by Nora Roberts
“Why? Because she ran off with one of her men?”
“No.” Philip set the glass aside, carefully, on a thin silver coaster. “Because she killed one of them. Because she spent ten years in prison for murder.”
Kelsey turned slowly, so slowly because the air was suddenly thick. “Murder. You’re telling me that my mother is a murderess?”
“I’d hoped never to tell you.” He rose then, sure he could hear his own bones creak in the absolute silence. “You were with me. I thank God you were with me rather than on the farm the night it happened. She shot her lover, a man named Alec Bradley. They were in her bedroom. There was an argument and she took a gun from the drawer of the bedside table and killed him. She was twenty-six, the same age as you are now. They found her guilty of murder in the second degree. The last time I saw her, she was in prison. She told me she would rather you believe her dead. If I agreed, she swore she wouldn’t contact you. And she kept her word, until now.”
“I can’t understand any of this.” Reeling, Kelsey pressed her hands over her eyes.
“I would have spared you.” Gently Philip took her wrists, lowering her hands so he could see her face. “If protecting you was wrong, then I’ll tell you I was wrong, but without apology. I loved you, Kelsey. You were my entire life. Don’t hate me for this.”
“No, I don’t hate you.” In an old habit, she laid her head on his shoulder, resting it there while ideas and images spun in her brain. “I need to think. It all seems so impossible. I don’t even remember her, Dad.”
“You were too young,” he murmured, rocked by relief. “I can tell you that you look like her. It’s almost uncanny how much. And that she was a vibrant and fascinating woman, whatever her flaws.”
A crime of violence being one of them, Kelsey thought. “There are so many questions, but I can’t seem to latch on to one.”
“Why don’t you stay here tonight? As soon as I can get away, we’ll talk again.”
It was tempting to give in, to close herself into the safe familiarity of her old room, to let her father soothe away the hurts and the doubts, as he always did.
“No, I need to go home.” She drew away before she could weaken. “I should be alone for a while. And Candace is already annoyed with me for keeping you from your guests.”
“She’ll understand.”
“Of course she will. You’d better get along. I think I’ll go out the back. I’d just as soon not run into anyone right now.”
The passionate flush had died away, he noted, leaving her skin pale and fragile. “Kelsey, I wish you’d stay.”
“I’m all right, really. All I need to do is absorb it. We’ll talk later. Go see to your guests, and we’ll talk more about this later.” She kissed him, as much a sign of forgiveness as to hurry him along. Once she was alone, she walked behind the desk and stared at the letter.
After a moment, she folded it and slipped it back into her purse.
It had been a hell of a day, she decided. She’d lost a husband, and gained a mother.
CHAPTER
TWO
SOMETIMES IT WAS BEST TO FOLLOW YOUR IMPULSES. PERHAPS NOT best, Kelsey corrected as she drove west along Route 7 through the rolling Virginia hills. But it was certainly satisfying.
Speaking to her father again might have been wiser. Taking time to think things through. But it was much more satisfying to simply hop into the car and head to Three Willows Farm and confront the woman who’d played dead for two decades.
Her mother, Kelsey thought. The murderess.
To distract herself from that image, Kelsey turned up the radio so that Rachmaninoff soared through the half-open window. It was a beautiful day for a drive. That’s what she’d told herself when she’d hurried out of her lonely apartment that morning. She hadn’t admitted her destination then, even though she’d checked the map to find the best route to Bluemont.
No one knew she was coming. No one knew where she’d gone.
There was freedom in that. She pressed down on the gas and reveled in the speed, the whip of the chilly air through the windows, the power of the music. She could go anywhere, do anything. There was no one to answer to, no one to question. It was she who had all the questions now.
Maybe she’d dressed a bit more carefully than a casual drive in the country warranted. That was pride. The peach tone of the silk jacket and slacks was a good color for her, the breezy lines flattering to her slim frame.
After all, any woman who was about to meet her mother for the first time as an adult would want to look her best. She’d fixed her hair into a neat and intricate braid, and spent more time than usual on her makeup and accessories.
All the preparations had eased her nerves.
But she was beginning to feel them again as she approached Bluemont.
She could still change her mind, Kelsey told herself as she stopped the car in front of a small general store. Asking for directions to Three Willows didn’t mean she had to follow them. She could, if she wanted, simply turn the car around and head back to Maryland.
Or she could just drive on. Through Virginia, into the Carolinas. She could turn west, or east toward the shore. One of her favorite indulgences was hopping in her car and driving wherever the whim took her. She’d spent an impulsive weekend at a lovely little bed-and-breakfast on the Eastern Shore after she’d left Wade.
She could go there again, she mused. A call in to work, a stop at a mall along the way for a change of clothes, and she’d be set.
It wasn’t running away. It was simply leaving.
Why should it feel so much like running away?
The little store was so crammed with shelves and dairy cases and walls of tools that three customers made a crowd. The old man behind the counter had an ashtray full of butts at his elbow, a head as bald and shiny as a new dime, and a fresh cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He squinted at Kelsey through a cloud of smoke.
“I wonder if you could tell me how to get to Three Willows Farm.”
He stared at her another minute, his smoke-reddened eyes narrowing with speculation. “You’d be looking for Miss Naomi?”
Kelsey borrowed a look from her grandmother, one designed to put the questioner firmly in his place. “I’m looking for Three Willows Farm. I believe it’s in this area.”
“Oh yeah, it is.” He grinned at her, and somehow the cigarette defied gravity and stuck in place. “Here’s what you do. You go on down the road a piece. Say ’bout two miles. There’s a fence there, a white one. You’re gonna wanna make a left on Chadwick Road, and head on down another five miles or so. Go on past Longshot. Got a big wrought-iron fence with the name on it, so’s you can’t miss it. Next turn you come to’s got two stone posts with rearing horses on ’em. That’s Three Willows.”
“Thank you.”
He sucked in smoke, blew it out. “Your name wouldn’t be Chadwick, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t.” Kelsey went out, letting the door swing shut behind her. She felt the old man’s eyes on her even as she pulled the car back onto the road.
Understandable, she supposed. It was a small town and she was a stranger. Still, she hadn’t liked the way he’d stared.
She found the white fence and made the left out of town. The houses were farther apart now as the land took over, rolling and sweeping with the hills that were still caught between the haze of winter and the greening of spring. Horses grazed, manes ruffling in the breeze. Mares, their coats still thick with winter, cropped while their young gamboled nearby on spindly, toothpick legs. Here and there a field was plowed for spring planting, squares of rich brown bisecting the green.
She slowed the car at Longshot. It wasn’t a road, as she’d assumed, but a farm. The curvy wrought-iron gate boasted the name, and through it she could see the long sweep of a macadam lane leading up to a cedar and stone house on the crest of a hill. Attractive, she mused. Commanding. Its many levels and terraces would afford breathtaking views from every inch.
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The lane was lined with elms that looked much older and much more traditional than the house itself, which was almost arrogantly modern, yet it perched on the hill with a territorial pride.
Kelsey sat there for some time. Not that she was terribly interested in the architecture or the scenery, as compelling as it was. She knew if she continued down this road, she wouldn’t turn back.
Longshot, she decided, was the point of no return. It seemed ironically appropriate. Closing her eyes, she willed her system to level. This was something she should do coolly, pragmatically. This wasn’t a reunion where she would launch herself weeping into the arms of her long-lost mother.
They were strangers who needed to decide if they would remain so. No, she corrected. She would decide if they would remain so. She was here for answers, not love. Not even reasons.
And she wouldn’t get them, Kelsey reminded herself, if she didn’t continue on and ask the questions.
She’d never been a coward. She could add that to her list of vanities, Kelsey told herself as she put the car in gear again.
But her hands were cold as she gripped the wheel, as she turned between the two stone posts with their rearing horses, as she drove up the gravel lane toward her mother’s house.
In the summer, the house would have been shielded by the three graceful willows for which it had been named. Now, the bowed branches were just touched with the tender green of approaching spring. Through their spindly fans she could see the white Doric columns rising up from a wide covered porch, the fluid curves of the three-story plantation-style house. Feminine, she thought, almost regal, and like the era it celebrated, gracious and stately.
There were gardens she imagined would explode with color in a matter of weeks. She could easily picture the scene heightened by the hum of bees and the chirp of birdsong, perhaps the dreamy scent of wisteria or lilac.
Instinctively her gaze lifted to the upper windows. Which room? she wondered. Which room had been the scene of murder?
A shiver walked down her spine as she stopped the car. Though her intention had been to go straight up to the front door and knock, she found herself wandering to the side of the house where a stone patio spilled out of tall French doors.
She could see some of the outbuildings from there. Tidy sheds, a barn that looked nearly as stately as the house itself. Farther out, where the hills curved up, she could see horses cropping and the faint glitter of sun striking water.
All at once another scene flipped over the vision. The bees were humming, the birds singing. The sun was hot and bright and she could smell roses, so strong and sweet. Someone was laughing and lifting her up, and up, until she felt the good strong security of a horse beneath her.
With a little cry of alarm, Kelsey pressed a hand to her lips. She didn’t remember this place. She didn’t. It was her imagination taking over, that was all. Imagination and nerves.
But she could swear she heard that laughter, the wild, free seduction of it.
She wrapped her arms around her body for warmth and took a step in retreat. She needed her coat, she told herself. She just needed to get her coat out of the car. Then the man and woman swung around the side of the house, arm in arm.
They were so beautiful, staggeringly so in that flash of sunlight, that for a moment Kelsey thought she was imagining them as well.
The man was tall, an inch or more over six feet with that fluid grace certain men are born with. His dark hair was windblown, curled carelessly over the collar of a faded chambray shirt. She saw his eyes, deeply, vividly blue in a face of angles and shadows, widen briefly in what might have been mild surprise.
“Naomi.” His voice had the faintest of drawls, not slow so much as rich, like a fine, aged bourbon. “You have company.”
Nothing her father had told her had prepared her. It was like looking in a mirror at some future time. A mirror polished to a high sheen so that it dazzled the eyes. Kelsey might have been looking at herself. For one mad moment, she was afraid she was.
“Well.” Naomi’s hand clamped hard on Gabe’s arm. It was a reaction she wasn’t aware of, and one she couldn’t have prevented. “I didn’t think I would hear from you so soon, much less see you.” She’d learned years before that tears were useless, so her eyes remained dry as she studied her daughter. “We were about to have some tea. Why don’t we go inside?”
“I’ll take a rain check,” Gabe began, but Naomi clung to his arm as if he were a shield, or a savior.
“That’s not necessary.” Kelsey heard her own voice, as from a distance. “I can’t stay long.”
“Come inside, then. We won’t waste what time you have.”
Naomi led the way through the terrace doors into a sitting room as lovely and polished as its mistress. There was a low, sedate fire in the hearth to ward off the late-winter chill.
“Please sit down, be comfortable. It’ll only take me a moment to see about the tea.” Naomi shot one quick glance at Gabe, and fled.
He was a man accustomed to difficult situations. He sat, drew out a cigar, and flashed Kelsey a smile fashioned to charm. “Naomi’s a bit flustered.”
Kelsey lifted a brow. The woman had seemed as composed as an ice sculpture. “Is she?”
“Understandable, I’d say. You gave her a shock. Took me back a step myself.” He lighted the cigar and wondered if the raw nerves so readable in Kelsey’s eyes would allow her to sit. “I’m Gabe Slater, a neighbor. And you’re Kelsey.”
“How would you know?”
Queen to peasant, he thought. It was a tone that would normally challenge a man, certainly a man like Gabriel Slater. But he let it pass.
“I know Naomi has a daughter named Kelsey whom she hasn’t seen in some time. And you’re a little young to be her twin sister.” He stretched out his legs and crossed them at his booted ankles. They both knew he’d yet to take his eyes off her. And he knew he didn’t intend to.
“You’d pull off the dignified act better if you sat down and pretended to relax.”
“I’d rather stand.” She moved to the fire and hoped it would warm her.
Gabe merely shrugged and settled back. It was nothing to him, after all. Unless she took a few potshots at Naomi. Not that Naomi couldn’t handle herself. He’d never known a woman more capable or, in his mind, more resilient. Nonetheless, he was too fond of her to let anyone, even her daughter, hurt her.
Neither did it concern him that Kelsey had obviously decided to ignore him. He took a lazy drag on his cigar and enjoyed the view. Stiff shoulders and a rigid spine didn’t spoil it, he mused. It was a nice contrast to the long, fluid limbs and fancy hair.
He wondered how easily she spooked, and if she’d be around long enough for him to test her himself.
“Tea will be right in.” Steadier, Naomi came back into the room. Her gaze locked on her daughter, and her smile was practiced. “This must be horribly awkward for you, Kelsey.”
“It isn’t every day my mother comes back from the grave. Was it necessary for me to think you were dead?”
“It seemed so, at the time. I was in a position where my own survival was a priority.” She sat, looking tailored and unruffled in her dun-colored riding habit. “I didn’t want you visiting me in prison. And if I had, your father would never have agreed to it. So, I was to be out of your life for ten to fifteen years.”
Her smile shifted a few degrees, going brittle. “How would the parents of your friends have reacted when you told them your mother was doing time for murder? I doubt you’d have been a popular little girl. Or a happy one.”
Naomi broke off, looking toward the hallway as a middle-aged woman in a gray uniform and white apron wheeled in a tea tray. “Here’s Gertie. You remember Kelsey, don’t you, Gertie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman’s eyes teared up. “You were just a baby last time. You’d come begging for cookies.”
Kelsey said nothing, could say nothing to the damp-eyed stranger. Naomi put a hand over Gertie’s and squeezed
gently. “You’ll have to bake some the next time Kelsey visits. Thank you, Gertie. I’ll pour.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sniffling, she started out, but turned when she came to the doorway. “She looks just like you, Miss Naomi. Just like you.”
“Yes,” Naomi said softly, looking at her daughter, “she does.”
“I don’t remember her.” Kelsey’s voice was defiant as she took two strides toward her mother. “I don’t remember you.”
“I didn’t think you would. Would you like sugar, lemon?”
“Is this supposed to be civilized?” Kelsey demanded. “Mother and daughter reunite over high tea. Do you expect me to just sit here, sipping oolong?”
“Actually, I think it’s Earl Grey, and to tell you the truth, Kelsey, I don’t know what I expect. Anger certainly. You deserve to be angry. Accusations, demands, resentments.” With hands that were surprisingly steady, Naomi passed Gabe a cup. “To be honest, I doubt there’s anything you could say or do that wouldn’t be justified.”
“Why did you write me?”
Taking a moment to organize her thoughts, Naomi poured another cup. “A lot of reasons, some selfish, some not. I’d hoped you’d be curious enough to want to meet me. You were always a curious child, and I know that at this point in your life you’re at loose ends.”
“How do you know anything about my life?”
Naomi’s gaze lifted, as unreadable as the smoke wafting up the flue. “You thought I was dead, Kelsey. I knew you were very much alive. I kept track of you. Even in prison I was able to do that.”
Fury had Kelsey stepping forward, fighting the urge to hurl the tea tray and all the delicate china. It would be satisfying, oh so satisfying. But it would also make her look like a fool. Only that kept her from striking out.
Sipping tea, Gabe watched her struggle for control. High-strung, he decided. Impassioned. But smart enough to hold her ground. She might, he thought, be more like her mother than either of them knew.
“You spied on me.” Kelsey bit off the words. “You hired, what, detectives?”