear is named Richard.” Malcolm and Sugar Brian had expected their handsome son to stand for the bar and eventually become a leader of the state, and then of the South. Exactly the role Clay’s parents had chosen for him. Only Richard had bailed out—he’d run like a mad hare for Hollywood and a lifestyle that his parents first exaggerated and then prayed over.
“Willene said you’d come to the barn before you stopped at the house.” Connor meant it as an innocent comment. It was only after it was out of her mouth that she realized how it must sound to him, as if she and Willene had been discussing his past behavior patterns.
“Ah, yes, the ever alert cook, Miss Willene Welford, eyes in the back of her head and a nose long enough to sniff into everyone’s business.”
“Richard!” But Connor couldn’t help but laugh. There was just enough truth in his observation, as was often the case, to make it funny. “Willene’s been very good to me.”
“She’s a good woman, but that doesn’t keep her from also being a gossip, a meddler, and a world-class busybody. She plays the grandmotherly role to the hilt, but I’d be careful you didn’t pull the covers back and find the wolf instead, Little Red Riding Hood.”
Connor laughed out loud. Richard was so full of life and energy that his little malices were harmless. “How about a ride?”
“With or without a horse?”
“Does coming home to the deep South always make you so horny?”
“The truth?”
The sudden seriousness in his voice made Connor hesitate. “Okay, the truth.”
“You make me horny, but so does the South. Cool drinks, hot sand, perpetual youth. The South makes me feel young. And looking at you makes me glad I’m a man.”
“Flattery will get you a long ride on a frisky horse.” Connor walked around Richard to get two halters. “Time to saddle up.”
“Ah, the riding master,” Richard took a halter from her hand and his fingers twined around hers. “I love it when you act domineering and make me do your bidding.”
Both of them looked up at the sound of someone deliberately clearing his throat.
“Jeff!” Connor was shocked. “I thought you were on vacation.” The foreman stood in the door of the feed room, watching the scene between them play out. Connor had no idea how long he’d been standing there, eavesdropping. Not that anything had happened that she was ashamed of, but she and Richard had a rollicking, affectionate relationship that not everyone would understand.
“Mr. Brian,” Jeff said, grinning. “I didn’t expect to see you back at Oaklawn, not since Ms. Talla died.”
Connor’s sharp intake of breath gave her away. “Richard and I have been friends for a long time, Jeff. He and Clay are also friends, if it’s any of your business. He’s welcome here anytime.”
“I see,” Jeff said, yielding not an inch. “I was wondering if you wanted me to stop at Phillip’s and get some feed.”
“I thought you were on vacation in New Orleans.”
“Change of plans,” he said. “About that feed?”
Connor was suddenly furious. “Yes, three hundred pounds of twelve percent. And while you�
��re here, I want to mention the fact that some woman has been running around the estate. I’ve seen her, and so has Willene. She’s lurking around the barn and in the orchard.”
“So?” Jeff didn’t bat an eye. He watched Connor, then Richard. “What am I supposed to do about her, set out a trap?” He grinned.
“If she’s one of your sweethearts, maybe you could keep her off the premises.”
“I told Mr. Clay that none of my friends, ladies or otherwise, would be running around Oaklawn in the dark. I don’t think it’s right to mix work and pleasure.” He gave Connor a meaningful look. “My daddy always told me even a dog knows better than to crap where it eats. That’s something to think about, isn’t it, Ms. Tremaine? I’ll get that feed for you today, before the stores close again for New Year’s.”
Connor felt her heart pumping with anger as Jeff sauntered through the barn and out into the sunshine.
“I’ve never cared for that bastard,” Richard said. All playfulness was gone. “I hope I haven’t made trouble for you.”
“Be real,” Connor said. “Jeff is annoying. He’s not to be taken seriously.”
“He knows too many of the Sumner family secrets, or I’d recommend that Clay fire him. He has an attitude. I can’t tell if it comes naturally or if it’s a result of screwing Talla.”
Connor gave Richard a hard look. “It would seem you’re pretty up-to-date on the gossip, too.”
“Talla was never very discreet.” Richard sighed. “She liked to talk about her lovers. Compare techniques, if you will. If she did that with Clay, I wouldn’t be surprised if he strangled her.”
Connor felt one of the halters slip through her fingers and hit the dirt. There had been talk that Talla was bruised around her neck in a manner that the lunge line couldn’t have done. Clarissa Barnes had virtually said that Talla was murdered. Connor bent to pick up the halter.
“I’m sorry,” Richard said. “That was thoughtless of me, and more a figure of speech than anything else. Let’s go for that ride. I don’t like talking here. The walls have ears.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Connor said. “Take Tinker.” She went to get Cleo out of her stall.
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