Slaying the Jabberwock

Chapter One

"Appassionato, Andrew! Appassionato! The resonant voice of Maestro Vittorio Luciani boomed across the bare practice room. Its rudeness crashed through Drew Sutherland’s concentration, froze his voice, ripped away the music in his head as it continued to hammer at him. Fieramente! Fieramente! Impetuoso!"

"Taci! With a swing of his arm, Drew smashed the upright supporting the slanted top of the piano beside him. The lid banged down with a discordant crash and he shouted, Taci!" again, as if the vehemence of the word itself could make the badgering man shut up.

"Silenzio! Vittorio continued his tirade in vehement Italian: Listen when I speak! I am master! When I ask for passion, I want passion. Perfection is useless. Give me feeling. Give me Figaro! Not Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. I’m sick of Andrew!"

I’m sick of your inflated opinion of yourself. Drew shouted at the wiry stick of a man, whose tempestuous anger raged with the awesome power of a firestorm, and shot his hand up in an obscene gesture of defiance. Take your fucking passion and shove it!

Arrogant jackass! Rising, Vittorio swept his hand across a paper cluttered table and hurled a tumbler in a wild, sidearm throw that sent it flying past his student.

Drew heard a startled scream, twisted to see the missile hit the woman playing the piano. He saw glass shatter against dark hair, watched pale liquid turn red as it mingled with blood, ran down an ashen face. A wave of red fury blotted out Drew’s awareness before he stiffened, threw his head up and bellowed, Do not hurt her! as he charged forward, knocked a shouting Vittorio out of his way then froze when the woman looked at him in innocent surprise.

When powerful arms circled his chest and hauled him backwards, Drew shuddered, snapped his head, up and shattered the darkness in his mind. Growling, "Imbecille," he bent forward, twisted his shoulders to roll a heavy man across his back.

When the crushing hold released, Drew swung his right leg in an arc that swept the man’s feet out from under him as his own straight-armed shove on the shoulder sent the attacker skidding across the floorboards. When a second pair of hands closed on his arms, he spun away from them, ducked, shot his foot at an unprotected chest. The assailant staggered backwards into a beverage cart that reared up on two wheels, crashed onto its side. Whirling, Drew saw the first man charging toward him. He dodged left and came up under the man’s guard. The heel of his right hand slammed against hard jawbone. The man collapsed.

Ignoring the groaning form at his feet, Drew swept his gaze around the room. Vittorio sat on the floor, gaping at him from round eyes in a bloodied face. Drew started to ask what had happened then saw blood on his own arm, shirt and pant leg. He heard movement behind him and bolted for the door beyond where the smaller assailant was trying to push himself to his feet by leaning on the smashed serving cart.

"Buono! Furioso! Fervente!" Drew heard Vittorio shouting behind him, but it made no sense. Nothing could be good here. Nothing.

In the parking lot beyond the conservatory’s sweeping lawn, Drew leaned on a fender of his car and concentrated on the flickering play of sun and shade on the deep blue finish. Shuddering, he shook himself free of the hypnotic flashes, fought to control the whirling chaos in his mind by focusing on tense hands and hard forearms, spatters of blood on the sleeve of his white shirt.

Oh God, what did I do?

Drew remembered Vittorio’s shouts pounding at him until he didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t know where he was. He remembered a scream, a searing wave of rage. He remembered breaking away from two men who attacked him. He remembered staring at Vittorio, wondering why someone had assaulted his teacher. He remembered blood. Vittorio’s blood? He tried to make sense of it, but there were no answers, only a desperate sense of wrong that drove him to the edge of panic, told him to run away and find refuge where he could think.

As Drew sped away from the conservatory, the decision to go to the only person he could trust to help him calmed the panic. He forced himself to focus beyond irrational chaos, took control of his racing anxiety and turned away from Genoa and its shimmering vista of the sun-drenched Mediterranean Sea.

v

Northwest of Paris, at the end of a long drive that curled uphill between dark masses of shade trees, a stone, French Provincial country house carved a black hole out of the dusty swath of the milky way. The house was unlit, except for a splash of light on stone steps to the front portico entrance, a faint golden glow beyond stained glass sidelights and the beckoning illumination of a triple-wide, multi-paned window at the right corner of the first floor.

Drew parked in the drive then shivered when, still wearing the open collar shirt that had been comfortable on the Mediterranean coast, he stepped into the chill of a December night in northern France. Beyond the unlocked front door, he paused on the slate floor of a silent entry hall and pulled in a steadying breath. The comforting scent of leather furniture and Old Spice led him through a dark sitting room toward the lighted corner office, where a trim, fit man, wearing a worn, Le Mans Grand Prix sweatshirt and khaki pants, sat sideways behind an antique, table-desk—watching him.

Drew stopped inside the office door and met Andy Sutherland’s steady blue stare. Why are you still up?

I’ve been expecting you. I had a call from Genoa.

The police? Drew walked to a russet leather sofa that faced his father’s desk and sat astride its rolled arm. That means you’ll tell me I have to turn myself in.

I don’t think there would be much choice. If Genoa put out a warrant for you, you would have already been picked up by the Italians, or the French. There aren’t many Lamborghinis like yours on the road and few places to hide it and keep moving between there and here.

Then who called?

Vittorio Luciani.

Drew felt the name more than heard it. A cold fist clenched in his gut, turned his voice cynical. He’d like to see me dead. Or at least flogged in the town square.

Not the first; probably the second. Andy’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair. He didn’t raise his voice but it was hard enough to split rock. Believe me, Drew; when I heard what you did, my primal desires were to slam you against a wall and flog you myself. Your behavior was inexcusable. However, I’ve had a few hours to harness those urges and think about what he said, which means there’s a chance we may be able to talk about this like civilized people who respect each other.

Right now, I don’t think I’d blame you. Drew stared at the dried stains that marked his sleeve. I have no acceptable excuses.

Why do you think the police want you?

I beat up an old man, Dad. Drew lifted his gaze and faced his guilt, felt the fist relax.

He’s only fifty-eight. I’d appreciate it if you weren’t so loose with your adjectives. Andy’s eyes locked their two blue stares together. He said you had provocation.

He threw a glass of wine at Elise. It cut her and I lost my temper.

He threw a plastic water tumbler at you. It hit her by mistake. She got wet; she wasn’t cut.

I saw the blood. It was mixed with the wine and ran out of her hair. Drew was confused, unable to accept what he was hearing. I saw it. Why are you denying the truth?

Because if you’re right, Vittorio is wrong.

Drew recoiled with dramatic cynicism. Maestro Luciani, God’s perfect man, wrong?

Drew, one of you isn’t telling the right story. How do you know you beat him?

He was bloody. I have blood on me. He glanced back at the spattered stains.

When he approached Elise, you gave him a bloody nose by knocking him aside with your forearm—an action he described as sweeping a bug out of your way. He said he kept shouting at you, trying to get through to you, but you weren’t listening. Do you remember that?

That’s not what I saw. The vision of blood-soaked dark hair loomed vivid in Drew’s mind, making him wonder why Vittorio had lied about what seemed so real."

Two carpenters ran in and pulled you away. You did more to them than to Vittorio.

I didn’t know who they were. I thought they were attacking me.

They were trying to stop you.

I didn’t know that. Someone was squeezing the breath out of me. I threw him away, but they kept coming after me. All I did was defend myself.

Your skills go beyond defense. You can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ve been taught that for years.

All I did was stop them from attacking me.

You just said you didn’t know what happened.

I knew what I was doing then. I didn’t know why they attacked me. He paused, searched for any memory that would verify what his father told him. There was nothing but the blood and deep red rage. Why would Vittorio tell you all that?

I asked him to. I get very upset when someone tells me you don’t act like yourself and don’t listen to someone you should respect. I get more upset when you tell me you don’t remember what happened.

I got mad.

You checked out.

I got very mad. Drew’s hands tightened into fists he pressed on his thighs. He’s an egomaniac. I can’t take it when he starts badgering and won’t let me think.

Why you got mad is not what concerns me right now. I want to know why you dissociated.

I didn’t dissociate. Drew stiffened.

You weren’t responding as yourself. You had no memory of what you did, or where you were. What else do you call it?

All right! Drew threw up his hands and broke away from the steady stare that could rip truth out of him no matter how much he wanted to keep it hidden. Believe what you want.

Why did it happen?

I don’t know.

Drew stood facing the front window. He saw reflections of his father’s sharp features, a gleam of light on strands of silvering blond hair. The darkness of his own cropped curls disappeared in the black of the night as the window threw the distraught reflection of similar features back in his face. He turned away from it and looked below his father’s eyes at a stack of mail on the desk. When I blow up, I don’t think very well. You battled enough of my temper tantrums to know that. I feel like hell about it.

There was a long silence while Andy waited until Drew sat astride the arm of the couch. When his son met his probing stare, he asked, What about the blood on Elise? Where did that come from?

I saw him throw the glass. I heard her scream and saw blood and wine running down a terrified face.

There was no blood and no wine. How could you see it?

Maybe I imagined it.

Or remembered it.

What do you mean? Drew reared back in rejection of what he heard.

I think it was an abreaction, Andy stated flatly.

How can you know that?

I don’t know it. I think it. But I have experience on my side. I went through a lot of them with you.

That’s all over. I blew my temper. That’s all. Drew forced himself to relax his clenched hands, the tightness in his neck and shoulders. All he’d done was lose control for an instant or two. His father was seeing ghosts. I was a kid for shit sake. Let it go.

If you agree to see Dr. Reynard.

Sure. I like Paul. The eyes released him when his father leaned back in the chair, crossed his right ankle over his left knee, straightened the top of an argyle sock.

Drew, you’re not supposed to call your psychiatrist by his first name.

He was my psychiatrist when I was a messed-up kid. We’ve mostly been friends lately. I took him sailing three weeks ago. We caught some nice Bonito and Dolphinfish. Drew shrugged, then looked across the room at a framed photograph. He was in Milan with his grandmother, standing in the plaza in front of La Scala. How am I going to tell Gram about this?

My mother can handle disappointment, Andy said. She’s had to do it a lot in her life.

She always finds a way to overcome it, but it leaves scars I don’t want to cause. When Drew looked back, the lines of his father’s chiseled features were softer, the eyes just as blue but less intently focused. I failed her.

Not yet.

Dad, I told him to shove it and walked out on him. Nobody crawls back to Vittorio Luciani. Once he throws a student out, it’s over. Singers have tried to bribe or threaten their way back into his favor. He scoffs at them.

He didn’t throw you out.

Only because I quit first.

He’s offering you a chance to reconsider—a sabbatical of sorts—while you think it over.

Vittorio said that? Drew’s eyes widened.

There’s a possibility he’ll take you back next November. If you agree to his terms.

What are his terms?

He didn’t say, but he invited me to Genoa for a talk in the spring—after he’s had time to think about it.

Why you?

He doesn’t want to talk to you until you grow up and develop enough sense of responsibility to live up to your commitment. He doesn’t think three months is long enough.

Are you sure he said that? Drew studied the controlled expression on his father’s face. It sounds more like you.

Well, Andy answered with a shrug, he said it in an eruption of impassioned Italian, but that’s an accurate interpretation put into watered down American English. It’s a point Maestro Luciani and I agree on. You’ll be twenty-six in two months. It’s about time you decided what you want to do with the rest of your life.

You always told me I could do anything I wanted.

Don’t be flip. The swift thrust of a rapier sharp voice set Drew back, then added quietly, I said you could have any career you wanted. I didn’t suggest you play at trying careers for the rest of your life. You graduated from college at twenty with the idea of going to law school. That lasted one semester before you gave it up for police training in a canine unit, which your grandmother strongly disapproved of.

She disapproved of most everything I did for about three years.

Not that it mattered. Andy said. You used it as a job for less than three years before you quit to go to veterinary school.

I took a leave of absence to go to vet school.

Which lasted two semesters before you decided to use the talent you always saw as an entertaining diversion and became obsessed with music and theater. And then, it was opera training, which you insisted was the true calling of your life. Drew, you have more intelligence than the Pope has faith. Use some of it, for God’s sake. Make a sensible decision about who you want to be and see it through. Find an anchor and stick to it.

I thought I wanted to do all those things when I started them. It’s just that something else always seemed better. What if I don’t like what I choose?

You never stick with anything long enough to find out if you like it or not. Finish something and work at it until it becomes a career. It’s all right to change careers, but it helps to have one first. Life isn’t a smorgasbord of wild escapades and fleeting love affairs.

Why not? I can afford it.

Because it has no purpose. Andy rocked the chair forward and smacked his hand on the desk, making Drew recoil. What the hell are you looking for?

I don’t know. I don’t even know what I want any more. How can I make a decision when I don’t know what the choices are? He gave his father an exasperated look. You make them. You’re very good at making decisions then telling me what to do.

I made the rules for living in my household and insisted you behave according to the standards I believe in. Your education and personal goals were always yours. Do you still want to be an opera singer?

I don’t know. Drew punched the padded leather between his thighs. Just tell me what I want to do and I’ll do it. Stop badgering me to make decisions I can’t make.

I won’t make decisions like that for you, but I will make suggestions. You have other offers. You turned down excellent musical roles to do this opera thing. Why don’t you take one of them and do what you know you’re good at?

It would only remind me of my failure to live up to the dream Gram and I shared. I let her down.

You ran into a road block. Don’t give up because you found it isn’t easy. You’re tougher than that. You’ve made yourself go on to win before.

When I knew I could do it. Drew shifted uncomfortably before he looked into his father’s eyes and admitted what had been gnawing at his mind. I blew up at Vittorio. But it was mostly against myself because I don’t have what it takes to be what he and Gram want.

You have a magnificent voice.

Damn the voice. Voice is a tool. Drew broke from his father’s pokerfaced stare and looked back at the photo. Vittorio is right. I don’t have the passion to make myself a great performer.

And you have to be great?

I wanted to be a Domingo, Merrill, Bruson, Cappuccilli. Drew threw his hands up in frustration. But I don’t have what they had.

Did they have it when they were twenty-five?

They must have because they made it and I can’t. He eyed his father curiously. Why would Vittorio take me back when he’s rejected other good singers who possess the passion he says I don’t have?

Maybe he believes in you, too.

That’s not what I hear him saying. Drew shot to his feet and released the energy of building frustration by pacing from couch to window, window to couch. "I’m pampered and arrogant and bullheaded. I’m a rich, spoiled birichino, who expects fame for tiny efforts. And get this! He whirled to rant at his father. I was never made to show proper respect for my superiors. He sure as hell doesn’t know much about Sutherlands."

When Andy calmly stared at him with a reserved expression on his face, Drew made a weak attempt to stem the vehement tirade that shattered against the unyielding wall of his father’s silence. A flashflood of indignant fury overpowered his control and sent him pacing again.

He doesn’t want proper respect. He wants me to take shit and say thank you, sir, for insulting me so you can inflate your own ego. He says I don’t know anything—that I was never taught anything—that I don’t have the drive to be what he wants to make me. He sees himself as a few steps above God on the operatic divinity scale and I’m sick of it.

Drew strode back from the, window, I almost walked out on him twice last week—

Vittorio has a few good points. Andy’s firm voice stopped Drew cold. Arrogant and bullheaded come to mind. You used to walk out on me, too. But you always came back to face my— a slanted smile twisted his lips— I believe you called it pigheaded tyranny. I do think Vittorio makes some false assumptions about you based on his bias against rich Americans who want to buy instead of earn admiration. But he is not so different from me as he thinks. We both expect you to earn success, not buy it. You’re having a little trouble with that, aren’t you?

I don’t want to buy it.

Then earn it. The firm, but simple statement jolted Drew from anger to perplexity. And think about this: buying does not always involve money.

I don’t know what you mean.

When you figure that out, you should be able to make the right decision. Andy looked at his watch, then back at Drew. It’s almost two. I have an important meeting in the morning. Your rampage is not without cost. I have the names and phone numbers of the two carpenters you flattened. Maestro Luciani agreed to send you a bill for damages. There is no intent to involve the police, but I will suggest you offer apologies immediately and pay whatever compensation is expected. Write your apology to Vittorio. Don’t call him.

Is that all you’re going to say?

It is for tonight. Andy stood, started for the door then stopped in front of Drew. He slid a hand across his son’s shoulder to the back of his neck, then tightened it until Drew met his absorbing stare. Do I have your full agreement that you will call Paul Reynard tomorrow morning? It’s important to me.

Yes. When his father’s hand massaged away the tension at the base of his neck, Drew dropped his forehead to a sweatshirt covered arm. A tight knot unwound in his chest then released in a convulsive shudder. I don’t like myself right now.

It isn’t as bad as you think.

Yes, it is. How can you accept what I did?

I don’t condone it if that’s what you mean. I love you and nothing ever changes that. Understanding what you did and forgiving will take longer. We need to do a lot of talking about that. But not tonight.

Drew felt his father’s hand squeeze his neck before it released. He still felt wrong, but he no longer felt alone.

Chapter Two

Sitting alone in the early morning quiet of her family’s farmhouse kitchen, Willow Roberts mulled over the most miserable Christmas in her life. She had arrived home three days ago, eager to share good news about being accepted as a working student under a world-famous dressage rider and trainer. In less than an hour, her excitement had been smothered under an avalanche of outraged reproach over how she had, without consulting her family, broken her engagement to a man as kind, successful and dependable as Tom Sorensen.

Since in Willow’s mind, the onslaught of disapproval had more to do with her rejection of a match her family saw as perfect than why she’d done it, the angry assault irritated her until she lost her temper, as well as any hope of sympathy, by telling her brother Todd, in a shout loud enough to be heard by everyone in the house, that what she did with her future was none of his or anyone else’s goddamn business—the engagement was over. She was taking a new job in Parsons Glen, Pennsylvania in the spring and had no intention of discussing it.

The next three days had passed in a prickly standoff of injured feelings and simmering anger. Since no one wanted to be the one to make a complete disaster of the holiday, a tenuous ceasefire created a semblance of peace that made her feel like a shamed outcast—a pariah, who dared to think there could be success, even happiness, beyond the stubborn mindset of Cottonwood Forks, Iowa.

Sighing at a twinge of remorse for her behavior, Willow closed her hands around a mug of hot coffee and glumly accepted that she’d created the crisis months ago by refusing to listen to her own misgivings and letting other people’s enthusiasm push her into a relationship her family believed in more than she did.

Willow knew it would have been better if she’d seen more of Byron, the brother who shared her red hair and was close enough to her in temperament and spirit she often saw him as a twin born a year too early. But it was a busy season for Byron and he’d only been home for Christmas dinner. Her hopes of talking with the one person who understood how she felt had been dashed when, after devouring two pieces of pumpkin pie, Byron gave her a sympathetic hug and the succinct advice that following her heart was the only way to be true to herself before he rushed off on a weeklong holiday concert tour.

Last night, after Byron left, Willow actually listened to what her mother had to say. The reprimand for her burst of uncalled for profanity and cranky attitude that put a gloom on Christmas was expected. The realization that her mother not only understood her hurt but echoed Byron’s advice to trust her feelings was surprising and appreciated. However, the insistence that she needed to come to some sort of immediate understanding with her father about the move east was not what Willow wanted to hear. When it concerned her, or Byron, clashes with their father only reached an understanding when they backed down and did what he wanted.

This morning Willow had awakened before dawn with the full intention of bearding her lion of a father about her determination to go to Pennsylvania. However, the thought of bringing up something else to fight about seemed to be an exceedingly dumb idea. Her car was already packed. All she had to do was walk out the back door and drive away. She wouldn’t be going east until April, which gave him all winter to get used to the idea that, at twenty-four, his oldest daughter was mature enough to make her own decisions.

Ten minutes later, Willow wondered why she was still sitting at the table waiting for her father and youngest brother to return from tending to the farm’s wintering herds of Angus cattle. She supposed her reluctance to leave had to do with the uncomfortable feeling that her father would see running away as cowardly rather than independent.

Sighing, Willow moved her chair closer to the warmth of the black cast iron woodstove that squatted in front of an old brick chimney. For as long as she could remember, the large wood rack beside the stove had been kept full by her brothers while she and her two younger sisters shared cooking and cleanup chores in the big square kitchen that, except for necessary replacements of outdated appliances, had hardly changed over her lifetime.

Brown and cream ceramic canisters of flours, brown and white sugars, rice, noodles and macaroni lined the back of counters alongside open crocks bristling with spatulas, wooden spoons and numerous other utensils, both new and well used. Scattered among and behind a variety of small appliances, a mishmash of packets, boxes and bottles containing spices, seasonings, herbs and garnishes, bunched together like stacks of forgotten cargo containers.

To the eyes of a stranger, the kitchen was a clutter of inefficiency. To the Roberts women, it was a miracle of organized disarray, where needed ingredients were easy to spot, easy to reach. There was ample room for several people to work at the same time; and if one project remained unfinished when the next began, there was space to push it aside for a spell.

Smiling, Willow let her gaze stop at the marble counter where she and her sisters had learned to roll pie crusts, as well as knead and shape dough for every kind of bread, including hot plump rolls filled with butter, cinnamon and nutmeg and lavishly glazed with sticky icing. The cinnamon rolls had always been a special part of every Christmas breakfast; and when she pulled in a breath, Willow could still taste their delicious aroma mingling with the sharp tang of wood smoke from when her father stoked the stove before dawn.

The sound of heavy boots stomping off snow on the back porch interrupted Willow’s thoughts. She gulped down the last of her coffee and looked through the open door to the mudroom where her father shrugged off heavy winter coveralls that made him look like a hulking grizzly bear. After scrubbing a hand through a rumpled thatch of silver-flecked dark hair, Lloyd tossed his wool cap on a peg beside the coveralls and strode into the kitchen wearing his Christmas bounty of a black and yellow flannel shirt, crisp new work jeans and red wool socks.

At fiftyfour, Lloyd Roberts was a solid bull of a man. When he pulled his shoulders back and tightened his block jaw, he became awesomely powerful. When his ruddy complexion reddened and his dark eyes hardened, someone was in trouble. Willow recognized the signs and, refusing to be intimidated, locked stares with him.

Are you ready to tell me what this matter of taking a job halfway across the country is all about? Lloyd plucked the acceptance letter Willow had mistakenly left with her mother out of his shirt pocket and tossed it on the table. Or are you going to get your dander up and tell me it’s none of my business either?

I can’t see that it’s your concern any more than Todd’s. Willow’s retort snapped out before she pulled in a breath and relaxed her death grip on the empty ceramic mug. But I do feel you deserve more explanation than he does.

What you do with your life does concern me, Willow. I see no sense in this sudden reversal of your own plans. Lloyd picked up her mug and walked to the coffeemaker. I want a reasonable explanation for that before you leave.

Willow leaned back in the chair and scowled at his broad back. This wasn’t going to be easy. In view of the arguments, she had used to convince her father a degree in equestrian studies was a worthwhile academic pursuit, she knew he saw that education with the narrow view of its agricultural merit. Breeding and training horses to sell not only made sense to him, it fit into his one-dimensional belief that he wanted nothing more from his children than the contentment of local agrarian accomplishment. In his mind, the sport of high-level equestrian competition, especially at the international level, was a money hungry pastime for the rich, or those with pretentions to be rich. Lloyd Roberts wanted nothing to do with either of them.

The job is with Mae Sutherland, a dressage trainer and former member of the U.S. Equestrian Team. Willow took a swallow of fresh coffee while Lloyd moved to stand closer to the warm radiance of the stove. Mae came to Penwarden two years ago and I rode in the clinic she taught. She understands and connects with horses as if she can read their minds. I want to learn how she does that and there’s nothing you can do to change my mind.

I plan to try.

Taking his flat statement as a challenging order, Willow squared her shoulders, lifted a determined chin and glared at a broad, gruff face, dominated by thick sable brows. I’m taking the job and that’s all there is to it.

That isn’t all there is to me. Her father shifted closer to the back door and cut off her chance of storming out on him. Why is this job offer better than the one you have at the college now, or the one you turned down here in Iowa?

This is the one I dreamed about but never thought I would get. The one at the college was no more than a temporary supplement while I waited for a better offer. I applied to the Iowa one because my advisor suggested it. One of my classmates was their alternate choice. Since she wanted it and I didn’t, I backed out before the final interview.

Why didn’t you want it?

They expected me to rush horses without teaching good basics so they can sell them to rich clients, who want to win immediate ribbons instead of develop sound horses with good futures. I can’t be that kind of trainer.

It certainly pays better than this one. Lloyd tossed the letter onto the table.

That includes at least two lessons a week from Mae Sutherland. You have no idea how much that’s worth to me.

If you ask me, it sounds more like a way to get cheap labor.

I’m not asking you. I also get my own house with this job and—

You don’t need a house. The other job was close enough you could live here until you are married and move in with Tom.

Stop bringing up Tom. Willow wanted to shout but forced her voice under control when his face hardened. I’m not going to marry him.

Does that have anything to do with the grandson mentioned in the letter?

What are you talking about? After glancing at the open envelope, Willow gave him an indignant look. You mean the one I’m supposed to groom for? He’s a kid. She wants me to be his show nanny.

With his heavy brows lowered in a scowl, Lloyd knuckled his right ear and searched her face looking for a sign of uneasiness she didn’t feel. Are you sure of that?

Since the legal age for competing in combined training is twelve and Mrs. Sutherland called him a boy, I assume he is a teenager. Why would you even think I would be interested in a boy?

Interest in another man is the only way I can make sense out you jilting Tom.

I didn’t jilt Tom. Ending the engagement was my idea but we agreed that it wasn’t going to work. I’m fond of Tom but I don’t love him. She watched a flicker of hesitation cloud his expression before he looked down and lifted his cup from the table.

Love is not always fireworks, Willow, Lloyd said, then cleared his throat and took a swallow of his coffee. You need to rethink the value of fondness and kindness before you reject them out of hand.

I’ll marry when I love a man beyond life itself, not when it’s the comfortable or sensible thing to do.

And if you don’t find a man you can love beyond life itself?

I won’t get married.

You’re sounding as cantankerous as my sister Rhian. Lloyd’s dark gaze lifted to hers. And you know what happened to her.

Rhian never married, but she took life in her own hands and saw the world.

Squandered all her gains chasing damn fool pipe dreams is what she’s done. Never found her perfect man or accepted she wasn’t going to be discovered as a great artist.

Well, I plan to be a great horse trainer. Willow barged on before he could remind her of how Aunt Rhian’s refusal to accept reality had turned her into a self-centered and bossy irritant. Right now, I have the chance to learn from someone who already is great and I’m not going to pass it up because you don’t believe in me.

I believe in you to be sensible and accept the limits of reality. If you want to train horses, Tom is more than willing to support that goal on his farm. But he wants a wife and doesn’t want to wait much longer.

Then he can look elsewhere because I don’t want a husband. I have my own goals and marriage isn’t one of them. Willow snatched the letter off the table and marched past him into the mud room with the melodramatic determination of Scarlett O’Hara facing down a Union cavalry charge.

Lloyd’s broad, flannel-covered shoulders seemed to fill the kitchen doorway as he watched his oldest daughter jerk an oversized rubber muck boot over her shoe. Maybe I can’t stop you from taking that job, but I can ask you to promise me you will think about whether you are running toward opportunity or away from regrets.

Willow paused with the second boot dangling from her hand and looked at his stern, weathered face. He was not a man who let expressions reflect his feelings, and she knew he’d said all he was going to say about the matter. Supposing that meant they’d reached the understanding her mother had mentioned, Willow let go of her anger and nodded. Mrs. Sutherland needs an answer by the end of January. I promise I’ll think about what you said before I give it to her.

Outside, Willow noticed her youngest brother Matt lingering by the tractor shed and realized he’d been waiting in the cold to avoid the confrontation in the kitchen. After answering his questioning look with a grateful smile, she tromped through squeaky-cold snow to a fenced paddock beside the barn. Standing at a red hay rack decorated with wind sculpted humps of new snow, a tall, brown and white pinto gelding snorted out plumes of crystalline breath while he picked through a mound of fresh hay and selected the tastiest bits to chew first.

Packy had always been that way: careful and precise, always making sure he did the best he could for her. When Willow stopped beside him, he nuzzled her hands and coat looking for the treats he could smell in her pocket.

Since nobody else cares about my news, I’ll have to tell you. Willow held out a carrot and watched the length of it disappear into the horse’s mouth. While he crunched contentedly, Willow straightened a windblown forelock and slid her hand over an ear to rub the inside of it with her thumb. Do you remember the nice lady we had a clinic with two years ago? When I said you didn’t like your ears touched, she laughed and said you just thought you didn’t because someone had hurt you that way. And then Mae won your trust and showed me how much you really liked it.

When Packy tipped his head so she could reach farther inside and rub harder, she laughed at the way he twitched his nose with pleasure. Can you believe it, Packy? I’m going to work for Mae Sutherland. And I want to do it so much I’m willing to be a show groom for her grandson. He’s probably a rich, spoiled brat, but the good news is he lives in Europe and will only be visiting for a short time.

After snorting a warm wash of horse breath across her hand, the gelding plucked the remaining piece of apple off her palm. My heart is safely yours, Packy, even if you do run around with my little sister while I’m away. Willow smiled when a soft, warm tongue licked the last traces of sweetness off her palm. But Beth says you take good care of her, so I forgive you for it.

v

In early April, Drew Sutherland drove a classic Mercedes sports car that had once belonged to his father into the driveway of a brick, nineteen-fifties era ranch house on the outskirts of Philadelphia and opened the garage door with a remote he dug out of his glove box. Inside the garage, he closed the door, parked beside an old Buick sedan and thumped down the car’s raised door.

After taking a pot shot with his index finger at a concealed surveillance camera, Drew walked to an alarm panel beside a steel door into the house and watched a digital display count down toward zero as he typed in a code that would let him unlock the door without setting off a silent alarm he knew would bring the Philadelphia Police down on him within minutes. When the indicator lights flashed green, he opened the door with a key and walked into his uncle’s kitchen.

A scribbled note on the table mentioned beer in the fridge and pretzels in the unreadable, but it hardly mattered. By the time Drew opened a beer bottle and looked out the kitchen window, a grey sedan that was clearly a police car pulled in the driveway. The man who stepped out of the driver’s door wore brown slacks and a bronze-green sport coat over a yellow shirt open at the neck. At six-four and two-hundred and sixty pounds he looked as if he were still a defensive linebacker for Penn State. The balanced alertness of his movements and the way he seemed to be observing everything around him at the same time indicated survival skills learned on the more dangerous gridiron of Philadelphia’s narrow backstreets.

Antonio Vitale was eight years older than Drew, bigger and burlier with a broad-boned face. Although he lacked Drew’s sharply defined Sutherland features, Antonio shared his nephew’s dark curling hair, wide smile and rolling laugh. They also shared a playful ability to laugh at themselves and a cocky bravado that radiated a daring need for adventure and challenge.

When the front door opened, Drew leaned against the kitchen doorjamb with the beer in his hand. That was fast. I didn’t even have time to decode where the pretzels were.

Antonio started at the resonant voice then pushed the door closed and cancelled the alarm. How did you get here?

I wasn’t about to leave the Mercedes in your driveway. It would be an attractive nuisance to the neighborhood hoodlums. If anything happened to that car, it would give Gram an excuse to flay me with one of her lack of responsibility lectures.

You could use one. Antonio followed Drew into the kitchen and tossed his jacket on the back of a chair.

You’ve been talking to my father again. Drew pulled out a chrome and cranberry-red vinyl chair and sat astride it with his arms folded on the back. His uncle tossed him a bag of soft pretzels he dug out of a grocery sack on the counter.

Andy called me when you told him you planned to spend the summer with his mother. He had a lot on his mind. Antonio stripped off a shoulder holster, set it and its hefty automatic on the table before he walked to the refrigerator. Are you willing to talk about it?

I’d rather avoid it.

That may not be possible. Twisting the cap off his beer, the big man sat facing Drew across a rounded corner of the table. He’s not happy with you right now.

I know. But he came through when I needed him and took a lot of time off to be with me. After his first few blasting lectures, he didn’t pressure. My life crashed and when I showed up at Dad’s, I couldn’t make any decisions. Drew felt uncertainty gnawing a hole in him and looked away from his uncle’s penetrating gaze. He’d never been able to bullshit Uncle Antonio, who could cut through his charming evasions and rationalizations like a laser beam. Dad can’t put my life back together this time. I don’t know what to do about that.

Why did you go back to the old neighborhood? You don’t belong there. The gruff voice snapped Drew’s attention to his uncle and the dark stare absorbed him with an intensity he couldn’t evade.

That’s the only way I know how to start.

Start what?

Finding answers. I have until November to sort myself out. That means I have to go back to things I’d rather not face.

It was a mistake to go there.

It’s where it all started. I can’t keep saying it wasn’t important.

You should have listened to your father and come to me first. I know what goes on there and could have clued you in on a few things. Antonio set the bottle on the table with a decisive clunk. It’s changed since you left and not for the better. Most of the kids you knew who still hang out there do it for the wrong reasons.

For shit sake, there’s all the same crap in Europe. I haven’t spent all my life in cultured refinement.

As far as I know there’s no one in Europe who wants to kill you.

Did you say kill me? Drew recoiled.

Yes, I did. I do a lot of undercover work there because it’s where I grew up and they talk to me because they don’t know I’m a cop. When your name popped up, I got interested and started pumping for information. A lot of them know your father was married to my sister, but they don’t know Andy and I speak to each other, or even like each other. I want it that way.

I understand that. But who wants to kill me?

Do you remember your stepfather’s nephew Mario Pisano?

I sure do. We have a long history of mutual hate. Mario was a sneaky kid with a crabby mother and a bitter grandfather who wouldn’t forgive her for having a bastard. His Uncle Gino was his hero and my enemy. A shimmer of revulsion twisted Drew’s face. I used to torque Mario’s tail by calling him Mary-Ann Pissface. He was about fourteen when I left to live with Dad.

What is between you two that makes him hate you so much?

You don’t want to know.

I definitely want to know. Antonio’s vehemence rocked Drew back on the chair seat. Don’t hold out on me. Don’t tell me it’s none of my business. It’s very important to Mario, and Mario is important to me. He’s one sick fucker and I want to put him in jail for a long time.

Mario had a fascination with knives. Drew stared into deep brown eyes. I watched him stick one into a kid’s hand one day. When Mario saw me, I ran, but he caught me and held the bloody knife under my nose. He threatened to cut off my balls and play marbles with them if I told on him. I was only six and had no idea why they were so important to me, but I was definitely fond of them and wanted to keep them where they were. When his grandfather heard about him sticking the kid, he beat him bloody with a belt buckle. Mario was convinced it was my fault. When he came looking for me with his damn knife, I threw a pot of hot fat at him and left him screaming.

Did you tell on him?

I don’t know. Drew shrugged and took a long swallow of beer.

That surprises me. Antonio arched a thick eyebrow. You have the most perfect recall of anyone I know.

Not always and definitely not from then. Drew thought about it, but there were too many blanks from that time in his life. I could have let it slip out. I don’t remember doing it. A couple of years later I saw Mario in an alley punching a girl who wouldn’t let him get his hand in her pants. I grabbed a piece of broken pipe and smashed him in the knee. Some people who saw it said I was afraid of him and protected myself. I don’t remember feeling anything. I didn’t even remember what happened. They said I kept hitting Mario until Mr. Shapiro pulled me away and took me into his drug store. They took Mario to the hospital. Gino whaled the crap out of me.

Is that all? The question sounded more demanding than fishing.

Mario didn’t like losing to a kid and told everyone he’d get even with me. He didn’t have the chance. Dad took me to France before Mario was recovered and back on the street. Five years ago, when I was in vet school at Penn, Mario and two other morons attacked me outside a pizza bar. When I defended myself, the two morons deserted at a dead run. Mario gave me a reminder. Drew turned his left arm up to show a long scar on the inside of his forearm. After I chucked his knife in a dumpster, he wasn’t much of a challenge. I, however, was pissed and bounced him around a little before the cops showed up.

What happened then?

Not much happened to me. There were witnesses who said I was attacked. I was on leave status then and my police ID was a big help. At the time, I didn’t want to remember my past and said he tried to rob me. I acted as if I didn’t know him and had my lawyer handle it. The Police were already looking for Mario for something else. I heard he was carrying enough drugs he got some jail time for dealing.

He did but he’s out now and he still hates you. When he found out you showed up on his turf last week, he went ballistic. He wants a piece of you and he’s been pretty loud about it.

He’s a bully with a big mouth. Drew scoffed. He terrorized us little kids and ran from the big ones.

He’s one of the big ones now.

So am I. He tried to run from me last time, but I bounced him off a brick wall and scrambled his sense of direction.

Drew, Mario is a vindictive son of a bitch since he got out of prison and he still has an obsession with knives.

At least it isn’t guns. Drew plunked his empty bottle on the tabletop.

He didn’t like jail. If he gets caught carrying, he goes back for a long time, so he stays away from guns. I know he’s still dealing, but he’s too smart to keep it on him or do it on the street. If we can pick him up and find enough drugs on him, we should be able to put him away again.

Sounds like you want to use me for bait?

You made yourself bait by letting him know you’re here. If you cooperate, I may be able to get rid of him and protect you at the same time.

I don’t need—

Damn it, Drew. Antonio bounced his fist off the table, making his nephew grab the beer bottle before it fell over. Don’t get cocky and tell me you can handle this yourself. He doesn’t play by your kind of rules.

I expected you to tell me to stay away from him.

It’s too late for that. Antonio scowled. I guess you didn’t listen to what I was trying to say. Mario wants you. It’s a vendetta thing with him. I don’t want him to start looking for you and I don’t think you want him anywhere near your grandmother.

That convinced me. Drew sucked back the arrogance and hardened his features. What do I do?

I want you to go to Sal’s Sports Bar and let people in there know who you are and that you’re looking for Ernie Romano. As I remember, he used to be a friend of yours.

For a few years in grade school. Drew twisted his face into a look that implied his uncle was nuts. What am I supposed to talk to him about? All I clearly remember about Ernie is the time we tried to steal money out of his mother’s purse. She chased us around the living room screeching at us and walloping us with a wooden spoon. Ernie was chubby and slow, so I kept cutting in front of him to make sure he got the most whacks. He was yowling; I was cussing; his mother was yelling; his older sister was blocking the doorway and laughing like a maniac. It must have sounded like an insane asylum.

When Antonio sputtered into laughter, Drew stopped his comical ranting and stared down an aristocratically lifted nose in pompous indignation. I beg your pardon. It was a very traumatic experience. He held the condescending look until his uncle met his eyes then burst out laughing with him.

If you start with that rendition, you’ll get Ernie laughing and you’ll both start to remember more. Ernie’s okay. He has a drinking problem, but he talks to me. He hated Mario.

We all hated Mario. Drew watched distorted reflections of the window as he tipped the brown bottle in his hand. I was the grade school superman after I stood up to him. It gave me a hero complex and a big ego. I was totally obnoxious and went from hero to bully in two weeks.

You aren’t a very good bully.

I was then. Or at least part of me was. The memories are all mixed together now, and I can’t always sort them out. Drew righted the bottle before he looked at his uncle. When do you want me to do this?

I’m not sure right now. Do you have a cell phone?

I mostly leave it in the car or sitting on my dresser to collect messages. Drew fished a card out of his wallet and handed it to Antonio. I got it at Dad’s insistence but see it as a means for my convenience not everyone else’s.

Do me a favor and consider my convenience just as important. Antonio handed him a few cards. That’s my cell number. Put it in your phone and scatter the cards around where you can find one when you misplace the phone. There’s some chatter about Mario being out of town next week. I don’t want either of them around when you do this, but I want the information spread a.s.a.p. If Mario knows you’ll come back to Sal’s looking for Ernie, it will keep him from going after you. He’d much rather meet you on his own turf.

You sure he won’t try to shoot me on sight?

I can’t be sure of anything but it isn’t the way he does things. He likes to torment his victims.

Has he killed anyone?

There’s no proof, but I suspect he’s responsible for a dead addict we found cut up in an alley.

That’s real encouraging, Tonio. Makes me want to leap right in and see how his carving techniques have improved.

I plan on making sure you have good backup. Antonio looked him over critically. You look like you still work out. They haven’t turned you into a fat opera singer yet.

That’s the wining and dining, not the vocation. It’s only necessary to be fit enough not to pass out from lack of air. Gives us big chests and loud mouths.

You already had the loud mouth. I never knew another kid who could bellow like you.

I had a lot of practice. Drew huffed. My mother and the pig bastard pounded the snot out of me regularly.

I wish I’d known the truth about that sooner.

What could you have done about it?

What I did when I was sixteen. Tell your father about it.

Your father and big brothers would have pounded on you for consorting with the enemy. Everyone in your family hated Dad.

I guess I did, too. Antonio frowned. Or at least I felt I was supposed to. I was too young to remember much about him, or the divorce, but I always liked something about you and figured Andy couldn’t be all bad. He did keep trying to get you away from my crazy sister and sent extra money whenever she said she needed it for you.

Too bad she never used it for me. Drew shrugged. But then, the hippy thing was still in. Worn-out clothes that didn’t fit and uncut hair were the peak of style.

You been keeping up the martial arts training?

I’ve been teaching it.

That’ll help. Antonio looked at his watch. We better get to Veterans Field before Hennessy tries to scalp our tickets.

You can always arrest him.

Nah, nobody will buy them on a Wednesday night. The Phillies aren’t exactly burning up the league this year.

Chapter Three

In 1746 James Alistair Sutherland, the third Earl of Glendoncroft, publicly proclaimed his second son, Andrew, a traitor to the British Crown and charged him with treason for openly aiding the Jacobites in the Forty-Five Rebellion by supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie, the last of the Stuart pretenders, in his ill-fated final attempt to restore the Stuarts to the British throne. With political expediency taken care of the Earl arranged an escape that smuggled his son out of the Highlands only hours before British soldiers arrived to escort him to his execution.

Two days later, nineteen-year-old Andrew Sutherland, still weak from wounds received in the carnage at the Battle of Culloden, and his Highland bride secretly boarded a merchant ship in Glasgow and sailed to Philadelphia with a large enough fortune to purchase three sturdy merchant ships and establish what would become the wealthy trading and shipbuilding firm of Sutherland Mercantile. Andrew later resumed his rebellion against British rule by supporting the American Revolution and declaring himself and his family loyal citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

More than two hundred years after the final ratification of the United States Constitution, Sutherland Manor still looked as if it had been lifted, in toto, from the Scottish Highlands and transplanted, along with its rambling gardens, lush lawns and stone carriage house, into the rolling hills of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

v

Totally unaware of the historical and social magnitude of her employer’s lineage, Willow Roberts turned her dusty, hand-me-down station wagon off the county road then stopped abruptly between two stone pillars supporting opened wrought iron gates. Stunned, she gaped through an insect splattered windshield at the size and setting of the imposing structure on the far side of a narrow, exclamation point lake. Massive, square towers stood silent guard at the front corners of the three-story manor house and tall stone chimneys with decorative caps cast deep shadows across steeply angled slate roofs. With rainbow shards of refracted sunlight transforming leaded window panes into precious gems set in a tapestry of ivy vines and weathered stone, the mansion’s overall message of age, power and mystic fantasy created the evocative sensation of a castle out of time—an unread tome of mysterious secrets and untold stories.

Guess what, Miss County Fair Queen? You aren’t in Iowa anymore. Coming to grips with the realization that the photo she had been sent of the horse barn and indoor riding arena had in no way prepared her for this panoramic, postcard view of the three-hundred-acre Sutherland estate, Willow let out a long breath and gave the house a look of dismay. They undoubtedly have more fricking forks than I have names for.

While the grandeur of the scene soaked into her reality, Willow straightened with resolve and told herself she had no choice but to head on down the yellow brick road and find out if she really was in Oz.

The curving strip of blacktop passed a carriage light lamppost with a sign reading, Sutherland Manor, Private Drive, before it continued over an arched, fieldstone bridge below a stone and mortar dam where clear water skidded down a mossy spillway into the rocky bed of a turbulent stream. Beside a fork in a copse of hardwoods, a sign on a second lamppost indicated left for the house, right for the stable.

Willow followed the meandering black ribbon to the stable and turned into a graveled parking lot that faced an enclosed connector between a long indoor riding arena that stretched away from her on the left, a horse barn to the right. Both buildings were wood, stained a