The Story Keeper (13 page)

We slipped across a small, covered bridge, and darkness shrouded the car until we came out the other side. Ahead, a gateway emerged, a dozen or so cars parked randomly in the ditch around it. The scene looked like it had come straight from some of the fan blogs I’d read. People were snapping pictures by the brass insignia on the rock wall beside the guard shack and taking videos through the ornate iron gate.

They moved aside as we passed, peering into the vehicle to see if we might be anyone important. A security man in a cowboy hat and a brown T-shirt that read
Hall Ranch
came to check us in.

“It’s just us,” Helen said.

He waved us through as the envious onlookers watched.

“Is it always this way?” I hadn’t quite imagined the horde. The man was literally a prisoner on his own mountain.

Helen sighed. “More so when they’re having one of their gatherings in town. In a way, I suppose it’s evidence of Evan’s talent, but in another way, it’s such foolishness. The poor boy should be able to have his own life. He isn’t the sort for all this hullabaloo, but it seems as though the more he retreats from these people, the more they chase after him.”

“Maybe that’s part of the reason. It keeps the mystery alive, creates the illusion that there’s something to hide.” I was probably overstepping my bounds, but it had occurred to me that Evan Hall and I might actually be useful to each other. When an author came out with something in a completely different genre, it tended to quell the fires of prior works. And because
The Story Keeper
was an older manuscript, it might be free of any contractual ties to the publishing house that had produced his Time Shifters books. “If I can just have a few minutes to speak with your nephew, I think I can explain why this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

My palms started to sweat. I gripped and ungripped the steering wheel, my pulse suddenly ramping up. Quite possibly, this was it. Either the beginning or the end.

“My nephew can be a very stubborn man,” Helen warned.

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

A chuckle puffed from her, the sound releasing tension like a pop-up valve. “But you are a very pretty girl. It isn’t easy for a man to say no to a pretty young woman face-to-face . . . particularly when he’s lonely. And the two of you do have the publishing business in common.”

I drew back, casting a glance at her as the road narrowed and
crawled along the edge of the mountain like tinsel clinging to a giant Christmas tree. What was she suggesting? Was this a business meeting or . . . some sort of a matchmaking scheme?

I groped for something to say but came up empty.

“Both Violet and I would like to see Evan return to his writing, and not more of the Time Shifters books either. Before those came along, Evan wrote beautiful tales about the people and the mountains and the heart of this place. Writing was therapy for him after Violet brought him back here to live, I think. He was only twelve, but he could spin a yarn even then.”

She pointed ahead to where the road split, one fork fading to dirt and traveling level around the mountain, and the paved road winding toward the peak. “Right at the Y here. The other one goes to the back side of the ranch.”

We continued upward, past an old stone farmhouse and barn hidden in the trees against a bluff, past two horses nibbling moss off a rock, and then through a stand of wild rhododendron, where a doe calmly lifted her head and watched us drive by. Finally we emerged in a hilltop compound complete with a large paved parking area, a six-bay garage, a swimming pool and cabana, a guesthouse, and a palatial home.

I made an effort not to react by sucking in a breath. Evan Hall lived well. Regardless of how he felt about the Time Shifters books, he’d clearly reaped the benefits.

We parked beneath the two-story portico in front and entered the house without knocking, Helen calling out as we moved through a cavernous vestibule that had a woman’s touch . . . or an interior decorator’s.

“Violet? Vi-i-i-olet . . . where are you, hon?”

Violet beckoned us from the living room, where we found her settled atop a well-worn quilt in an oversize leather recliner. The
arrangement of pillows and the gathering of books, magazines, and needlework around her evidenced the fact that she spent a great deal of time there. Her wan figure seemed almost a part of the chair, but her smile was bright and welcoming.

Helen swept a kiss across her cheek before she introduced me and we sat.

The two women spoke briefly about business at the pharmacy, the Warrior Week incomers, and Violet’s afternoon doctor’s appointment in Charlotte. Oncologist. The body language during that part of the conversation wasn’t good.

Violet turned her attention to me. “Helen says you’re not a stranger to these parts.” It was the proper way to begin a Southern conversation
 
—
Where are you from? Who are your peopl
e
? Where do you attend church?
Living in the city, I’d grown out of practice at this sort of thing. There, a business conversation began with business.

“I grew up near Towash.” It struck me then, the irony. Thirteen years of trying to erase this place from my speech, my mind, my history, and now those connections were an asset. I felt like an opportunist at a high school reunion, mining old relationships to sell used cars or vinyl siding. “I think that’s why the
Story Keeper
manuscript grabbed me to this degree. There is such a sense of place . . . of life as it would’ve been here at the turn of the century.” I watched for any spark of recognition, any sign that they might be responsible for the manuscript showing up at my door.

Violet shifted away a bit, frowning. I’d moved the conversation toward business too quickly. “And who are your people over in Towash? I don’t recall any Gibbses.”

“My family lives west of, about twelve miles. Off Honey Creek.” I purposely didn’t say Lane’s Hill. No doubt she’d heard
of it. The Brethren Saints had roughly the same reputation that Melungeons carried in Rand and Sarra’s day
 
—secretive, strange, given to odd ways of dressing and cultish practices. Suspicious of outsiders.

Violet let her head fall against the cushion, a smile playing briefly where suspicion had been. “Oh, my, when we were girls, we’d take our little canoe down Honey Creek and paddle for miles! It was a grand life, growing up here . . . before all the fences.” A frown lent emotion to the last sentence.

So Violet didn’t approve of cordoning off the mountain either. She understood that it wasn’t considered very neighborly.
The Story Keeper
was so tenderly written, it was hard to equate that with guard shacks and the starkness of twelve-foot chain link.

A door opened somewhere in the house, and an electronic alarm system beeped, the sound quickly fading into the echo of a child’s footsteps clomping up the entry hall at a rapid pace. Hannah burst into the room a moment later, skidding to a stop when she saw that it was occupied.

“Hannah.” Violet withheld the smile teasing her lips. “What have you been told about running in the house?”

“Tooo . . . not to?” Hannah surveyed the room, spotted me there on the sofa, and headed my way, running again, her cowboy boots sliding on the tile. “Hey!” She threw her arms out, and the next thing I knew, I was being chair-tackled in an exuberant hug. I was momentarily struck by how good it felt.

She lingered in front of me as she pushed to her feet again. “Nobody told me you were coming.” A suspicious look and a cocked eyebrow went toward the older ladies.

Violet extended an arm and cupped her fingers in the air. “Come sit here with Granny for a minute. I thought you and your daddy were going fishing together today, sugar pie.”

Hannah perched on Violet’s chair arm, slumping forward. “He has to do some work, so we can’t.”

A critical look and a bit of eye dialogue passed behind the little girl’s back. I felt like an intruder, eavesdropping on an ongoing family
situation
.

“It was supposed to be his day off.” Helen clipped the words.

In the foyer, out of sight, the door opened and closed. The electronic chime beeped again. A man’s boot steps echoed this time.

I prepared myself to meet Evan Hall, perhaps not under the best of circumstances, but the guy who entered didn’t quite fit the image I’d formed. There was a resemblance
 
—dark hair, blue eyes, brooding lips
 
—but he was shorter than I’d thought he would be. Not
short
, necessarily, but I’d had the image of Evan Hall as well over six feet.

He didn’t look our way as he rounded the corner, though he hitched a step as if surprised to find people there in the formal living room. “Just gotta grab my wallet. I’m headed to town. Those Time Shifters morons tore up some more fence.”

“I thought you were taking your daughter fishing.” Helen tracked him like a chicken on a grasshopper as he continued to a door off the foyer.

“She’s been waiting for a week,” Violet added.

He ducked into a small room, an office by the look of it. “Tell Evan’s idiotic fans to stop tearing things up.”

So this wasn’t Evan Hall, and Hannah wasn’t Evan’s daughter. . . .

“I can’t stand those people sometimes.” Hannah sided with her father, her hands flipping through the air, then landing with a slap. “They ruined our whole stupid day.”

Helen’s nostrils flared and more silent words were exchanged. Her opinion was obvious.
Your daddy ruined your day.

I sat trying to act as if I were weirdly oblivious to the undercurrents mole-tunneling below the surface.

Exiting the office, Hannah’s father glanced our way and stopped midstride. “Didn’t know we had company.” He took me in more carefully, smiled a little.

“This is Jennia Beth,” Hannah volunteered. Apparently she’d picked up my name from Mrs. Penberthy in the pharmacy. I hadn’t been Jennia Beth in years.

I stood as he crossed the floor, and Helen rose to make introductions. She, too, used Jennia Beth as she acquainted me with her nephew Jake Hall, Evan Hall’s younger brother. Like Evan, he was striking in his appearance, nice-looking. Cowboy hat, deep-blue eyes, good tan. But there was something weathered and hard-lived about Jake Hall, though I guessed him to be not that much older than me, maybe in his midthirties or so.

“Jen,” I corrected.

“Nice of you to come brighten up this place a bit.” He flashed a smile and then an unabashedly flirty look that pushed toward embarrassing, given the company.

“I’m enjoying the visit.”

“You live around here?” Why did I have the feeling that Jake Hall said that to women often? I wondered if Evan would be this . . . overt. Somehow I didn’t picture him as the type. I hoped he wasn’t. That would complicate things.

“Jennia Beth’s stayin’ in the cabin on the lake,” Hannah offered.

Her father never even glanced her way. “Oh. Nice. Great view there. Secluded, even though it’s actually not that far from the neighbors. You meet Uncle Clive yet? Don’t let him scare you.
He didn’t quite come
all
the way back from combat duty, if you know what I mean, but he’s harmless.”

“Jake, that’s unkind,” Violet complained. “That’s my cousin you’re speaking of.”

Jake answered with a shrug and a wry smirk.

“Horatio attacked her dog,” Hannah piped up. Once again, her father didn’t look her way.

“Maybe Hannah would just as soon ride to town with you instead of staying here,” Helen suggested, and a gush of sympathy hit me. Everyone seemed to be trying to elbow Hannah off right now. I understood why Helen and Violet didn’t want extra ears around, but the poor kid . . .

“Might take some time for me to find what I’m after.” Jake disengaged and backed away a step. “Hannah’d just be bored, wouldn’t you, pine knot? Uncle Clive oughta be by here later with the mower blades he honed up for me. Maybe y’all two can hit that honey hole on the lake y’all went to yesterday, finish stockin’ Clive’s old freezer with fish fillets.” He flashed a smile at his daughter then, turning the charm her way as he ruffled her hair.

“Yeah, maybe. I guess so.” Hannah’s look of adoration was heart melting. “I s’pose I’ll just go ride awhile.”

“Not so far this time,” Violet warned. “You worried us yesterday. You were gone too long. And not on the gray gelding. That’s too much horse for you. If you’re going out by yourself again, take Blackberry.”

Hannah opened her mouth to protest, and Violet lifted a finger, silencing her with one quick look.

“Sheesh . . . oh-kay already.” An eye roll offered adolescent attitude. Where was this kid’s mother? I wondered. And how did Evan Hall fit into this human drama?

In short order, Hannah and her father were gone. We resumed our conversation, but time was running out, and both women were ready to get around to the dialogue about Evan and the manuscript.

Violet turned my way with a very pointed look. “I won’t do anything that could cause my grandson trouble. He has enough on his shoulders, with an ailing old woman to take care of, and now his brother and Hannah having moved in. Evan was only a boy when he sold those Time Shifters books. Barely eighteen years old. He didn’t make all the right decisions, and it’s cost him dearly in terms of legal brouhaha. Aside from that, always there are hangers-on trying to fill their pockets from him any way they can. People take advantage.”

“Yes,” Helen echoed. “We don’t want to do anything to cause Evan further unhappiness. If it weren’t for the fact that you are local . . . well, and that I had one of my
feelings
about you when you came in, I wouldn’t have contacted Violet about this at all. Or brought you here.”

“Of course. And I appreciate it more than I can say.” Time to get down to brass tacks. I might’ve been out of practice at the roundabout paths of
Who are your people?
and
Where do you hail from?
but negotiations I could do. “I promise you, I’m not here to take advantage of anyone. Vida House is extremely reputable. That’s one of the reasons I went to work there. It’s a place I can feel good about. I genuinely believe this could be a beneficial thing for all involved.” I went on, explaining how Evan’s moving into a new publishing channel might help to subdue the lingering Time Shifters mania.