Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(61)
“You knew they were talking about me?” she asked as the silence between them became unbearable. “You knew they were blaming me for Juan’s death?”
“Small minds in narrow worlds look for simple cause and effect. They don’t have the experience or education to envision broader possibilities or even shades of gray. The Lucys are about as small a world as you can get, and they’re superstitious as they come. I’ve been talking to the old-timers, sounding them out about my dad, and I’ve heard the rumors about you. They know your history. The older ones know your families. But the past frightens them, and they’re just not talking about it. Cass and Mariah will give them another sacrificial goat before the night is over.”
He limped a bit, as he did when he was tired. But as they found their way in the dark down the crumbling pathway, he placed a steadying hand at the small of her back, and she enjoyed the gesture. She liked a whole lot about this sensible, self-assured man—except for his protective need to control. She knew getting in deeper with a Null who sought security was a straight road to heartbreak if she continued pursuing her weird Lucy leanings. But the stiff deputy had stood up for her place as a Lucy.
“Are you on duty?” she asked, grimacing as his uniform became more visible once they reached the paved highway.
“Until midnight,” he said in regret. “Want a ride back to your place? I can take a look around, make certain no one is lingering in the bushes, pretend I’m working.”
She entertained that idea for all of a minute before deciding she was too wound up to go to bed, alone.
“Is there anyone at the lodge? Do you think the utilities are operating again? Cass has no internet service, and I’d like to use the computer.” And she didn’t want to be alone when the meeting broke up or be around if Mariah or Cass came by. She needed normal.
“The lodge is open for business,” he said. “Although there aren’t many guests. Would you like to hang around till midnight?”
She heard the suggestion in his voice. It matched her need. “I can do that,” she said with what she hoped sounded like adult decision and not a teenager’s hormonal heart-pounding.
Walker circled her waist and squeezed her close before he helped her into his cruiser. She almost leaned her head against his shoulder, but that would have been needy.
“Kurt will want to know about the meeting,” Walker warned as he climbed in, smelling of warm man and musky aftershave. “If you tell him, you will be colluding with the Nulls just as they said.”
“I am not going to be drawn into this,” she said fiercely. “It is not my fight.”
He started the car and drove silently for a minute before replying, “The Lucys may be right. You might very well be the reason for the fire. My secretary called a little while ago.”
Sam hugged her elbows and waited, not liking the tone of his voice.
“A lawsuit against the Kennedy’s mortgage company and the bank resulted in the Ingersson farm being returned from default and put in a trust with the proceeds from the suit when you were an infant. Since your grandparents were both dead by then, an executor was named. Once you reached twenty-one, you and Valdis became jointly responsible for any sale of the land.”
“And the Ingersson farm is what?” Sam asked, almost angrily. Valdis? She was essentially responsible for her insane aunt’s land?
“The farm is the linchpin allowing access from the town to both the Kennedy and the Menendez properties on the mountain.”
“Cass,” Sam hissed. “This is why she dragged me up here. This is all Cass’s doing.”
Chapter 20
Sam marched defiantly into 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 the guest business office off the main lobby as if she’d spent her life using hotel computers.
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 small family in the San Francisco area. They’d stayed in their homes occasionally. Or they’d gone camping. Business hotels weren’t part of the experience.
She was aware now that she had adopted family, cousins and aunts who could take her in, if she needed familiar faces and normal. She didn’t have to stay in Hillvale. Until tonight though, she’d felt more at home in Hillvale than she had with her adopted relations. The realization unnerved her.
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 but safe. She’d assumed that would be her career path, maybe in a more multi-cultural area.
And now. . . ? She was jumpy and on edge, but her parents’ admonitions of don’t back down and persevere forced 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 came here.