by Amy Frazier
Garrett approached their boyhood hideout with caution. He knew what worried Lily most, but if Mack had taken a full bottle of whiskey, he wasn’t planning on doing away with himself before he did away with the contents of that bottle. Drunk, however, Mack might turn the shotgun on an intruder.
Garrett didn’t feel like an intruder here. The big old cave had been Mack’s and his fortress as boys. Garrett’s refuge. His foster parents had been conscientious enough, sometimes even kind, but Garrett had never felt he fit in anywhere until the first day of school in third grade when Mack had come to his defense on the playground. Even at eight, Mack had had an inordinate sense of fair play. After that the two had been like brothers.
The man staggering on the ledge in front of the cave, however, didn’t look like Garrett’s brother or his friend. Unshaven, hair wild, dirty clothes in disarray, Mack looked like a vagrant ready for a sober-up stay in jail.
“Get out of here!” he shouted as Garrett stepped out of the cruiser. “Don’t want your sermons. Or your pity.”
“When did I ever preach to you?” Garrett stood not ten feet away. He could see the half-empty bottle of booze and the shotgun lying on the pebble-strewn ground. He wasn’t leaving without either his friend or the gun. “But you’ve been back a month now. Don’t you think it’s time you let someone know what’s gnawing at your gut?”
Mack sank against the mossy embankment near the cave entrance. “Even if I told you, you couldn’t begin to understand.”
“Try me.” Garrett suspected part of Mack’s despair was that he’d returned from war while one of his unit—one of their high school classmates, Nate Donahue—had not.
“Sheriff—” the word was spoken with uncustomary contempt “—you live in a mighty small world. In little ol’ Applegate you think you have a handle on right and wrong, black and white, up and down. But I’m here to tell you you’re one misinformed sombitch.”
“Sounds like you’re the one offering up the sermon.”
Mack said nothing.
“Rory’s home,” Garrett said, trying to break through to his friend. From the minute of Rory’s birth, Mack had embraced the role of uncle. “He’s been asking after you.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I don’t know what to tell him. Do you want to see him?”
“No.”
“Okay. I get your point. You look like hell. Why don’t you come back to the barracks with me? Have a shower and shave. It’s McMillan’s turn to cook. Chili. Everybody would be glad to see you.” He kept talking even though it was obvious Mack was tuning him out. If Mack wanted to wall himself off after what he’d been through, who was Garrett to judge? But he was determined not to give up on his buddy. “Come on.”
Mack shook his head.
“Suit yourself. I’ll leave you the bottle, but your daddy needs the shotgun to take care of a woodchuck that’s been raiding your mama’s garden.”
Mack narrowed bleary eyes. “His case of hunting rifles isn’t enough?”
“Apparently not.” Garrett picked up the weapon.
Mack didn’t resist. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the embankment. When he spoke, his words were low and menacing. “There are a thousand and one ways to destroy life, and none of ’em needs a shotgun.”
The satisfaction Garrett had felt at retrieving the gun drained right out of him. “Sure you couldn’t use some chili?”
“What I could use, friend, you can’t supply.”
“I’ll be back, anyway.”
“Don’t bother.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I know nothing anymore.”
This statement—from a guy who had always been confident in who he was and his place in the world—made Garrett’s blood run cold. He wouldn’t argue now, but he’d keep returning until Mack showed signs of the man he’d once been.
With a heavy heart Garrett got in the car. Thank God he still knew who he was. Sheriff. And father. And regarding the latter, he needed to take care of matters he could still control. He needed to get in touch with Noelle. Maybe she hadn’t made a decision about Rory’s schooling. Kids could hear a suggestion and blow it all out of proportion. When he did reach her, his ex would want to know what their son was doing with his summer so far. Noelle might be highly focused on her career, but she was also a fiercely devoted, often over-protective mother. He wanted to be able to reassure her Rory’s job was safe and his employer reliable. She, too, would want a background check on Samantha Weston.
While driving back to headquarters, he phoned Noelle. Surprisingly, she picked up immediately. “Garrett, hello. I was expecting your call. Is Rory okay?”
“He’s fine. For the most part.” He tried to choose his words carefully. “He seems to think boarding school is a done deal, however, and he’s not happy about that. I can’t say I’m too pleased about it, either. You could have consulted me.”
“I threw out the idea of Harpswell, among others, to get Rory thinking about the broader possibilities in his future.”
“Broader than?” Garrett didn’t trust the implications of the broader concept. Not long after they’d married, Noelle had begun to chafe under what she considered their constricting life in Applegate. “He’s going to be an eighth-grader. How much broader than decent grades, friends and an interest in the world around him—animals, for instance—does his life have to get?”
He could hear her sigh from clear across the Atlantic.
“Less restricting than North Carolina,” she said at last.
“Are you moving?”
“I didn’t want to discuss it with you or Rory until I had something solid to add to the list of possibilities. But, yes, a move might be in the future. I’m here interviewing for a position—a promotion—in our London headquarters.”
He had to pull his cruiser to the side of the road. Had to tamp down his rising anger. “And you want to put our kid in a boarding school so you can take a job overseas? What’s wrong with the possibility of letting him live with me?”
“That would be one of the choices. As is boarding school. But I was really hoping you’d support me in trying to convince Rory it would be a wonderful experience to live in London. It would be an education in itself.”
“You want to take him with you?”
“Of course. But I want him to want to come.”
“Even farther away from me.”
“You would have summers together. That wouldn’t change.”
But how much would Rory change in a year’s time? Garrett didn’t want to be a stranger to his son.
“Besides, there’s e-mail and the telephone,” Noelle insisted. “Letters even. And you could always fly to England.” She made it sound so simple. Made him sound so provincial for not immediately embracing such simplicity.
“The three of us need to discuss this.”
“Absolutely. But don’t jump the gun. I haven’t been offered the job. Yet.”
With her talent and drive, he had no doubt she would be.
“I have to run.” Her voice was charged with the thrill of a challenge. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” he replied without enthusiasm, wondering, sourly, if wanting to have a good, solid father-son relationship here in Applegate meant limiting Rory.
He and Noelle hadn’t even talked about how happy he was to be working at Whistling Meadows.
THE ROCKBROOK VAN DEPARTED AS Red’s pickup, the bed loaded with bulging garbage bags, arrived in the barnyard. Rory got out, but Red leaned through the driver’s window. “I’m hauling this to the landfill,” he said, then added with a nod to Rory, “The kid can work.”
“So I see,” Samantha replied, surprised Rory had pulled Red out of retirement.
“Someone dumped all this in the pasture by the road.” The boy wrinkled up his face. “Who would do that?”
Red smiled. “I tried to tell him some kids around here think summer activities mean dumping garbage, sma
shing mailboxes and toilet papering the trees along Main Street. Seems they do things differently in Charlotte.”
“You might have a dog problem, too,” Rory said. “We walked the fence line and saw signs of digging.”
Red’s smile disappeared. “Most likely those would be Tanner’s dogs.”
Samantha didn’t like the sound of that. If dogs got in the pasture, they could wreak havoc with the llamas. “Isn’t there a leash law?”
“You’d need to ask the sheriff,” Red replied. “If there is, no one pays attention to it. I’ll stop by Tanner’s on my way to the dump and talk to him about keeping his hounds on his own property.”
“No,” Samantha said quickly. From experience in the hotel business, she’d come to realize the importance of being an upfront neighbor to those already in the area. “I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t know if that would be a good idea.” Red seemed just as adamant. “Tanner isn’t what you’d call open to suggestion.”
“We’ll do fine.” At the Singapore Ashley, she’d dealt with everyone from architects to contractors to lawyers to local officials and merchants. Tanner Harris couldn’t be more difficult than any of them. “I’ll bicycle over right now.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rory offered. “I don’t know Red’s nephew, but I know dogs.”
Red eyed the two of them. “As long as you both remember the cur you have to watch out for is Tanner.”
Samantha checked that the inner pasture gate was latched—the llamas, released from their packs and tethers, were already letting off steam, chest butting and rolling in the dust—then wheeled her bike out of the barn.
Rory joined her. “How was today’s trek?”
“It was the beginner course. Just a few hours of hiking up to Lookout Rock and back with some trail mix and sports drinks thrown in for good measure. But the girls had fun.”
“They were noisy.”
“They were okay on the trail. I think the giggling beforehand was mostly for your benefit.”
She hadn’t meant to make him blush, but he did anyway, then sped up ahead of her.
Following him to her neighbor’s property, she turned in at the corner of the fence where her pasture gave way to a woebegone yard. There, three hulking teenagers worked at building a trailer of sorts from lumber and spare parts. An all-terrain vehicle and two dirt bikes were parked nearby. Four large dogs lay chained to a tree. Rory stopped at the edge of the road and warily eyed the scene.
“Hello!” Samantha called out. “Is your father home?”
“No,” came a mumbled response before the dogs clambered to their feet and began a raucous baying. The three young men worked on without looking up.
Not knowing how long the dogs’ chains were, Samantha stayed put. Rory inched closer to her in what seemed more of a protective gesture than fear.
“Hush!” one of the boys shouted, making a menacing gesture with a wrench. As a group, the dogs slunk back to the tree.
“I’m Samantha Weston. Your new neighbor. May I have a word with you?”
The tallest teenager slowly straightened. “It’s a free country.”
Pulling one of her business cards from her back pocket, she left her bike at the edge of the road. “Would you, please, have your father call me? My number’s on the card.”
The boy took the card and, without looking at it, stuffed it in his jeans. “I don’t think any of us are interested in goin’ on a hike with llamas.” The last word was said with great contempt.
“I’m not trying to drum up business. I wanted to talk about the importance of keeping dogs out of the pasture.”
“You got a fence.”
“We’ve found signs of digging.”
“Lots of animals round here.” He jerked his head toward the dogs. “Ours are tied up.”
“I appreciate it,” she said evenly. “I want to be a good neighbor, too. Please, have your father phone me.”
As she turned, he mumbled, “If you wanna be a good neighbor, why’d you cut off our access?”
“Access?”
“You had to see the trails we made.”
She’d seen them. Ugly gashes worn over time with no regard for the land or its vegetation. “As I understand it,” she said, keeping her voice even, “the county has provided new and extensive ATV trails.”
“We had our own at Uncle Red’s,” a second boy added, standing in truculent solidarity with the first. “Until you came along.”
“Now that you have better ones, you don’t need my property anymore. But if you’re interested, you can come over and meet the llamas. See what trail life without motors can be like.”
The three gave a united snort of derision, then turned their backs and resumed work on the trailer.
Samantha returned to Rory and the bikes. “I’ll ride with you into town. I want to talk to the feed store owner. See if he’d be willing to top-dress the cattle feed I buy with some other ingredients good for llama health.”
“You’re not worried?”
“About their health? No, they’re doing fine on pasture for the summer.”
“Not the llamas.” Rory waited until they’d turned a bend in the road. “Those guys back there.”
“I think they’re harmless. Ticked off, yes. But harmless. I hear the new ATV trails are really good. They’ll get used to not having a backyard playground.”
Rory looked unconvinced. “You’re lucky you have me and Red.”
Samantha was touched by his gallantry.
“Then there’s always my dad if we run into real trouble.”
Oh, no, she didn’t need the sheriff in her new, clean-as-a-whistle life. “There won’t be trouble,” she reassured him.
The Harrises were the least of her concerns. Yes, she needed to discuss a new grain mixture with the feed store owner, but, more important, she needed to ask about the curt message he’d left on her voice mail—that a man had been asking about her in town. A member of the paparazzi or her father’s detective, Max?
Neither possibility was good news.
CHAPTER THREE
TUCKED IN A VALLEY OFF THE beaten track, partway between Brevard and Asheville, Applegate was little like its bigger neighbors, the first a college town, the second a tourist destination. And although gentrification was slowly making inroads, one couldn’t spot the changes from the rustic interior of Abel Nash’s feed store. Samantha stood amid the stacked burlap sacks of grain and scarred wooden bins of seeds, waiting to speak to the owner and trying desperately not to sneeze on the fine dust that hung in the air. She couldn’t help but wonder why the sheriff stood sentry outside the store, looking for all the world as if he was waiting for someone in particular.
“Samantha, what can I do for you?” At last Abel turned his attention to her.
From her pocket she pulled a slip of paper on which she’d written the specifics of the new feed she wanted. “Could you give me this blend with my next delivery?”
He glanced at the list. “No problem. Anything else?”
“About your message…”
“That guy nosing around, yeah.” Abel scowled.
“Did he give a name?”
“No. He was slippery that way. Gut feeling, I didn’t trust him.”
“How so?”
“Said he was trying to find his long-lost niece. Showed me a picture of some society woman. Ashley something-or-other. Come to think of it, she had a passing resemblance to you—kind of like a gussied up cousin—but his niece? I sure as heck wouldn’t put the two of them on the same family shrub, let alone tree. He looked like a forties gangster.”
Samantha suppressed a smile. Not a newshound, at least. But Max. While it was true her father’s detective looked rough around the edges, the man had a heart of gold. Nevertheless, she didn’t want “Uncle Max” meddling in her new life. Not at this tender stage.
“What did you tell him?” she asked, fearing Abel Nash owed her, a newcomer, scant loyalty.
“I aske
d him if I looked like I ran in her circle. Then I told him if he didn’t need any seed or feed, I had paying customers to wait on.” He paused as if weighing his words. “You’ll find this has always been a live-and-let-live town. We’re not overfond of snoops.”
That was putting it mildly. In doing research on the area, as far back as the revolutionary war, Samantha had found that this region, with its peaks and valleys and inaccessible hollows, had been a haven for staunch individualists and rebels and people with something to hide. “I appreciate your respect for privacy,” she replied.
Abel had given nothing away, but surely Max had talked to others in town. Had they been as circumspect? She glanced at the sheriff on the sidewalk. Fortunately, Max, in keeping a low profile, always worked without benefit of law enforcement. He had other means. Unfortunately, he often proved more tenacious and more thorough than his uniformed counterparts. She’d almost rather take her chances with Garrett McQuire.
Almost.
Abel cleared his throat. “You’re a woman alone. If you don’t already have a gun, you might think of getting one.”
The idea appalled her, and her face must have registered that reaction.
“Most people do around here,” he said. “If for no other reason than to protect their livestock. Against snakes and coyotes. Intruders.”
“I never thought…”
“Consider it,” the storekeeper urged, not unkindly.
The responsibility of individual gun ownership. The necessity. A daunting concept. In the hotel business, security was handled by…well, security. A staff discreet and out of sight. And always at the ready. Until this moment she hadn’t really considered how others had taken care of her every need. And she’d considered herself an independent woman. Unsettled, she turned to go, only to discover she’d have to make her way past the sheriff still standing outside the door. An even more formidable prospect than purchasing a gun.
Why did he make her nervous even when she had nothing to hide? Nothing of substance. Not really.
She squared her shoulders and prepared to breeze by him with a cursory greeting. But stepping from the dim interior of the feed store into the bright June sunlight, she was temporarily blinded, and stopped to get her bearings.