Return to Oak Valley (2 page)

She sighed, suddenly feeling lonely and overwhelmed. She had left behind the familiar and was facing not only her brother's death but the need to oversee the Granger holdings—no small task, since the family holdings were sizable. Via the telephone, Mike Sawyer had already been giving her a crash course on what was facing her. Fortunately, the bulk of the Granger holdings were in a living trust, so she would not have to deal with the dispersal of the entire estate. Josh had left a will, but it covered only his personal possessions, and Sawyer had already told her that most of it was just a few bequests to friends and family.

There were still Grangers in the valley, second and third cousins, maybe a great-uncle or great-aunt, but with Josh's death, she became the sole living member of her branch of the Granger family. That thought depressed her and made her feel even more isolated. She was conscious of a deep longing for the warm, comforting arms of her Louisiana relatives. They were even more distantly related than the Grangers living in the valley were but at least she
knew
them and it hadn't been almost seventeen years since she'd last seen them. For a moment she regretted that she had declined her cousin Roman's escort and that of his younger sister, An-gelique. They had both offered to come with her, but she had refused, feeling her return would be enough for Oak Valley to gossip about without adding in her handsome cousin and his dark-eyed Southern belle sister. There was also Uncle Fritzie and Aunt Lulu and Roman's and Angelique's other siblings—they were a large family and had taken her to their collective bosoms or chests, depending.

Thinking about Roman and Angelique and the others made her feel better, not quite so alone; but aware that she was letting her thoughts stray, she focused on the valley below and what it might hold for her. Seventeen years, she thought moodily, was a long time to have been away. At eighteen, her heart wounded, her pride battered when she had fled the valley all those years before, she had severed most ties. Her friends must have thought she was crazy, but a few had understood the situation. They'd been very kind, she realized, not to press for answers to explain her abrupt withdrawal and had endeared themselves to her even more by not mentioning Sloan Ballinger—especially not the details of his engagement to Nancy Blackstone and their subsequent marriage ten months later. She grimaced. What a little coward she had been.

The sound of an approaching vehicle broke up her thoughts, and deciding that she had lingered long enough, she walked back to the Bronco. She was just ready to nose the Bronco out onto the road when the other vehicle swept around the curve, its headlights pinning her where she sat, almost blinding her. She blinked, framed for a brief second in the bright light. The new arrival slowed, dimmed its lights, and she stepped on the gas, pulling away from the turnout. A moment later the Bronco was sweeping slowly down the twisting blacktop toward the valley floor. Suddenly the vista opened up, and after the previous thirty miles of narrow, snake-backed road it was a pleasure to step on the gas and almost fly along the straight, flat road before her, broad open fields flanking either side of the pavement.

Forty-five minutes and two locked gates later, having left the valley floor again for the three-mile climb to the old home site, Shelly pulled up in front of the house where Josh had lived. It wasn't the home that she had grown up in—that one, originally built by her great-grandfather, had burned to the ground ten years ago. The house had been a valley landmark, a grand Victorian rising up nearly four stories of pristine whiteness against the green of the trees. Everyone knew the Granger house, and it was pointed out with pride by those on the valley floor. Josh had phoned the day after the tragedy and had said that there had been a chimney fire that had gotten out of hand. Since the old redwood framed house was situated in the foothills, by the time the fire trucks had reached it, there was nothing to be done. Before the fire had gotten too bad, fearing the worst, Josh and some of the early arrivals had frantically thrown several items, mostly heirlooms, out the windows, but most everything else had been lost when the house had burned. The heat from the roaring fire had been so intense and furious by then that Josh, half the valley, and the fire crew had been forced to stand at a distance and watch helplessly as over a hundred years of family and valley history went up in flames.

When Josh had rebuilt, against the advice of nearly everyone, it had been on the exact same spot, and it had been a log house—a handsome, metal-roofed affair, multileveled and surrounded by wide, covered decks. To show that he hadn't forgotten the reason he was rebuilding in the first place, there was a sprinkler system throughout the house and smoke alarms everywhere. He had installed all the safety features, but he hadn't been able to give up the idea of a cozy fire on a cold evening. In several of the rooms there were elegant brass-and-enameled fireplace inserts, fitted into the river rock facings so that they looked like nothing more than glass-fronted fireplaces.

Josh's Mexican-American housekeeper, and Shelly's childhood nursemaid, Maria, lived in a small house a quarter of a mile down the gravel road, and she had left a light on on the deck and one inside the house. Shelly was glad of it as she turned off the ignition. The house looked welcoming, the lights beckoning her forward, inviting her to enter—she could almost envision Josh bounding down the steps to greet her.

Ignoring the stab of pain, she grabbed her purse and the smaller of several suitcases she had brought with her. Locking the Bronco, she slowly walked up the wide, stone-lined gravel walkway that led to the front of the house.

Now that she was actually here, exhaustion claimed her. During the time since she had learned of Josh's death, and knew she would be returning to Oak Valley indefinitely, she had been run ragged. There had been a multitude of tasks to perform; notification of her apartment manager, the utility company, and then packing and selling her furniture and larger belongings. Saying good-bye to all her relatives and the friends she had made in New Orleans had been the hardest part—especially their sympathy as she coped with the horror of Josh's suicide. Being an artist of some repute, there had been no employer to worry about—although several of her friends had wondered about her decision to sell her furniture and give up her apartment. Surely, Roman had asked, concern in his emerald eyes, you will come back to New Orleans after you have seen to Josh's affairs? She had hunched a shoulder, unable to answer him. Seated in the first-class section of the plane for the flight to San Francisco, her gaze fixed on the disappearing runway below her, Shelly finally admitted that she had known the answer to his question, had known the answer from the moment she had learned of Josh's death. No, she wasn't coming back to New Orleans—no matter what she found in Oak Valley, no matter how painful her return might be. She took a deep breath. She was returning to Oak Valley for good. Returning home to stay after seventeen years away. She could not have explained it—it was simply something she felt she needed to do—even if everyone thought she was peculiar for doing so. She could live with peculiar, she thought, as she pushed open the door to Josh's house and stepped inside—right now, all she wanted was a bed.

Shutting the heavy oak door with its stained-glass window behind her, she headed for the wide staircase that dominated the large entry hall. Josh had sent her the architect's plans and had told her a lot about the house so, despite never having stepped foot in the place, she knew exactly where everything was situated.

A mixture of guilt and longing swept though her again as she pushed open the door to the main guest room on the second floor. Josh had told her all about it, his pleasure in the then-new house almost palpable. We should have been doing this together, she admitted with a lump in her throat, tears welling up in her eyes. She bit her lip, assailed by remorse, not even seeing the room in front of her.

What a selfish little bitch she had been, she thought, not to have come home even once during all these years. It didn't matter that she and her brother had talked almost weekly on the phone, or that Josh had flown to New Orleans to share most holidays and vacations with her…and to gamble, she thought wryly, remembering his passion for the turn of a card. He would have made a great Regency buck, with his love for every kind of game of chance.

She was lost in thought for several moments, remembering Josh laughing when he had had a particularly good night and his cheerful insouciance when he lost. “Next time,” he'd murmur, his green eyes twinkling. “You wait and see—next time the story will be different.”

Josh had been such an optimist and had had such a joy for life that it was hard to believe that he was gone. Dead. Bleakly, she wondered if Josh would still be alive had she faced her own demons and come back. If she had been here, would she have seen the signs of depression? Would she have realized that he was suicidal? Could she have prevented him from taking his own life? She had been asking herself those bitter questions ever since the news of his death had been relayed to her. There had been no real reason for her not to have come home before now—even if only briefly from time to time. Other than that she had been a coward, whispered a sly voice.

She dashed away a tear. Enough. She was home now, and even if Josh was not at her side, she could still appreciate the pleasure he had taken in his home.

The room in which she stood was gorgeous—huge and airy, one whole end a wall of glass that extended from the open wooden beams of the ceiling to the floor; in the middle, a pair of sliding doors led to a small, partially covered balcony beyond. Through the glass she could see an iron table and chairs sitting outside on the balcony.

The oatmeal-colored carpet muffled her steps as she walked farther into the room, her gaze touching the furniture Josh had chosen—she remembered his excitement at its arrival and his delight in how the room had all come together. “Wait till you see it, kiddo, you're gonna love it,” he'd said during one of their marathon phone conversations. “I even picked out a four-poster for it.” He laughed. “Hell, honey, I'm turning into a damned interior decorator! If I start walking with a mince, punch me.”

His words playing in her memory, she glanced at the cherrywood four-poster bed with a canopy of soft peach netting that sat against the far wall; a pair of matching night tables with brass lamps had been placed on either side of it. She remembered him talking about those, too—and the small sofa near the glass sliding door done up in a wild print of orange poppies and blue lupine.

Setting her suitcase down near the door, she noticed for the first time the two sets of doors at the opposite end of the room. One, she discovered, was a walk-in closet with recessed cupboard and drawers and enough room to hold a wedding reception. The other door opened into a bathroom that was large enough for a family of twelve. Or thereabouts, she thought with a smile.

Too tired to unpack, she picked up her suitcase and walked to the closet. After pulling out the few things she would need, she left the suitcase on the floor and wandered into the bathroom. A few minutes later, her teeth brushed, her face washed, and wearing a pair of yellow shorty pajamas, she climbed into bed.

Shelly had thought she would fall immediately to sleep, but she discovered that she was too restless, too wired after the long drive and the anxious anticipation of finally returning to the valley. Her lips curved. She had wanted to return alone, and by heaven, she had! Now she wished that she hadn't been so adamant about it. Having someone to talk to wouldn't have been such a bad thing.

After tossing and turning for several minutes, she gave up and slipped out of bed. Hoping that Maria had had the forethought to stock the refrigerator, she padded down the stairs, flipping on lights as she went.

Pushing open the swinging door that led to the kitchen, she turned on the light and stared around her. The kitchen was charming, large and spacious; the gold-flecked toffee-colored tiled countertops were a pleasing contrast to the pale oak cabinets that lined two walls. The floor was wild—a Mexican tile that, oddly enough, went very well with the rest of the kitchen, the copper-bottomed pans hanging over the island in the center of the room adding another splash of color. She smiled wistfully when she spied the fireplace insert at the far end of the kitchen. Josh had so loved his fire-places—the kitchen in the old house had had a fireplace in which she and Josh had popped corn over the leaping flames at Christmastime.

She blinked back tears at the memory and walked over to the huge built-in oak-fronted refrigerator. Someone, probably Maria, had been thoughtful enough to stock it with necessities. Taking a carton of milk from the refrigerator's cavernous interior, she found a glass in one of the cupboards. A few minutes later, having fumbled her way through the various choices of the gleaming black microwave on the counter, she was wandering through the house, sipping her glass of warm milk.

Eventually she made her way into Josh's den/office. It was a masculine room, the walls covered in knotty pine, the floor in a hunter green carpet. Heavy, comfortable chairs in russet leather were arranged in front of the black-marble-fronted fireplace insert; a long plaid couch was set under one of the windows, and at the far end of the room was a large rolltop desk made of oak. Bookshelves and windows were interspersed along the remaining walls of the room; a pair of glass doors, she knew, led to a private patio.

The chairs she recognized. They had been in the family for as long as she could remember—family gossip said that they had come with Jeb Granger when he had left New Orleans after the end of the Civil War. She had been thrilled when Josh had told her they had been among the few things saved from the fire that had destroyed the old house.

Her hand caressed the soft leather, obviously reupholstered, and as she looked closely at the wooden legs, she could make out the faint signs of charring the refinishers had not been able to obliterate. Sinking down into one of the chairs, she stared blankly into space.