Despite the dull browns and grays of late fall, the farm looked beautiful

Liz pulled over, as far off the road as she could get. If she parked in the field that was already bumper-to-bumper with cars her escape route might be cut off by people arriving later. She pulled down the sun visor for one last check of her appearance. The view in the small rectangular mirror wasn’t reassuring.

Pretending not to notice the curious faces that had turned her way, Liz lifted a monster salad bowl from the back seat. She could sense anxiety in the air, and restrained excitement, as if people were waiting to see the queen or Santa Claus at the end of a long parade and thought someone might get in their line of vision. Was she the source of all that feeling or had it just been too long between parties?

There was a barrier between herself and the people who’d come to welcome her, and she didn’t know how to cross it. She didn’t want to cross it.

Dear Reader,

I decided to come home to my own province for my second novel. You tend to think of somewhere else, anywhere else, as being a more romantic setting than the place where you live, but it struck me a while ago that the history, geography and population of Manitoba are so varied I could write for the next twenty years without leaving these borders and find a different background for each story. “Three Creeks” is the original, discarded name of a town near mine. It was satisfying to rescue it and give it to my fictitious town.

In The House on Creek Road Elizabeth Robb (a cousin of Susannah Robb from Into the Badland—Harlequin Superromance #1053) returns to Three Creeks to help her grandmother sort through a lifetime’s worth of belongings before selling the family farm. She has mixed feelings about spending time in this rural area dominated by her family and by an incident she can’t forget. Her grandmother’s new neighbor, Jack McKinnon, catches her eye and her imagination right away, but he has a secret that might hurt them both if he can’t keep it hidden.

So many people helped with this book, answering questions and telling stories about rural life, explaining the mysteries of old houses, describing what Jack might be doing with computers and how Liz might make children’s books. Writing a book to deadline for the first time had its challenges. My thanks to Superromance editor Laura Shin whose humor and skill and confidence-building I so appreciate, and to my husband, who, when I was discouraged by the things I don’t like about small-town life, took me for coffee in an old, tinceilinged building in a beautiful, peaceful town not far away, reminding me of the things I like best.

Sincerely,

Caron Todd

P.S. I’d love to her from readers. Please write to me at P.O. Box 20045, Brandon, MB, R7A 6Y8 or ctodd@prairie.ca.

The House on Creek Road
Caron Todd

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my grandmother, who always won at double solitaire.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“ANYTHING?”

His new partner shook his head. “You never know with these old houses. Nooks and crannies everywhere. Did you get into his files?”

“Nope.”

“We could take the laptop with us.”

“Just to let him know we were here? No, thanks.” A suggestion like that made him wonder. Was this guy dumber or more reckless than he looked, or was it a test? They’d been working together for a week, but they might as well have been standing at opposite ends of the morning bus for all they’d got to know each other. “Anyway, a laptop’s too easy to lose. Not a good place to store something really valuable.”

“Maybe he destroyed it, just like he said.”

“Never.”

“You’re sure?”

“I know him.”

There was a short silence. “We can look again.”

“Right. And when he gets home, he can give us a hand.”

The little guy from town, sniffing and gurgling as usual, came down the stairs from the second floor. “He’s supposed to see an implement dealer in Brandon next Friday. It’s a couple of hours both ways, never mind looking at equipment.”

As hard as it was to believe, the farm seemed to be the real thing. “Friday it is. We’ll have all day. If it’s here, we’ll find it.”

A POOL OF MURKY LIGHT CUT A FEW feet of gravel road out of the darkness. Liz reached over the steering wheel and wiped her already damp sleeve through the condensation clouding the windshield. Trembling beads of water stood on the glass, then slid, in little zigzagging streams, to the bottom. In seconds, the fog began to form again. She cracked open the window. Crisp cold air, full of the smells of fallen leaves and field fires, flowed into the car.

She must have taken the wrong road. Some people might have an internal compass, but she didn’t. North was wherever she was pointing, west and east were always changing places. The turnoff had felt right, though. Her body had seemed to tell her to turn, as if her cells remembered the way even if she didn’t. Since then, not a single landmark. Just miles of bush and empty fields, and the odd furry thing darting in front of the car, evidently sure where it was going. So much for cells.

Liz glanced at the clock on the dash. Two hours since she’d left the lights of the city behind. It felt like ten. If Susannah had been navigating, they’d be warm in their grandmother’s kitchen by now. They had planned to come together, one last visit for old times’ sake, after Susannah had finished her season’s digging for bones and Liz her new children’s book. But Sue had looked up from her fossils long enough to fall in love with the man digging beside her, and instead of coming home to Three Creeks with her cousin, she’d gone off to the Gobi Desert with her new husband. It wasn’t old times without Sue.

“Now, what’s this?” Liz slowed almost to a stop. A few dots of light to her left suggested a house set far back from the road. She could just make out a scraggly grove of bur oaks. It was the Ramsey place! She’d done it, after all. Five minutes stood between her and a gallon of tea.

No need to worry about fogged windows now—she could drive this last section of road blindfolded. A clear view and five minutes of October night air might be safer, though. Liz held one finger on the switch that had seen so much action over the past couple of hours, and the driver’s window hummed all the way down. Above it, she heard another sound. She turned to look. A car was coming right at her.

Her stomach lurched. She wrenched the steering wheel to the right, and floored the gas pedal. Her car surged forward and sideways. The rear tires bit into loose gravel and the back end began to skid. Just a little, then sharply. She heard herself swearing softly even before she saw the deer. On the side of the road. Deep in the ditch. Everywhere.

They bolted. All but one. Sides heaving, knees locked. At the last moment, it leapt away, the white of its raised tail flashing once before it disappeared. The car slid past the place where the deer had stood and came to a jolting stop when it met a rock at the crest of the ditch.

Liz sat, trembling, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Where was the other car? It had come out of nowhere. No headlights. No horn. She fumbled for the recessed door handle. Cold air hit her legs when she stepped out of the car, and her heels sank into soft gravel. Heels. They’d seemed just right in Vancouver.

“Is anybody there?” Rustling noises came from the ditch. Small, slinking noises. Liz moved closer to the middle of the road, to the smooth track where tires had worn away the gravel. “Hello?”

She walked a short distance on legs that still wobbled, reluctant to go further than her car’s headlights reached. She peered along the road and into the ditches on either side, trying to distinguish in the shades of darkness, shrubs from rocks from empty space. There would be a glint from metal or glass, if a car had crashed. A smell of burning rubber, or the sound of an engine still running. The other driver must have gone. The new neighbor, maybe, the pumpkin farmer who’d bought the Ramsey place last year.

Everyone was all right, then. That was the main thing. Even the deer was all right. She had been so sure it would die, that it would come through the windshield, sharp hooves flailing at her head, and she would die, too. There were always deer on the roads in fall. They wandered from field to field, grazing on stubble and hay bales, gorging themselves before winter. She had forgotten.

The car door was wide open, and at last the windshield was completely clear. Liz buckled up, then eased her foot onto the gas pedal. The wheels turned, and there was a skin-crawling scrape of metal against rock as the car ground forward. A glitch in her happy ending. She’d never damaged a car before, not enough to notice, anyway. Had she got the extra insurance? Twelve dollars for peace of mind, the clerk at the rental desk had said. She must have got it. Still, they’d be angry.

At jogging pace, she drove until she came to a bend where the road curved to follow the largest of the three creeks. For anyone reading a map, it was still Creek Road from here on in, but locally it had always been known as Robb’s Road. It was narrow, darkened by Manitoba maples that filled the ditches and nearly met overhead. When they were children, it had seemed like part of their own land. They’d walked or ridden their bikes or horses right down the middle, surprised, and a little indignant, if cars came along raising dust and expecting space.

The woods thinned, and the house came into view. Her grandmother had made sure she couldn’t miss it: two stories of light glowed through the maples and elms in the yard, tall narrow windows and a wide front entrance beckoning. As she turned into the driveway something emerged from the lilac bushes, a large, slow-moving shape that divided into two as it drew nearer. Black labs. There had always been black labs at Grandma’s, quiet dignified dogs who kept a careful eye on visitors. If they knew you, their dignity fell away and they brought sticks and fallen crab apples for you to throw. These two didn’t know Liz. They trotted just ahead of the car, out of the way, but watching.

“This is so weird,” she whispered. An odd, disjointed feeling had come over her, as if there were a fold in time, as if the past and present occupied the same space. She could see herself at five, at ten, at fifteen…all coming up the driveway with her now, all greeted by the dogs. Like the Twilight Zone. That couldn’t be good. The Twilight Zone never had a happy ending.

The driveway was empty. Relief mixed with disappointment. She’d half expected her entire family to be waiting, arms outstretched. Not that it would have been as big a group as it used to be. The family wasn’t replacing itself with its old gusto, and not everyone chose to farm and live along Robb’s Road these days. Even her parents had retired to White Rock, just an hour south of her apartment, close enough for Sunday dinners.

Liz lifted her overnight bag from the passenger seat. There were two larger cases in the trunk, filled with clothes and presents and sketches to show her grandmother, but she’d leave them until morning. Now all she had to do was get safely past the dogs. She pushed open the car door. “Hey there, big fellas.”

“Bella! Dora!” The dogs pricked up their ears and bounded toward a small figure on the veranda, by the side door. “Elizabeth, you’re not afraid of the dogs, are you?”

“Grandma!” Liz hurried to the house. She let her bag drop to the ground and gently wrapped her arms around her grandmother. Bella and Dora stood quietly, reserving judgment. “Of course I’m not scared.”

“They’re Flora’s granddaughters.” Eleanor’s voice was muffled by Liz’s shoulder. “You remember how friendly she was. By tomorrow they’ll think they’ve known you forever. Now, come in—you’re shivering. Didn’t the heater work?”

“It was the fan. I had to leave the window open to see. Then your new neighbor came crashing out of his driveway without headlights and nearly ran me off the road—” Her grandmother gave an anxious exclamation. Liz wished she hadn’t said anything. “I’m completely fine. Nothing to worry about.”

Just inside the door, she stopped. A man sat at the kitchen table drinking tea, a stranger with unblinking silver eyes. He put down his cup and stood, one hand outstretched. “Jack McKinnon. The neighbor.”

His voice was warm and medium-deep. Now that she was closer to him, she could see that his eyes were light gray, not silver. They looked watchful. Like the dogs, suspending judgment. She smiled, but his expression didn’t relax. “The car was going the other way, toward the highway, so I suppose it couldn’t have been you.”

He lifted her overnight bag onto a chair. “You think it came from my driveway, though?”

“It must have. Nothing else intersects with the road there. I hope it wasn’t somebody causing you trouble.”

“Boys up to no good on a Friday night,” Eleanor said. “They’ll settle down once hockey starts.” She exclaimed when Liz gave a sudden shiver. “You’re chilled to the bone! No wonder, with your sleeve so wet. Let’s get you out of this coat.” She pulled while Liz shrugged her way out of the sleeves. Jack McKinnon took the coat and hung it on one of a series of hooks by the door.

Eleanor patted an armchair beside the woodstove. “Come sit by the fire.” She shook out a crocheted afghan that had been folded over the back of the chair, multicolored squares edged with black. “Wrap that around you, and we’ll get a hot drink into you. I should have told you to stay in the city overnight, or to take the bus out. You’re not used to country driving anymore.”

Liz pulled the afghan up to her chin. The wool was itchy, but it was warm enough to be worth it. “Please don’t worry, Grandma. Why don’t you sit down? You and Mr. McKinnon.”

“Can I help, Eleanor?”

“If you’d just bring over a cup of tea? Clear, unless she’s changed her ways.”

The neighbor appeared in front of Liz, holding out a cup three-quarters full of a liquid so dark she couldn’t see the pattern at the bottom. Eleanor liked her tea strong. No loose leaves, no added flavors, no subtle blending of green and black, just plain tea strong enough to stain the cup and your teeth and keep you up half the night. Liz handled the cup carefully. It was the special-occasion Spode. She hadn’t seen it since all the hullabaloo after her marriage.

She pulled her mind away from the memory. Her grandmother and Jack McKinnon bustled around together, arranging two more chairs and a small table near the stove, bringing cups and cream and sugar. Eleanor had hardly changed since her last visit to Vancouver. She looked a little smaller, a little thinner, but her short white hair was still permed into gentle curls, and she wore the style of dress she always had: knee-length, belted, three-quarter sleeves. She sewed them herself, apparently from the same pattern each time. This one was cornflower blue, one of her best colors. The kitchen was the same as it had always been, too. Nothing seemed moved or worn or different in any way, as if the room had been turned off when Liz left fifteen years ago, and had just been turned back on now.

One thing was different. The neighbor. Liz never would have expected to find such a perfect man in her grandmother’s kitchen. He was just the right height, tall, but not so tall that you’d get a stiff neck looking up at him. He moved almost gracefully, handling the china with long, narrow fingers, the fingers of a surgeon or a violinist, strong but precise in their movements—

Enough of that. At her age, hovering near the brink of her mid-thirties, it was time to stop idealizing every man she met. Past time.

“Did you want the pie and dessert plates by the fire, too, Eleanor?”

“If there’s room on that little table…”

So who was he, if not a graceful violinist or a neurosurgeon in hiding? Liz tried to limit herself to observable fact. He wore blue jeans and a high-necked navy fleece top, open at the throat. There was a touch of gray in his almost black hair and a suggestion of lines, laugh lines and frown lines, near those peculiar eyes. Calluses had formed on the palms of his hands, so he didn’t just play at farming. About thirty-five, she guessed.

Graceful, but strong. With long fingers that touched things so lightly and carefully that her mind inevitably wandered… It couldn’t be helped. Those were facts, too.

When the tea and dishes were arranged to Eleanor’s satisfaction, she and Jack joined Liz by the stove. “Are you warm yet, Elizabeth?”

“Toasty. Thanks, Grandma.”

Jack looked at her over his teacup. “Eleanor tells me you’ve come to help her organize her things before the move.”

Liz nodded. “I’m still having trouble picturing you in an apartment, Grandma.”

“You won’t once you see it. It’s really very nice. All the suites are on the ground floor, with doors leading to tiny private yards. Tenants can plant flowers and vegetables, if they want. Isn’t that a thoughtful touch? It’s almost like a house, except there’s help if you need it. I’ll be very comfortable.”

“But it’s in town. And it’ll be so small.”

Eleanor smiled. “Exactly. With no stairs to negotiate.” She topped up their cups even though they were nearly full. “We have to decide what I’ll take with me, what I’ll give to relatives, what I’ll sell or donate…we have quite a job ahead of us, I’m afraid.”

“If you need help with the heavy things, give me a call,” Jack said. The silvery eyes turned back to Liz. “Was it a rough trip?”

“Just long.” His steady gaze made her self-conscious. She tucked some frizzy strands of hair behind her ear, but they jumped right back. “With an aggressive breeze coming through the window half the time. And I nearly hit a deer, avoiding the car that came out of your driveway.”

Eleanor’s cup clattered onto its saucer. “I’ll shoot those useless creatures myself one of these days, I really will!”

“The alfalfa field across from my house attracts them,” Jack said. “I counted more than thirty out there last night.”

“And each one doing its best to get hit by a car. You have to keep your eyes open out here, Elizabeth. Deer, porcupine, skunks…your brother nearly went off the road avoiding a chipmunk the other day. A chipmunk.” Eleanor’s worried irritation faded. “No sense getting our blood pressure up. You must be hungry, after all you’ve had to contend with. Will you have some pie? It’s your favorite.”

Eleanor removed the cover from the serving dish, revealing a ten-inch pie, an appealing shade of burnt orange with visible specks of spice. She lifted a wedge onto a dessert plate, balanced a fork on the side and handed it to her granddaughter. “Jack baked it himself, from his own pumpkins. He has a lighter hand with pastry than I do.”

The violin-playing neurosurgeon could bake? “It looks delicious.” Liz lifted a small forkful of pie to her mouth. Two pairs of eyes watched her chew. She realized some kind of review was expected. “It’s wonderful. So spicy and creamy.”

“And he’s going into blueberries. Soon there’ll be blueberry pie, too. Next year, Jack, or will it take longer?”

“There might be a small crop the first year.”

Liz wondered at her grandmother’s proprietary tone. She sounded as if she had some stake in this stranger’s plans, as if a member of her own family were trying something new and needed encouragement. “Blueberries can be difficult to grow, can’t they?”

“I guess I’ll find out.” He didn’t seem worried about dealing with complications. “I’ve planted a hundred of a lowbush variety that’s supposed to be hardy. If they do well, I’ll put in more.”

“You found a good location,” Eleanor said. She leaned toward Liz with a pleased expression. “He’s going to plant Christmas trees, as well.”

Liz looked curiously at the man next to her. Although he gave no sign of it, he must be a bit of a romantic to choose those crops. “Sort of a holiday express.”

“That’s right.” He emptied his teacup with two big gulps and pushed back his chair. “Your granddaughter looks exhausted, Eleanor, and she’s still shivering off and on. I’ll be on my way, so she can get settled in.” He took his coat from one of the hooks by the door. After all that arranging of tables and dishes, it was a sudden departure.

Eleanor pushed herself out of her chair. “You’ll have to come to dinner soon, Jack. Maybe Elizabeth will prepare something for us both.”

“I’m not much of a cook, Grandma.”

“A little practice will fix that.”

“Mr. McKinnon won’t want to be my guinea pig.”

“Just let me know what evening is good for you, Jack.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the tea, Eleanor. Good to meet you at last, Ms. Robb.” He strode through the door, the dogs on his heels.

Liz watched them go, three silhouettes and a small, bobbing light. He’d stayed as long as courtesy demanded and left as soon as he could. Had he emphasized the words at last? He wouldn’t suggest, half an hour after meeting her, that she ought to visit her grandmother more often…if he had, though, she couldn’t disagree. Letters and phone calls, and even invitations to Vancouver, weren’t adequate replacements for time at home. She wasn’t going to make dinner for him, that was certain. She had a way with scrambled eggs and toast, but her grandmother would expect something more impressive. A lot of pots would be involved, and some of them were bound to burn.

Eleanor turned from the window. “I don’t like it when Bella and Dora go out at night, but they always want to follow him. He sends them back when he’s nearly home.”

Liz began clearing dishes to the sink. “He visits often?”

“Oh, yes, he always has, right from the start. I invite him for dinner, or he brings something he’s baked. He’s lonely, I think, working and living on his own in a strange place. I enjoy hearing about his plans. Of course, he hasn’t yet convinced people around here he knows what he’s doing.”

The grain farmers and ranchers around Three Creeks couldn’t be blamed for a little skepticism. The growing season was hardly long enough for pumpkins to ripen, and no one in the area had ever tried to grow blueberries or evergreens commercially, not that Liz had heard, anyway. She remembered city people showing up in the area occasionally, pipe dreams in tow. They settled down or sold as impulsively as they’d bought and disappeared. “What do you know about Mr. McKinnon, Grandma?”

“You sound suspicious. It’s not like living in Vancouver, we don’t have to be careful of our neighbors here.”

“I’m just curious.”

“I can’t say I know very much about him. He told me he had his own business in Winnipeg. Something with computers, but he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“You mean he sold computers? Or was he one of those people you call to solve all your problems, like when you pour coffee on your laptop?”

“I have no idea. He doesn’t seem interested in talking about it. He’s looking ahead.” Eleanor picked up a tea towel and began to dry the dishes Liz put in the drainer. “Two weeks will go so quickly. Can you stay longer? Everyone wants to see you.”

Liz’s stomach gave a flip. “Everyone?”

“Well, all the Robbs and all their off-shoots, of course. Jean Bowen and Marge Sinclair both told me they want to have you over for coffee, and Daniel, you know, Daniel Rutherford—”

Liz’s 4-H leader, her grade nine English teacher and the ex-Mountie who had helped them solve all their horse problems. “I doubt there’ll be time.”

“If you can’t visit everyone individually, they’ll understand. You’ll be able to see most of them tomorrow, in one fell swoop.”

Liz stared at her grandmother. She had been sure she could slip into town, lend a hand for a while and go. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Your Aunt Edith has arranged a barbecue. You and I are to take a salad. Any salad we choose, she said. I always wonder what’s to stop everyone from bringing the same kind. It never happens, though. Now up you go, Elizabeth. Jack’s right, you need to take care of yourself, or you’ll catch something. You’ve got the back bedroom—there’s a hot water bottle tucked at the bottom of the bed. I hope you’ll be warm enough.” The upstairs rooms were heated by small, square metal grills that let air rise from the first floor.

“I’ll be fine.” Liz kissed her grandmother’s flannel-soft cheek. “Good night. Sleep tight.”

The back bedroom was her favorite, the room where she and her cousins had played house and dress-up when the weather kept them indoors. Flower-sprigged wallpaper covered the sloping ceiling and short walls, the same wallpaper she had watched her grandfather apply twenty years before. The bed was soft with a thick feather quilt. The Robb women used to make them, visiting around a table and ignoring sore fingers while they pulled the quills from bags and bags of goose feathers.

Liz unpacked her pencil case and sketchbook. Sitting on the side of the bed, she flipped to a new page and began to draw. She needed to get the deer out of her mind and safely onto paper before she slept.

Quick lines caught the animal’s terrified immobility. Panicked eyes bright in the headlights, body tensed to spring away, muscles bunched and twitching. Long thin legs bent as if it wanted to run in three or four directions at once. Hooves polished, tiny, sharp. Coat heavy for winter, velvet under coarse surface hairs. Eyes huge and liquid brown, ears surprisingly large and held to the side.

After she had filled several pages with full and partial sketches of the deer, her hand began to draw a face. Jack McKinnon’s face, but longer and thinner than it really was, with silver eyes full of secrets. Leaning away from her sketchbook, she studied the drawing and felt a familiar stirring of anticipation. This would be her next hero. He didn’t belong in the real world. The story would have to be a fantasy. Whether he belonged to the hills of Tara or the rings of Saturn, she didn’t yet know.

THE DOGS FOLLOWED JACK through the woods, moving silently along the path narrowly lit by his flashlight. They were alert, aware of sounds and smells that passed him by entirely. At the edge of the clearing, he stopped. He’d like to keep Bella and Dora with him—they were large enough to give intruders second thoughts—but he’d made a promise to Eleanor.

“Go home, girls.” They stood at his feet and waited expectantly, eyes glowing, tails wagging slowly. He would have to say it as if he meant it. He pointed to the northwest. “Home.” Their heads sagged, then they turned and disappeared into the night.

Unable to shake the feeling that caution was needed, Jack kept to the edge of the woods, studying the house and its surroundings as thoroughly as the yard light allowed. The car that had nearly hit Elizabeth Robb was long gone. There was no sign anyone had stayed behind, no sign of trouble.

Except the light. When he’d left for Eleanor’s, he’d switched on the light over the back door. Now, it was off. He crossed the yard to the back stoop and reached up to check the uncovered bulb. Not burned out. Twisted loose.

He tried the door. It was still locked. People tended to be casual about security around here—the Ramseys’ locks would have sprung open if you’d frowned at them, so he’d installed deadbolts as soon as he moved in. Edging his way around the house, he checked each ground-floor window. All shut and intact. The front door was locked.

Someone had come into his yard, loosened the light over the back door, then left in a hurry, headlights off to avoid being seen. Someone expecting easy access to a TV and VCR in the trusting countryside? It didn’t look as if they’d found a way in, so why was the back of his neck still so tight it burned?

He let himself into the house and stood quietly, listening. The lights he’d left on still glowed. He moved from room to room, upstairs and down. The few things of value—his espresso and cappuccino maker, his laptop, the CD player, his guitar—all sat where he’d left them.

Could have been kids, just as Eleanor said. Halloween was only a couple of weeks away. He’d likely be spending Saturday washing spattered egg off the outside walls.

What was bugging him? Jack began another circuit of the house. Was something out of place, something that had only registered at the back of his mind? Faint scratches beside the lock on the door? Dirt tracked in on someone else’s shoes?

Finally he found what had been nagging at him. A small thing…smudges in the dust on the coffee table. The books, magazines and sheet music he’d piled there had been moved, then returned to their places.

So, someone had come into his yard, loosened the light over the back door, searched for something, then left in a hurry, headlights off to avoid being seen. It didn’t make sense. Nothing was stolen, nothing was vandalized.

The tension in his neck eased. Reid. They hadn’t talked for a couple of years. It would be his style to get back in touch in some convoluted way. Leaving a few hardly noticeable clues was how they used to signal the start of a new round of their favorite game, a sort of puzzle-solving treasure hunt they’d played all through high school and university. The guy must be bored out of his mind to have gone to all this trouble, driving an hour and a half from Winnipeg…

Moving quickly, Jack lifted the trapdoor near the kitchen table. He bent his head to avoid bumping into rafters and creaked down the stairs into the dirt cellar. Deep shelves where the Ramseys had kept canned goods over the winter lined one wall. Along another were bins for root vegetables. He’d filled most of them with pumpkins waiting for their Halloween trip to the city. Stepping over more pumpkins lined up on the ground, he dug one hand to the bottom of the potato bin and brought out a resealable sandwich bag. Inside the bag was a plain black diskette.

He returned to the kitchen and switched on his laptop. When the menu appeared, he checked the security logs. Sure enough, an attempt had been made to get into his files, today at 2018 hours. Not unexpected under the circumstances, but it still made his heart beat a little faster. He slipped the diskette into its slot, then rebooted the computer and waited for the prompt. As soon as it flashed onto the screen, he relaxed. Reid hadn’t tried to open the hidden Linux partition. He had no reason to suspect it was there, no reason to look for it.

Jack popped the small black square out of the machine and into his hand, curling his fingers around it. He could throw it into the Franklin stove right now. Probably should. He could delete the partition and its contents. Absolutely should.

He slipped the diskette back into the sandwich bag, and started down the cellar stairs.

CHAPTER TWO

LIZ BUMPED HER HEAD on the sloping ceiling over the bed when she sat up. It made her think of her grandfather, solemnly checking every door frame, table and chair she’d bumped into as a child and assuring her it was undamaged. Even if her eyes were full of tears from the collision, she couldn’t help laughing at his concern for those sharp edges. Couldn’t help being just a little bit mad, either.

At night, when she’d made a quick trip down the hall to the bathroom, the bare floor had been icy cold. Now there was a warm path where pale sunlight streamed in. Liz followed it to the window, then stood back from the draft of cool air seeping through the glass.

The yard was huge, reaching to the poplar woods at the back, and to the garden and hip roof barn at one side. Her grandfather’s small orchard, hardy crab apple, plum and cherry trees, grew at one end of the garden, and her grandmother’s raspberry patch at the other. Her arms stung just looking at it. She and Susannah used to wade right in to find the ripest berries. They didn’t notice all the long red scratches on their skin until they were done. Tiny green worms wriggling inside the berries didn’t bother them, either.

Maybe in a day or two the Twilight Zone feeling would wear off, and she could look outside without seeing twenty different scenes at once, her life passing before her eyes. In little pantomimes all over the yard she saw herself playing with her cousins and her brother. Had they spent any time at their own houses, or were they always here, rolling in this grass, climbing these trees, raiding this garden?

Their swing still hung from the oak tree. Strange to see it empty. Someone had always been on it, leaning way back with arms stretched and legs pumping, trying to go high enough to look at the world through the tree’s lower branches. Once, they’d all tried to fit on at the same time—they’d made it to seven, with Liz and Susannah and Tom dangling from the ropes, before someone’s mother had called that they’d break the tree if they didn’t watch out. They were always tanned and laughing…at least it seemed that way. Untouchable.

It was going to be a ghost-filled visit. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. She might manage to scare a few of them away. How, she had no idea. Threaten to draw them? Or ignore them, like bullies? That would be best. Ignore them, and keep her mind on why she was here—to help her grandmother and to say her goodbyes to the old house. Then she’d go back to Vancouver and stay there. Back home.

She hurried into a pair of jeans and a sand-colored sweatshirt, then made her way downstairs, holding the banister as she went. Very little light turned the corner from the living room windows. She could hardly see where to put her feet. It was a dangerous staircase for her grandmother, narrow and steep, and a dark house for her to live in alone all these years. Liz had to think and count…nine years.

Eleanor was in the kitchen, leaning over a steaming waffle iron. “Good morning, Elizabeth! I put the kettle on when I heard the floor squeak. It won’t be a minute.”

“Great, I could do with a cup. Don’t tell me you’re making waffles.”

“How could your first morning home go by without them?”

Liz hovered, wondering if she should offer to help. She had tried to make waffles once and had ended up yelling at the supposedly nonstick pan and going out for breakfast. When the kettle whistled, she hurried to the stove and poured the boiling water over tea bags waiting in a warmed Brown Betty, glad of something useful to do. The dogs looked at her with mild interest, but didn’t move out of her way or wag their tails.

She pulled a tea cosy over the pot. “This is pretty. Is it new?” It was leaf green, with a pattern of pink geraniums. There wasn’t a single tea stain on it.

“Isn’t it nice? Jack saw it at a craft sale and thought of me.”

“He goes to craft sales?”

“It was in Pine Point. He wants to experience every aspect of country life.”

“I hope you told him farmers don’t go to craft sales unless women drag them.”

Eleanor looked amused. “I doubt I could influence him. Besides, he likes to support work that’s done locally.”

Liz felt an uncomfortable twist of distrust. Jack McKinnon seemed to be going out of his way to please her grandmother. “He’s awfully friendly.”

“For a stranger, you mean?” Eleanor poured more batter on the grill and closed the lid.

“I suppose that’s what I mean.”

“He’s not a stranger to me, Elizabeth.”

Liz wandered back to her grandmother’s side. She hoped she hadn’t sounded too small-minded. “It’s no wonder he thought of you when he saw the cosy. You’ve always got geranium cuttings on the windowsills.” She leaned closer and breathed in the aroma of toasted vanilla. “What’s the plan for today, Grandma?”

“We’ll start with the furniture, I think. It’s a three-room apartment, so I can’t take much with me. The dining room suite is my main concern.” Since her marriage just before the Second World War, Eleanor had been caretaker of a black walnut table that came with sixteen chairs and a matching sideboard. Liz’s great-great-grandparents had brought it with them from Ontario in 1883. “Your brother is willing to take it, but Pamela is reluctant. She prefers a modern style. Smaller scale, lighter wood. She asked Thomas if they could strip and bleach it…”

“Oh, no.”

“I’m not sure what to do. There’s general agreement that it would be a pity to sell it, but that it’s too big and too dark for anyone to take.”

“We can’t sell it.” Every family occasion had involved gathering around that table. “Remember how we used to go from house to house at Christmas? Aunt Edith’s for Christmas Eve, here for dinner on Christmas Day, our house for games and turkey sandwiches on Boxing Day. This was the only place big enough for everyone.”

Eleanor lifted the lid of the waffle-maker. Two fragrant circles fell away from the grill. “The children never need to sit at a card table in another room. I like that. I like babies at the table.”

“I don’t remember babies—”

“You were one of them. And you missed the next batch.”

“I just remember Emily being smaller than the rest of us. Not quite a baby, though. A toddler.” Emily was born a few years after Liz and Susannah, the only child of Eleanor’s only daughter, Julia. She had shadowed her older cousins as soon as she could move fast enough to keep up. Now, she was a teaching assistant at the elementary school, dividing her day between the kindergarten room and the library. She still lived with her mother, about a mile down the road from Eleanor’s house. “This barbecue tonight, Grandma. Do we have to go?”

“What a question.” Eleanor looked startled and not at all pleased. “It’s in your honor. Your aunt has gone to a lot of trouble.” Using a tea towel, she pulled a plate of waffles from the warming oven and added the two she’d just made to the pile. The stack had fallen over, forming a large, rounded mound, enough to feed them all week. “Would you get the syrup? There’s raspberry preserves, too.”

Liz rummaged in the fridge. Of course she couldn’t avoid the barbecue. It was a few hours with family and friends. She’d be glad to see everyone. She’d fill a plate and mingle and then, if necessary, plead jet lag, or burn herself on the grill, and they’d understand why she had to leave early.

“The syrup’s right there, Elizabeth, by the milk. Don’t let all the cold air out.”

The syrup appeared in front of Liz, beside a carton of whole milk she hadn’t noticed, either. Wasn’t whole milk extinct? Everything inside the fridge had a foreign look to it, now that she thought about it. Three dozen eggs, real butter, whipping cream. Had the news about cholesterol not reached Three Creeks?

As she set the syrup and preserves on the table, heavy footsteps sounded on the veranda. The dogs lifted their heads, but they didn’t budge from their spot by the stove. After a token knock, the kitchen door pushed open, and Liz’s brother looked into the room. He grinned when he saw her. “Hey, kiddo. How ya doin’?”

Liz wanted to throw her arms around him, but something held her back. She made herself busy carrying the teapot to the table. “I hoped I’d see you today.”

“Got you working hard already, has she, Grandma? Waffles—she’s got no shame. It’s from living in the city. They get used to being pampered.”

“Join us, Thomas. We’ve got plenty.” Eleanor was already setting another place.

“I suppose a little more breakfast won’t hurt me.” If anyone could tolerate two breakfasts, it was Tom. Since their parents had retired and sold him their land a few years before, he’d been farming a thousand acres and raising a hundred head of cattle. Any spare time was spent playing with his three children.

He reached for the serving plate before he was in his chair. He helped himself, then pushed it closer to his sister. “So, Lizzie, what’s the penalty for bashing up a rental car?”

She hardly noticed slipping into the bantering tone they used with each other most of the time. “You bashed up my rental car? That’ll cost you.”

“What’d you do, hit a deer?”

“I hit a rock, avoiding a deer.”

“That was careless. I could have fed my family all winter.”

From across the room Eleanor said, “Your sister had quite a scare.”

Tom’s chastened expression gave Liz’s heart a twinge. He looked about eight years old. “You’re all right, though?”

“I’m fine. Just a little more aware how nice it is to be breathing.” Even now, thinking about her near miss made her queasy. She cut one of the waffles down the middle and put half on her plate. Slowly she poured on syrup, giving as much attention to filling the little squares as she had when she was a child. “How are my nieces and my nephew?”

“Let’s see.” Tom’s face brightened just thinking about his children, but he spoke in an offhand tone. “Jennifer’s had her ears pierced, Will says it’s not fair. Anne has joined Brownies, Will says it’s not fair. Will’s going to play hockey this season, Jennifer says it’s not fair. We’ve made a rule they all have to do an hour of chores on Saturdays before they play and they all agree it’s not fair—”

“Pretty much business as usual, then.”

“But more so. Pam’s bursting to see you. She says she’ll be around to help with the sorting and packing when work allows.” Tom’s wife taught grade five at the local school. Half the teachers there were at least distantly related to the Robbs. “I suppose you’ll still be in the house for part of the winter, Grandma? Need some firewood?”

“Thank you, but I’m all set. Jack brought me a good load last week. It should be enough with what I have left from last year.”

Tom’s cheerful mood was gone, just like that. “What’s Jack McKinnon doing bringing you wood? I’ve always brought you wood.”

“You’ve been so good about it, but look at all you have to do.”

“Bringing you firewood has never been a problem—”

Bella and Dora stopped scrutinizing each forkful traveling from Liz’s plate to her mouth and ambled to the door, nails clicking on the hardwood floor. More company? Liz hadn’t even washed before coming downstairs. There was a light tapping on the door, and then Emily stepped into the kitchen, beaming. Liz’s chair scraped back, and she hurried to her cousin, reaching for a hug.

“You finally, finally came home!” Emily said. “How long can you stay?”

“A week. Maybe two.”

“Not longer?”

Eleanor brought another plate from the cupboard. “I’m sure it will be two. We need at least that much time to get the work done. We’re starting with the furniture today, Emily, if you’re interested. Thomas, would you pour your cousin some tea?”

“Thanks, Grandma.” The dogs followed Emily to her chair. “No, Bella, no matter what you might think, and no matter what happened last time, I’m not going to give you my breakfast. Is that your car in the driveway, Liz, with the big dent? Don’t tell me you hit a deer.”

“She tried her best,” Tom said, “but all she got was a rock. There’s not much point hitting a rock.”

“I swerved to avoid a car and the deer came out of nowhere. You’d think it had transported in—”

“Transported?” Eleanor didn’t watch much television.

“Like in a sci-fi program,” Liz explained. “Beamed from one spot to another…the idea is, they break you down into atoms and reassemble you at your destination.”

Eleanor grimaced. “I don’t think I’d like that. Although I wouldn’t mind a shorter trip to Winnipeg, especially in the winter—and I suppose you could drop in and out of here more often, Elizabeth.”

“And we all could have made it to Susannah’s wedding,” Tom added.

“Oh, could you believe she did that?” Emily asked. “Marry a guy like Alexander Blake in the middle of the badlands when we’d stopped thinking she’d ever get married at all, and not wait for me? I’m afraid my telegram turned into a bit of a lecture—”

This time there was no knock, and no warning from the dogs. Susannah’s father stepped into the house as if he owned it. He was tall and tanned, with graying hair cut very short. A pale band of skin just below his hairline showed where his cap usually sat, pulled down low to shade his eyes.

“There she is!” He took Liz’s face between two large hands and kissed the top of her head loudly. “Looking like a million bucks, as usual. Got all your dad’s beauty and your mother’s brains.”

Liz smiled. It was a long-time claim. “Hi, Uncle Will.”

“And Emily. Look at the two of you. All we’re missing is Susannah. Shove over, Tom.” Will squeezed into a chair next to his nephew. “Got some coffee, Mom?”

Eleanor set a jar of instant on the table. “I bought a special kind for Elizabeth.”

“Hazelnut Heaven? Sounds like a lady’s drink to me…I suppose I’ll still get my caffeine, though, won’t I?” Will smiled at Liz. “Quite a dent on that little Cavalier out there. Brand-new car, too. Reminds me of when you were learning to drive. I kept telling you to aim for the road— Oh, well, why change now?” He stirred a heaping spoon of coffee crystals into a mug of hot water his mother placed in front of him, then flinched when the smell of hazelnuts hit his nostrils. “Did you get the extra insurance?”

Liz nodded. She’d checked the rental agreement before bed.

“Always get the insurance. Otherwise, something goes wrong, you’re on the hook for the whole thing. I’ll take the car back for you—” He raised one hand to stop Liz’s protest. “I’m going into the city on Saturday anyway. I’ll settle everything, take the bus back. They won’t give me any trouble.”

“Uncle Will—”

Tom spoke under cover of their uncle’s confident voice. “Give up, Liz.”

“I’ll need a car—”

“You can use Grandma’s. It’s old, but it’s in good shape.”

“We’re all set then,” Will said with satisfaction. “So, angel, here’s the thing. Your aunt wants you to stay with us for a while. How about it? You can use Sue’s old room and keep us company.”

“I’ve come to help Grandma, Uncle Will.”

“How about over Christmas? I’m sure Sue’ll be finished at her quarry by then. Of course, it won’t be quite the same, will it? She’ll have Alex with her.” He frowned into his cup. “The way they got married, in such a hurry, with no family— It’s been tough on your aunt. She saved a picture of the perfect wedding cake from some magazine twenty-odd years ago and she was heartbroken not to have the chance to make it.”

Tom spooned a big dollop of raspberry preserves on a second waffle. “If they’d waited one measly day we could have got to Alberta in time. Would one day have made such a difference?”

“That’s what I said,” Will agreed.

Liz tried to defend her cousin, although she’d been disappointed to miss the wedding, too. “There aren’t all that many flights to the Gobi Desert.”

“Trust you to be in favor of a rushed marriage, Liz. What is it with you and eloping, anyway—” Tom broke off when Eleanor made a warning sound. With a guilty glance at his grandmother, he apologized.

Liz forced a smile. “That’s okay. I did elope. It’s no secret.”

“And everybody was very happy for you,” Will declared, “no matter what they said at the time.”

Emily jumped up. “Let’s get the dishes cleared away, Liz. Then we’ll take a look at the furniture. My mother’s hoping for that cabinet radio, Grandma.”

Eleanor tapped the table. “Settle down and enjoy your breakfast, Emily. Your cousin isn’t a child with a short attention span. You can’t distract her that easily. And you, Elizabeth, I’m sorry to say it, but you bring it on yourself. If you’d transport in here more often, people would be done commenting on that episode of your life.”

Episode. Liz smiled weakly. It was beginning to look as if two weeks would be more than she could handle. At this point, two days was in question.

JACK SCOOPED SOIL INTO a specimen jar and twisted the lid tight. Eleanor’s field looked promising. Coming through the woods he’d noticed a few small conifers growing in the shade of the poplars…if nature was already beginning to diversify the deciduous forest, it just might be willing to accept a push from him. He should know for sure in a week or two. So far it had never taken longer than that for the provincial lab to fax the test results.

He yawned and stretched. He’d been awake most of the night, his mind ricocheting between Reid, who had somehow found a way into his house, and the granddaughter with the spicy hair. Cinnamon, with darker strands, like cloves. She smelled like Christmas. She shouldn’t. People who refused to visit their grandmothers for as long as she had should smell like Scrooge—all dust and cigars.

In the middle of the field he used a trowel to dig a small hole so he could get another sample from deeper down, where the trees’ roots would be looking for nourishment. He was hoping for a slightly acidic soil, the kind white spruce and balsam firs preferred. Balsams were a safe bet to grow. They were always popular because of their thick growth and festive smell and because they hung on to their needles longer than some trees. The more sparsely branched spruce he liked for old times’ sake. It was the kind he and his uncle had always decorated.

When he straightened from collecting the second sample he noticed a figure coming across the field. A female figure. Tall and slender, with light curly hair tousled by the breeze. Elizabeth Robb. She was heading right for him. Striding toward him, in fact. Barely arrived after an absence of fifteen years, Eleanor’s granddaughter had spotted a trespasser, and she wanted to do something about it. Jack waited, surprised how glad he was to see her.

She stopped a couple of yards away. Even at that distance he was sure he caught a whiff of cinnamon. Maybe she wore cinnamon perfume. Was there such a thing? If there wasn’t, his nose was hallucinating.

After a guarded greeting, she said, “I didn’t expect to see anyone way out here.”

“There never is anybody.” Usually he could walk for half the day without seeing a single person. It was one of the things he liked about country living.

She had noticed the specimen jars nearly hidden in his hand. “I was thinking about you this morning, wondering if everything was all right when you got home last night.”

“Because of the car? Everything was fine. It must have been someone turning around in my driveway. I wondered about you, too. The accident didn’t leave you with any aches or pains?”

“It wasn’t much of an accident.” She was still eyeing the specimen jars. “The car seemed a bit sinister without headlights and disappearing the way it did, but I guess the simplest explanation is usually the right one.”

“I hope you warmed up eventually.”

A brief smile relaxed her features. “I don’t think I’ll warm up until I get back to Vancouver.”

“Overheating isn’t a problem in these old houses,” Jack agreed.

“They do provide some protection from snow during the winter.”

“And they keep the coyotes out.”

“But not the mice.” She squelched the growing feeling of friendliness by adding, finally, “I’m not sure if you realize you’re on my grandmother’s property.”

He nodded. “I’m collecting soil samples.”

His calm admission stalled her for a moment. “I suppose you’re looking for somewhere to grow evergreens.”

“That’s right.” He started walking, and Liz fell into step beside him. He shortened his stride to match hers.

“My grandmother won’t sell this field. It’s part of the original homestead.”

“Nobody else is using it.”

“I’m sure my brother would like it for pasture. He’s expanding his herd.”

“It borders my land. It’s miles from his.”

They walked in silence, dry grass brushing their legs. He saw that her shoes were splotched with paint, nearly every color ever invented as far as he could tell. For the first time it occurred to him that illustrating children’s books meant she actually painted pictures.

They had reached the edge of the field. A well-marked path led to Eleanor’s; Jack would have to cut through the woods to reach his house. He found he didn’t want their conversation to end. He tucked the offending specimen jars into his pockets. “Have you and Eleanor been working this morning?”

“We’ve being going through the furniture, making lists of everything. She has to get rid of most of it.”

“That must be hard for both of you.”

“The time had to come eventually. It’s just stuff.”

He scuffed the toe of his hiking boot into the ground. “And this is just land.”

As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. She looked at him indignantly, all her suspicions in place. He understood. He had never belonged anywhere in particular, she had always belonged here. They both knew what roots were.

DESPITE THE DULL BROWNS AND GRAYS of late fall, Will and Edith’s place looked beautiful. Evening sunlight sparkled through the leafless oaks and elms, and small fires flickered here and there in the yard so guests could warm themselves. Coal oil lamps stood on picnic tables, ready to light at dusk. People had come prepared for the temperature to dip when the sun went down—coats were open over sweaters, hats and gloves stuck out of pockets. Children ran through groups of chatting grown-ups, playing Statues, or jumping in fallen leaves.

Liz pulled over, as far off the road as she could get without driving into the ditch. If she parked in the field that was already bumper to bumper with cars her escape route might be cut off by people arriving later. She pulled down the sun visor for one last check of her appearance. The view in the small rectangular mirror wasn’t reassuring. She looked pale and pinched, like someone in the dentist’s waiting room anticipating a root canal.

“You look lovely, dear.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

Pretending not to notice the curious faces that had turned their way, Liz offered Eleanor an arm out of the car, then lifted a monster salad bowl from the back seat. When she turned around, she found herself inches from a small woman with short, graying hair and bangs, and a girl who looked about ten.

“Aunt Edith—” Liz was swept into an embrace that nearly cut off her air supply. With one hand, she held the heavy bowl away from her body, tilting precariously.

“I’ll take that, Auntie Liz.” Jennifer, Tom’s oldest child, rescued the bowl before it fell.

Edith’s grip loosened. “I always said you’d come home eventually. Now, if only Susannah were here. My nest is empty, I’m afraid.”

“Empty, but visited often,” Eleanor said dryly. Susannah’s brothers, Martin and Brian, lived just down the road with their families.

“Of course, it’s a long time since Sue lived at home, but it always seemed that she was still ours.”

Liz nodded. She felt as if she’d lost a bit of Susannah, too.

“This Alex, I don’t know, he obviously considers her his. I suppose I’ll have to adjust. Seeing the wedding for myself would have helped that process, I’m sure. Jennifer, dear, will you put that bowl with the other salads?”

Edith led them along the driveway, edged by curving perennial beds. Most of the flowers had died down and looked like tufts of straw, but a few rust-colored mums still bloomed. “Eleanor, let’s find you a comfortable spot and a hot drink. Jennifer, there you are. Salad safely stowed? Good. Will you look after your aunt? Just take her around the yard and help her mingle until she gets her bearings.”

Liz could sense anxiety in the air, and restrained excitement, as if people were waiting to see the Queen, or Santa Claus at the end of a long parade, and thought someone might get in their line of vision. Was she the source of all that feeling, or had it just been too long between parties? She watched her aunt and grandmother walk away so she could avoid looking at anyone else. There was a barrier between herself and the people who’d come to welcome her, and she didn’t know how to cross it. She didn’t want to cross it.

“Who do you want to meet first?” Jennifer asked.

“How about your dad?”

“You had breakfast with my dad. Anyway, he’s barbecuing.”

Liz could see Tom across the yard, lifting the lid of one of four gas barbecues, tongs in hand. A spicy, smoky smell she’d noticed earlier intensified. Teriyaki something.

Jennifer lowered her voice. “Everybody’s looking at you, like they’re waiting.”

Her niece’s discomfort made Liz ashamed of her hesitation. “Let’s just go into the fray and talk to everyone at once.”

Pleasant faces and friendly voices greeted her. Liz found it easy to respond the same way. Part of her even began to enjoy the evening. She spoke to the couple who’d sold her mother eggs and cream, and to the repairman who’d nursed her family’s appliances through mishaps years after their warranties had expired. There was her Sunday School teacher, completely unchanged, and her grade-one teacher, unrecognizable, and in a wheelchair. Second and third cousins who’d never made the trip to Vancouver dived right into the middle of family stories, as if she’d only been away for a few weeks. Parents of young children told her which of her books they’d borrowed from the library and which they’d bought. Someone brought her a cup of cocoa, a few people mentioned her dented car and everyone agreed she’d done well for herself. Through it all, Jennifer followed along, saying hello to each person by name, in case Liz had forgotten.

As she moved away from signing a book one father had thought to bring with him, a pair of arms came around Liz from behind and a chin rested on her shoulder. “Gotcha!”

Liz recognized the voice and the freckled arms. She turned to smile at her sister-in-law. “Pam. I wondered where you were.”

“In the kitchen, of course. Why is it that as soon as I manage to get out of mine I find myself in someone else’s? Emily and Aunt Julia are still there, keeping the cocoa going.”

Interpreting her mother’s arrival as permission to abandon her aunt, Jennifer ran off to join the other children at the far end of the yard. They were holding out brown grass to three sorrel mares, and even though the horses could graze the same grass themselves, they reached eagerly over the fence to take it.

Pam pulled Liz’s elbow. “Look. There’s the new cutie.”

Jack McKinnon stood a few yards away, holding a pie in each hand. His deep voice reached them. “Sorry I’m late, Edith. Pumpkin pies, just as you asked.” A picture formed in Liz’s mind, a silver-eyed fairy king going to market, a string of pies floating behind him…

Definitely Tara, rather than Saturn. Not the pretty, child-friendly kind of fairy, though. The primitive kind, with nature’s beauty and force and heartlessness. Dressed in dry fall leaves. No, not dressed…part of the leaves, nature personified. Liz’s hand ached for a pencil.

“I just love him,” Pam said, in a near whisper. “He’s your grandma’s new neighbor.”

“I met him last night.”

“Imagine, he grows pumpkins. He wants to grow Christmas trees.”

“Appealing, isn’t it? There’s something about him, though—”

“I’ll say.”

Liz looked at her sister-in-law doubtfully. “Does Tom mind all this appreciation?”

“He values an innovative farmer as much as I do.” Pam caught the eye of a white-haired man standing nearby. “Isn’t that right, Daniel?”

“Isn’t what right?” Daniel came closer, his step slow and stiff, so different from the energetic stride Liz remembered. He might not be able to outmuscle a misbehaving horse anymore, but he hadn’t lost the ramrod bearing he’d picked up as a Mountie, or his air of authority. “Good to see you, Liz. Thought you’d never come back.”

“I wasn’t sure I would, either.” She smiled. “Now that I’m here, I’m glad I did.”

Daniel nodded. “So, we had some excitement last month.” He waited until Liz started to prompt him, then continued, “Your cousin came through town with her new husband.” He paused again, and Liz remembered that he’d always talked that way, stopping as if to wait for a response, but then going on if you tried to make one. “I saw him through the car window when they were driving back to Winnipeg to catch their plane. Your poor aunt planned a whole get-together for them. Thought she could have a sort of reception, at least, if not the wedding. Managed to get the family together, I hear, but they only stayed for an hour, just long enough to introduce the husband, and then they were gone. Wouldn’t you think a daughter would make time?” He stopped to take a breath.

Quickly, Liz said, “I’m sure Susannah would have, if she could.”

“She would have,” Daniel said, nodding pointedly, “if it had been up to her. I guess there’s not much chance she’ll ever move back home now, not with a husband like that, always gallivanting around the globe digging up dinosaurs.”

“Sue’s always digging up dinosaurs, too.”

“Doesn’t seem like real work, does it?” Daniel’s gaze wandered past her, and with a nod he moved on, joining some friends beside one of the small fires.

Jack had deposited his pies on a picnic table. Liz watched him wander through the yard, speaking to a few people, politely accepted, but not really welcomed. It would be years before anyone believed he belonged in the community. Years, or never. He might always be the guy who’d bought the Ramsey place.

Pam dropped her voice suggestively. “Got your eye on Jack?”

“Of course not. I’m just sorry for him. This isn’t an easy place to fit in.”

“Half the people around town say he’s growing marijuana.” In response to Liz’s surprised glance, Pam explained, “City guy, failed business, money to spend. Talks about organic farming. Case closed.”

“I don’t think his business failed. Grandma told me he wanted a change.”

“My dad says a businessman from the city wouldn’t choose to farm unless he was crazy or desperate. That’s the way most people see it.”

Jack had come to a stop under a maple that looked soft with age. He was alone, and suddenly Liz felt the need to protect him. Murmuring to Pam that she’d talk to her later, she hurried over, intending to offer a real welcome. Instead, she found herself saying accusingly, “Why didn’t you tell me my grandmother gave you permission to take soil samples from that field?”

He took a careful sip from a disposable cup full of steaming cocoa before answering. “She did more than give permission. She suggested I test it.”

“You let me think you were trespassing.”

“I didn’t want to take the wind out of your sails.” Jack gently swirled the cocoa around his cup, catching bits of froth clinging to the sides.

Liz’s cheeks warmed at his description of her behavior. “She told me if the field’s right for evergreens, she’ll rent it to you, not sell it.”

“I wouldn’t think of trying to take it away from your family after all these years.”

“I thought—” Liz stopped. It was an awkward thing to come right out and say.

“You thought I was an evil rancher out to steal an old lady’s land?”

She smiled. “An evil Christmas tree farmer.”

At last some warmth crept into his eyes. Liz wasn’t sure if she’d really moved closer to him, or if it just felt as if she had. She took a step back just in case. This was her grandmother’s neighbor. It was almost wrong to think of him any other way. He was the pie maker, the pumpkin farmer who’d been taken under Eleanor’s wing. She shuffled through her mind for a safe conversational topic, something far removed from cocoa-touched lips. “You’ve chosen some unusual crops,” she said finally. “This has always been a wheat and oats kind of place.”

“That’s what everybody says. Newcomers growing new crops? Whatever is the world coming to?”

She decided not to tell him about the marijuana theory. “It’s not that people are unfriendly. The same families have been here for more than a hundred years, though, and they’re slow to accept new faces. In twenty years you’ll still be a newcomer growing new crops.”

“And you, even if you don’t set foot in the place again in all that time, will still be the town’s favorite daughter.”

There was some truth to what he said, but something else came through, a bitterness or disapproval he’d almost managed to hide. “Maybe not the favorite daughter,” she said lightly. “Second, even third or fourth favorite, I’m not sure.”

From the center of a group of men standing near one of the picnic tables, a familiar voice rose. Liz stiffened.

“Elizabeth? Is something wrong?”

She hardly heard Jack’s question. What was Wayne Cooper doing here? She hadn’t seen him when Jennifer had led her around the yard. He must have come late. He was standing comfortably, hands in his pockets, shooting the breeze. Anyone would think he had nothing in the world to regret.

He turned, and saw her. “Liz!” He sounded happy, as if they were old friends. Before she had time to react, he’d reached her side. He glanced at Jack, then ignored him. “Hey, Liz. You look great.”

“You, too,” she said automatically. “Almost grown up.”

Another quick grin. “Almost, almost. Gotta avoid that last step, where you turn into your old man. Anyway, the wife likes my boyish charm.” His wiggled his eyebrows, his signature comedic move ever since grade two.

“You’re married?” Liz looked around for her grandmother. Would she mind leaving early?

“Yeah, someone took me on. Hard to believe, I know. You remember Sally, she always had that long ponytail—”

“I remember you pulling someone’s ponytail.”

Wayne smiled at the memory. “That’s her. How about you, Lizzie? Got a man tucked away somewhere?”

Liz felt a burst of anger. He was smiling, waiting for an answer, as if he had every right to ask her about her personal life, about who she loved. The world could fall apart around him and he would still smile, as pleased with himself as ever. She was aware of wanting him gone, and then suddenly he was. Jack had moved between them, and without taking any steps at all that she was aware of, they were halfway across the yard. They kept moving, Jack’s hand on her arm, until they reached the fence that separated the yard from the pasture. Three grazing heads came up, ears flicked forward, and the horses sauntered over to meet them.

“I hope that wasn’t high-handed,” Jack said. “You seemed to want to get away.”

“I can’t believe he’s here. Aunt Edith wouldn’t have invited him.”

“There were notices about the barbecue on the community bulletin boards.”

She had forgotten about the boards. The town was too small for a newspaper, but you could find out nearly everything that was going on if you kept an eye on the messages people tacked up in the stores and the post office.

The horses had crowded close to the fence, competing for position. One touched its nose to Liz’s shoulder, pushing gently. “Hey, sweetheart,” she said softly. “It’s not fair, is it? The people have all the treats. Where’s the alfalfa? Where’s the bran mash?” All three horses listened, but the first mare kept the other two away. “So you’re top dog, are you?” Liz pulled her hand over the heads of wild oats growing near the fence, collecting seeds, and held it out flat. The horse ate, tough lips nuzzling her palm, delicately picking up each kernel.

“How can you be afraid of Wayne Cooper, and not of these two-ton beasts?”

“I’m not afraid of him. I just don’t like him.” She wasn’t sure how to explain without telling the whole story. “Wayne…likes to find your soft spot and give it a squeeze.”

She brushed the last few oats from her hand. “I need to get out of here. Do you think you could find my grandmother for me, so I won’t risk bumping into him again?”

“Sure.” Jack didn’t move. “It’s none of my business, but do you mind if I give an opinion?”

For some reason, she didn’t mind. She wanted to hear what he thought.

“I don’t know what’s going on, so I could be wrong—leaving might be the best thing for you to do. Cooper would be chasing you away, though. If you let people scare you off, you never stop being scared. That’s basic, Elizabeth.”

“Liz.” She took a deep breath and felt her muscles relax a notch. “I don’t know how to deal with him.” She knew Jack didn’t understand. Wayne must seem inconsequential to him, a little obnoxious, but harmless.

“Want a suggestion?”

“If you’ve got one.”

“Let’s help ourselves to whatever your brother’s been cooking, and then you can introduce me to your friends. Cooper won’t get near you again if you don’t want him to, I can promise you that. But he’ll see you ignoring him, having a good time in spite of him. If he’s hoping to intimidate you, it’ll be hard for him to take.”

It was, as Jack said, basic. Her instinct to put herself in a whole different time zone than Wayne Cooper had been stronger than her good sense.

Liz had been looking at Jack’s chest throughout the conversation. Finally, she looked up. Right away she could see that the image of the heartless primitive fairy was all wrong. His face was warm, concerned. “I really appreciate this. I didn’t have you pegged as a white knight.”

“That’s good. I’m no kind of knight.”

There was a touch of sadness in his smile. Launcelot exiled from Camelot, she thought, Arthur from Avalon. Instead of a violin, a lute for those long fingers to strum. Instead of a pie in hand, a shield. Could she do a story about knights, or had children already seen all they wanted of swords and dragons and wizards?

CHAPTER THREE

THE BLADE SANK ALMOST A QUARTER of an inch into the glued pages. Jack sliced in between the lines of text, removed the point of the knife and sliced again. When he’d cut three sides of a four inch square, he bent back the paper like a door. He placed an unlabelled diskette inside, smoothed a little glue on the cut edges, then pressed the pages down. He had opened the book at random, but King Lear’s line, just above the cut, would amuse Reid if he noticed. Who loses, and who wins; who’s in, who’s out… Not that the game ever really had a winner or a loser. It was the challenge they enjoyed.

The shelves of the built-in china cabinet in the dining room were full of books: paperback thrillers, textbooks of computer and mathematics theory, gold-lettered classics. Jack slipped The Complete Works of Shakespeare back in its place.

He’d spent a lot of time he didn’t really have preparing the clues contained on the disk. Reid might not even find it. He would try, though. Housebreaking was a new twist to the game, and Jack didn’t like it. He lifted the box he’d got from Daniel Rutherford onto the kitchen table. A surprising man, Daniel.

The bulletin boards were one of the things Jack liked about Three Creeks. Birthday announcements, cards of thanks, lost dogs, free-range hens, help wanted, jobs wanted. One of the ads had always made him smile. Punks a Problem? Poachers Got Your Goat? Call Daniel Rutherford…Taking Care of All Your Security Needs Since 1975. Not expecting much, Jack had decided to see what Daniel had to offer.

The older man lived alone on the edge of town, in a story-and-a-half house with crocheted doilies protecting his sofa and chair from the touch of his head and hands. Down in his basement, it was another world. Metal shelves were filled with precisely organized equipment—cameras, tape recorders and other machines Jack couldn’t identify. It turned out Daniel wasn’t a retired farmer, as he had supposed. He was a retired cop. RCMP Special Branch, long disbanded and replaced by CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. A retired spy? He couldn’t be.

Once Daniel knew Jack was there on business his tendency to gossip had stopped, just like that, like turning off a tap. Still, Jack was cautious. Taking his cue from Daniel’s ad, he’d said kids were poking around his place, not causing any real trouble, but he wanted to find out who they were. He had come away with two small cameras that could be hidden under the eaves near his front and back doors, and an electric eye to place at the end of the driveway. Anyone driving or walking in would trigger the cameras, so intruders would film themselves. Daniel liked the irony. And Jack liked knowing Reid wouldn’t surprise him again.

ELEANOR HAD SETTLED INTO THE CHAIR by the woodstove, her feet up on a three-legged stool one of her great-grandchildren had made in shop class. “Do you mind if we don’t work today, Elizabeth?”

“Of course not,” Liz said quickly. Over the past few days, they had decided the fate of nearly every stick of furniture in the house. Eleanor had struggled to be objective, but each piece held a bit of personal history, and some choices had been hard to make. “Are you all right, Grandma?”

“It’s nothing a quiet day won’t fix. You’ll find you slow down a little in your ninth decade, too.”

Liz reached for a banana muffin. Eleanor would hate it if she fussed. “I can use the day to finish getting ready for my visit to the school tomorrow.” She had agreed to show Pam’s students how a book was made and to help them make books of their own.

“That will be such a treat for the children.” Eleanor closed her eyes.

Liz felt a jolt of concern. How could her grandmother be tired in the morning, after a good night’s sleep? She’d been old for as long as Liz had known her, but she’d always been strong and full of energy.

For every bit of work Liz had saved her grandmother since she’d arrived, she’d probably caused just as much. Tonight she’d take care of dinner, something simple, soup and sandwiches. Tomorrow, she’d get up in time to make breakfast. When Eleanor came down to the kitchen she’d find tea and eggs ready and waiting.

“Are you enjoying your visit, Elizabeth?” Eleanor’s eyes were open again, and they looked clear and alert. “I hoped it would be more than work for you.”

“It is, much more.” Liz wasn’t exactly enjoying it, but she was glad to be here. She was getting used to finding ghosts around every corner. Relatives, too. People were always dropping by for a hot cup, keeping a finger on the pulse of each other’s lives. “I’m not sure how well I handled things at the barbecue, though.” Other than agreeing how attractive the yard had looked and how good the food had tasted, they had avoided discussing Saturday’s party.

“Very well, I thought.”

“Except when I saw Wayne Cooper.”

“It would have been more thoughtful for him to stay away.”

“Jack…sort of rode shotgun for me.”

“That sounds like Jack.”

There was the proprietary tone again, as if Eleanor had raised him herself and was proud of how he was doing. She acted almost as if he were her grandson or nephew. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was the unacknowledged offspring of a wandering great-uncle and he’d come to Three Creeks to claim what he thought was rightfully his.

“Nobody minded giving an opinion about Susannah’s wedding.”

“Uninformed opinions and plenty of head-shaking. Interest in Susannah’s marriage will die down soon.”

Liz hesitated. “Was there as much gossip about me?”

“When you left? No. People were very quiet about that.” Eleanor sighed. “It was all a long time ago, Elizabeth. You were angry and you wanted nothing more than to put this place behind you. But fifteen years…wouldn’t it be best for you to make peace with what happened once and for all?”

Liz looked away from her grandmother. How could she make peace with it, even if she wanted to? That was like saying it didn’t matter, all was well that ended well, water under the bridge.

“Ah, my dear. But you came to help me anyway, feeling as you do about the place. Sweet child.”

“I’m thirty-three, Grandma.”

“A baby. But you’ll grow up one day, I suppose.”

It almost hurt to see the affection on her grandmother’s face. For the first time Liz got an inkling of what tending her anger at the people of Three Creeks had cost her. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you before.” Uncertainly, she added, “I think you’ve been disappointed in me.”

Eleanor didn’t deny it. “It’s always a pity to waste time. Now, you need to get out and get some fresh air. Who knows how long these lovely fall days will last? Why not return that pie plate to Jack for me? I meant to do it days ago. Take the girls with you—they’ll enjoy seeing him, too.”

THE DOGS HURRIED AHEAD when they realized they were going to Jack’s. By the time Liz got to the house, all three of them were waiting for her on the back stoop. Jack looked distracted, as if he had been deep in thought or in the middle of some engrossing project, and was having trouble adjusting to the interruption.

“I should have called—”

“No need for that.” He leaned down, rubbing the dogs’ ears. “Good girls,” he said soothingly. “Fine, beautiful girls.” They rested their heads against his legs.

“You’re so good with them. I’m surprised you don’t have a dog of your own.”

“I’ve thought about getting one. Some big, friendly mutt who’d follow me from my truck to the field to the foot of my bed…I don’t know. Pumpkins are needy enough.” He gave a quick grin. It didn’t erase the impression that he’d meant what he’d said.

She held up a neatly creased paper bag. “Grandma asked me to return your pie plate.”

He gave each dog one last pat, then took the bag and moved aside so Liz could get through the door. “I was just going to make a hot drink. Join me?”

“That would be great. It was a chilly walk. Is it cold for October, or have I forgotten what it’s like here?”

“Snow by Halloween, people are saying.”

Liz followed Jack into the kitchen. It was a large room, the most important room in the house at one time, with space for cooking and canning, separating cream from milk, churning butter, eating and visiting. It didn’t feel welcoming, though, not like Eleanor’s kitchen. Wires and pieces of something mechanical were spread out on a Formica-topped table, competing for space with a fax machine and laptop computer. “I’m interrupting you.”

He hooked a finger through the handles of two mugs and grasped a bag of coffee beans with his other hand, closing the cupboard door with his elbow. “I was ready for a break…and I’m glad to have company.”

The coffee grinder whirred into action. Jack packed the grounds into the filter of a stainless steel espresso and cappuccino maker. “Should I froth some milk?”

“I’ll take it straight. It’s days since I’ve had a proper cup of coffee.”

Steaming liquid, dark and pungent, flowed into one mug, then the other. Jack led the way into the living room. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.” He sounded surprised.

Liz looked around for a place to sit. Jack and the dogs had congregated near the sofa, and an acoustic guitar occupied one of the chairs. Another chair doubled as a shelf for newspapers, books and videos. “Isn’t this the Ramsey’s furniture?”

“It came with the house. They just took personal things, pictures and so on.”

Nails still protruded from the walls here and there, surrounded by discolored squares and rectangles where pictures had hung. How long had Jack been here? A year? It looked as if he were camping in someone else’s house, with or without their permission.

He handed her one of the mugs, then moved the guitar, leaning it against the wall.

“Thanks.” When Liz sat down, dust drifted up from the upholstery and tickled her nose. “You play guitar?”

“A little. Just to relax.” He moved some newspapers to make room for himself on the sofa. “Sorry about all this. There hasn’t been much time to think about the house. Every now and then I run a cloth over the tables, but I haven’t got around to buying a vacuum.”

“You’ve been busy establishing your farm.”

Books were piled on every surface. Liz turned her head sideways to read the titles on the table beside her. Blueberries for the Prairies. Growing Heritage Pumpkins. So You Want to Grow Christmas Trees. “Do you really think you can learn to farm from books?”

“That’s a funny question for a writer to ask.”

“It’s like cooking. You taste something delicious at a party and you get the recipe, but when you try to make the dish, it doesn’t turn out the same. People leave out subtle details.”

“I guess I’ll learn as I go. I’m doing all right so far.”

“Christmas trees, blueberries and pumpkins.” Liz smiled. It sounded like the beginning of a song. “You must have a bit of the child in you.”

For some reason, it was the wrong thing to say. Jack seemed to withdraw. “To choose those crops? It’s just good business sense.”

“If you had good business sense you wouldn’t be farming.”

She’d meant it as a joke, but he responded seriously. “Everyone wants blueberries in summer, pumpkins in October and evergreens in December. An abundant local supply, organically grown, can’t fail.”

Barring drought, pests, early frost or a downturn in the economy. At least he had the optimism a farmer needed.

Peeking out from under a Three Stooges video and a seed catalog, Liz noticed the corner of a familiar book cover. The Intergalactic Pirate by Elizabeth Robb. She moved the video and catalog and lifted the book to show Jack. “Researching me?”

“I was curious,” he admitted. “I read it with you in mind, trying to decide what it told me about you.”

“Absolutely nothing.”

He smiled as he zeroed in on his point. “And my choice of crops tells you absolutely nothing about me.”

Liz laughed. Bella and Dora looked toward her with interest, their tails thumping on the floor. She smiled at them instead of at Jack. “Did you enjoy the story?”

“It’s fun. Brave, resourceful kids right at the center of the action. Grown-ups on the sidelines if they’re there at all.”

“Children like that…a chance to feel like the powerful ones.” The more they talked, the less Liz could concentrate on what they were saying. Jack wore a dark gray sweater that drew her attention to his eyes and his fair skin. He must have just shaved—his face looked smooth. She found that she wanted to touch it, to let her fingertips drift along his cheek.

His hand came up to his chin. “Have I left some breakfast on my face?”

Liz flushed. She had always been a tactile person. It was all right most of the time—shopping for bedding or towels, admiring the grain of an oak door, trailing her hand in the water—but definitely not a tendency to indulge when returning pie plates to her grandmother’s neighbor. “Was I staring? Sorry. It’s a bad habit. After all that effort as a child learning not to do it, they encourage it in art school.” She went on, blurting out the truth. “I was just thinking you must have been a beautiful little boy.”

His quick, assessing expression had nothing to do with fairies or knights of the Round Table. “I don’t know about that. I heard a lot of complaints about my unwashed neck.”

“Mothers are like that.”

“My uncle, actually.” Abruptly, he stood. “More coffee?”

“I still have lots.” She’d been savoring it, letting the caffeine drip slowly down her throat and directly into her bloodstream. She followed him as far as the doorway and watched while he prepared another cup for himself. He’d been relaxed and friendly, with an enjoyable trace of something more. Now his back was one big Do Not Disturb sign. “I was so grateful for your help at the barbecue. You didn’t wait for an explanation. You just…stepped in.”

Jack leaned against the counter, refilled mug in hand. “No problem.” His stiffness was already disappearing. “We had fun when things settled down. I got the feeling I was missing something, though. Everyone was smiling and visiting and saying how wonderful it was that you were home, but there was an undercurrent I didn’t understand.”

Newcomer or not, Liz was surprised no one had filled him in. “A bit of tension is to be expected after all this time. I could have used a couple of quiet days between the trip and the barbecue. You know how it is before a holiday.”

“The last minute stuff?”

“No matter how organized you try to be, something always crops up.”

“What happened this time?”

She wasn’t sure if he was really interested or just relieved that they weren’t talking about him anymore. “Breakfast was the first problem. I had to get rid of all the perishable stuff in the fridge, so I ate a half carton of beef in black bean sauce, a slice of mushroom pizza and a scoop of potato salad.”

“That’s what the garbage can’s for, Liz.”

“I’ll try to remember that. Then I made a quick trip to the pharmacy for antacids and before they’d even had a chance to work I cornered my landlord and risked his disfavor by reminding him about the window in my kitchen that doesn’t close all the way. A lot of rain, gray squirrels and burglars can get into an empty apartment in two weeks. I left him muttering about rent increases and headed to the airport, but on the way I stopped at my publisher’s to hand-deliver the manuscript and illustrations for my new book.”

“It doesn’t sound as if life’s all that much better in Vancouver. Chaos with a view.”

“And then there was the drive—”

“And the car—”

“And the deer at the side of the road.”

“Anyone would think you didn’t want to get here.”

Liz stared at him. Of course she’d wanted to get here.

“You must have a really good reason for staying away.”

The comment would have surprised her, coming from a man who didn’t like to talk about his own private life, but he didn’t seem to be asking for information. He was just noticing. He almost sounded protective. Something warm and pleasant stirred inside her. “Going to put me in a pumpkin shell?”

He looked baffled. She’d meant him to laugh.

“Mother Goose. Remember? Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater…”

“I don’t know much about children’s literature. That’s your department.”

“I thought everyone had those rhymes embedded in their brains. Peter puts his wife in a pumpkin shell and keeps her very well…” No expression of sudden recognition came over his face. “Your concern made me think of that. It was just a joke.” He was looking at her as if she was the silliest person he’d ever met. “Some people think political messages were hidden in the rhymes. In those days you couldn’t just write an editorial.”

“Sort of a code. That’s interesting.”

“Does it have to be useful to be worth talking about? Can’t it just be fun?”

“Codes are fun.”

“Right. They’re math, Jack.”

“Not always. Sometimes they’re a silly rhyme.”

“You’re hard to peg.”

“Are you trying to peg me?”

“Don’t look so pleased. It’s nothing personal. It’s what writers do.”

“All in a day’s work?”

“That’s right. In fact, I’m thinking of doing something with a pumpkin grower next, maybe a variation on the Cinderella theme. The hero could be a fairy king, incognito, or the modern version of a fairy, an alien. Instead of a carriage, the pumpkin could become a spaceship…no, I guess that’s too corny.” He looked horrified at the thought of having a character based on him. Most people liked it. “Don’t worry. You’re safe for a while. I can’t work here.”

“Why’s that?”

Because it’s a narrow-minded, destructive place. “Oh, I don’t know. Too many distractions. I’ll be gone soon, though. Grandma and I should be able to organize things in another week. If not, Emily could help.”

“You’re eager to get back to Vancouver?”

“The sooner, the better.” Trying to sound less vehement, she added, “A couple of weeks away from my own life is enough. Oh! I almost forgot. My grandmother’s hoping you can come for dinner tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid not. I’ll be in Brandon until late.”

“Saturday, then? Be warned—I’m cooking.”

“Sounds good. What can I bring?”

“Besides dinner?” She smiled. “Just yourself.” She put her mug down on the kitchen table. “I’ve kept you from your wires long enough. Thanks for the coffee.”

Halfway to the trees, she turned to look at the house. Jack was still at the kitchen window watching them go. In spite of his tendency to raise the drawbridge without a moment’s notice, she felt good when she was with him. Was she doing what she always did? She tended to see more than was really there when she first met men. It was nice at first, but it led to disappointment down the road.

JACK WATCHED LIZ DISAPPEAR into the woods. Even wearing jeans and running shoes, and with the dogs for company, she looked as if she belonged in the city. Her walk gave her away. You could see she was used to well-tended parks, not overgrown, twisting paths.

He’d almost invited her to go to Brandon with him. A novel date, shopping for farm machinery. It was just that every time they talked, he didn’t want the conversation to end. Not because of her looks. Green eyes, fair skin, spicy hair, willowy body, that dreamy, off in the distance expression that made him want to go after her or pull her back…nope. He could resist all that without any trouble. Well, without much trouble. What got to him was how easily she trusted him, even though she hardly knew him. That, and the tenderness he’d seen between her and Eleanor.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater. Now that the words had percolated for a few minutes, they sounded familiar. His grade one teacher was always making them play with their fingers, spiders going up spouts and dickie birds flying here and there. Maybe she had recited Liz’s rhyme. Miss…he couldn’t remember. She’d loved that stuff. Plums, candlesticks, clocks. No wonder Liz unsettled him. You shouldn’t be attracted to someone who reminded you of your grade one teacher.

He picked up a Phillips screwdriver and tried to remember how far he’d got with the project on his table. Hardware wasn’t his specialty. Daniel’s penciled instructions looked more like directions to Pine Point than a system of electrical wires. “It’s as easy as pie,” Daniel had said—absolutely deadpan and professional, but Jack knew it was a crack about his baking.

LIZ AND EMILY SPRAWLED on the living room floor surrounded by albums and boxes of photographs.

“I won’t have room for all of these,” Eleanor said. “I suppose the rest of you would take some? I’d hate to throw them away.”

“Of course we’ll all take some!” Liz exclaimed. “We’d never throw away photos.”

“It’s the saddest thing—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this—someone’s family pictures in a secondhand store. A young man you don’t know in a fine mustache and straw boater, fishing. A row of children in their Sunday best, solemn before the camera. And people buy them for some reason.” Eleanor touched a picture of her brother in his RCAF uniform. “I’d hate it if that happened to these.”

“No one will ever take your photos to a secondhand store,” Emily said. “We won’t throw them away, either, not even the blurry ones or the ones of strangers. And especially not ones like this.” She held up a picture of a young woman in an evening dress, satiny material clinging to her curves. “Don’t tell me that’s you.”

“That’s me.”

“You didn’t wear that, Grandma!”

“I did! I saw a dress just like it in a magazine and set my heart on it. I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to have something so…well, sophisticated, shall we say? So I made it myself. From the lining of my bedroom curtains.”

Liz and Emily laughed, trying to imagine their practical grandmother ruining curtains in an effort to look glamorous.

Eleanor’s face was warm with the memory. “I went out the back door, wearing my everyday dress in case my parents saw me, and changed in the storehouse, if you can imagine that. Me, in my underclothes, in the storehouse! I was sure every sound I heard was my father coming to catch me. My friend waited in his car, just out of sight of the house and we went to a dance in Pine Point. The dress was completely wrong for the occasion. It would have been more suited to sprawling on a chaise lounge with a cigarette holder in hand, but I didn’t care.”

“My grandmother, a wild, disobedient girl?” Liz shook her head.

Eleanor looked pleased. “I wasn’t wild. I was an absolutely normal girl. It was the rules that were unreasonable.”

“Who was the friend?” Emily asked. “Was it Grandpa?”

“It was a while yet before I starting seeing your grandfather.” Eleanor’s face softened. “This was someone else entirely.”

“Was he your true love?” Liz asked. Unthinkable if Grandpa wasn’t.

“I don’t know about that. Certainly my first love.”

“You’re being mysterious,” Emily said. “Who was it? Spill, Grandma.”

Eleanor just raised her eyebrows and went back to sorting photos, smiling faintly.

Who could it have been? Liz wondered. Some rakish stranger, chugging down the road in a shiny two-seater roadster? A movie star, or some English aristocrat, or even the Prince of Wales, on his way to his ranch in Alberta?

It was clear Eleanor didn’t plan to tell them more, so Liz went back to leafing through the photo album on her lap. The Robbs took the same pictures every year. Children on ponies. Children leaning over cakes, blowing out three, then six, then eleven candles. The family sitting around the table at Christmas, everyone wearing new blouses or new sweaters, everyone with forks near their mouths.

Her hand stopped. There, at the bottom of the page, next to pictures of herself and Tom, was a small shot of Andy. “Grandma?”

“Hmm?”

“You have a picture of Andy.”

“Of course. He was a member of the family.”

Liz took a deep breath to ease the sudden tightness in her chest. “No one else thought so. Mom and Dad thought he was a mistake.”

“I’m sure they didn’t,” Emily protested. “They were just surprised.”

“He was a sweet boy,” Eleanor said. “I liked Andrew.”

Liz blinked a few times. They would be so embarrassed if she started to cry.

Eleanor set aside the photographs on her lap. “I think we’ve had enough sorting for this evening. Tea?”

Emily jumped up. “I’ll make it. I’ll even make toast.”

Stepping over boxes, Liz carried the album she’d been holding to the hutch cupboard. “Leave the boxes, Grandma. I’ll get them.”

“In that case, I’ll help your cousin.”

When she heard her grandmother’s footsteps in the kitchen, Liz reopened the album, easily finding the page with Andy’s photograph. He looked younger than she remembered. They had been sure they were all grown up, eager to jump into their lives, impatient with the restrictions put in their way. But his cheeks were smooth, still slightly rounded. It wasn’t a man’s face.

She hadn’t packed any pictures of him when she’d left Three Creeks. She’d gone quickly, hardly thinking, leaving most of her things behind. Andy was so much with her then, real and vivid, she never would have believed she’d need a picture to remember him. Somehow, unbelievably, the details of his face had slipped her mind. Whenever she’d tried to draw him after the first year, he’d looked like a stranger, someone observed in a crowd.

“Liz? Tea’s ready.”

“Coming!” She slipped the photo into the pocket of her jeans before putting the boxes and albums away.

CHAPTER FOUR

PAM AND EMILY HAD TOLD LIZ all about the new school, but she still went into town expecting to see the old one. It was a bit of a surprise to find a new cement-brick building stretching across the spot where the four-room schoolhouse, baseball diamond and maple grove had been. Inside, walking past the gym and the band room, standing at the front of Pam’s large, bright classroom, she didn’t even feel as if she was in Three Creeks. She could be in any town or city. Except that her niece was sitting a couple of arm-lengths away, looking at her with pride and embarrassment.

Liz held up a single piece of paper covered with tiny, hand-drawn squares. Inside each square was a simple pencil sketch. “This is the first draft of my new book, There’s a Dinosaur on Your Right.”

Jennifer and fourteen other children sitting at three round tables leaned closer. Kids loved the idea of a book in miniature, no matter how little detail was in each drawing.

“It looks like a comic strip,” one boy said, tilting his chair so it balanced on its back legs. He wore an Edmonton Oilers’ hockey jersey that reached halfway to his knees. Only the tips of his fingers showed at the end of the sleeves.

“Stephen,” Pam said.

He rocked the chair forward so all four legs touched the ground.

“It’s called a thumbnail layout. You can see why.” Liz held up one thumb so the children could compare her nail to the squares she’d drawn. “It’s a quick and easy way to find out if there’s enough going on in the story you’re planning.”

“You should call it a two-thumbnail layout,” Stephen said.

Liz smiled. She moved closer to the blackboard, where she’d lined up a series of larger drawings, the ones she’d brought to show her grandmother. The final paintings were with her publisher, but she thought the sketches of a ten-year-old heroine trapped in a subterranean world of dinosaurs would appeal to the children.

“After the two-thumbnail layout gives me an idea what will happen, I make a mock-up, also called a dummy.” She heard the expected giggles. “I draw bigger, more detailed versions of the sketches I’ve decided will do the best job of telling the story, with a few words added, so I can keep track of what I want to say on each page. Then I spread it all out like this to see how the story flows.”

Liz pointed to the first two sketches. “The story opens with a girl, ten years old, falling into a dark hole in the ground, so deep there’s no way out. She sees footprints. Huge, three-toed footprints.”

“Dinosaur tracks!” A dark-haired boy leaned forward, his elbows on the table, one foot on the floor, the other knee on his chair. He pointed at the third drawing. “And that’s a shadow of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

Pam spoke firmly from her corner of the room. “Sit down, Dave.”

He sat, without taking his eyes off the line of pictures.

“Why did I draw the T-Rex’s shadow, rather than the T-Rex itself?”

“It’s scarier,” Dave said.

“That’s right. Not knowing is always scary, isn’t it? We start with a dark hole in the ground, then the footprint. Both of those things are scary, but our heroine is sure there must be a reasonable explanation.”

“Until she sees the shadow,” Jennifer said.

“With that huge head and those little arms and those long sharp teeth and claws…we know what’s coming, don’t we?” Liz had placed the next drawing with its back to her audience. Now she turned it, so the kids could see the T-Rex close up and suddenly, the way her heroine did in the story.

“Whoa,” said Dave.

“These first three pictures build suspense and the fourth one delivers. Now our heroine has some problems to solve. Any ideas what those might be?”

“Not getting eaten,” Stephen said.

“Getting out of the hole.”

“Finding out what happened! How come there’s a live dinosaur down there?”

“Yeah, and how does it fit? T-Rexs are huge.”

Liz caught Pam’s eye. Now that their interest had been tweaked, it seemed like a good idea to let the children start their own projects. “Answering those questions gives us the plot,” Liz concluded, “and as the girl in the pictures solves those problems, we’ll find out what kind of person she is.”

Pam began distributing paper and pencils. Liz leaned against the desk at the front of the room, keeping out of the way while the children got settled. She couldn’t imagine starting a first draft with someone peering over her shoulder.

Stephen looked as if he could use some help, though. He slouched in his seat, twitching his pencil back and forth, knocking an eraser across his empty paper. After a few minutes, Liz joined him. “Having trouble getting started?”

He shrugged. “I don’t like make-believe stuff.”

She decided not to mention comics or movies or video games. “Your story doesn’t have to be fiction.” She held her pencil over his paper. “Okay if I show you something?”

Stephen nodded grudgingly.

She started by drawing a series of small squares. Inside one, using the first idea that came to mind, she sketched a man wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. She rolled up his sleeves to show he was hard at work. Inside the next square, the man crouched down, putting something small and oval into a concave spot in the ground.

“A guy planting seeds,” Stephen said.

The boy next to Stephen was watching, too. Liz had to think for a moment to remember his name. Jeremy. He was smaller than the other children, enough that he looked two or three years younger. “Hey, that’s Mr. McKinnon, isn’t it? My dad worked with him in the summer. Planting and stuff.”

“Your dad works all over the place,” Stephen said. “Odd jobs.”

Liz noticed a slight, protective recoil from Jeremy. “Good for him. That means he knows how to do all kinds of things.” The boy’s small body relaxed.

Tiny leaves unfurled in a third square, grew bigger in a fourth and snaked all across a fifth. Small fruit with vertical ridges appeared on the vines.

“Pumpkins,” Stephen said.

Finally Liz drew long-fingered hands carrying a large pumpkin, and the same hands pushing a knife through its shell.

Stephen leaned in. “Can I do that?” Pressing heavily on his pencil, he drew a pair of triangular eyes, a matching nose, and a crooked sharp-toothed grin. He smiled at the result, but Liz could see his interest was fading fast.

“I’ve never been a pumpkin farmer,” she said, “but I know what pumpkins look like and I know how to plant a garden—”

She could see when his idea hit. Stephen reached eagerly for a fresh piece of paper. “I’ll make a book about winning the Stanley Cup! I know what the rink looks like and the goalie and the uniforms—”

Jennifer muttered, “The refs, the penalty box—”

“I know what the Cup looks like, and I know what it feels like when you win.” He sat forward, feet tucked around the front legs of his chair. At the top of the paper, he wrote Chapter One and underlined it three times. He thought for a few moments, then added, by Stephen Cook, Three Creeks Elementary, Grade Five. This was underlined twice. Liz waited, but no thumbnail-size squares followed. Not even two thumbnail-size squares. He indented and began to write. My team made it to the play-offs…

He was out of his seat, she was sure, a fraction of a second before the lunch-hour bell rang. Faster than they would have for a fire drill, the children emptied the classroom.

JACK PULLED THE BOOK he’d just bought out of its bag. It was tall and wide, so he rested it against his truck’s steering wheel and slowly turned the pages, sometimes smiling at the illustrations, until he found the verse he wanted.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater…

Strange to hear a grown woman quoting a nursery rhyme as seriously as if it were Shakespeare.

Had a wife and couldn’t keep her, put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well…

Nonsense, he would have thought, the kind of rhythmic nonsense children enjoyed. Could it mean something, as Liz had suggested? What was a pumpkin eater, anyway? He’d heard of potato eaters. It was a derisive term for the poor during the 1800s, for anyone who couldn’t afford better food. Were pumpkins common when the rhyme came to be, or a rare luxury?

Peter put his wife in a pumpkin shell—in fact, he couldn’t keep her until he put her there. Did the shell represent a nice house, and was the wife unwilling to stay with him until then? She cared more for possessions than for love? Maybe he should pay more attention to the phrase couldn’t keep her. The pumpkin might be the back alley cardboard box of its day. It was the best Peter could do, but they were happy.

Or did it suggest a prison, maybe the Tower of London? Was Peter a well-known person, the Lord Mayor, or a king, with a wife who tended to stray? And why was any of that appropriate reading for children?

Jack slipped the book back into its bag and tucked it under the seat. Plenty of time to think about it during the drive home. He couldn’t tell Ned he was late for lunch because he was reading nursery rhymes. Ned already thought he was crazy.

He locked the doors of his truck and walked out of the shopping center parkade onto Princess Avenue. Lunch-hour traffic crowded the usually quiet street. As much as he loved walking through the countryside, the only human in sight or hearing, it was a nice change to see hurrying men with briefcases, mothers pushing strollers, teenagers laughing and jostling each other, certain all eyes were on them.

Brandon University was only eight blocks away, welcome exercise after the drive from Three Creeks. It stretched along 18th Street like the city’s centerpiece. Two beige brick buildings from the late nineteenth century were flanked by newer ones, including the Brodie Building, a glass and cement structure that housed the science faculty. The math and computer science department was on the first floor. Jack strode along, checking nameplates on doors until he finally saw Dr. Edward Hardy. Voices came through the open door.

“…and it runs in linear time,” a young-sounding voice finished. “So you can’t say all sorts run in Omega-n-log-n time.”

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