Forbidden Ground. Karen Harper

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      Grant realized he’d been a moron to picture Tess’s older professor sister as some frowsy, mousy academic, pale with glasses perched on her nose, plain with no makeup. Kathryn Lockwood was very good-looking. He should have known she’d be pretty since Tess was. But while Tess was quite slender, Kate Lockwood bloomed in all the right places. Her shoulder-length, curly brown hair seemed dusted with auburn like when the sun set through the forest. Her eyes were hazel-hued, alight with amber flecks and fringed with thick lashes. Her mouth was lush, red and pouted right now as she surveyed him. She wore a royal-blue dress that wrapped around her curves. Suddenly, this wedding offered more than just the happiness of his best friend and his bride.

      “You have a lovely home,” Kate said, her voice warm and mellow. He thanked her but had to pull himself away to welcome others at the front door. He wondered who was keeping an eye on the area since Gabe’s only deputy, Jace Miller, and his wife were here. Victor Reingold, from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who had helped solve the town’s child-abduction cases, came in and shook his hand.

      Todd McCollum and his wife, Amber, soon showed up, too. Grant kidded him about how well he cleaned up. Todd was always overseeing the cutting floor of the mill, and his idea of downtime was uptime—climbing trees. In spite of the fact that Brad had seemed willing to take Todd’s job, it was tempting to get him down here to see everyone, but not in the state he was in.

      Their other childhood buddy, Paul Kettering, surprised everyone by showing up with one of his fantastically carved tree trunks as a wedding gift. Paul rolled the oak carving into the front tiled foyer area on a dolly, while everyone came to take a look, and Tess clapped her hands in excitement like a young child. Paul’s wife, Nadine, beamed as if she’d carved the three-foot-high, in-the-round piece herself.

      “Couldn’t see hauling it out to the waterfall or lodge for your wedding,” Paul told Gabe and Tess. “I’ll be sure it gets to your new house when you get back from the honeymoon. I did fairies since I thought it might be nice for your new nursery school, Tess.”

      Tess was teary-eyed at the array of winged beings that looked like pretty little girls in party dresses, emerging from behind leaves and fronds. “It’s wonderful. As you can see,” she said, turning to Kate, “Paul is a talented artist. When Grant’s group cuts trees, Paul has his choice of trunks and turns them into wonderful creatures like gnomes, leprechauns, fairies or other mythical beings. It’s a wonderful, special gift!”

      “It really is,” Kate agreed. “Do you do assignment carvings, Paul?”

      “As long as it fits the Kettering style,” he said.

      His plump wife, Nadine, spoke up. “These tough financial times around here make living on art a real calling and sometimes a sacrifice, so please tell anyone you know about Paul’s work. I have a business card I can give you. Some city folks don’t want to drive out into the wilds to find a unique artist, and it’s hard to take tree trunks on the road to art shows. A website helps, of course, but I think Paul always underprices his work.”

      Grant was relieved when everyone arrived and seemed to be mingling well. Despite the high ceiling of the large room, the noise level rose. He had Gabe and Tess go first at the buffet table, and others followed. After they ate, he noticed Kate kept looking out his back window, which, as darkness descended, had turned into a huge, black mirror reflecting all of them.

      After much group talk, dessert and a champagne toast, Grant finally managed to talk to Kate alone. She was still glancing out the window. “I’d love to see Mason Mound during daylight,” she told him when he approached.

      “Gabe mentioned that, huh? It’s pretty overgrown. Bushes on top, brush below and surrounded by several huge, prime maples, one with my boyhood tree house in it.”

      “How wonderful. I love hearing about people’s pasts. The mound’s never been excavated, right?”

      He hesitated, took a swig of his champagne. Either it was starting to get to him or she was. How much to tell this beautiful, interesting and interested woman? “My grandfather and my father both believed in letting the dead stay dead—undisturbed.”

      “Most mounds in this area are tombs.”

      “It’s only about twenty-four feet high, conical like most of the others, so it’s not a big or grand one.”

      “Which is probably why it’s been ignored. I found it on an old map I came across. Actually, the smaller mounds are often more productive and intriguing.”

      Was it his imagination that the word intriguing hung between them for a moment? Of course it was. He just didn’t need her questions getting too close for comfort, although that warred with his desire to get closer to her.

      “Productive and intriguing?” he repeated as across the room a burst of laughter broke out.

      When she raised her voice slightly to be heard, he realized they’d been whispering. “Because,” she explained, “if bodies or grave goods are interred there, they would be easier to excavate. In the big, well-known mounds, there may be burials stacked on top of each other in wood-lined tiers but everything’s caved in and smashed. Did Tess or Gabe mention I’m fascinated by the Adena and need proof to link them to my major area of study, the Celtic people of northern Europe?”

      “Tess told me. Anyway, I look at the mound as a monument—on private land—not to be tampered with or desecrated. But sure, I’d be happy to show it to you. Maybe after all the wedding hoopla. I hear your other sister is coming in tomorrow, so I know you’ll be busy. Drop by the mill if you’d like a tour of our facilities there.”

      She cocked her head, which made her hair brush her bare shoulder. She seemed to study him again. Did she sense he was putting her off about the mound? It actually had been entered in 1939 by his grandfather and then much later—by Grant, Brad, Todd and Paul—but he’d never tell her any of that. Though he had to admit, she was the kind of woman who could probably pry anything out of him if she put her mind to it, which made her damned dangerous as well as a temptation. All he needed was her wanting to take a really close look at the mound, including inside it.

      * * *

      As Kate sat between Gabe’s mother and Tess during the bridesmaids’ luncheon—at another surprising new-town venue called Miss Marple’s Tea Room—Kate could not believe how fast time flew toward the wedding. She knew it would be wonderful, except for having to be nice to Dad and his new family. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep because he’d left them? Before Mom got them an apartment and found a job in Jackson, Michigan, Kate used to be afraid they’d all starve to death, despite the money Dad sent every month. And when she’d later learned Jack Lockwood had cheated on his wife with the sheriff’s wife—Gabe’s mother, since Gabe’s dad was sheriff before Gabe—her pain had turned to stony hate.

      Of course, as an adult, she saw there were two sides to every love story, every breakup and divorce. Sheriff Rod McCord had seldom been home, so his wife must have been lonely. Obviously, the affair and divorce had been her fault, too. Mom had always seemed to be raising the three of them alone while Dad traveled for his job. Kate had always blamed him for leaving them at a time when it was crucial for them to bond as a family—right after Tess was abducted and then came back. And now, Kate knew, she’d have to be civil to him as she’d promised Tess. At least she couldn’t blame his new wife and their kids for the man he was or, at least, had been.

      Char burst out laughing at something Tess had said. Kate was so glad Char had arrived СКАЧАТЬ