Jeopard paused, planning his next words. “How did his grown daughters feel about having a stepmother younger than they were?”
“They thought their poor dad had gone bonkers, but they weren’t surprised by it. He was never a conformist. I only met them once. They were extremely polite to me.”
“And after Royce died?”
She smiled grimly. “They took their inheritance and bid me an extremely polite farewell. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
“They didn’t resent you?”
“Because of the inheritance? Hardly. Royce left everything to them.”
Jeopard stared at her. He had just fallen off a cliff, but he was floating. He prayed that everything she’d told him was true. “How did you feel about that?”
“Oh, I knew he wouldn’t leave me anything. He told me before we got married.”
“But … honey, you took care of the man when he was dying. You suffered with him.”
“Jep, I represented only four years in his life. Hardly anything in comparison to all of his family obligations. He helped me learn a marvelous profession, and I’m very comfortable financially because of that. Besides, I wasn’t a hired nurse, I was his wife. I didn’t resent having to take care of him toward the end.”
Jeopard looked at her for so long that she shifted awkwardly and covered her face in mock embarrassment. She peeked through her fingers at him.
“Sundance, rest assured that I’m no saint. Stop looking at me that way.”
He pulled her hands to him and kissed each of them. His lips against her warm, smooth skin, he asked gruffly, “Want some help trying to put Royce’s scrapbook back together? I’m great with puzzles.”
“Yes,” she whispered, delighted.
Except in your case, he added silently. I’m more lost than ever.
THE MORNING FOG had just lifted when Jeopard guided their rental car through the steep San Francisco streets. Tess hunched forward in the passenger seat, hands excitedly bending the sheaf of maps and written directions balanced on the knees of her aqua-colored chinos.
He glanced at her and smiled. She was as eager as a kid on the way to Disneyland, and he enjoyed her enthusiasm. In the past few days he’d absorbed her unsullied view of life until he almost felt lighthearted. It was easy to forget that he had work to do, or that he’d failed to get answers to his most important questions.
Did she have the Kara diamond? Had she been Royce’s accomplice?
For today, he’d forget. He wanted to believe that this gentle, classy woman was everything innocent that he was not.
“Drive faster,” she ordered, staring out the car window and impatiently tapping her white sandals on the floorboard.
“It’s going to be at least an hour, Mario Andretti Gallatin. Sit back and take your gear off.”
Her thirty-five-millimeter camera hung from a wide strap around her neck, indenting the abstract pastels on the chest of the fashionably huge white T-shirt she wore with a wide cloth belt. Also hanging around her neck were her gold medallion and her antler amulet.
Her chocolate-colored hair was pulled back in a French braid. Next to her he felt rather ordinary in a white golf shirt, dusky blue slacks, and Docksiders.
That was all right—in his business, it wasn’t wise to draw attention with flamboyant clothes. He bought the best brands, and he had an eye for color, but he kept his style simple.
“You look like a Yuppie Indian,” Jeopard said teasingly.
She flashed him a droll smile. “Silence, white eyes.”
They left the city behind and headed north toward the wine country. In just over an hour they were deep into some of the most beautiful agricultural land in the world.
The rented sedan slipped through lush valleys filled with sheep grazing in emerald pastures and vineyards backed by tree-tufted mountains. The landscape was as picturesque as anything Jeopard had seen during several excursions in France, and when he rolled his window down he sighed at the heady, ripe scent of early summer greenery.
Tess made a husky sound of appreciation in her throat and slid over to him. She draped an arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. A poignant emotion filled Jeopard’s chest.
“It’s good to be alive,” he said abruptly.
Tess laughed. “You sound as if you just realized that fact.”
“Maybe.”
She kissed his cheek again, and her voice was tender. “Jeopard, what have you done in your life that makes you so sad?”
Seen too many people die, he thought. “Spent too much time watching soap operas.”
She chuckled but patted his shoulder kindly, her fingers caressing him through the material of his shirt. Her unquestioning, intuitive sympathy worried him a little. She sensed too much about him, which meant that one day soon she might find his dark side.
What would she think of her lover then?
‘That’s it!” she said suddenly, bouncing forward in the seat and pointing. “Glen Mary Road. To the winery!”
A minute later they were grinding down a two-lane gravel road between rolling hills striped with long rows of vine-covered redwood stakes.
In the distance an impressive stone mansion rose majestically amidst other stone buildings. The home was square and functional but enhanced by graceful turrets. Dense ivy covered the walls of the lower floor.
A sign at the driveway invited them to tour the Glen Mary vineyards, winery, and museum. Jeopard parked in a nearly deserted lot, and Tess bolted out before he removed the ignition key.
She waited for him impatiently, grasped his hand, and tugged him behind her while he jovially protested the indignity. They passed under a vine-covered arch, pushed open a mahogany door easily ten feet tall, and entered the mansion’s foyer, a cool, marble-floored place decorated with Persian rugs and dark, heavy antiques.
An elderly woman in a tweed suit sat behind a desk. She smiled up at them and said, “Welcome to Glen Mary. Ten dollars each, please. Here are your brochures. The upstairs is closed to the public because the current owner lives there. We hope you enjoy our gift shop and museum. The tour of the winery buildings begins in thirty minutes.”
Tess did a good imitation of smiling nonchalantly during the woman’s spiel. Jeopard thought.
“I’m Tess Gallatin, and I spoke to the manager about visiting an old cemetery on the property.”
Thirty years fell away from the receptionist. She leaped up spryly. “Gallatin. Oh, my, yes. Mr. De-Forest wants to meet you. He’s the owner. He’s so excited about your visit. If he’d gotten to talk to you himself …”
The woman motioned exuberantly toward a hallway. “Follow me. I’m Mrs. Johnson. I’ve worked here for years. You don’t know what to expect, I can tell. I’m sure you’ll be delighted. Oh, my!”
“Oh, my!” Tess exclaimed as the woman started into the main part of the house, waving for them to follow. She looked at Jeopard in shock. “She must know something about my family.”
“Oh, my,” Jeopard repeated dryly, smiling. He put a supportive hand under her elbow and propelled her forward.
“Here, look,” Mrs. Johnson called, stopping at the oversized entrance to a large room. “Our museum.”
Tess and Jeopard followed her into a softly lit, elegant room with tall ceilings and plush carpeting. Old photographs lined the walls; a restored grape press from the early 1800s sat on a shallow platform in the center of the room; various artifacts and memorabilia were displayed in glass cases. Mrs. Johnson hurried toward a corner and began studying the photographs that hung there.
“I understood that there was small Presbyterian church on the grounds back in the 1800s,” Tess offered, “and my great-great-grandparents are buried in its cemetery.”
“Would you like to see their photograph?”
“What?”
“Oh, my,” Jeopard interjected on her behalf. But even his cynical heart was thumping hard, and he wasn’t sure who broke into a jog first, he or Tess.
Mrs. Johnson
stood aside, beaming at Tess like a proud mother. Tess halted in front of a well-preserved daguerreotype portrait inside a Plexiglas display box.
“Justis and Katherine Gallatin,” Mrs. Johnson announced.
Tess made a soft keening sound and put her fingertips on the display box.
Jeopard gazed with fascination at the dignified couple in the portrait. Katlanicha Blue Song Gallatin’s beauty was evident even in the stern, drab setting typical of old photographs. She sat in a high-backed chair, her hands folded in the lap of an incredible dress Scarlett O’Hara might have worn to a ball at Tara, but Scarlett had the coloring and features of a full-blooded Cherokee.
Her black hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into fat coils at the back of her neck, giving her a regal appearance. She was smiling slightly, and Jeopard thought her dark, compelling eyes held cheerful determination. He could imagine her issuing exasperated orders to her husband.
Justis Gallatin stood slightly behind her chair, lean and tall, one long leg bent slightly, one hand hooked into a pocket on his vest, the other hand draped over the chair’s back so that the fingertips were twirled in a bit of ribbon on his wife’s dress, as if he had been playing with it, teasing her, possibly.
His coat and trousers were formal and well cut, but his hair and moustache hinted that he cared for neither barbers nor fashion. He had craggy, handsome features scored with laugh lines around the eyes.
Judging by the challenging look in those eyes. Jeopard concluded that Gallatin also didn’t care for photographers.
“They’re magnificent,” Tess whispered.
“This photograph was made in 1850,” Mrs. Johnson told her. “In New York. It was sent to Mr. De-Forest by one of their grandsons.”
“Benjamin Gallatin!” Tess said, reading information on a placard at the base of the photograph. “This particular grandson of Justis and Katherine’s was my grandfather! Do you know anything about him? He and Grandmother Gallatin were killed in a car accident when my father was a child, so I never learned much about them.”
“Sorry,” Mrs. Johnson said mournfully. “I wish I could tell you more.”
“Oh, I’m so greedy! It’s enough to see this photograph.” Tess made a sniffling sound, then laughed at her own sentimentality. Jeopard slipped a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and handed it to her.
“You can be proud of them,” he told her gruffly. Did this romantic darling of a woman have anything of which to be ashamed? Dear God, he hoped not.
She continued reading the placard. Her voice became a low, incredulous rasp. “Justis and Katherine lived here? They started the Glen Mary winery?”
“We don’t know a great deal about them,” Mrs. Johnson told her, “but it’s intriguing. The church you mentioned was built in 1840. We have sections from a diary the first pastor kept. He mentions that Katherine Gallatin came here in 1840 with her baby daughter, Mary. Just the two of them.
“And listen to this,” Mrs. Johnson continued. “She was an Indian, but she’d been educated at a Presbyterian academy for women, in Philadelphia. The locals must have been impressed—they hired her, an Indian, to teach school in this area. That wasn’t the kind of treatment most Indians received.”
Tess pointed to the loving way Justis’s hand rested on Katherine’s shoulder. “But why would he let her leave him?”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. We don’t know. The first pastor moved away six months after her arrival here, and the next pastor didn’t keep a diary. But Justis found her eventually, as you can see. They began this house and the winery. We think that they sold it in 1850. By then they had three sons. The children are listed in the church records.”
“Silas, Ross, and Holt,” Tess said softly. “But what happened to Mary?”
“She died when she was only a few months old.”
Tess made a wistful, sympathetic sound.
“Glen Mary,” Jeopard noted. “They must have named the estate in honor of her. That says a lot about their feelings.”
“And they made certain that they’d be buried beside her, years later,” Mrs. Johnson said reverently. Now she was becoming tearful too. She wiped her eyes. “I’ll get Mr. DeForest. He’ll show you the cemetery.”
Sniffling, she left the room.
Jeopard idly patted his pocket, thinking that he should have stocked more handkerchiefs.
“Oh, Jep, this is incredible,” Tess whispered.
He put his arms around her while she dabbed at her face.
“I wish I could get in touch with my cousins to talk about all this. They’re both traveling or on vacation or something. Our lawyer in Georgia says he’ll try to find them for me.”
Jeopard stroked her hair, and she leaned against him, chuckling. “Did you ever expect to get involved with such a sentimental idiot as me?”
He kissed her forehead, then rested his cheek against her hair and held her tightly. “No, but I can’t stop now. There’s an old French custom that says once a man offers his handkerchief to a lady, he’s pledged to protect her honor.”
“Lovely balderdash. You made that up.”
“No. As long as you keep my handkerchief, I’m yours.”
She tucked the handkerchief into a pocket of her pants and gazed up at him adoringly. “Then I’m never giving it back,” she whispered.
Jeopard managed a slight smile and ached from wishing that their future could be settled that easily.
“THERE’S THE CEMETERY!” Tess exclaimed.
She and Jeopard entered a large, grassy clearing at the base of a gently sloping hill. Up the hill Tess saw gnarled old trees in the midst of much younger onestile site of the old church.
At the bottom of the hill, canopied by ancient oaks scattered among the grave sites, lay a small cemetery.
“Let’s go find them,” Jeopard murmured.
They walked among the old, weathered stones. Tess held Jeopard’s hand tightly, anticipating the moment when she’d see her own last name spelled out across a gray monument.
Finally, there it was. In a separate plot surrounded by a low stone wall sat a dignified, steeplelike stone at least seven feet tall.
Gallatin was carved into it in simple, bold letters.
“Oh, Jep. Jep, I’m shaking.”
“Does seeing your last name on the stone make you feel uncomfortable?”
“No. It makes me feel eternal.”
A walkway led to the monument from an entrance cut in the wall. Tess halted at the entrance. Jeopard close beside her. She felt as if her chest would burst from the sense that she’d connected with another something that was wonderful and important about herself.
Her Cherokee heritage and Jeopard. She’d found two beautiful new worlds.
“Hello,” she said softly.
A bird broke into song somewhere on the hillside. A billowy summer cloud parted to let a streak of golden sunlight fall on the graves.
Jeopard’s hand tightened around hers. “If I were a romantic, I’d say you’ve just been answered.”
She turned to him, took his face between her hands, and kissed him tenderly. “You are a romantic.”
He shrugged lightly, then released her hand and prodded her forward with a gentle touch in the curve of her back. “I’ll wait here.”
Tess moved down the short walkway, gazing raptly at the three smaller, beveled stones in front of the monument. Tess read the inscriptions easily.
Our Cherished Daughter. She blesses the angels with her soul.
Wife, Beloved, Friend. All that my spirit holds, she has given.
Husband, Beloved, Friend. I shall take his soul to the Sun Land, for he is my home and my heart.
Tess read the inscriptions out loud, her hands cupped under her chin almost prayerfully. “They loved each other, Jep,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t know why Katherine ran away from him and took their first child, but he found her and they stayed together the rest of their lives.”
She pointed to Justis’s s
tone. “The Sun Land. The name for the old southern homeland, remember? In Katherine’s case, it meant Gold Ridge, Georgia.”
“Maybe she thought she’d go back there one day, in spirit if nothing else,” Jeopard said.
Tess knelt in front of a gravestone. “Katherine,” she whispered. “You and Justis have three great-great-granddaughters.” Tess took the gold medallion in her hand and drew her fingertips over its mysterious message. “And we’ll make you proud.”
All around her, birds sang.
CHAPTER 6
“WELL, HOW WAS it?” Tess murmured into his
Jeopard lay with his head on her bare shoulder. She arched a little as he drew his hand up and down her torso, pausing to rub her dark, taut nipples each time. Making love had never been a spiritual experience until he met Tess.
He crooked his hand over her hip and pulled her closer to his satiated body, then angled one leg between her thighs. “An eleven on a scale of one to ten. I don’t know which I like best, when you seduce me or I seduce you. I’ll seduce you in a minute so we can compare results.”
Tess chuckled a little as she stroked his shoulders. “Actually, I was asking about dinner. Pardon my vagueness. Your effect on my mind is rather dramatic.”
“Dinner. Oh.” He traced her collarbones with the tip of his tongue before he answered.
Tess moaned. Her body felt deliciously heavy, and she sighed at the tingling sensation that scattered downward from his tongue. He slid his hand between her legs and stroked the moist folds there.
“Dinner was terrific,” he declared. His mouth closed on the pulse point at the base of her throat, where he sucked gently for a moment. “And dessert was fantastic. I think I’ll have seconds.”
Soft New Age music, like starlight poured into sound, was playing on the cassette deck of Tess’s stereo. The Lady shifted in the water from time to time, creaking slightly, soothingly. The wonderful man beside Tess raised his head and kissed her with a tenderness that made her sigh.
She tipped her head back and welcomed him. Life didn’t get any better than this; confessions didn’t get any easier.
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