Chapter 20
Sam marched defiantlyinto the lodge lobby to inquire about the computers. Walker followed her, like any good escort. Apparently, the desk clerk had no orders to keep her out, so she pressed a kiss to Walker’s stubbly cheek, inhaled his confidence, and headed for theguest business office off the main lobby as if she’d spent her life using hotelcomputers.
She now knew she’d been in hotels a few times, traveling with her parents to San Francisco, but Wolf and Jade hadn’t taken vacations the way other families did. Wolf had been a pilot, and he’d flown them back to visit with his family in Arizona, where they’d stayed on the reservation. Jade had a smallfamily in the San Francisco area. They’d stayed in their homes occasionally. Or they’d gone camping. Business hotels weren’t part of theexperience.
She was aware now that she had adopted family, cousins and aunts who could take her in, if she needed familiar faces andnormal. She didn’t have to stay in Hillvale. Until tonight though, she’d felt more at home in Hillvale than she had withher adopted relations. The realization unnervedher.
Biting her lip in frustration, she opened a computer and checked her email box to prove she was still who she used to be. She responded to friends who were too busy with their own lives to worry about her. She had a message from one of her professors about a job he thought she might be interested in—in Alaska. Academia was boring butsafe. She’d assumed that would be her career path, maybe in a more multi-culturalarea.
And now...? She was jumpy and on edge, but her parents’ admonitions ofdon’t back downandpersevereforced her to clench her jaw, straighten her spine, and keep digging into who she really was—which wasn’t necessarily who she thought she was before she camehere.
She’d given Walker her emailaddress earlier. As promised, he’d sent her links to all the files he possessed on her birth family, including the genealogy chart. She studied the visual, trying to assimilate all the information he’d collected. How had the Ingersson farm ended up in a trust? Shouldn’t it have gone to her mother instead of to an infant and a woman deteriorating into madness? Although Val had been young and presumablysane back then. The legal document didn’t reveal the court’sthoughts.
As Walker had predicted, Kurt Kennedy knocked on the door before she’d dug too far into the files. Sam closed the browser and cleared history as Kurtentered.
“Hope I’m not disturbing important research,” the lodge manager said. Despite his bespoke suit and expensive haircut, he looked older than the early thirtiesshe knew him to be. He was a well-built, striking man, but he possessed the charisma of a dried oak leaf—as if the life had been sucked out ofhim.
Now she sounded like one of theLucys!
“Just checking email. I have an offer of a possible position as a federal environmental program manager in Anchorage,” she said brightly, just to prove she had a life outside of waitressing in asmall-towncafé.
“And I don’t suppose you’re going to take it?” He sat on one corner of the printer desk and played with a rubber stress ball someone had leftthere.
“I might send a resume, but no, I don’t imagine I’ll pursue it.” She didn’t give him more than that but let him take thelead.
“You were at the town meeting tonight?” he asked. “Has Cass talked them into burningus at thestake?”
Sam leaned back in her chair and tried to work out what was expected of her, but she couldn’t. Honesty and openness were all she’d been taught. “I’m wondering if my mother gave me to my adopted parents because they were the most down-to-earth, honest, upright people she knew,” she said, not giving him an answeryet.
“And they lived someplace so barren of magic andimagination that she thought you’d be safe from this town’s craziness?” he asked with both amusement andsympathy.
She almost liked her uncle at thatpoint.
And then he had to add, “Cass hates us. She won’t be happy until she brings us down. It really isn’t about smoke and magic, just plain old familyfeuds.”
Sam shook her head and said gently, “I don’t think so. I know Ihaven’t been here long, and I’m far from understanding all the nuances, but Cass isn’t a woman who hates. She’s afraid, maybe, and possibly bitter, but hate...? No, that’s much too strong. She and Mariah and the other Lucys oppose what you want, maybe even what you stand for, but that’s not the same as hate. Yet. There is still a chance ofreconciliation.”
He grimaced as if in thought,then rejected the notion. “No, I don’t think so. They live in a utopian world that doesn’t exist. We live in a world that requires we pay the mortgage and payroll. I hope you don’t fall for their idealisticbullshit.”
Sam was debating how much she ought to tell him, when a large shadow passed the plate glass window and shoved open the door.Walker.
“It’s midnight; the witch’s spellhas broken,” Walker said in a cool tone that covered many layers ofmeaning.
Sam warmed at the look he gave her, but the way he took a confrontational stance in front of Kurt gave her cold chills. Walker had a defensive streak a mile wide. She needed to establishboundaries.
Kurt returned to his feet, one bull facinganother.
“You’d do better to talk to Cass or your motherthan to Sam,” Walker said in a deliberately casual tone. “You’re placing her in a tough place by putting her in themiddle.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Walker,” Kurt said. “We were just discussing generalities. It’s been a long day, and I thought talking to someone who wasn’t from Hillvale might wind medown.”
“A pretty someone,” Walker supplied for him. “Sam,you really need to explain who you are so Kurt here doesn’t get any oddideas.”
Sam didn’t know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. “Don’t go all macho on me, Walker. I’m trying to be polite by telling Mr. Kennedy he needs to talk with Cass. If Carmel hasn’t said anything by now, I don’t think she intends to open communication. The Nulls and Lucys need to find channels for talking besidesme.”
Kennedy made a face. “Don’t make me feel older than I already do. Call me Kurt, please. And I may be busy, but I’m not ignorant. I know Cass was my grandfather’s daughter by his first wife, that she inherited a large portion of his assets and has blocked any expansion in the direction of her property. My mother despises her and anyone who has anything to do with her, which means Sam.Sam, you tell me Cass doesn’t hate, but my mother does, so don’t be too certain about Cass. What two old women do means nothing to me. I make my own decisions. And I have no reason to talk to theLucys.”
“You should,” Sam said, standing. “Because apparently I’m one of them,UncleKurt. Talk to your mother. Talk to Cass. I won’t be here long enough to resolve the problems you’re notseeing.”
