“So tell Jesse that.”
“And listen to him call me a liar? it’s no proof, and with my luck nobody else will remember either way since it was so damned long ago. But I remember, and I know she’s a phoney. If she slipped up on that point, there are bound to be others. All we have to do is find them.”
“Even if we do, what makes you think Jesse will care?” Sully’s voice was impatient. “he’s running out of time, and he wants Amanda back so bad that she could probably explain away anything we came up with. And if you alienate Jesse, you’ll be worse off than you are now. I say let it alone, Reece. Don’t make Jesse choose, or you’ll lose.”
“I haven’t busted my ass all these years trying to please Jesse to watch it slip away now,” Reece said. “If you won’t bother to try, I’ll do it myself. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my interests.”
Sully followed his brother from the tack room and to the end of the barn hall, and stood there for a moment watching Reece stride off toward the house. Then, swearing under his breath, he turned toward barn three and tried to turn his thoughts to the yearling that was next on his list to be handled today.
He didn’t look back, and so he didn’t see Ben Prescott come down the last few stairs from his apartment above and stand gazing after him.
Jesse was on the phone when Amanda came into his study late that afternoon. She responded to his immediate smile and beckoning fingers by closing the door behind her and wandering over to study the painting of Brian, Christine, and Amanda Daulton.
A lovely little family. But not, it seemed, a perfect one. Christine had been restless for most of her marriage and possibly adulterous that last summer; Brian was apparently by turns neglectful and obsessively jealous of his wife.
As for Amanda … what did a child know? That beds were soft and food was good and parents were always there. That lightning bugs glowed after death. That summer smelled a certain way, and thunder couldn’t hurt you, and new shoes creaked when you walked. That there was no crayon to exactly match a clear summer sky. That butterflies would poise on your finger if you were very, very still, and that newborn foals wobbled comically. That crayfish could be caught by tricking them into scooting backward into a jelly jar. That nightmares weren’t real, even if they felt that way.
“She was a strong-willed woman, your mother,” Jesse said.
Amanda turned to look at him. “Then I come by it naturally, I guess. I’m stubborn, too.”
“I’d be very surprised if you weren’t, honey.”
She went across the room and sat down in a chair before his desk, her face grave. “We have to talk, Jesse.”
“About what?”
“About your will.”
“SHE HASN’T,” SULLY SAID, “PUT A FOOT wrong all night.”
“I’ve noticed.” Walker gazed across the tiled patio at where Amanda stood talking to the Reverend Bliss. The good reverend was, as usual, intent on saving a soul—whether or not it needed saving—and she was polite, gravely receptive, an abstemious soft drink in her hand and her simple summer dress not only flattering but also demure.
Her gleaming black hair was arranged in loose curls held off her face by one of the silk scarves she favored. The simple change in her appearance made her look eerily like the little girl in the portrait—but, of course, that had been her intention, Walker thought.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed you notice.”
Walker shifted his gaze to Sully’s face, met slightly mocking gray eyes for a moment, but all he said was, “Is it my imagination, or is there some tension between her and Jesse?”
Sully accepted the deflection with a shrug. “That’s right, you haven’t been around this past week.”
“Jesse kept me buried under paperwork for that development deal.” Not for the first time, Walker wondered if he had been kept busy and out of the way just so Jesse didn’t have to argue with him about the new will. “What’s going on?”
“Hard to say.” Sully took a swallow of his drink and watched broodingly as Amanda was rescued from Preacher Bliss by Maggie and taken to meet the newly arrived mayor and his wife. “Neither of them has said anything that I’ve heard, and there’s been no open argument. Very unlike Jesse.”
“I’ll say.”
Sully shrugged again. “At a guess, our little Amanda has somehow backed Jesse into a corner. I don’t know what it’s about, but he’s so frustrated he can hardly see straight.”
Walker frowned. “That doesn’t sound likely.”
“Agreed, but it’s my guess. From what I can tell, he keeps trying to … persuade her in some way, and she’s refusing to do whatever it is he wants. All week long, he’s been stomping around the house glaring at everyone else while she’s kept to herself and out of his way. Out of everyone’s way, as a matter of fact.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. It’s been a fairly tense week for Amanda, I’d say. Not only is Jesse pissed off at her, but Kate gets a frozen look on her face whenever Amanda comes near and Maggie hasn’t gone out of her way to be friendly.”
“I see,” Walker commented, “that You’ve noticed quite a bit yourself.”
Sully’s smile was sardonic. “I’ve been running back and forth from the stables to the house all week. Who do you think the old man’s been taking out his temper on? Yesterday he called me up to the house just to spend half an hour roaring about why the training ring fence hadn’t been painted this year. And when Victor called to say he’d be delayed, guess who took the flak for it.”
Walker looked at him thoughtfully. The two men were standing near a long table at the edge of the patio where a dessert buffet had been set up, and no one else was near them. It had been Sully who approached Walker, evidently because he’d had things to say, but it was uncharacteristic of him to complain about his grandfather’s treatment of him, and Walker suspected Sully had something else on his mind—which he would get to when he was ready and not a minute before.
The party had been going on for more than two hours now; torches placed here and there brightened the twilight as well as warded off pesky insects, and the guests had spilled over onto the lawn and into the garden, many trying to make room for dessert by lazily walking off the thick steaks and roasted vegetables consumed earlier. The faint smoke and hickory aroma of grilled food continued to hang in the still air, along with the appetizing scents of fresh-baked pies, cakes, and cobblers.
There were still guests sitting at the tables scattered around the patio, talking in small groups or else just listening to the pleasantly muted sounds of the band from Nashville. Muted because Jesse disliked loud music, and so had placed the band on a platform off to the side and forbidden amplifiers. This was not a concert, he’d told them; they were not to drown out the conversations of his guests or to wait expectantly for applause.
The band, extravagantly paid as well as lavishly housed and fed, hadn’t complained, and the guests obviously appreciated being able to talk without shouting. Some even danced to the slower tunes, turning the tiled area around the pool into a dance floor.
As for the guest of honor, she had indeed played her part to perfection. Greeting the guests at Jesse’s side, she had been friendly without gushing, deferring to Jesse in a pretty way not a whit overdone, and Walker had heard several people remark on how very much she (still) resembled the little girl in the famous painting and how wonderful it was for Jesse to have found his beloved granddaughter.
As far as the townspeople of Daulton were concerned, Amanda Daulton had come home.
And Amanda seemed completely comfortable in her surroundings. She was courteous and gracious to everyone, seemed flatteringly interested in whatever anyone had to say to her, and displayed a sweet, soft-spoken temperament that pleased everyone who spoke to her. She was even beginning to sound distinctly Southern.
Walker thought she was a fine actress.
It was only, he thought, because he watched them so closely that he had pick
ed up on the slight tension between her and Jesse. It wasn’t obvious, but it was there. And at least twice he had seen Jesse say something to Amanda that met with a slow shake of her head, a reaction that clearly displeased Jesse.
Walker didn’t know what it was about, but it made him acutely uneasy.
Kate came by the dessert table just then to make sure plates, forks, and napkins were laid out and ready, as usual performing the many small and large duties with an attention to detail that made her such an excellent hostess. If she resented Amanda’s presence and her place in the spotlight, it wasn’t apparent, and the coldness Sully had alluded to was not visible.
“Nobody’s eating dessert,” she said to Walker, a good hostess worried that her guests were not satisfied.
“They will. We will. It’s just that the steaks were huge.”
She made a little grimace. “Well, for heaven’s sake tell Sharon her blueberry pie is wonderful; she’s testing a new recipe, and I can’t try it because of my allergy.”
“I hate blueberry pie,” Walker reminded her.
“Do you? Yes, of course you do. I wonder why I’d forgotten that. Sully, you can—”
“I,” Sully said, “hate pie. Period.”
“Do you have to be so hard to get along with?” she asked him a bit plaintively. “Go ask Niki Rush to dance, why don’t you? She’s been eyeing you all night.”
Unmoving and unmoved, Sully said, “I also hate to dance. Particularly with grown women who spell their names in cute ways.”
Kate rolled her eyes at Walker, then headed off, apparently to herd stuffed guests toward the dessert table.
“Has she lost weight?” Walker asked Sully.
“Probably. Like I said—the past two weeks haven’t exactly been fun for any of us, and this last week has been worse. Jesse’s new will ready?”
Walker looked at him. “Not quite. The computer blew a hard disk, causing a delay.”
“Handy things, computers.”
“When they work.”
“And sometimes when they don’t.” Sully shrugged, then added abruptly, “he’s cut me out, hasn’t he?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”
Sully’s mouth twisted. “you’re a discreet bastard, aren’t you?”
“it’s my job, Sully.”
“Yeah.” Sully set his glass on the dessert table and muttered, “I’ve been here long enough to satisfy the old man, I think.” He took a couple of steps toward the house, then paused and looked at Walker. “By the way,” he said, “according to Reece, twenty years ago, Amanda was right-handed.”
Walker stared at him.
Sully smiled. “Interesting, huh? See you around, Walker.”
“We didn’t have the clinic then; Jesse put up the money for it about fifteen years ago—before that the doctor worked out of a house on Main Street,” Dr. Helen Chantry explained. “And I was hardly dry behind the ears, so to speak. Educated and willing, but inexperienced. In 1974, old Doc Sumner had just retired and I’d taken over his practice late in January.”
Amanda nodded. “Then you were—when my father was killed, you were called?”
“Well—yes.” Shrewd dark eyes studied Amanda for a moment, and then Dr. Chantry said impersonally, “There was nothing I could do for him. The fall broke his neck.”
“He was such a good rider,” Amanda murmured.
“Even Olympic-class riders come off their horses sometimes; Brian Daulton came off his. Unfortunately, he hit the fence at the precise angle and speed to turn what should have been merely a bruising fall into a deadly one. He died instantly.”
Amanda was silent for a moment, listening with half an ear to the band and gazing around at the small tables on the patio, most occupied by guests sampling desserts. A couple of uniformed maids moved about emptying ashtrays and refilling glasses, and three couples danced languidly near the pool.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Chantry said.
Amanda looked at her and smiled. “No, I asked. Besides—it’s been twenty years and I barely remember him. I was just curious because … well, because in the newspaper clippings about the accident, it said he was killed attempting to take a young horse over an impossible jump. That doesn’t sound like an Olympic-class rider, does it?”
“No, but people sometimes do stupid things—especially when they’re upset.”
The doctor didn’t say that Christine’s abrupt departure scant weeks before that day might well have caused Brian Daulton to do something stupid. She didn’t have to say it.
“I suppose.” Amanda hesitated, then asked, “Do you remember my mother?”
Helen Chantry, who was about the same age Christine Daulton would have been, nodded. “Socially, though—not professionally. She never came to me with a medical problem.”
Amanda hesitated again, then said, “Doctor—”
“Helen.”
“Helen, then. Thank you. Do you … have any idea why my mother left so abruptly?”
“Jesse said there were things you didn’t remember, but—didn’t she tell you later?”
“No.”
“Odd.” Helen looked at her thoughtfully. “I wish I could help, Amanda, but I honestly don’t know that answer. As I said, I only knew her socially. We weren’t friends. I don’t think she had any female friends. She wasn’t a woman’s kind of woman, if you know what I mean.”
Slowly, Amanda said, “She was beautiful. She attracted men. Is that what you mean?”
Helen smiled. “More or less. She didn’t just attract men, though, Amanda, she fascinated them. Maybe even … enthralled them. Whatever she had packed quite a wallop, and I don’t believe it was really deliberate, that she controlled it. I can recall more than one happily married and perfectly level-headed man looking at her with glazed eyes when she walked by on a public street. It was actually sort of eerie.”
“She wasn’t like that later.” Amanda distractedly pushed a small plate containing a couple of leftover spoonfuls of peach cobbler and apple pie away from her. There were still half a dozen desserts left to sample, but she wanted to wait a few minutes before making the attempt.
“What do you mean?” Helen asked.
Amanda recalled her wandering thoughts. “Oh … she was restrained, I guess. Not at all provocative in any way. Self-contained. Very quiet.”
Curiously, Helen said, “Tell me it’s none of my business if you like, but—she never remarried?”
“As far as I know, she was never even involved with a man after we left here.” Or was she? What about Matt Darnell? “Of course, I might not have known those first years, since children often don’t notice such things, but I think I would have when I got older. Surely I would have.”
Whatever Helen might have said to that was lost for the moment as Jesse called to her from a neighboring table to come and settle some bit of medical dispute.
“Our master’s voice,” she said to Amanda with a smile.
Amanda rose along with the older woman. “Well, I have to go back to the dessert table anyway. There’s still strawberry, blueberry, and about four other berries to sample.”
Helen chuckled. “I see You’ve been warned.”
“In spades. I played a careful game of word association with myself just to make sure I’d know and remember who made which dessert. I don’t want to offend anybody.”
“If you get it right, in the next election We’ll put your name on the ballot for mayor.”
Amanda was still smiling as she went to the dessert table. She had rather hoped to find most of the remaining pies all sampled out, but there was still enough left of each to provide one more generous serving or several test-size ones. Sighing, she got a clean plate and began cutting tiny wedges to sample.
Strawberry belonged to Mavis Sisk, who had red hair. Blueberry belonged to Sharon Melton, who was wearing a pair of blue topaz earrings and a blue ribbon in her hair. Amy Bliss, the preacher’s wife, had contributed raspberry (for some reason, Amanda had no trouble co
nnecting those two without benefit of further association). And a fine gooseberry pie belonged to a very sweet older lady with snow-white hair named Betty Lamb. Goose—lamb; it wasn’t perfect, but it worked for Amanda.
“You going to eat all that?”
Amanda looked up at Walker McLellan and felt her rueful good humor evaporate. She also felt her pulse skip a beat. She’d been aware of him all evening, aware of being watched by him. She had known that sooner or later, he would come to her—with, no doubt, some new accusation or variation on an old one.
Her memory of their last encounter, of his cold face and harsh voice, helped stiffen her spine and raise her chin—which was all to the good. She felt disturbingly vulnerable, and needed all the help she could get. He was angry; she couldn’t see it, but she could feel it.
“I have to sample,” she said, trying for a light note. “Wouldn’t want to hurt the ladies’ feelings.”
“Your accent’s getting thicker,” he said.
“You just haven’t heard it in a while.” Amanda wished she could take back the remark, annoyed at herself for letting him know she’d noticed his absence these last days.
“I’ve been busy,” he said. “Why don’t you ask me about the will?”
“Maybe I’m not interested in the will.”
“Or maybe you’re just content to wait—knowing it’s only a matter of time now until you have it all.”
Amanda began to turn away, but stopped when she felt his hand grip her arm. “Let go of me, Walker,” she told him evenly.
“I have a question.”
“Let go of me.” She was glad the music from the band kept them from being overheard, but she was all too aware that more than one pair of eyes watched them curiously. That would be all she needed—to make a scene with the Daulton family lawyer.
He held her arm and her gaze for a deliberately long moment, then released her arm. “it’s a simple question. You’re left-handed, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Amanda Daulton,” he said, “was right-handed.”
She smiled. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to bring up the subject. Wasn’t it on your list of verifying traits? Black hair, gray eyes, AB positive blood —right-handedness.”