Fox River (30 page)

“Flo, this isn’t the right time,” Frank said, taking her arm. But Flo shook him off.

“I want to know how he is. It’s a simple question. He went through nine years of torture, Frank. Don’t I deserve to know how he came through it?”

Frank looked down at the ground. He was a handsome dark-haired man of about sixty. Now his cheeks were red with humiliation.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Sutherland,” Christian said quickly. “I’d like to know how you are.”

“I am sorry.” She began to cry quietly, and it took all her determination to get the next words out. “I am so terribly sorry that we ever thought it was you. We knew you. We knew—”

Frank put his arms around his wife. When he looked up, Christian saw the same pleading expression in his eyes. “I…She’s right, Chris. I—we thought…We shouldn’t have. We just—” He shook his head.

Christian swallowed. For nine years he’d wondered how it would feel to have people crawling to him, begging for his forgiveness. Now he knew.

It felt like hell.

“You just believed what seemed most believable,” he said.

“Fidelity loved you like a brother,” Flo said.

“I loved her, too. Everyone did. I wish…I could have saved her. That I’d gotten there in time.”

“If there’s anything we can do. Ever.” Frank stuck out his hand. “You have our support in your new job. I’m glad Peter chose you. His instincts are always exactly right.”

“Peter understands honor,” Flo said, wiping her eyes. “You’ll make us proud, I know.”

Frank took two certificates from his jacket pocket. “We’re going to ride the course together. Our groom’s bringing the horses in the back way.”

Christian scanned the vet certificates, but they could have been in Greek. He handed them back and told them how to register.

“Have a successful ride,” he said.

Then Flo Sutherland did the most surprising thing of the day. She leaned forward and kissed Christian’s cheek. “Have a successful
life,
Christian. No one deserves it more.”

“Julia.”

Julia heard her husband’s voice before Maisy could alert her that Bard had arrived. She stood quietly in the shade of a mulberry, well out of the path of horse and foot traffic, and waited for him. Not surprisingly, Maisy’s story played through her head. She understood a bit of what Louisa must have felt at the Thanksgiving hunt.

And afterward.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said pleasantly.

She kept her voice low. From Bard’s tone, she supposed people were nearby. Somebody or other had been nearby all morning, offering help, digging for gossip, describing in a loud, slow-motion voice what she couldn’t see, as if she might have gone deaf as well as blind. “Callie’s competing with Tiffany. I wanted her to know I was here.”

“It will be particularly boring, since you can’t see the action.”

“Maisy will describe it for me.”

“Hello, Maisy,” he said, clearly as an afterthought.

“You’re looking fit, Bard. Will you be riding?”

“I’m teamed with Sarah McGuffey, of McGuffey Farms. Our horses are well matched.”

Julia knew Sarah, a predatory divorcée of the prime time soap opera variety. She felt not a trace of jealousy.

“Which horse are you riding?” she asked.

“Moondrop Morning. Sarah’s got a dark bay.”

“You’ll do well. Will you look for Callie and wish her luck?”

“I’m surprised you agreed to this.”

“Why? She’s a good rider. Samantha will be with her the whole way.”

“Because of who’s running it.”

Julia didn’t respond.

Callie must have caught sight of them, because the next voice Julia heard was her daughter’s. “Daddy!”

“Callie.” He sounded as if he was speaking to an adult. “I hear you’re going to be riding.”

“Daddy, I got a dog! A puppy named Clover! Christian gave her to me.”

Julia tried to head her off. “She wasn’t Christian’s to give, sweetums. Mr. Claymore gave her to you. She belonged to the club.”

“What is she talking about?” Bard said, obviously not addressing his daughter.

“One of the puppy hounds wasn’t working out, and Peter agreed to let Callie have her.”

“You got a puppy without consulting me?”

“I did.”

“The puppy ran toward Feather Foot and Feather Foot ran away,” Callie explained.

Julia now understood the full meaning of the expression “from bad to worse.”

“What is she talking about?” Bard asked for the second time.

“She’ll tell you, if you ask her.”

“I’d like to hear it from you.” Bard kept his voice light.

“There’s nothing much to it. We went riding, and the puppy got loose and spooked Feather Foot.”

“You went riding?”

She was surprised he didn’t know. “Ramon brought Sandman and accompanied us.”

He exploded. “What do you call a blind woman who takes a child riding?”

“Foolish, at worst. Hopeful, at best.”

“It’s okay. Christian saved me,” Callie interrupted. “Like in a movie.”

“He had the dog out for a walk at Claymore Park,” Julia explained. “We were riding near the border. When he saw that Callie was in trouble, he jumped the fence and helped her get Feather Foot under control. Moondrop Morning was acting up, and Ramon had his hands full.”

Bard was silent.

“Good luck, Daddy,” Callie said. “I’ve gotta go.”

Julia noted that her husband didn’t return the good wishes.

“Now I understand why you didn’t want to come home,” Bard said after Callie had gone.

“You don’t understand because you don’t listen. My reasons haven’t changed. I left you before Christian got out of prison.”

“Left me?”

“It’s not an overstatement.”

“You don’t sound like you plan to come back.”

“This isn’t the time or place to discuss that.”

“Julia,” Maisy said, taking her arm. “Flo Sutherland is on her way over here, and she looks upset.”

Julia wondered what else could go wrong. Clearly, coming today wasn’t going to make things better. She should have left Christian to fight his own battles.

“Julia.”

Julia felt someone take her hands. “Flo…How are you?”

“No, how are you?”

“I’m doing well. I can’t see, but I expect to get better.”

“Not that she’s doing anything she should to make that happen,” Bard said.

“Bard,” Flo greeted him frostily. “Maisy…” Her tone warmed. “What a pleasure it is to see you at a club event after all these years. And you look wonderful.”

“I see you’ve had words with our new huntsman,” Bard said. “I imagine seeing him at the gate was quite a shock.”

“Bard,” Julia warned.

He ignored her. “I’ve drawn up a petition to have Christian fired, and I’m hoping Flo and Frank will put their names in a prominent spot.”

“I’m sorry to dash your hopes.” Flo used the same tone she’d used earlier. “But Christian has my full support, and Frank’s, too. We intend to convince the others who have signed to remove their names. Julia, you don’t support Bard in this, do you? I would like to know.”

Julia kept it simple. “Christian isn’t a murderer. The courts have agreed, and it’s time for all of us to help him set his life back in motion.”

“I can’t believe you, Flo,” Bard said. Clearly he was furious. “There are a dozen unanswered questions. That man was standing over your daughter—”

“Enough,” Maisy said, surprising Julia, who had started to interrupt herself. “You will keep that thought to yourself. Flo has suffered enough, and so has Christian. We don’t need descriptions.”

Flo lowered her already soft voice. “Bard, everybody knows your concerns. And most of us suspect why.”

Julia tried to interrupt again. “Flo—”

“Julia, I’m sorry, but it’s time you both realized that half the town has figured out who Callie’s biological father is.”

Julia drew a quick, audible breath.

Flo continued. “I’m sure you feel threatened, Bard. It’s understandable. But I will not allow you to use my daughter’s murder as a hedge against your insecurities. You will not make my life harder—or Christian’s, either—just because you’re afraid you can’t hang on to what you stole from another man.”

“How dare you!” he said.

“How dare
you?
” she countered.

Julia waved her hands to stop them both. “No more. Hasn’t enough been said here? What if Callie overhears?”

“There’s no one nearby,” Maisy assured her.

“Julia, I will do almost anything for you,” Flo said, “but I won’t lynch a good man for the second time. Not to keep harmony between neighbors, not even to keep your secret.”

“She’s gone,” Maisy said before Julia could reply.

“Leave us alone, Maisy,” Bard said. “Please,” he added after a pause.

“Julia?” Maisy asked.

“Just stay nearby, please,” Julia said. She heard her mother walking away. Then she and Bard were alone.

“So, you’ve been telling people the truth,” he said.

“I haven’t told anyone. Don’t you understand? People can count and they can see. She looks like Christian. Now that he’s back, people have noted the resemblance.”

“And so it all works out for you in the end, doesn’t it? Your child’s legitimate, thanks to me, and now that he’s been sanitized, your lover’s back on the scene. How long before you take up with him again? Or have you already?”

Strangely she wasn’t angry, because she knew Bard was in pain. He had rescued her when she thought she needed it, even though now she saw she had been a swimmer drowning in a shallow pool. All she’d ever had to do was stand up and walk out on her own, but she had been too young, too distraught, too worried about her child’s future, to get to her feet.

She didn’t want him to suffer. She reached out to him but couldn’t find him, and he did nothing to help. She wondered if, on some level, he was glad she was struggling.

She dropped her hand reluctantly. “Nothing that’s between you and me has anything to do with Christian. I’ve tried to be the wife I thought you wanted, but it hasn’t made either of us happy. And there’s Callie…”

“Yes, there’s always been Callie. A living reminder of the man you love.”

“Is that why you can’t be the father she needs? Because she reminds you of Christian?”

He didn’t answer.

“All you ever had to do to make Callie completely yours was love her,” Julia said. “I know, because that’s all Jake ever had to do. He’s all the father I wanted.”

“Really? And was Maisy still in love with Harry Ashbourne when she married Jake?”

“When I married you, I made a commitment. I wanted our marriage to work. I tried. But you don’t want a partnership. You want to control me.”

“I have to get ready to ride.”

“Bard, Yvonne says you can come to one of my sessions. Maybe she can help us both come to terms with this.”

“Terms? Here are the
terms,
Julia. You move back to Millcreek Farm, and you let me take care of you my way. You stay away from Claymore Park and Christian Carver. Leave the puppy, while you’re at it. If Callie needs a dog, I’ll select one.”

She knew he was defensive. His strategy to rid Mosby Hunt of Christian’s presence had failed, very publicly. Now that the Sutherlands had made their stand, no one was going to sign his petition. She knew when he was secure he was a kinder more thoughtful human being than the one standing before her now.

But did a woman live for the occasional golden moment? She thought of Louisa again, Louisa who’d had such hopes for her union with the mercurial Ian Sebastian.

Louisa, a fictional character whose life was the dark side of Julia’s own.

“I won’t meet those terms,” she said wearily. “I’m finding my feet, Bard. And if you keep pushing me, I’ll walk away.”

“If you think I’ll be weeping on the sidelines, think again.”

She heard the sound of riding boots retreating. But she and Bard had parted company so many years before that his absence now meant very little.

T
hree mornings after the hunter’s pace, Samantha found Christian in the kennel with the vet, who was checking the pack for heartworms.

“Got a minute?” she asked.

Fish stepped in to help, and Christian followed Samantha outside.

“You’d have to love dogs to love that place.” Samantha waved her hand in front of her nose.

“Hey, we keep it clean, and the smell is no worse than the stables. Just dogs instead of horses.”

“The kids have a day off for teachers’ meetings, so I took Tiffany to spend the day with Callie. She showed me Clover.”

“Did Clover park herself right under your feet?”

“Hard to believe she’s a pedigreed foxhound.”

Christian admired her. She wore khakis and a knit shirt in some shade of orange women probably had a name for. He liked her, and he found her healthy, exuberant beauty right up his alley. He knew she found him attractive, as well. He supposed if he asked her out, she would say yes.

Somehow he hadn’t quite made the effort.

“Look, I know you have to get back to work,” she said.

“We’re making sure the pack’s ready for the season.”

“Have you been out with them yet?”

He hadn’t, except for exercise. It was cubbing season, and Peter had asked Christian to wait until he was introduced at the hunter’s pace. Peter himself had continued to hunt the hounds with the help of volunteer whippers-in, including Bard Warwick.

But now that Christian’s job was official, he would begin going out with Peter, starting tomorrow. He wasn’t sure he would be ready to be huntsman by the time the opening hunt rolled around, but he would be on his way.

“Tomorrow’s my first day,” he told her. “I hope I don’t fall off my horse.”

“Are you going to ride Ranger?”

“Probably. They take it easier than they will when the season begins in earnest. It will give me a chance to see how he does.”

“He’s a good old boy. He won’t let you down.” Samantha pulled something out of the pocket of her khakis and offered it to him. “I haven’t forgotten our conversation. I made a list of people Fidelity hung out with when I knew her. Naturally our relationship was a bit strained after I discovered she’d been sleeping with my husband, but we still ran with the same crowd. These are people who knew her well. In the biblical sense, for some of the men.”

Christian scanned the list. There weren’t as many names as he’d feared.

“I only included people who are still around the area,” Samantha said. “But the ones who’ve drifted away were minor players.”

“Did you know Julia back then?”

“I think Fidelity kept the different parts of her life very separate. She could compartmentalize like mad. I don’t know if Julia ever realized how wild Fidelity was.”

“She didn’t. She would have told me.”

“You and Julia were close.” It wasn’t a question.

“We were going to get married as soon as we finished school.”

“Tough breaks all around. I’m sorry.”

He folded the paper and slipped it into the pocket of the coverall he wore when he worked in the kennel. “Thanks for the list.”

“Christian, far be it from me to be pushy, but if you want to get together some time, I’d like it. You’re one of the last of the nice guys. We’d have fun.”

“I haven’t been a nice guy for a long time, Samantha.”

“A nice tough guy.” She smiled.

He smiled back, but he didn’t accept her offer.

The first name on Samantha’s list was a young woman who worked in a Middleburg antique shop. Her eyes widened when Christian introduced himself, but she seemed willing to help. She told him the police had interviewed her after Fidelity’s death, and in all the intervening years she hadn’t thought of one important detail she’d missed.

“I knew her,” she said as she dusted shelves of Depression glass. “I liked her, although at the time I hated the way she went after any man who caught her eye. But I always thought she’d settle down eventually, and I never knew anyone who really wished her harm.”

When he asked about drugs or angry ex-lovers, she only shrugged. “Everyone did drugs, and any man who got involved with Fidelity had to know, didn’t he, that the relationship was going to be short-term? If someone had gotten serious, she would have cut him off right away. That’s just the way she was.”

The next two people on the list hadn’t seemed to know Fidelity well.

The fourth person was a girl who had gone to Foxcroft School with Fidelity. They had trained together for the Olympic team, and both had lost out. The loss seemed to have created a bond, although Caroline, a pretty brunette, said they hadn’t spent much time together the last summer of Fidelity’s life.

Caroline juggled twin girls as they talked at the restaurant she and her husband had just opened up in The Plains, another neighboring town. “Fidelity was flying a little high for me,” she told him. “I was studying hard and making plans for my life, and she was trying to decide what to wear to which party and who to go home with afterward.”

“Is there anything you can tell me? Anything she told you? Anyone who seemed out of place in her life?”

“She was doing drugs. Cocaine, mostly. Some of the designer stuff, too. There was one guy, a polo player named Joachim, who supplied her and half the people she knew. I think he died a few years later in a fight. He always seemed to be hanging around, like he had stock in her or something.”

Christian was surprised. “Did you know Joachim’s wife?”

“The model? I know she was away all the time on jobs. She probably didn’t know what he was up to while she was gone. Maybe she thought all that money came from polo. Anyway, that was one of the reasons I stopped seeing so much of Fidelity. It was just getting too scary. Drugs scared me.”

He thanked her for talking to him and headed back to Claymore Park. Christian doubted Samantha would have helped him unearth Fidelity’s past if she’d known he was going to turn up even more bad news about her ex-husband. He decided he had to tell her, to see what she could add. But not tonight.

He had promised Callie he would stop by to see Clover and help her begin training the pup. By now they’d had a chance to see what they’d gotten themselves into.

He decided to ride Night Ranger to the house. He could view the driveway from the last hill before Ashbourne and see if the Fletchers had visitors, notably Bard. If so, he could turn around. But when he reached the hill, the only vehicle in sight was the new red pickup.

At the house, he turned Night Ranger loose in the small, empty paddock closest to the barn and removed his bridle, hanging it on the rusty gate latch so Ranger could graze. Leaving a horse in the paddock was a ritual left over from his youth. He felt like a man who hadn’t been to mass in years but finds himself standing and kneeling and crossing himself without missing a beat.

He walked up to the house, where he was greeted by one ecstatic foxhound puppy. “Hey, girl.” He stooped in the grass and rubbed her neck. “How’re you doing?”

“Christian!” Callie stampeded out of the house as if she’d been waiting. “Christian!”

“Hey, Callie.” Before he knew it, she had thrown herself at him and knocked him to the ground.

“I got you!”

“You flattened me,” he agreed. “I’m your prisoner.”

“Callie!” Julia’s horrified voice floated down the steps.

Christian was laughing, nailed by the child and the puppy, who was now standing on top of him, licking his face. “It’s all right. She just caught me off balance.”

Callie was giggling, too. He ruffled her hair before he pushed Clover away and sat up. Callie sat up, too. “Did you come to see Clover or me?”

Her enthusiasm surprised him. “Both of you, of course.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. You’re a team these days, right?”

“We are! Clover’s the best dog in the whole world!”

“Is she?” He was relieved. He’d half expected Julia to throw the puppy at him as soon as he arrived. “What do you think, Julia?”

“I think my daughter has abysmal manners. Tell Christian you’re sorry, Callie.”

“I’m sorry.” Callie’s eyes were shining.

“I can see you are,” he said.

He watched Julia descend the steps, feeling her way. She seemed to go about being blind the way she did everything. Carefully and intelligently. Some women would have let this sudden loss of sight defeat them.

“About this puppy…” Julia said.

Christian grimaced. “I don’t think I want to hear this.”

“She’s absolutely terrific,” Julia said. “Callie adores her. Maisy adores her. Jake puts up with her.”

“And you?”

“I just try to keep her from getting under my feet.”

He hadn’t given that a moment’s thought, but moving was tricky enough for Julia as it was. “Is she making it impossible to get around?”

“We keep her outside except at night,” Callie said. “And I’m training her.”

He wished Callie luck.

“Callie’s actually making some progress,” Julia said, holding on to the post at the bottom of the stairs. “Show Christian, Callie.”

Callie stood and ran to her mother. Then she called for the puppy. “Clover…Clover…Here, girl.”

Clover cocked her head, as if canine thoughts might possibly be passing through it. Then she abandoned Christian and rocketed toward her new owner, who squealed with delight. “See?” she shouted. “See?”

“Hey, that’s terrific. Good job.” He began to believe in miracles.

“I’m going to teach her to sit and stay and heel and all that stuff. Maisy got me a book with pictures in it.”

“Just don’t go too fast. You’ll confuse her. I’d concentrate on one thing at a time until you’re sure she has it down pat.” At that rate he guessed Callie would be training Clover until Callie was married with children of her own.

“I’m going to teach her to lead Mommy around, like an eye dog.”

“Seeing eye dog,” Julia said.

“I trained guide dogs,” Christian said. “It’s a great job. But you’ll have better luck trying to teach this one how to find foxes.”

“That won’t help Mommy.”

Christian got to his feet, dusting himself off as he did. “Not unless she needs a fox coat.”

“Yuck,” Julia and Callie said together.

Christian laughed. “Callie, I wanted to tell you how well you rode in the hunter’s pace. You and Feather Foot had a great time. Very close to the winners.”

“We didn’t win, though.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what you were there for.”

Callie scratched Clover’s head. “My daddy won. He said I fooled around too much. I should have tried harder.”

Christian didn’t know what to say to that. She was what, seven? Didn’t seven-year-olds fool around routinely?

Callie brightened. “Do you want to see Feather Foot up close? You can feed her an apple.”

“It would be an honor. Julia? Is that all right?”

Julia looked unhappy. She probably thought he was spending too much time with her daughter. “You know, it’s getting dark,” he said, when Julia didn’t answer. “Maybe I’d better just—”

“Please!” Callie pleaded.

“Go ahead, you two,” Julia said. “I’ll wait for you on the porch.”

“Come on,” Callie swooped down on him, hand extended. All Christian could do was take it and be pulled along by her enthusiasm.

“What are you doing out here alone?” Maisy’s voice was followed by steps. The screen door slammed in confirmation.

“Christian and Callie are in the barn. She’s showing him Feather Foot.”

Maisy didn’t answer.

“Callie’s crazy about him,” Julia said. “She knows he likes her. Then he gave her the puppy. That’s all it took. An adult male who isn’t trying to change her and likes her well enough to think about pleasing her. It’s a rarity in her life.”

“It’s called a father,” Maisy said.

“Yes, I know.”

“You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?”

“I have absolutely no choice. Someone else will, or he’ll figure it out.”

“So that’s your reasoning? You’re going to tell him because you have to?”

“I’m going to tell him because he deserves to know. He’s always deserved to, although when he was in prison, it seemed doubly cruel. Now it would be cruel not to. Those two belong together. They’ve already found each other without my help.”

“Tonight?”

“No. I’ve got to tell Bard my decision first. I owe him that. It will change everything.”

“And Callie?”

“I’ll tell Callie when she’s a little older. I don’t want her to hear it from someone else.”

“I’m so glad. Living a lie is the same thing as burning in hell.”

“Maisy, you don’t believe in hell.”

“What would be the point? We make enough trouble for ourselves. The devil doesn’t have to lift a finger.”