Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(53)
“You’re crazy if you think either of you is climbing that mountain now,” Walker shouted his frustration.
“But if they had digging equipment, they could probably reach the aquifer,” Sam argued. “The snow cover is still heavy higher up. The aquifer will be full.”
“Use your damned brain, Sam! Basic fire equipment works if we don’t have to waste time saving people who have no business up here.” Walker jabbed his finger at the nearly empty parking lot. “Get a ride out of here, now, or I swear, Sam, I’ll lock you up. Only trained professionals belong here.”
Before Walker could turn on him, Harvey loped off, shouting “Hoses! This way!” at the staff unreeling the lodge’s equipment. He was pointing at the trickle of fire that had followed them out. At least that task was in hand. Now all he had to do was remove this newly irrational woman.
“Harvey and the staff aren’t professionals,” she argued.
“They’re trained volunteers. They know to stay the hell out of the way.” He glanced over her shoulder and shouted at the woman preparing to leave, “Mrs. Kennedy, take Sam down with you, will you?”
Even knowing Walker was right, Sam fought irrational fury as she swung around to see Carmel climbing into the backseat of her Escalade. A ride with Mrs. Arrogant ought to be a real barrel of laughs. She debated swatting Walker with her stick just because, but he was already striding off, duty done. Wretched, miserable. . .
But with Carmen in her gunsight, Sam strode across the lot and opened the door behind the driver. “Official orders,” she declared, sliding in, appalled by her own abrasiveness.
Dainty, diminutive Jade had taught her to stand up for herself. “Behave as you mean to go on,” she’d said, shoving a young Sam onto the stage to explain her science experiment. Her mother had showed her how to face up to school bullies, and later, how to deal with driving instructors who wanted more than her money. In their rural community, with hostility toward her different parents rampant, it had been necessary to stand up to the bullies and name callers just to survive.
It had been Wolf who had caught her before she could take a swing at a shrew who’d called him a name. Jade would have punched the old biddy. Wolf had taught Sam that some fights weren’t worth picking.
So she was both her parents’ daughter now—the fighter her mother wanted her to be, and the patient scientist her father had encouraged.
She missed them desperately, but she was a whole woman today because of them. In Wolf’s memory, she waited politely for Carmen to fire the next round.
“You called me step-grandmother,” the lady said under her breath, apparently not wanting the driver to hear. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re the one who has lived here for. . . how long? Thirty years? Have you never talked to Cass?” Sam realized she’d left her purse and backpack in Walker’s car. Damn.
“Cass and I do not see eye-to-eye,” the older woman said stiffly, staring straight ahead. “And I do not exactly live here. My home is in the city.”
“And the townspeople are beneath your notice? Not smart, if so. Then we probably have nothing else to say to each other. You may continue living in ignorance. I don’t mean to disturb your narrow world.” Well, she did, apparently, or she would never have said anything. Unreasonably, it rankled that the Kennedys had never acknowledged Cass and her birth father, even if she’d just learned about it.
Carmen shot her a glare that should have killed. “You’re a stranger who knows nothing about us. You cannot come in here and pretend to be family. I will not give up what I’ve fought so hard to keep.”
“Isn’t it just a little dangerous not to tell your sons they have relations they don’t know about?” Sam said, with only the slightest malice.
Malice! She might occasionally be defiant but she’d never been mean. But even knowing she was behaving abnormally, she couldn’t stop. “Some day they might need an organ match or know about an inherited disease or that they’re dating nieces. That’s all I’m saying.”
Carmen looked as if she’d swallowed a mouse, but she gathered her considerable resources to produce a withering tone. “They know Cass is a distant relation,” she replied as if it hurt to say the words. “Their father’s family was small, and the rest have passed on. My sons have better taste than to date women not of their social circle. Are we letting you out here?” she asked with false politeness as the car slowed down in town.
Sam offered a tight smile. “Yes, please, it’s been lovely talking with you. And rest assured, I want no part of what is yours. Apparently your husband left my father well off, and the executors have taken better care of the money than anyone did his family.”
She got out in the parking lot without watching for Carmel’s reaction. She felt oddly drained and wondered what she had thought she was accomplishing. She had just told a potential murderer that she was a danger to her precious family. What on earth had possessed her?
Possessed—an ugly word with more than one meaning. Remembering the evil the Lucys kept preaching about, Sam went around back to Dinah’s shed where she’d stored the few garden tools she’d gathered. Walker had made it clear that she knew nothing about firefighting, so she’d stay out of the way. In the meantime, she needed grounding.