Castle Rock (3 page)

“Nothing.”

“Will, I know you,” she said gently. “Please, let me help. Whatever it is.”

He did look at her then, and the pain in his eyes shocked her.

“I can't tell you,” he began, and then the dining room door opened. “Shh. Here comes Uncle Dan.”

Dan McIntire was smiling as he sat down. “Good news, you two. Julie's coming home.”

For an instant, Will and Serena turned frozen faces to him, both of them, Serena realized oddly, caught up in shock. But why, she wondered, should Will feel this way? He had always followed where Julie led. Will adored his sister.

Uncle Dan dipped into his sherbet, too busy talking to see their reaction. “I'll fly into Albuquerque and pick them up. Their flight gets in at four tomorrow . . .”

Serena managed a smile and tried to say the right things.

They. Of course. Julie and her new husband, Peter.

How in the world could she bear it?

“Are you sure you won't come, Serena?”

Serena stood by the driver's door of the jeep. She bent and kissed her uncle on the cheek. “It would be crowded in the plane and you know Julie always has a lot of luggage.”

Dan McIntire smiled. “That's true enough. I'll give Julie your love.”

“Do that,” Serena replied. “I'll be here when you get back.”

When the dust rose after the jeep on its way to the single lane airstrip south of the hacienda, Serena jammed her hands in the back pockets of her Levis and slowly walked back toward the front steps.

You can do what you have to do. She had learned that as a small child. She would manage. Surely Julie and Peter would not stay very long. Serena paused and looked up at the hacienda, the adobe gleaming like soft gold in the afternoon sunlight. What had Julie called it once? A clay mausoleum. But not, of course, in front of Uncle Dan.

Silence cloaked the huge house like the first snowfall high in the mountains. Serena paused in the entryway, then turned and walked through the shadowy living room, with its ranch furniture and pots of ferns, toward the office that opened out of the den. Since she had returned to Castle Rock from college, she had spent almost every afternoon typing letters and keeping accounts for her uncle.

She suspected it was his kindly way of making her a part of the pulse of the working ranch. She did a good job, always careful to produce perfect letters and accurate entries in the ledger. She was gaining a clearer picture of the complexity of running a huge ranch with ten thousand head of cattle. Always there was the worry about water and whether there would be enough and how to maintain the herds when water ran short, as it so often did. She'd learned how to keep feed available during the harsh winter months and when to move the herds to follow the grasses. She'd learned when to cull and brand, when to ship, when to sell, and when to hold. And, of course, there was the extra planning involved for the dudes in summer.

It would be a lot for Danny to master someday.

Someday . . . She laid down her pen. The figures merged into a blur of meaningless shapes. She couldn't stay at Castle Rock forever.

It hurt to think that she must someday leave. It hurt all the way through. She loved the ranch, the clear brilliant days, the silent nights with stars in shiny silver clusters. She loved unexpected glimpses of life in the brown and dusty countryside, the flicker of a rabbit's tail, the tawny pelt of a coyote slipping up an arroyo, the big, sturdy saguaro cactus with its surprising flowers in the spring.

She was here now. Enjoy the moment, Serena told herself. No one can be sure of tomorrow. Enjoy today.

She pushed back her chair. She had the mid-afternoon blahs, not helped by the tension that tightened her shoulders as the time drew nearer and nearer for Julie and Peter to arrive. Serena decided to go to the kitchen. There were always luscious things in Millie's kitchen. Today was no exception. Fresh butterscotch brownies sat on a blue plate. Raspberry oatmeal cookies cooled on wire racks.

Serena was smiling as she sat down at the old wooden table with a cookie and a tall glass of icy milk. Everything was going to be all right. She was over Peter Carey. Definitely over Peter. He could not possibly have been the right man for her, not if he truly enjoyed the life he and Julie now led, living in Manhattan and spending leisure time in Monte Carlo and Acapulco. This would be their first visit to Castle Rock since their marriage last summer. Serena could not imagine staying away from New Mexico for a year. So, everything was going to be all right. She and Julie would be just as they always had been.

Finishing her snack, she took the plate and glass to the sink to rinse. She smiled at the vase of iris on the windowsill. She crossed the wooden flooring to the kitchen door, which swung noiselessly on its hinges. She took a step or two into the dining room, then stopped and lifted her head to listen.

The house should be still, the quiet of siesta. Millie always went to her cabin for siesta. Joe, of course, would be out on the ranch. In any event, he would never be upstairs. Only the family or Millie would be upstairs.

The noise came from upstairs.

Serena walked slowly forward to look up the shadowy reaches of the curving stairway.

Uncle Dan and Danny and Will had flown to Albuquerque. Only she had remained here at the house, the house she had thought empty except for her.

Clearly, unmistakably, Serena heard footsteps above her.

Serena swung to her left. It took her only a moment to slip through the dim living room to the great brick fireplace and the gun rack beside it. She reached up, found the key on the ledge, opened the glass case, and lifted out the Winchester repeating rifle. She checked the magazine, made sure the safety catch was on, then turned back the way she had come.

She crept up the stairway. The noise of the intruder was unmistakable when she reached the second floor landing. Uncle Dan's room was at the head of the stairs. His door was closed, as were the doors to Serena's room and to the room that would be Julie's and Peter's.

Will's door was ajar. Within, someone opened and closed drawers.

Serena hesitated.

Could Will have returned before the others?

There wasn't any way. And, if all of them had returned, she would have been caught up in the bustle of Julie's homecoming.

The rifle heavy in her hands, Serena took one careful step after another. She kept to the Navajo rug in the center of the hall to deaden her footsteps. She edged up to Will's half-open door and looked inside. Her breath caught in her throat.

He stood with his back to the door, but she couldn't mistake him, not the broad sweep of his shoulders, his lean hips and legs. He stood, hands on his hips, looking carefully around the room.

“Jed!” The shocked exclamation escaped her without thought.

For an instant, just an instant, and later she would wonder if she imagined it, his body tensed, then, quickly, easily, he swung around, smiling, “Serena, maybe you can . . .” He stopped, staring at the rifle. “For heaven's sake, Serena, what's the artillery for?”

She held the rifle loosely in her hands. “I heard a noise. I thought everyone was gone.”

“Hey,” and he crossed to her, put a hand on her arm, “ I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. I thought no one was here.”

Yes, she thought coldly, that is what you must have thought, that you had the house to yourself.

But he was turning toward the bookcase. “Maybe you can help me, Serena. Will said I could borrow his book on Peter Hurd. I was trying to find it. I've looked everywhere but I don't see it. Do you?”

“It's downstairs.”

“Downstairs? Why, I thought . . . I must have misunderstood Will.”

“Do you mean the big book with a collection of Hurd's paintings?” Serena asked.

“Yes, that's the one.”

“It's in the living room on the rosewood table next to the organ.”

Jed carried the rifle downstairs for her, chatting companionably. She found the book for him and he took it with thanks, and helped her replace the rifle in the cabinet. As she locked the case, he was looking at the collection.

“Your uncle has some nice guns there.”

“Yes. They're worth a good deal.”

If he noticed the dry tone in her voice, he gave no sign of it. In fact, he shook his head. “I didn't mean what they're worth. Just that they are good guns. Does he hunt much?”

Serena shook her head. “Not as much as he did when Dan Jr. was alive.”

“Dan Jr.?”

Serena told him of the long-ago accident.

“That must have been a great tragedy in his life,” Jed said quietly.

“Yes. But at least he has Danny.”

Jed leaned casually against the organ, holding the heavy book in his hands. He looked at her quizzically, “And he has you, Serena.”

He had in the last few weeks become so much a part of the ranch day, riding out in the mornings with Joe to supervise the hands, taking up the Aerocommander to check on the herds, that it came as a surprise to realize how little, really, he knew of them.

“I meant real family,” she explained, “when I mentioned Danny.”

“Real family? But I thought . . . Aren't you his niece? A brother or sister's daughter?”

She smiled. “No. I'm Uncle Dan's ward. He always told me to call him Uncle. I think he did it to make me feel more secure. You see, my parents were friends of Dan Jr.'s and were lost in the storm, too. I've lived here ever since, except when I was away at school.”

“I see,” Jed said slowly. “So you aren't any relation at all. Then what about Will and Julie?”

“They are his nephew and niece, the children of his sister, Jessica.”

“Is she dead, too?”

Idly Serena fiddled with the cover of the organ. How to explain Jessica? There was scarcely any way.

“Jessica's not the sort to stay on a ranch,” Serena began. “She's . . . international. She loves Paris and San Francisco and Rome. She's been married at least four times and right now I think she's living on a Greek island with a French film star.”

Jed gave a soft whistle. “I know Castle Rock's a big ranch, but I wouldn't have thought it would run to that kind of money.”

“It doesn't. Uncle Dan's very rigid about some things, one of which is Jessica. She dumped the kids on him when they were little, and she occasionally drops in for a visit, but she doesn't get a penny out of Castle Rock. He gave her a settlement years ago with the understanding that she would never make a claim for the ranch.”

“How does she manage the jet-set lifestyle?”

Serena smiled slightly. “She's very beautiful. Still. And she rarely marries a poor man.”

“This Julie who's coming today, she's Jessica's daughter?”

Serena's smile faded. “Right.”

Jed looked at her curiously. “You don't like her much?”

“Julie and Will and I grew up together.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“No.”

It was his turn to smile a little. “I like you when you are angry. You remind me of a black cat, ready to run or fight.”

“I don't usually run.”

“Is that why you stayed home this afternoon?”

“I have no quarrel with Julie.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then tell me about her.”

She could have slapped him, but that would be a betrayal too. Instead, she lifted her chin. “Julie . . . why, she's Jessica's daughter. Beautiful. Appealing. Bewitching, actually. You'll see when you meet her.”

“Is she rich, too?”

The question caught her a little by surprise. But then everything with Jed this afternoon had been unexpected, finding him in Will's room and now this conversation with its odd turns.

“No. Julie and Will don't have any money. Their father caroused through all of his and went bankrupt before he died. And Jessica would never dream of sharing.”

“What does Julie do?”

“She lives in New York with her husband. When they aren't on the Riviera.”

“What does he do?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Serena said vaguely. “He has investments of some kind.”

“Hmm, they sound like interesting people.” Then he raised his head. “I hear the plane now. I'll excuse myself, Serena, I don't want to intrude on your reunion.”

“You won't intrude.”

He smiled. “This isn't the moment for a ranch hand to hang around. I'm sure there will be a lot of visiting you will want to do.”

She wondered, as the door closed behind him, whether there had been irony in his voice. The roar of the plane came nearer. She took a deep breath and walked toward the door.

Serena was waiting by the front steps with a smile when the jeep pulled up. Julie dropped lightly to the ground and swept toward her. She was lovely in an ice-blue silk dress that looked as fresh and perfect as if it had just that moment been taken from a cachet-lined closet.