#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs sweeps readers away to a sun-drenched summer on the shores of Willow Lake in a stunning tale of the delicate ties that bind a family together…and the secrets that tear them apart

When caregiver Faith McCallum arrives at the enchanted lakeside estate of Avalon’s renowned Bellamy family, she’s intent on rebuilding her shattered life and giving her two daughters a chance at a better future. But she faces a formidable challenge in the form of her stubborn and difficult new employer, Alice Bellamy. While Faith proves a worthy match for her sharp-tongued client, she often finds herself at a loss for words in the presence of Mason Bellamy—Alice’s charismatic son, who clearly longs to escape the family mansion and return to his fast-paced, exciting life in Manhattan…and his beautiful, jet-setting fiancée.

The last place Mason wants to be is a remote town in the Catskills, far from his life in the city, and Faith McCallum is supposed to be the key to his escape. Hiring the gentle-hearted yet strong-willed caregiver as a live-in nurse gives his mother companionship and Mason the freedom to return to his no-attachments routine. For Faith, it means stability for her daughters and a much-needed new home. When Faith makes a chilling discovery about Alice’s accident, Mason is forced to reconsider his desire to keep everyone, including his mother, at a distance. Now he finds himself wondering if the supercharged life he’s created for himself is what he truly wants…and whether exploring his past might lead to a new life—and lasting love—on the tranquil shores of Willow Lake.

Also by Susan Wiggs

Contemporary Romances

Home Before Dark

The Ocean Between Us

Summer by the Sea

Table for Five

Lakeside Cottage

Just Breathe

The Goodbye Quilt

The Bella Vista Chronicles

The Apple Orchard

The Beekeeper’s Ball

The Lakeshore Chronicles

Summer at Willow Lake

The Winter Lodge

Dockside

Snowfall at Willow Lake

Fireside

Lakeshore Christmas

The Summer Hideaway

Marrying Daisy Bellamy

Return to Willow Lake

Candlelight Christmas

Historical Romances

The Lightkeeper

The Drifter

The Mistress of Normandy

The Maiden of Ireland

The Tudor Rose Trilogy

At the King’s Command

The Maiden’s Hand

At the Queen’s Summons

Chicago Fire Trilogy

The Hostage

The Mistress

The Firebrand

Calhoun Chronicles

The Charm School

The Horsemaster’s Daughter

Halfway to Heaven

Enchanted Afternoon

A Summer Affair

Starlight on Willow Lake

Susan Wiggs

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my parents, Nick and Lou Klist, my first and best readers. Your love, wisdom and courage are my inspiration.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Dedication

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Part Two

13

14

Part Three

15

Part Four

16

Part Five

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Part Six

24

25

26

27

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract

Copyright

Part One

“Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars.”

—Nicolaus Copernicus

1

Mason Bellamy stared up at the face of the mountain that had killed his father. The mountain’s name was innocent enough—Cloud Piercer. The rich afternoon light of the New Zealand winter cast a spell over the moment. Snow-clad slopes glowed with the impossible pink and amethyst of a rare jewel. The stunning backdrop of the Southern Alps created a panorama of craggy peaks, veined with granite and glacial ice, against a sky so clear it caused the eyes to smart.

The bony, white structure of a cell phone tower, its discs grabbing signals from outer space, rose from a nearby peak. The only other intrusions into the natural beauty were located at the top of the slope—a black-and-yellow gate marked Experts Only and a round dial designating Avalanche Danger: Moderate.

He wondered if someone came all the way up here each day to move the needle on the dial. Maybe his father had wondered the same thing last year. Maybe it had been the last thought to go through his head before he was buried by two hundred thousand cubic meters of snow.

According to witnesses in the town near the base of the mountain, it had been a dry snow avalanche with a powder cloud that had been visible to any resident of Hillside Township who happened to look up. The incident report stated that there had been a delay before the noise came. Then everyone for miles around had heard the sonic boom.

The Maori in the region had legends about this mountain. The natives respected its threatening beauty as well as its lethal nature, their myths filled with cautionary tales of humans being swallowed to appease the gods. For generations, the lofty crag, with its year-round cloak of snow, had challenged the world’s most adventurous skiers, and its gleaming north face had been Trevor Bellamy’s favorite run. It had also been his final run.

Trevor’s final wish, spelled out in his last will and testament, had brought Mason halfway around the world, and down into the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. At the moment he felt anything but cold. He unzipped his parka, having worked up a major sweat climbing to the peak. This run was accessible only to those willing to be helicoptered to a landing pad at three thousand meters, and then to climb another few hundred meters on all-terrain skis outfitted with nonslip skins. He removed his skis and peeled the Velcro-like skins from the underside, carefully stowing the gear in his backpack. Then he studied the mountain’s face again and felt a sweet rush of adrenaline.

When it came to skiing in dangerous places, he was his father’s son.

A rhythmic sliding sound drew Mason’s attention to the trail he’d just climbed. He glanced over and lifted his ski pole in a wave. “Over here, bro.”

Adam Bellamy came over the crest of the trail, shading his eyes against the afternoon light. “You said you’d kick my ass, and you did,” he called. His voice echoed across the empty, frozen terrain.

Mason grinned at his younger brother. “I’m a man of my word. But look at you. You haven’t even broken a sweat.”

“Mets. We get tested for metabolic conditioning every three months for work.” Adam was a firefighter, built to haul eighty pounds of gear up multiple flights of stairs.

“Cool. My only conditioning program involves running to catch the subway.”

“The tough life of an international financier,” said Adam. “Hold everything while I get out my tiny violin.”

“Who says I’m complaining?” Mason took off his goggles to apply some defogger. “Is Ivy close? Or did our little sister stop to hire a team of mountain guides to carry her up the hill so she doesn’t have to climb it on her skis?”

“She’s close enough to hear you,” said Ivy, appearing at the top of the ridge. “And aren’t the guides on strike?” She wore a dazzling turquoise parka and white ski pants, Gucci sunglasses and white leather gloves. Her blond hair was wild and wind-tossed, streaming from beneath her helmet.

Mason flashed on an image of their mother. Ivy looked so much like her. He felt a lurch of guilt when he thought about Alice Bellamy. Her last ski run had been right here on this mountain face, too. But unlike Trevor, she had survived. Although some would say that what had happened to her was worse than dying.

Ivy slogged over to her brothers on her AT skis. “Listen, you two. I want to go on record to say that when I leave these earthly bonds, I will not require my adult children to risk their lives in order to scatter my remains. Just leave my ashes on the jewelry counter at Neiman Marcus. I’d be fine with that.”

“Make sure you put your request in writing,” Mason said.

“How do you know I haven’t already?” She gestured at Adam. “Help me get these skins off, will you?” She lifted each ski in turn, planting them upright in the snow.

Adam expertly peeled the fabric skins from the bottoms of her skis, then removed his own, stuffing them into his backpack. “It’s crazy steep, just the way Dad used to describe it.”

“Chicken?” asked Ivy, fastening the chin strap of her crash helmet.

“Have you ever known me to shy away from a ski run?” Adam asked. “I’m going to take it easy, though. No crazy tricks.”

The three of them stood gazing at the beautiful slope, now a perfect picture of serenity in the late-afternoon glow. It was the first time any of them had come to this particular spot. As a family, they had skied together in many places, but not here. This particular mountain had been the special domain of their father and mother alone.

They were lined up in birth order—Mason, the firstborn, the one who knew their father best. Adam, three years younger, had been closest to Trevor. Ivy, still in her twenties, was the quintessential baby of the family—adored, entitled, seemingly fragile, yet with the heart of a lioness. She had owned their father’s affections as surely as the sun owns the dawn, in the way only a daughter can.

Mason wondered if his siblings would ever learn the things about their father that he knew. And if they did, would it change the way they felt about him?

They stood together, their collective silence as powerful as any conversation they might have had.

“It’s incredible,” Ivy said after a long pause. “The pictures didn’t do it justice. Maybe Dad’s last request wasn’t so nutty, after all. This might be the prettiest mountain ever, and I get to see it with my two best guys.” Then she sighed. “I wish Mom could be here.”

“I’ll get the whole thing on camera,” Adam said. “We can all watch it together when we get back to Avalon next week.”

A year after the accident, their mother was adjusting to a new life in a new place—a small Catskills town on the shores of Willow Lake. Mason was pretty sure it wasn’t the life Alice Bellamy had imagined for herself.

“Do you have him?” Adam asked.

Mason slapped his forehead. “Damn, I forgot. Why don’t the two of you wait right here while I ski to the bottom, grab the ashes, helicopter back up to the rendezvous and make the final climb again?”

“Very funny,” said Adam.

“Of course I have him.” Mason shrugged out of his backpack and dug inside. He pulled out an object bundled in a navy blue bandanna. He unwrapped it and handed the bandanna to Adam.

“A beer stein?” asked Ivy.

“It was all I could find,” said Mason. The stein was classic kitsch, acquired at a frat party during Mason’s college days. There was a scene with a laughing Falstaff painted on the sides, and the mug had a hinged lid made of pewter. “The damned urn they delivered him in was huge. No way would it fit in my luggage.”

He didn’t explain to his sister and brother that a good half of the ashes had ended up on the living room floor of his Manhattan apartment. Getting Trevor Bellamy from the urn to the beer stein had been trickier than Mason had thought. Slightly freaked out by the idea of his father embedded in his carpet fibers, he had vacuumed up the spilled ashes, wincing at the sound of the larger bits being sucked into the bag.

Then he’d felt bad about emptying the vacuum bag down the garbage chute, so he’d gone out on the balcony and sprinkled the remains over Avenue of the Americas. There had been a breeze that day, and his fussiest neighbor in the high-rise co-op had stuck her head out, shaking her fist and threatening to call the super to report the transgression. Most of the ashes blew back onto the balcony, and Mason ended up waiting until the wind died down; then he’d swept the area with a broom.

So only half of Trevor Bellamy had made it into the beer stein. That was appropriate, Mason decided. Their father had been only half there while he was alive, too.

“This is cool with me,” said Adam. “Dad always did like his beer.”

Mason held the mug high, its silhouette stark against the deepening light of the afternoon sky.

“Ein prosit,” said Adam.

“Salut,” Mason said, in the French their father had spoken like a native.

“Cin cin.” Ivy, the artist in the family, favored Italian.

“Take your protein pills and put your helmet on,” Mason said, riffing on the David Bowie song. “Let’s do this thing.”

Ivy lowered her sunglasses over her eyes. “Mom loves skiing so much. It’s so sad that she’ll never ski again.”

“I’ll film it so she can watch.” Adam took off one glove with his teeth and reached up to switch on the Go Pro camera affixed to the top of his helmet.

“Should we say a few words?” asked Ivy.

“If I say no, will that stop you?” Mason removed the duct tape from the lid of the beer stein.

Ivy stuck out her tongue at him, shifting into bratty-sister mode. Then she looked up at Adam and spoke to the camera. “Hey, Mom. We were just wishing you could be here with us to say goodbye to Daddy. We all made it to the summit of Cloud Piercer, just like he wanted. It’s kind of surreal, finding winter here when the summer is just beginning where you are, at Willow Lake. It feels somehow like...I don’t know...like we’re unstuck in time.”

Ivy’s voice wavered with emotion. “Anyway, so here I am with my two big brothers. Daddy always loved it when the three of us were together, skiing and having fun.”

Adam moved his head to let the camera record the majestic scenery all around them. The sculpted crags of the Southern Alps, which ran the entire length of New Zealand’s south island, were sharply silhouetted against the sky. Mason wondered what the day had been like when his parents had skied this mountain, their last run together. Was the sky so blue that it hurt the eyes? Did the sharp cold air stab their lungs? Was the silence this deep? Had there been any inkling that the entire face of the mountain was about to bury them?

“Are we ready?” he asked.

Adam and Ivy nodded. He studied his little sister’s face, now soft with the sadness of missing her father. She’d had a special closeness with him, and she’d taken his death hard—maybe even harder than their mother had.

“Who’s going first?” asked Adam.

“It can’t be me,” said Mason. “You, um, don’t want to get caught in the blowback, if you know what I mean.” He gestured with the beer stein.

“Oh, right,” said Ivy. “You go last, then.”

Adam twisted the camera so it faced uphill. “Let’s take it one at a time, okay? So we don’t cause another avalanche.”

It was a known safety procedure that in an avalanche zone, only one person at a time should go down the mountain. Mason wondered if his father had been aware of the precaution. He wondered if his father had violated the rule. He doubted he would ever ask his mother for a detail like that. Whatever had happened on this mountain a year ago couldn’t be changed now.

Ivy took off her shades, leaned over and kissed the beer stein. “Bye, Daddy. Fly into eternity, okay? But don’t forget how much you were loved here on earth. I’ll keep you safe in my heart.” She started to cry. “I thought I’d used up all my tears, but I guess not. I’ll always shed a tear for you, Daddy.”

Adam waggled his gloved fingers in front of the camera. “Yo, Dad. You were the best. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Except for more time with you. Later, dude.”

Each one of them had known a different Trevor Bellamy. Mason could only wish the father he’d known was the one who had inspired Ivy’s tenderness and loyalty or Adam’s hero worship. Mason knew another side to their father, but he would never be the one to shatter his siblings’ memories.

Adam pushed through the warning gate and started down the mountain, the camera on his helmet rolling.

Ivy waited, then followed at a safe distance behind. Thanks to Adam, the cautious one of the three, each of them wore gear equipped with beacons and avalanche airbags, designed to detonate automatically in the event of a slide.

Their mother had been wearing one the day of the incident. Their father had not.

Adam skied with competence and control, navigating the steep slope with ease and carving a sinuous curve in the untouched powder. Ivy followed gracefully, turning his S-curves into a double-helix pattern.

The lightest of breezes stirred the icy air. Mason decided he had worked too hard to climb the damned mountain only to take the conservative route down. Always the most reckless of the three, he decided to take the slope the way his father probably had, with joyous abandon.

“Here goes,” he said to the clear, empty air, and he thumbed open the lid of the beer stein. The cold air must have weakened the pottery, because a shard broke loose, cutting through his glove and slicing into his thumb. Ouch. He ignored the cut and focused on the task at hand.

Did any essence of their father remain? Was Trevor Bellamy’s spirit somehow trapped within the humble-looking detritus, waiting to be set free on the mountaintop?

He had lived his life. Left a legacy of secrets behind. He’d paid the ultimate price for his freedom, leaving his burden on someone else’s shoulders—Mason’s.

“Godspeed, Dad,” he said. With his ski poles in one hand and the beer stein in the other, he raised his arm high and plunged down the steep slope, leaning into a controlled fall. Just for a moment, he heard his father’s voice: Lean into the fear, son. That’s where the power comes from. The words drifted to him from a long-ago time when everything had been simple, when his dad had simply been Dad, coaching him down the mountain, shouting with unabashed joy when Mason conquered a steep slope. That was probably why Mason favored adrenaline-fueled sports that involved teetering on the edge between terror and triumph.

The ashes created a cloud in his wake, rising on an updraft of wind and dispersing across the face of Trevor’s beloved, deadly mountain.

The things we love most can kill us. Mason might have heard the saying somewhere. Or he had just made it up.

The faster Mason went, the less he was bothered by something so inconvenient as a thought. That was the beauty of skiing in dangerous places. Filled with the thrill of the ride, he was only vaguely aware of Adam pointing the camera at him. He couldn’t resist showing off, making a trail in a fresh expanse of untouched powder, like a snake slithering down the mountain. Spotting a rugged granite cliff, its cornice perfectly formed for jumping, he raced toward it. Lean into the fear, son. He aimed his skis straight down the fall line and launched himself off the edge. For several seconds he was airborne, the wind flapping through his parka, turning him momentarily into a human kite. The steep pitch of the landing raced up to meet him with breathtaking speed. He wobbled on contact but didn’t wipe out, managing to come out of the landing with the mug still held aloft.

He gave a short laugh. How’s that, Dad? How’d I do? In one way or another, his whole life had been a performance for his father—in sports, in school, in business. He’d lost his audience, and it was liberating as hell. Which made him wonder why tears were fogging up his goggles. Then, as the slope flattened and his speed naturally slowed, he realized Ivy was waving her arms frantically.

Now what?

He raced toward them and saw that Adam had his mobile phone out.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Was my epic run not pretty enough? Or are you posting a Tweet about it already?”

Despite the chill air, Ivy’s face was pale. “It’s Mom.”

“On the phone? Tell her I said hi.”

“No, dipshit, something happened to Mom.”

2

For Mason, money was a tool, not a goal. And when he had to get from a remote mountain town to an international airport, he was glad he had plenty of it. Within a few hours of the aborted ash-sprinkling, the three of them were in the first-class lounge at Christchurch Airport, booked on a flight to New York. From there, they’d take a private plane up to Avalon, north toward Albany, along the Hudson. He’d instructed his assistant to find an amphibious plane so they could land on Willow Lake and tie up at the dock in front of their mother’s place.

The entire journey would take about twenty-four hours. Thanks to the time zone change, they would arrive the same day they left. The journey cost in the neighborhood of thirty grand, which he paid without batting an eye. It was only money. Mason had a knack for making money the way some guys made wooden birdhouses in their garages over the weekend.

Adam was on the phone with someone in Avalon. “We’re on our way,” he said. Then he checked the clock in the lounge. “We’ll get there when we get there. Yeah, okay, just sit tight.”

“Did you get more details out of them?” Mason asked.

“She fell down the stairs and broke her collarbone,” Adam said, and zipped the mobile phone into his pocket. “It’s a miracle she didn’t crack open her head or get crushed by her motorized chair.”

“I can’t believe she fell,” Ivy said, her voice trembling.

“And what the hell was she doing at the top of a flight of stairs?” Mason asked. “The entire downstairs of the house has been adapted for her.”

“If you bothered to go see her more than once in a blue moon, you’d know they finished installing the elevator,” Adam stated. He was in charge of her day-to-day care, living on the premises of the lakeside estate. Mason had taken the role of looking after provisions, finance and logistics for their mother, a role more suited to his comfort zone.

Mason batted aside his brother’s criticism. “Screw that. I don’t get how the hell she managed to fall down the stairs. She’s a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. She’s incapable of moving.”

“She can move her mouth and drive the chair with her breath,” Ivy pointed out. “She’s been working with her physical therapist on extending her arms at the elbow, so that can help with her mobility, too.”

“I don’t get why she was upstairs, either,” Mason said. His heart was pounding so hard that his chest hurt. He and his mother had their differences, but when it came down to moments like this, he felt nothing but love and sorrow. And now a surge of panic.

“You’re sure she’s all right?” Ivy asked, bringing a tray of cappuccinos and croissants to the seating area where they were waiting.

“Other than her usual state of rage and bitterness, yeah,” said Adam. “She’s okay.”

“Jesus.” Mason raked his splayed hand through his hair.

“No, the caregiver on duty was named José.” Adam consulted the email displayed on his phone.

“Fire the son of a bitch,” Mason ordered.

“I didn’t have to,” Adam said. “He quit. They all quit. None of her home health aides have lasted more than a few weeks.”

“He couldn’t have stopped it,” Ivy pointed out. “According to Mrs. Armentrout, Mom took the elevator upstairs without telling anyone.”

“Armentrout? The housekeeper?” asked Mason. “Then she should be fired, too.”

“You’re the one who hired her,” Adam pointed out.

“My assistant hired her. With my approval.”

“And she’s terrific. Besides, it’s the caregiver’s job to look after Mom. Not the housekeeper.”

“She needs assistance, not to be under surveillance,” Ivy said.

“Maybe she does, if she’s sneaking upstairs.” Mason spent more time than anyone imagined thinking about their mother. On that day a year ago, their father had suffered the ultimate tragedy. Everyone—himself included—said their mother was lucky to be alive.

She didn’t consider herself lucky, though. From the moment she had been told the spinal injury meant she would never walk again—much less ski, salsa dance, cliff dive, run a triathlon or even drive a car—she had raged against her fate. Anyone who dared to mention to her face that she was lucky to be alive risked a tongue-lashing.

After multiple surgeries, drug therapies and intensive rehab, Alice had agreed to move to Avalon to settle into her new life as a widow and a quadriplegic, determined to find what independence she could. Avalon was the town where Adam lived, on the shores of the prettiest lake in Ulster County, just a couple of hours by train from New York City.

Each of the three Bellamy offspring played their part. Adam, a firefighter with training as an EMT, now lived over the boathouse on the property Mason had bought for their mother after the accident. Adam was hands-on when it came to caring for people, and it was a relief to have a family member on the premises for their mom.

Mason was responsible for making sure their mother had everything she needed to create her new life in Avalon. He had provided her with a sprawling lakeside estate, the house and grounds adapted to her needs and large enough to accommodate a staff. The historic compound, on the sun-drenched shores of Willow Lake, had been remodeled and retrofitted for his mother’s motorized wheelchair, with ramps, wide doorways and an elevator, an intercom system and a network of graded pathways outdoors. There was a private gym equipped for physical therapy, a heated pool, sauna and spa, and a dock and boathouse with ramps and hoists. She had a full staff, including a Balinese chef with Cordon Bleu credentials, a driver, and living quarters for a resident home health aide.

Everybody had a role. Mason thought it was working. But apparently, there was now no resident caregiver.

“What did you mean when you said they all quit?” he asked Adam.

“Like I told you before, you’d understand if you’d go see her. Ivy lives on the West Coast and she manages to visit more often than you do, and you’re just down in the city.”

Ivy’s role was more amorphous, but just as vital. Sometimes it seemed to Mason that she did her part by simply being adorable and loving and supportive. Ten years younger than her brother, she was the kind of person who could walk into a room and fill it with light. During the early days after the accident, Ivy was as vital to their mother as pure oxygen.

“Mom doesn’t need my company,” Mason pointed out. “I set her up in the best house we could find, hired a full staff, had the place retrofitted for her and the chair. I don’t know what the hell else I can do.”

“Sometimes you don’t have to do anything,” said Ivy. “Sometimes just being there is all she needs.”

“Not from me.” He checked the calendar on his phone. “So she’s already had the surgery to fix her collarbone. How long will she have to stay in the hospital?”

“Probably not long,” Adam said. “We’ll know more when we meet with the doctors.” He sat forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees. “Listen, I was going to tell you this over dinner tonight. You’re going to be in charge of Mom for the next few months—maybe longer.”

Mason dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “I can’t even stay a few hours. I’m supposed to go to LA with Regina the day after tomorrow,” he said. “She set up a meeting with a major new client.”

He didn’t deem it prudent to mention at this time that he and Regina—his colleague as well as his girlfriend—had built a few days of surfing in Malibu into their work schedule.

“You’re going to have to cancel it,” Adam said simply. “You need to stay with Mom.”

“What the hell do you mean, stay with her?”

“Live at the lake house. Make the place your base of operations.”

Mason recoiled. “What’s this about?”

“I have to go away for a while,” Adam said. “Special training. For work.”

Mason immediately turned to Ivy.

She put up both hands, palms out. “My fellowship in Paris, remember? The one I’ve been working toward for the past five years? It starts next month.”

“Postpone it.”

“Right. I’ll just tell the director of the Institut de Paume to keep a slot open for me.” Ivy raised her sunglasses and fixed him with an intense glare. “You’re up, bro.”

“Okay, fine, but I’m not moving up to the Catskills. I’ll have my assistant find another live-in aide.”

“Damn it,” Adam said. “Mom needs family. She needs you.”

Mason had provided a lengthy roster of hired help, material things and creature comforts for their mother. He had spared no expense—elevators, adaptive devices—nothing was too good for Alice Bellamy.

Thanks to Mason, she wanted for nothing.

Except the one thing no one could give her, and all of Mason’s millions could never provide.

Some troubles could not be solved by throwing money at them.

Yet he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped in a small town with his bitter, wounded mother with whom—unlike his brother and sister—he’d had a rocky relationship since he was a teenager.

And now he was expected to move in with her.

Oh, hell, no, he thought.

“What kind of special training?” he asked Adam.

“I’m getting certified in arson investigation. I’ll be up in Albany for twelve to sixteen weeks.”

“Seriously?”

“He’s having girl trouble,” Ivy said. “It’s the geographic cure.”

“Shut up, brat. I am not having girl trouble.”

“Okay, let’s call it lack of girl trouble.”

“What? Come on.” To Mason’s surprise, Adam’s face turned red. “It’s complicated. And speaking of complicated, exactly how many frogs have you kissed this year alone?”

Ivy often bemoaned the state of her love life, and Mason had no idea why. She was gorgeous, a total sweetheart, a little bit nutty, and everyone loved her. Just not the right guy, he supposed.

“You shut up,” she retorted, and Mason heard loud echoes of their childhood years seeping into the exchange.

“Both of you shut up,” he said. “Let’s focus on what to do about Mom.”

“Ivy’s going to Paris to get laid—”

“Hey.” She punched him in the arm.

“And I can’t change the dates of the training course to suit your travel schedule. You’re up, Mason.”

“But—”

“But nothing. It’s your turn to step up.”

Mason scowled at his brother and sister. It was hard to believe the three of them shared the same DNA, they were all so different. “Not a chance in hell. There’s nothing my being there can help. No damn way I’m moving to Willow Lake.”

3

“I’d kill the fatted calf for you, but I’m a bit indisposed at the moment,” Alice Bellamy said when Mason arrived at the estate on Willow Lake.

“That’s okay. I’m a vegetarian anyway.” Mason wondered if his mother realized that he had not eaten meat since the age of twelve.

Crossing the elegant room to where she sat near a window, he bent down and brushed his lips against her cheek. Soap and lotion, a freshly laundered blouse, the smells he had always associated with her. Except in the past, she’d been able to offer the briefest of hugs, to reach out with her hand and smooth the hair back from his brow, a gesture that had persisted since his childhood.

Concealing a wrenching sense of sorrow, he took a seat across from her. He studied her face, startled at how little she had changed—from the neck up. Shiny blond hair, lovely skin, cornflower blue eyes. He’d always been proud to have such a youthful, good-looking mom. “You broke your collarbone,” he said.

“So I’m told.”

“I thought you’d be in a cast or a sling or something.”

She pursed her lips. “It’s not as if I need to keep my arm immobilized.”

“Uh, yeah.” Since the accident, he didn’t know how to deal with his mother. Who was he kidding? He’d never known how to deal with her. “Are you in... Does it hurt?”

“Darling boy, I can’t feel anything below my chest. Not pain or pleasure. Nothing.”

He let several seconds tick past while he tried to think of a reply that didn’t sound phony or patronizing or flat-out ignorant. “I’m glad you’re all right. You gave us a scare.”

More silence echoed through the room, an open lounge with a massive river-rock fireplace, fine furnishings and floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books. Everything was spaced and arranged to accommodate his mother’s chair. There was a corner study with a big post office writing desk and another corner with a powerful brass telescope set on a tripod. The baby grand piano, which had occupied every house the family had ever lived in, was now a resting place for a collection of photos.

The ever-present view of Willow Lake was framed by French doors, which could be operated by a switch. “So anyway,” he said, “we’ll get you fixed up with a new helper right away. My assistant is working with a couple of agencies already.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got plenty to keep us busy for the day. The lawyer is coming in half an hour. Are you up for that?”

“Lawyer?” She frowned, then took a sip through a straw from the coffee mug affixed to the tray on her chair.

“My attorney in the city recommended someone local, from here in Ulster County—”

“Whatever for?”

“To deal with the negligence suit against the caregiver who let you fall down the stairs, and the outfit he works for.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. It was just a stupid accident,” she said. “Nobody’s fault.”

“Mom, you fell down a flight of stairs with a three-hundred-pound motorized chair. It’s a miracle you weren’t crushed. Somebody was negligent—”

“That would be me,” she stated. “I leaned on the control and drove myself off the rails.”

“Then the chair manufacturer is at fault.”

“No lawyers,” she said. “What I— What happened was no one’s fault. There will be no lawsuit. End of story.”

“Mom, you’re entitled to a settlement.” If there was one thing Mason couldn’t stand, it was people failing to take responsibility for their actions.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I won’t hear another word about it.”

He sent Brenda a text message to cancel the lawyer. “Whatever you say. That gives us more time to meet with potential new caregivers.”

“Lovely.”

“Adam warned me that you were going to be a sourpuss.”

“I bet he didn’t say sourpuss. He’s a firefighter. I’m sure he has a more colorful term for me, like hell-bitch.”

Adam is a saint, thought Mason. St. Adam. He silently cursed the saint for having left already. Adam and Ivy had stuck around until their mom was discharged, then they both had to leave; Adam to his training and Ivy back to Santa Barbara to prepare for her move to Europe.

“I printed out the résumés of the candidates we’re meeting with,” he said. “You want to go over them now, or—”

“I think I’d like to go out into the garden now.”

He gritted his teeth, looking away so she wouldn’t see his annoyance.

“You’re annoyed,” she said. “You can’t wait to leave. You’ve got one foot out the door.”

Damn. Busted. He schooled his face into a pleasant expression. “Don’t be silly. I’m glad I’m here to spend some time with you.”

“Right.” She nudged a lever on her chair and rolled toward the French doors. “Let’s go inspect the property you bought. You’ve never even seen it in the summer.”

He stood aside, impressed by how nimbly she used her chair to operate the switch plate, which opened the doors. When he stepped out on the deck, the view and the cool clarity of the air stole his breath. “Wow,” he said.

“You did well,” she told him. “I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me—moving me to Avalon, getting this house adapted for my needs, hiring a staff. If I’m going to be a cripple the rest of my life, I might as well do it in style.”

“I thought we weren’t going to say cripple.”

“Not when I’m being polite. I don’t feel terribly polite these days.”

“Let me savor the view for a few minutes, okay?” The last time he’d seen the property, it had been blanketed in snow. The estate had been known as the Webster House, having been built in the 1920s by descendants of Daniel Webster himself. For Mason, the decision to acquire and restore the house had not been based on historical significance, prestige or even investment value. He wanted his mother to have a nice place to live, near Adam—aka her favorite—that could be quickly adapted for her special needs.

During that process, he had come to appreciate the benefit of having a big extended family living in a small town. His cousin Olivia was married to the contractor who had restored the fanciful timber-and-stone mansion to its original gloss as a grand summer residence from days gone by. His cousin Ross was married to a nurse who specialized in adaptive living. Another cousin, Greg, was a landscape architect. Olivia was a talented designer in her own right, so in a matter of months, the place was ready for his mother and Adam, and their staff of live-in help.

Mason had spared no expense. In his position, there was no need to. For the past decade, he had run his own private equities-and-lending firm, and business was good. He had all the money in the world. But of course, wealth had its limits. He couldn’t buy his mother her mobility. He couldn’t buy a way to make her smile again.

He took a deep breath of the morning air. “It’s sweet,” he said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“The air here. It’s sweet.”

“I suppose it is.”

“The landscaping looks great. Are you happy with it?”

“Your cousin Greg sent a crew to take care of the mowing and gardening,” she said, nodding in the direction of a long swath of grass sloping down to the water’s edge. There was a dock and a timber-and-stone boathouse, home to kayaks, a catboat and a 1940s Chris-Craft. When not on duty at the fire station, Adam lived in the upstairs quarters.

A fringe of ancient willow trees dipped their budding branches into the placid, sunlit water. The word that came immediately to mind was unspoiled. Willow Lake was one of the prettiest lakes in a landscape full of pretty lakes. The green-clad hills, with a few puffy clouds riding on their shoulders, rose gently upward from the shore. On the north end of the lake was a grand old summer camp, a hundred years in the making—Camp Kioga.

At the south end was the town called Avalon, as picture-perfect as a storybook setting, with its whistle-stop train station, old-fashioned town square, stone-built Greek revival library and shady shoreline parks. Its outskirts were equally attractive—a mountain road leading to a ski resort, a ball field for the local bush-league baseball team, white-steepled churches, their spires seeming to thrust through the new-leafed trees. The cliffs of the Shawangunks attracted climbers from all over the world. Somewhere not so far away, there was probably suburban blight—shotgun shacks and mobile homes, ramshackle farms and big-box stores. But he couldn’t see any of that from here. And more important, neither could his mother.

The place he’d acquired for her was on the western shore of the lake, so it caught the sunrise every morning, something his real-estate agent had pointed out when he had bought the property. The agent had babbled on about the attributes of the historic mansion, not knowing Mason was already sold on getting the place. He was looking for security for his mother, not for a return on investment.

“Why do they keep quitting?” he asked her, paging through the printouts of the candidates for the job of primary caregiver. “Is it the living quarters?”

“Have you seen the living quarters?”

He’d looked at pictures after the remodel was done. The living quarters, located in a private wing of the house, featured a suite of rooms with a view of the lake, new furnishings and luxurious fixtures. “Okay, good point. So?”

“I haven’t been conducting exit interviews. I’m sure Adam gave you an earful. Nobody wants to live with a miserable old woman who can barely change the channel on The Price Is Right.”

Oh, boy. “You’re not old,” he said. “Your parents would freak out if they heard you say that. And being miserable is optional. So is watching The Price Is Right.”

“Thank you, Sigmund Freud. I’ll remember that next time I’m lying in bed, pissing into a plastic tube—”

“Mom.”

“Oh, sorry. I don’t mean to trouble you with the reality of my body functions.”

Now he understood why they all quit.

* * *

“Where should I put your things, Mr. Bellamy?” asked the housekeeper.

Mason stood glaring out the window at an impossibly serene and beautiful view of Willow Lake. Although he’d arrived late the day before, his luggage had been delayed—some mix-up at an airport between here and New Zealand.

Now Mrs. Armentrout rolled the two large bags into the room. The suitcases wore tags marked Unattended Baggage.

He hadn’t seen the luggage since dashing to the airport in New Zealand after getting the call about his mother’s accident. Now he realized he didn’t need the bags at all, since they were packed with winter clothes.

“Right there is fine, thanks,” he said.

“Would you like some help unpacking?”

“Sure, when you can get to it.”

“I can do that right now.”

The housekeeper worked with brisk efficiency, hanging his bespoke suit in the antique armoire, carefully folding cashmere sweaters away in a cedar-lined drawer. She lifted a dress shirt out of the suitcase and put it on a wooden hanger, her hand moving appreciatively over the fabric.

Philomena Armentrout actually looked more like a supermodel than a housekeeper. A native of South Africa, she was tall and slender, with creamy café au lait skin, wearing chic black slacks and a white blouse, shining dark hair and subtle makeup. Only the closest of inspections would reveal the tiny scars where the jaw wires had been surgically anchored after her husband had assaulted her. Mason had committed himself and all his resources to staffing the household with the best personnel available, and Mrs. Armentrout was definitely the best. That wasn’t the only reason Mason had hired her, though. Broken and battered, she had needed a new start in life, and Mason was taking care of her immigration process. According to Adam, she ran the place like a high-end boutique hotel, supervising every aspect of the household.

His phone in the charging station on the desk murmured insistently, signaling another text message from Regina. She had not taken the news of his change of plans well. She’d peppered him with all the questions he’d already run through with his brother and sister: Why did he need to come here in person? Couldn’t a staffer take care of hiring the new caregiver? Couldn’t Adam or Ivy change their plans and step in?

No, they couldn’t. Both had commitments that couldn’t be broken—Adam’s training in arson investigation, Ivy’s art fellowship at the Institut de Paume. But Mason didn’t feel like getting into a big debate with Regina at the moment, and so he ignored the message.

Last night he’d slept like a corpse in the comfortable guest room. It was so damned quiet here, and the air was sweet and the jet lag had finally caught up with him.

“Is my mother up yet?” he asked.

She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “In a bit. Lena, the morning aide, will bring her to the lounge room for coffee at nine. You can go see her in her room right away if you want.”

He did want to see his mother. Just not...before she was ready for the day.

One of the hardest things Alice Bellamy was having to adjust to was the loss of privacy. Needing another person to look after all her personal needs was a constant source of irritation. “I’ll wait,” he said. “The coffee is great, by the way. Thanks for sending it up.”

“Wayan roasts his own. He gets the green coffee beans from his family in Bali. It’s got a funny name, tupac or leewalk, something like that.”

“Luwak,” said Mason. “No wonder it’s so good. You should look this stuff up sometime. You won’t believe where it comes from.”

“Right. That’s the stuff that comes from a civet cat’s arse or something, yes?”

“It’s organic.”

Like Mrs. Armentrout, the personal chef had been selected for his unique excellence as well as his urgent need to escape his dire circumstances. Wayan had been attending cruise ship school in the Philippines. The Balinese native had abruptly been cut from that program, leaving him stranded and nearly penniless in a foreign land. Mason had found him through a sponsorship program and brought Wayan—along with his wife and son—halfway around the world. The family lived above the old carriage house, now a four-car garage and workshop. His wife, Banni, served as an evening aide and personal assistant, and their son, Donno, was Alice’s driver, mechanic and general fix-it guy. Mason hadn’t met Wayan yet, but Adam sang rhapsodies about his cooking.

Mrs. Armentrout held up a rash guard shirt. “It’s a shame you had to cut your vacation short,” she said. “I’ve heard the surfing in Malibu is the best in the world.”

“It will keep,” he said simply.

“And the skiing was good?” she inquired.

“You bet.” It occurred to him to explain the trip wasn’t strictly a vacation, but a journey to fulfill his father’s last wish, followed by a work trip. He knew the explanation would make him sound less like a selfish prick who was avoiding his wounded mother.

But it didn’t actually bother him to be regarded as a selfish prick. It just made things simpler.

“How is she doing?” he asked Mrs. Armentrout. “She didn’t have much to say about her fall.”

“The doctor said the collarbone will heal nicely. There was a surgery to repair it with plates and screws, and she was able to come home the very next day.”

“I’ve spoken to the surgeon about her collarbone already. That’s not what I’m asking.”

“She’s... It’s terribly hard, Mr. Bellamy. She is bearing up.”

“Were you around when she fell?”

“No one was around. You can look over the report from the EMTs.”

“I’m sure Adam went over that with a fine-tooth comb,” Mason said.

The mantel clock chimed nine. He felt Mrs. Armentrout watching him. He could practically hear her thoughts. She was wondering why he didn’t seem so eager to settle in. “I’ll let you finish here,” he said, wishing he could be a million miles away. “I’m going to see my mother. We’re starting the interviewing process today.”

As he descended the wide, curving staircase, he wondered if this was where his mother had fallen in her chair. Had she called out in terror? Had she felt pain?

He trailed his fingers over the silky walnut handrail. She couldn’t feel the texture of the wood with her fingertips. Physical sensation below the spinal cord injury was gone. Yet when he thought of the expression he’d seen on her face last night, he knew that she still felt the deepest kind of pain.

* * *

“Mrs. Bellamy?” Mrs. Armentrout came out on the veranda. “Your first appointment is here.”

“Lucky him,” she said.

“We’ll meet in there.” Mason gestured at the great room through the French doors.

Thus began the work of finding the right individual to make life bearable for an angry, disabled woman with a major attitude problem. They met with the first group of candidates in quick succession.

The back-to-back meetings were brief and businesslike. Mason watched his mother closely as she questioned the visitors. She gave up nothing, holding her face in a benign, neutral expression, speaking in controlled, icy tones that highlighted her crisp diction. Alice Bellamy had been educated at Harvard, and although she claimed she had spent most of her college years skiing, she’d graduated with honors. She’d had a successful career as an adventure travel specialist and guide, which had nicely complemented her husband’s job in international finance.

Mason listened carefully to each applicant, wondering how the hell a person would go about helping someone like Alice Bellamy remake her life. Which candidate was up to the task? The military nurse built like a sumo wrestler? The motherly woman with a master’s degree in nutrition and food science? The spandex-clad personal trainer? The registered nurse with a rack Mason couldn’t stop staring at? The tough-as-nails Brooklyn woman whose last client had written a glowing three-page letter of reference?

He was glad Brenda had provided photographs along with the résumés, because the interviewees were all starting to blend together. Each one of them had outstanding qualities. Mason was sure they’d met the right person. They just had to pinpoint which one.

Afterward, he placed the résumés on the table and offered his mother an encouraging smile. “Brenda did a great job,” he said. “They were all excellent. Did you have a favorite?”

She stared out the window, her face unreadable.

He picked up the résumé on top—Chandler Darrow. “So this guy was great. He’s got an impressive list of credentials—top of his class at SUNY New Paltz, with references from grateful families for the past ten years.”

“No,” said Alice, glaring at the photo attached to the résumé.

“He’s perfect. Single, good personality, seemed really caring.”

“He had shifty eyes.”

“What?”

“His eyes—they look shifty. You can see it in the picture.”

“Mom—”

“No.”

Gritting his teeth, Mason arranged his face into a smile as he picked up the next one—Marianne Phillips, who also had flawless references, including the fact that she had worked for the Rockefeller family.

“She smelled like garlic,” his mother said.

“No, she didn’t.” Shit, thought Mason. This was not going well.

“I’ve lost most of my abilities, but not my sense of smell. I can’t stand garlic. You know that.”

“Okay, next. Darryl Smits—”

“Don’t even bother. I can’t stand the name Darryl.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“I just said it—no.”

“Casey Halberg.”

“She was the one wearing Crocs. Who wears Crocs to an interview? They look like hooves.”

“Jesus—”

“I didn’t like him, either. Jesús Garza. In fact, you can cross all the men off the list right now and save us a lot of trouble.” She paused to gaze thoughtfully at the display of family photos on the baby grand. “I’ve never had much luck with men,” she added softly.

“What?” He had no idea what she was talking about. “Never mind,” Mason added, not wanting to get distracted. “Let’s go back over the female candidates.”

She sighed impatiently, then glared again at the photo display. There were pictures of her parents—Mason’s grandparents—who lived in Florida. Immediately following his mother’s accident, they had worn themselves out trying to take care of her. Then her dad had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and Mason had stepped in. His mom’s brothers, who ran a seaplane service in Alaska, were too far away to pitch in.

“Why is there a piano in here?” his mother demanded.

“You’ve owned that piano all your life. You love piano music,” Mason pointed out. “Everybody in the family plays.” He’d taken lessons as a kid and used to be really good, but he hadn’t played in years. Why was that? He liked making music, but he just didn’t bother anymore.

“Every time I look at that thing,” his mother said, “it reminds me that I used to be able to play a dozen Chopin nocturnes from memory. Now my piano is nothing but a display area for old photos.”

“We thought you might like having someone in to play for you every once in a while.”

“Like you?”

Touché. “I’m pretty rusty, but I’ll try to play for you whenever I’m around, Mom.”

“That’s just it, you’re never around.”

“Hey, check it out,” he said, brandishing one of the résumés, “the woman named Dodie Wechsler says she plays piano and put herself through school giving lessons.”

“She was the chatty one,” said his mother. “She talked too much.”

“Mom, I get that you’ve lost your independence. We all wish you didn’t need a single soul to take care of you. But the reality is, you do. So we damn well better pick somebody, and soon.”

“All the people we met today are unacceptable. There’s not a single one in the bunch I can stand.”

“Mabel Roberts.”

“Too churchy.”

“What?”

“She kept mentioning what a blessing everything is—this house, the lake, the beginning of summer. I’d feel as if she were judging me all the time.”

“She had a positive attitude. That’s a good thing.”

Alice sniffed and looked away.

“I get it, Mom. The person you need doesn’t exist. Because the person you need is a freaking saint. Just not a churchy one.”

They had run through all the candidates his assistant had found, except one—a last-minute addition of someone named Faith McCallum. Her profile on a jobs website looked promising, though Brenda hadn’t scheduled a meeting with her yet.

What were the chances that she could be the one? Could she be strong enough to handle Alice Bellamy?

Though there was no photograph attached, Mason liked this candidate already. He liked the name—Faith McCallum. It was a sturdy name, even though his mother might think it sounded churchy. It was the name of a person who was organized, in control and classy. The name of a person whose life ran as smoothly as a Tesla motor, and whose saintly qualities would bring peace to the household.

4

“Shit.” Faith McCallum stabbed a finger at the keyboard of the ancient hand-me-down laptop. “Come on, you son of a bitch, work for me one last time.”

The job posting had finally brought results. As her email had flashed past, she’d seen the subject line: “Response to your posting.” But the moment she’d clicked on it, the damn thing had gone into blue-screen meltdown.

She had rebooted, but now the computer screen was frozen on its opening page—daily devotions for diabetics. Today’s thought was particularly annoying. Leap, and the net will appear.

Faith had done her share of leaping, but so far, she hadn’t accomplished anything but a bumpy landing. Leap of faith. Ha-ha.

She got up in frustration, went outside and refilled the cat’s water dish. It wasn’t her cat. It wasn’t even her dish, for that matter. The stray had started coming around a few weeks ago; it wouldn’t let anyone near it, so Faith named it Fraidy and put out food and water under the stoop.

Returning to the computer, she stared for a moment at the still-frozen screen, then tried clicking the link to the job-posting site she had been checking three times a day, without fail. Her search for a new position was getting desperate. The home health care agency she had been working for hadn’t sent anything her way in three months. Even when they did find work for her, the outfit didn’t pay her enough to sustain a pet gerbil, let alone two growing daughters. Faith was already two months behind on the rent, and the place was under new management.

In desperation, she had posted her résumé on every home health aide job site she could find, hoping to negotiate a living wage on her own rather than going through yet another agency that helped itself to a hefty percentage of her wages.

Finally, the sluggish browser responded. The mobile home park’s “free” Wi-Fi unfurled at leaden speed. She usually got several chores done while waiting for a page to load.

“Mo-oo-om!” Faith’s younger daughter, Ruby, stretched the word to several whiny syllables. The little girl stomped inside, slamming the door open wide. The impact caused the rented double-wide to shudder. “Cara forgot to wait for me at the bus. And she stole my lunch ticket—again.”

“Did not,” said Cara, following her younger sister into the room and flopping down on the tiny swaybacked sofa. With elaborate nonchalance, she opened her AP biology textbook.

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

“Then where did my lunch ticket go, huh?” Ruby demanded. She shrugged out of her backpack, depositing it on the built-in table.

“Who knows?” Cara asked without looking up. She twisted a strand of purple-dyed hair around her index finger.

“You know,” Ruby said, “because you stold it.”

“Stole,” Cara corrected her sister. “And I didn’t.”

“You’re the one who took it last time.”

“That was a month ago, and you were sick that day.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Did you eat anything for lunch?” Faith broke in, exasperated.

Ruby pulled her mouth into a pout that somehow made her look even more adorable than usual. Sometimes Faith believed Ruby’s cuteness was the only thing that kept her alive, she was so fragile. “Mrs. Geiger gave me half of her tuna fish sandwich and a carton of milk. And those yucky dried apple chips. I hate tuna fish. But then after school, Charlie O’Donnell gave me Bugles during soccer practice.”

Ruby had a little-girl crush on Charlie O’Donnell, an eighth-grader who helped coach the primary school soccer team.

“Get some water and sit down,” Faith said. “We’ll check your levels in a little bit.” A familiar knot of tension tightened inside her. Every day, Ruby’s type 1 diabetes brought a new worry, and a new challenge. She turned to Cara. “You’re supposed to wait for her at the bus stop.”

“I forgot.”

“How can you forget something you’re supposed to do every day?”

“She knows the way home.”

Faith suspected the real reason was that Cara didn’t want people to see where they lived. Lakeside Estates Motor Court wasn’t all bad, but no kid wanted to admit she lived in a trailer park. Despite its name, the place was not beside the lake, and it was far from an estate, but it was safe and close to the girls’ schools.

The page finally loaded, and Faith turned her attention to navigating her way to the job-posting response. Outside, the Guptas’ dog went crazy barking, heralding the daily arrival of the mailman in the central courtyard. Ruby, who was scared of dogs, cringed at the sound.

“I’ll go.” Cara shoved aside her homework and went to check the mail.

The response to Faith’s carefully worded posting, offering her services as a skilled caregiver, looked promising. She leaned toward the screen, her interest piqued. “We’re looking for an experienced individual to supervise all aspects of in-home care for a wheelchair-bound lady with a spinal cord injury. Salary and benefits package to include on-site living quarters.”

Okay, so maybe not. Faith and her girls couldn’t all fit into a closet-sized guest room in some woman’s house. Still, the position was right here in Avalon, which made it worth looking into, because the girls hated the idea of changing schools at the very end of the school year.

She wrote down the contact information in case the laptop crapped out again. Then she replied to the interview request, suggesting a meeting the following morning. Tomorrow was Saturday, so Cara would have to miss work at the bakery to watch Ruby, which meant squabbling, but that was too bad. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Cara came in from the motor court, sorting through the mail. “Bills and junk,” she said.

“You were expecting maybe we’d won the Publishers Clearing House?”

Cara dropped the bills on the counter next to Faith and put the rest in the recycle bin at her feet.

Faith picked up a glossy brochure. “What is this from Johns Hopkins? It’s addressed to you.”

Cara shrugged and turned away. “Like I said, junk mail.”

Faith regarded the beautiful photograph of a college campus. A letter on university letterhead slipped out. There was a personal note at the bottom—“Cara, you have a bright future ahead of you”—and it appeared to be signed by hand from the director of admissions. “It says here that based on your test scores, you’re invited to apply early, and the admission fee will be waived.”

Another shrug. “Not interested.”

“You didn’t tell me you got your scores back.”

“Oh. So I got my scores back.”

Cara drove Faith crazy as if it were her job to do so. Daily.

“And?” Faith demanded.

“And I did okay.”

“Cara Rose McCallum.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Cara dug in her backpack and came up with a printout.

Faith scanned the numbers, assessing her elder daughter’s verbal and quantitative achievements. If she was reading it right, her daughter had crushed the hardest standardized test given at Avalon High. “And you were going to show me this...when?”

“It’s just a bunch of numbers.” She flopped down again and went back to her homework.

“Numbers that tell us you’re in the ninety-ninth percentile of students who took the test.”

“Does that mean she’s really smart?” Ruby asked.

“Really, really smart,” said Faith. Pride, exasperation and frustration mingled together. When a girl was as smart as Cara, she should be proud of her own potential, not blasé or, worse, defeated. Faith wanted to give her the world. She wanted to give both girls the world. Instead, she had them living in a trailer park while she held on by the tips of her fingernails.

“If she’s so smart,” Ruby mused, “why does she keep forgetting me after school?”

Faith ignored the question as she looked through the bills—two ominously thick packets from St. Francis Hospital and Diabetes Center. She had been paying a dead man’s bills for six years. The vows said “until death do us part,” but clearly the hospital billing system still believed that even in death, the bills didn’t have to end.

The next envelope gave her a jolt. She opened it, read the single page. “Oh, come on,” she muttered under her breath. “Really?”

“What now?” asked Cara.

Faith sent her a warning look. “E-V-I-C—”

“T-I-O-N. You don’t have to spell it in front of me,” said Ruby. “I know how to spell it, and I know what it means.” She got up and crossed the room, leaning over Faith’s shoulder. “And I know what final notice means.”

The new management company gave her no quarter. She had tried reasoning with them and had held them at bay for several weeks, but apparently they were done waiting. She hated the tone of the letter. Did they think she actually had the money and was holding out on them?

Cara slammed her book shut. “It means we’re moving again,” she snapped. “That’s great. Just great. Two weeks before school lets out. Maybe we could go for a record—how many times do we have to change schools in one year?”

“Cara, I’m not doing this on purpose.” Faith felt sick. “I know you like Avalon High. I’ll try my best to see if you can stay in the district.”

Cara yanked her bike helmet from a closet by the door. “I’m going to work. I guess I’ll have to give notice at the bakery.”

“Come on, Cara—”

“It says we’ve got twenty-four hours.” Cara snatched up the letter and shoved it under Faith’s nose.

“I’ll figure something out,” said Faith. “I always do.”

“She always does,” Ruby said loyally.

Faith gave her a hug, drawing Cara into it. “What did I do to deserve you two? You’re not in the ninety-ninth percentile. You’re in the one hundred and tenth percentile. A hundred and ten percent awesome.”

“Right,” said Cara, stepping back and cracking a smile for the first time just before she went out the door. “That’s us. A hundred and ten percent pure, unadulterated awesome. I’ve got to go.”

“Bring me a kolache,” Ruby piped up.

“Sure thing.” The Sky River Bakery, where Cara worked, made delicious sugar-free kolaches. Faith’s daughter liked working there. She liked her school.

She hated being broke all the time.

But not nearly as much as Faith hated it. She watched her elder daughter ride away on a bike she’d snatched from the donation pile at Helpline House, a local charity. Other kids had cars, but Cara didn’t even have her license yet, because the driver’s ed fees were too high, not to mention insurance for a teenage driver.

She sat down and drew Ruby onto her knees, holding her close. Then she tightened her arms around the child in her lap, feeling her younger daughter’s impossibly small frame. Ruby felt as fragile as a baby bird. “Let’s check on your sugar bugs,” she said. The endless routine of testing her levels, administering insulin and managing her diet and exercise was always at the forefront of their lives.

“My meds cost the moon,” Ruby said.

“Where did you hear that?”

“The school nurse. I wasn’t supposed to hear, but I heard. So I asked her what the moon costs and she said it’s just an expression, but I know it means it costs a lot of money. Which we don’t have.”

“We have exactly what we need,” said Faith.

* * *

When the girls were asleep, that was when the demons came to visit. The ones that promised Faith she was drowning and taking the girls down with her. Sometimes in her more lunatic moments, she silently raged at Dennis, as if all this were his fault. And it wasn’t, of course. It wasn’t his fault for having a severe form of diabetes with fatal complications, any more than it was Faith’s fault for loving him.

It wasn’t his fault their younger daughter had the same disease.

No one’s fault, but Faith was left to deal with it.

Late that night—their last night in Unit 12 of Lakeside Estates—Faith realized it was preferable to stay awake with her own thoughts than to sleep with demons, so she got up and finished the last of the packing. It wasn’t much. The unit had come fully furnished, so it was really just their clothing and personal belongings, which fit easily into the paratransit van.

The van was from Dennis’s final year, when he’d been in a wheelchair that had to be raised and lowered by the van elevator. He had known he was terminal and had made the rash decision to spend the last of their savings traveling across the country from LA to New York, seeing the sights of America in the midst of a long, sad farewell. Faith had known it was a reckless move on his part, but how did you say no to a dying man?

Most of their mementos were digital photos, but there was one framed shot Faith cherished, showing the four of them lying on a hill of grass somewhere in Kentucky. A friendly local had gamely climbed a tree to take the unusual shot. They were laughing in that moment, their faces full of love. The joy in Dennis’s eyes was palpable. On their unforgettable family trip, they had learned to steal moments like this, to wring every drop of happiness from them.

She carefully wrapped the framed photo in her favorite Dennis artifact—an impossibly soft woven blanket in the traditional McCallum tartan from his native Scotland. For months after his death, the blanket had held his scent, but by now it was faded, and she couldn’t even remember what he’d smelled like.

She placed the wrapped photograph in an old duffel bag. The useless laptop emitted a soft chime, signaling an incoming email.

Faith jumped up to check it.

She had a job interview, first thing in the morning.

5

“She’s a no-show.” Mason’s mother glared at the clock on the mantel.

“That means she’s out. Fired before she’s hired. If she can’t show up on time for her first appointment, then Faith McCallum is not the one we’re looking for.” Mason raked a hand through his hair. “Damn. She was the last one on the list.” He glanced over the printed résumé, which he’d found so impressive when Brenda sent it to him. “Hasta la vista, Miz McCallum.” He crumpled the page in his fist and tossed it in the wastebasket.

Regina, who had arrived on the late train from the city the night before, got up and walked over to him, trailing her hand across the back of his shoulders. Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floor. She always dressed in expensive suits, as if she had an executive board meeting on her calendar. He found it sexy, but a bit much for a lake house.

“That’s too bad,” Regina said. “She seemed promising on paper.” Gorgeous, accomplished and smart, she was eager to help Mason find someone so they could get back to the city.

He nodded. “Yeah, now what?” He grabbed his phone and tapped out a message for Brenda to cast a wider net as she trolled for the ideal caregiver. “Hey, Reg, how about you stay with Mom? The two of you make a great pair.”

The two women regarded him with such horror and disbelief that he laughed aloud. His mother and Regina got along all right, but the idea of both of them living under the same roof clearly made them both mental.

“To be honest,” Regina said, “I wish I did have the skill set to help you, Alice.”

“If you had the skill set to help me, I’d force my prodigal son to set a wedding date immediately,” said Alice.

Mason kept a poker face, knowing his mother was trying to get a rise out of him.

“We’re in no hurry,” Regina said soothingly. “I always knew I wanted a long engagement.”

“When did you become such an adept liar?” asked Alice. “No woman ever born wants a long engagement.”

“Mom—”

“She’s right,” Regina agreed. “I don’t want that.” She genuflected in front of the wheelchair. “It would be lovely to have the wedding right away, but Mason and I want to make sure the timing is perfect for everyone involved. Now, what can I bring you from the kitchen?”

“A vodka martini. Dirty, three olives.”

“Very funny.”

“Oh. Too early? Make it a Bloody Mary, then.”

“I’m on it.” Regina went toward the kitchen.

“She’s too good to be true,” Alice said once she was gone.

“You think?”

“Yep. That’s how I know she’s a big fat phony.”

“Why do you assume any woman who wants to be with me is a phony?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Mason eyed the crumpled résumé in the basket, wishing Faith McCallum had worked out. As Regina had pointed out, the candidate had looked great on paper—midthirties, years of experience as a home health aide, glowing references, able to start immediately, willing to live on the premises. He shouldn’t be surprised that she was a no-show. People were never what they presented themselves to be.

“Ever think maybe I’m just lucky?” That was what everyone said when they met Regina. He was a lucky stiff. They had been introduced by Mason’s father. When Mason had taken charge of the New York office of Bellamy Strategic Capital, his father had brought Regina on board, presenting her like a rare delicacy acquired at great expense. Mason couldn’t argue with his father’s taste. She was every guy’s dream—beautiful, sharp, successful, exuding a WASP-y, private-school self-confidence. Best of all, she didn’t have that nesting thing going on, that persistent need to set up housekeeping, spend hours decorating the place with fragile things and have three babies. In some respects, she was the female version of Mason—with one notable exception. He wished she liked sex as much as he did. Sometimes trying to convince her to have sex felt like talking her into attending an insurance seminar.

“You still haven’t told me about your trip,” Alice said, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

He read the challenge in her gaze. “Oh, you mean the trip to scatter Dad’s ashes? The one where we had to make a pilgrimage to the same avalanche zone that killed him? The one that was cut short when we got a phone call about you falling down the stairs? Is that the trip you mean?”

“Yes. That is the trip I mean.” She glowered at him.

“It was great, Mom. Fantastic.”

“You know what I’m asking.”

“Yeah, we did it exactly as instructed. They’re scattered to the four winds, just like he wanted.” He left out the part about breaking the beer stein.

She gazed out the window at the pretty spring day. “He’s really gone, then.”

Mason didn’t reply. How could someone be gone when the memories were burned into your mind? There were moments when he felt as if his father—his funny, charming, flawed, maddening father—was right in the next room, mixing drinks.

“Ivy said it was rather beautiful.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

“Because I’m interested in your take on it. For God’s sake, Mason, can’t we ever just have a normal conversation?”

“We have them all the time, Mom.” It was true. He placed a video call to her several times a week. But deep down, he knew what she meant. There was always that distance between them, a sense of matters neither would ever bring up directly.

No, not always, he conceded, remembering. When he was a little kid, his mom and dad had been his whole world. He and his mother had been great together, the dynamic duo. She’d been more playmate than parent, taking him along on adventures all over the world. One summer, they might be building houses for displaced people in Cambodia, followed by snorkeling off the coast of Bali. Another year, it would be camping in Siberia at an arts program for homeless children. She’d had a unique flair for combining humanitarian work with family fun, and she’d ingrained in her son the same urge to do good in the world.

It wasn’t until later—his seventeenth summer—that the gulf had appeared. That was the year his discovery of a family secret had caused him to keep his distance from both of his parents. He couldn’t talk about it with one parent without betraying the other. Forced into an untenable position, he had simply turned away from them both, forging his own path through life. They thought his sudden change in attitude was the result of teenage rebellion, and maybe it was in part, but he had also felt the need to wall himself off, in order to avoid those intimate ties.

Sometimes he thought that was the reason he was addicted to the rush of risk-taking—in sports, in finance, in anything but emotional entanglements. It was a way to escape the pressure of family expectations. Truth be told, he was more comfortable cave-diving or making risky business deals than he was getting emotionally involved.

He regarded his mother thoughtfully. A little more than a year ago, she had completed a triathlon. Her photo had appeared in the New York Times as she crossed the finish line, first in her age group, her muscular legs gracefully outstretched, sweat-streaked blond hair flying out behind her, an expression of triumph on her face. The ski trip to New Zealand had been a reward to herself for a job well-done.

Now her life had veered along a horrific and unanticipated path. She was confined to this house, where she struggled through every day, and eating her breakfast had become more challenging than any grueling race.

She had responded to the trauma and its aftermath by vacillating between grimness and outright rage. Did she know he ached for her every moment? Did she know he wished there was some magical way to take away the emotional pain he saw in her face and heard in her voice?

Maybe this was their moment. Maybe it was a chance for them to make a new start. “Listen, Mom—”

“Where the hell is Regina with that Bloody Mary?” his mother snapped. “I need a better intercom system. The one you chose never seems to work.”

“I’ll have someone check it out.”

“See that you do.”

And just like that, the moment for reaching out to her was past.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Bellamy.” The housekeeper hurried in, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a young woman at the door.”

“She’s not at the door.” The young—very young—woman barged into the sitting room. She looked like a character from a comic book, in shorts with torn-off leg holes, dark stockings laddered with runs, lace-up army boots, a striped shirt that resembled a cast-off from the janitor’s closet. Her hair was a crazy shade of purple. She wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses that gave her an owlish look. “I need a phone, quick,” she stated.

“Ms. McCallum?” She didn’t jibe with the crumpled résumé.

“Yeah, so listen, I need you to call 911. Like, now.”

“What the hell?”

“It’s a fucking emergency, okay? There’s been a wreck. My mom needs help.”

* * *

Faith kept her crumpled-up jacket pressed against the spurting artery. She glanced across the ditch at the van, parked half on and half off the road. “Hurry, Cara,” she said through gritted teeth. “Hurry.” Faith didn’t know how much longer she could last like this.

“How you doing, honey?” she called to Ruby. She couldn’t see the little girl, but had ordered her to stay in the van, several yards away. There was so much blood. Oceans of it. Not to mention an apparent impalement in the lower thigh. Even Faith, with her medical training, was freaking out.

“I’m scared, Mom. What if nobody comes?”

“Cara went to get help,” Faith said, injecting into her voice a confidence she didn’t actually feel.

“She’s a fast runner, right?”

“A really fast runner. Remember her winning time at that track meet last fall?”

“Yep. She set a school record in the four hundred.”

Ruby would know. Despite her complaints, she idolized her sister. Faith wished Cara could have driven for help, but Cara couldn’t drive. The van had a stick shift and was a clunker even for an experienced driver.

The mobile phone—the only one they had—didn’t work. The battery was dead or they had run out of minutes on their pay-as-you-go plan; it was always something with that piece of garbage. Fortunately, the Bellamy place, where they’d been headed for Faith’s job interview, was just around a bend in the road.

Only moments ago, they’d been full of hope, spying the house in the distance. There was a long, winding private road leading to a stone-and-timber mansion, which crowned a green knoll overlooking the lake. By cutting across a broad, empty meadow from the road, Cara had probably managed to get there in a matter of minutes.

Now Faith wondered if such a fancy-looking place was surrounded by security fencing or protected by slavering guard dogs. Cara was resourceful, though. And, unlike her sister, fearless. It would take more than a slavering guard dog to intimidate Cara.

The wadded-up jacket Faith was holding on the wound had nearly soaked through. Damn. “Ruby, honey, I need a favor. Can you find a towel or something in the van? Something I can use as a really big bandage.”

“I don’t see anything, Mom.”

“Keep looking.”

“I’m scared.”

“Look anyway.” Faith gritted her teeth. How had she ended up in a mess like this? She had used her own jacket to staunch the blood. So much for her best outfit for the job interview. But oh, well.

An involuntary spasm caused the victim’s back to arch and contort.

“Easy,” Faith said to the stranger, even though he appeared to be unconscious. “You don’t want to move. Trust me, you don’t.” She eyed the piece of metal in his thigh with concern. If it cut the femoral artery, he could die in minutes.

The victim was lucky she’d come across him, probably seconds after the crash. The lakeshore road was deserted, and his motorcycle had ended up deep in a ditch. If she and the girls hadn’t happened by, he would have bled out by now.

It had been Cara, jiggling her leg and watching out the window, who had spotted a flurry of dust and exhaust in the ditch. Her yell—Mom, pull over, I mean it, Mom, pull over right now—had been delivered with an urgent imperative Faith hadn’t questioned. She and Cara had their differences, but the girl wasn’t one to cry wolf.

Ruby appeared at the edge of the ditch. “I brought you my bathrobe.” A gasp escaped her. “Mommy—”

“It looks like a mess, but we need to help this man,” Faith said. She could see Ruby starting to sway. “Don’t pass out on me, kiddo. I can only handle one crisis at a time. Just toss me the robe and go back to the van and wait for me, okay?”

Ruby didn’t hesitate. She threw the wadded-up robe to Faith and rushed to the van. Faith pressed the freshly laundered fabric on top of the soaked jacket. The hot, coppery scent of his blood filled her senses.

Where the hell were the EMTs?

As crucial moments ticked by, Faith did her best to assess the injuries of the unknown victim. She’d checked his airway immediately—all clear, though he was unconscious—and then wrapped her jacket around the big bleed from the arm, the bright rose-red of arterial blood pulsing out in spurts. In addition to the metal protruding from his thigh, he almost certainly had a compound fracture of the lower leg. A bloody bone, like a branch of stained and broken driftwood, was poking through the torn denim of his jeans.

There were probably other issues, as well, but she couldn’t let up on the bleeding in order to examine him in detail. She yearned to stabilize the piece of metal, but that was too risky. He was male, in his forties or fifties, perhaps, judging by the face framed by the now-battered helmet. He seemed to be about six feet tall, two hundred pounds. It was probably best he was unconscious, because that fracture was one of the most painful-looking things she’d ever seen.

Her mind, trained by instinct, flashed again to Ruby, who had obediently returned to the van. What time was it? When your kid was diabetic, you always needed to know what time it was. When did she last eat? When did she have her insulin? Were her levels okay?

“Ruby, I want you to speak up if your alarm even thinks of going off.”

“I will,” said the little girl.

The blood-smeared face of Faith’s discount-store watch showed nine-twenty. It was past time for the job interview.

Ah, well, the position had sounded too good to be true, anyway. The invitation that had popped up in her inbox late last night had been an interview with a Mrs. Alice Bellamy, who lived in a fully staffed estate on the western shore of Willow Lake. Finding a client who could accommodate Faith and her two girls was a long shot, but Faith had run out of options.

After what seemed like an eternity, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. No sirens, but at this point she would take whatever help she could get.

She glanced up and saw a shiny dark blue car that was eerily silent in its approach. One of those new electric things that made no noise. The door opened and a guy in a crisply pressed three-piece suit with a white shirt and tie jumped out and rushed toward her.

“Do you have a phone?” Faith yelled. “Call 911.”

“Already done,” he said. “They’re on the way.”

She could tell the moment he spotted the victim, because his gasp was audible. He looked a bit as Ruby had, regarding the sea of blood.

“Hey, get a grip,” she said. As she spoke, the victim made an involuntary spasm. She really needed to check his pulse. “I could use some help here.”

“Okay. What do you need me to do?” She could feel his gaze moving over the blood that covered her.

“He’s bleeding from the brachial artery. That’s why there’s so much blood. We have to keep applying pressure. This robe I used is soaked through already,” she said.

“Then should I... Okay.” She could see his shadow on the road as he removed his jacket and bent down beside her. “Now what?”

“I need you to keep compression right here.” She could barely see her own hands.

“I’m ready,” he said.

She caught a glimpse of the label on his jacket—Bond Street Tailors, London. It sounded very posh. It was about to be ruined, though.

“What do I do? Should we wait for help?”

“We hope he doesn’t bleed out or stroke out before they get here.”

This guy clearly needed very specific guidance. “Listen carefully. This is important. Don’t move the compress that’s already there, because that’ll only make it worse. Put the jacket directly over the bleed and press down hard. It’s an arterial pressure point. Don’t worry about hurting the guy. He’s unconscious. The only thing that’s going to keep him from bleeding out is the pressure you apply.”

“Jesus. I can’t—”

“Just do it. Now. I need to check his pulse. I think he’s seizing, and that’s bad.”

Before the guy could protest again, she grabbed the jacket from him, clapping it over the wound.

“Press down hard,” she said.

He turned an even whiter shade of pale, and his eyes rolled upward.

“Don’t you pass out on me,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”

She carefully removed the helmet. The victim was gray-faced, his features slack now, his pupils dilated. She checked his airway again. Still clear, but there was almost no pulse. The whole time, she was inwardly urging the EMTs to hurry up and get here.

The useless guy swayed, then struggled to rally. Okay, he wasn’t totally useless. Just...out of his element. And definitely overdressed. Still, she was grateful he’d happened by.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I can’t answer that. His breathing’s not right. He’s got multiple injuries and almost no pulse. Do yourself a favor and don’t look at his left leg.”

And then of course he looked. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Keep pressing and don’t let up. And don’t disturb his upper thigh.”

This was bad. Faith knew she was way out of her depth. She had plenty of training in trauma situations, but hadn’t put those skills into practice since Dennis. Pulling her mind away from her late husband, she stayed focused on the victim. “I’m losing his pulse,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I need to begin chest compressions.”

“Losing...what? Ah, Christ...”

“You sure the EMTs are on their way?” she asked the guy.

“Positive.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

“Did they give you an ETA?”

“The dispatcher said they’re ten minutes out. That was almost ten minutes ago, so—”

“Okay, I need to concentrate here.” Faith knew it was better to perform a few unnecessary chest compressions for someone with a beating heart, rather than withhold compressions from someone in cardiac arrest. Holding her hands one over the other, she leaned over his bare chest and got started. Everything else fell away as she pushed hard and fast, counting out thirty compressions at a hundred beats per minute. She visualized the heart, such a fragile organ beneath her hands, being forced to pump again and again, oxygenating the victim’s blood.

“Ma’am, are you sure—”

The rest of his words were drowned out by the welcome yip of a siren.

“They’re here,” the guy said.

“Don’t let up,” she ordered him. She was covered with sweat and blood, keeping up the rhythm of the chest compressions.

“Not letting up,” he said.

The EMTs swarmed from the truck. “I’m Joseph Kowalski,” one of them said, putting on protective gear. “Did you see what— Christ.”

“A male in his forties,” Faith rapped out, knowing they needed information fast. “I came upon him about fifteen minutes ago. He’s bleeding from the right brachial artery. Compound fracture of the left leg and there’s an impalement in his upper right leg. Possible trauma to the head, pupils dilated. I started chest compressions as soon as this guy showed up.”

The team of EMTs got down to work, draped, shielded and protected—a reminder that Faith and the other guy were not. The medical team took over the CPR and bleeding control with swift efficiency. One of the guys radioed in the incident, repeating essentially the information Faith had relayed.

“Who was the first responder?”

“That would be me,” she said, trembling from the rush of adrenaline. “I just happened by. I’ve got training. LPN,” she explained.

The well-dressed guy swayed a little on his feet, regarding his bloodstained clothes. “Deep breath,” she told him. “You’ll be all right.”

“Ma’am, are you familiar with BBF exposure protocol?” One of the guys handed Faith a wad of antiseptic wipes. He offered the same to the guy in the suit.

“BBF exposure?” asked the guy in the suit.

“Blood and body fluids,” she translated. “We’re going to have to get a post-exposure evaluation.”

He swallowed visibly and swayed a little on his feet. “For...?”

“Blood-borne pathogens.”

His face turned an even paler shade of gray. “Oh. Damn.”

“We’ll go in as soon as we can,” she said as the EMTs finished their work. She used the antiseptic wipes to scrub her hands, getting the worst of the blood off.

The local police showed up after that, two squad cars forming a parentheses around the wreck. Faith moved toward the van, eager to check on Ruby.

“Good work,” an EMT said to her as the team secured the backboard. “The guy’ll live to ride another day. He probably would have bled out if you hadn’t stopped.”

Cara showed up, out of breath from running. Her gaze flicked from her mother to the stranger in the suit, eyes widening at the sight of all the blood. “Oh, man.”

“Ma’am,” said a police officer, eyeing the blood. “I’ll need to get a statement from you.”

“I don’t have time at the moment,” she said, speaking over the wail of the departing ambulance siren. “My name is Faith McCallum.” She dictated her phone number.

He wrote it down. “But, ma’am—”

“Sorry. I need to check on my younger daughter, I have to get to the ER for BBF exposure and I’m already late for an appointment,” she said. Maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Bellamy would understand. “I’ve got a job interview.”

“Actually,” said the guy in the suit, “you don’t.”

She paused, checking the area for her belongings. “I beg your pardon.”

At the same time, Cara glared at the man. “What the hell?”

“The job interview.” He still looked shell-shocked as he turned to Faith. “It’s not going to be necessary.”

“And why would that be?” she asked in annoyance.

He loosened his collar, further smearing himself with the motorcyclist’s blood. “Because you’re already hired.”

6

It turned out the useless guy was actually Mr. Mason Bellamy, the son of her potential client and the person in charge of hiring Alice’s caregiver. And clearly he’d seen something he liked in Faith at the scene of the bloodbath.

The van backfired three times as she followed his sleek, silent car down a long, winding drive toward the house, where he said they could get cleaned up before the ER. Slender poplar trees lined the winding lane, the spring-green leaves filtering the late-morning sunlight and dappling the beautiful landscape.

As they rounded a curve in the private drive, the historic mansion came into full view in all its glory. The house was a breathtaking vintage Adirondack lodge of timber and stone, with a wraparound porch, a turret on one end, mullioned windows and walkways draped in blooming vine pergolas. Surrounding the main house was a broad lawn featuring a grass tennis court and swimming pool, a gazebo on a knoll and a boathouse with a long dock jutting out into Willow Lake.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Faith murmured, studying the place over the shiny roof of Mr. Bellamy’s car. One of the EMTs had given her sterile draping for the car seat and a microfiber cloth for her hands, so she didn’t slime the steering wheel with the stranger’s blood. She was going to need buckets of soap and water to get cleaned up. Mason Bellamy had promised there were ample facilities at the house.

“I knew you’d say that.” Cara propped her feet on the dashboard. “You always say that.”

“It’s from The Wizard of Oz,” Ruby informed her.

“Duh.”

“I say that whenever we enter a new world that’s nothing like the place we came from,” Faith explained to her younger daughter.

“I know, Mom,” Ruby said.

“The driveway’s a quarter mile long,” Cara said. “I ran the whole way.”

“How do you know it’s a quarter mile?” asked Ruby.

“Old lady Bellamy said.”

“You met her?” Faith glanced over at Cara. “What’s she like?”

“Cranky.”

“Cara—”

“You asked. So are you going to take the job?”

“We’ll see.”

“You always say that, too,” Ruby pointed out.

“Because we will see. I need to meet with Mrs. Bellamy—who, by the way, should never be called old lady Bellamy—and see if we’re a good match.”

“That guy already said you’re hired,” Cara pointed out. “I heard him.”

“The client is his mother, so she gets final say,” Faith explained. “Frankly, I’d pay them just for the chance to scrub this blood off me.”

“It’s really gross,” said Ruby. “But this place is like a castle,” she added softly, leaning forward in her seat. “If you take the job, do we get to live here?”

“That’s what the job description said—that it’s a live-in position.” When she had replied to the posting, Faith had been open about her situation. She had explained that she had two girls, and that the younger one had special needs. The reply, which had come from a woman named Brenda—“Assistant to Mr. Bellamy”—had stated that they would still like her to interview for the position. To Faith, that meant the Bellamys were either very open-minded or very desperate.

“I want to live here,” Ruby said, scanning the arched entrance at the end of the driveway.

“If we did, then we wouldn’t have to change schools,” Cara pointed out.

Faith caught the note of yearning in her elder daughter’s voice. She was just finishing her junior year at Avalon High School and longed to graduate with her friends. Since Dennis had died, they had moved at least six or seven times; Faith had lost count. It was rough on the girls, always being the new kid and having to start over at a new school every time their mom changed jobs.

Cara coped with the situation by adopting an edgy, rebellious attitude. She had a mouth on her that sometimes reminded Faith of Dennis—sarcastic, but never truly mean. Cara was a lot like her late father in other ways, too. She was scrappy and smart, cautious about whom she let in. Dennis’s doctors said he had outlived his prognosis by several years simply because he was such a tough guy, and Faith could see this trait in her elder daughter.

Ruby, by contrast, went the opposite direction, retreating into her books and toys, hiding behind a bashful facade. Even as a toddler, she’d been far more cautious and fearful than Cara ever was.

It would be nice to offer the girls a sense of security. From the looks of this place, security was assured. The compound looked as if it had sat here forever at the water’s edge. Large enough to billet a small army, it seemed like a lot of real estate for one woman.

That was Faith’s first clue to the high-maintenance quality of Alice Bellamy.

She parked in front of a multibay garage with an upper story that ran the entire length of the building. Mr. Bellamy’s car glided silently into one of the bays, and the door automatically rolled shut. A few seconds later, he joined them.

“Welcome to Casa Bellamy,” he said as they got out of the van. He’d removed his tie and opened his shirt, and the cuffs were rolled back, but he still looked decidedly uncomfortable in his blood-spattered clothes.

“This is Ruby,” said Faith, gesturing at the little girl.

“Hiya,” he said affably. “I’m Mason. I’d shake your hand, but I’m a mess.”

“That’s okay.” She pressed herself against Faith’s side. “Mom, you’re a mess, too.”

“And you’ve already met my other daughter, Cara.”

“I did. Between you and your mom, you saved that guy’s life.”

Cara merely stood back with her arms folded across her middle. She’d never been the type to be easily won.

“Tell you what,” said Mason. “We’ve got some major cleaning up to do.” He eyed her skirt and top, which were covered in blood, sweat, dirt and grass stains. It was her one decent job interview ensemble. She’d forgotten the ruined jacket at the scene of the accident.

“I have a change of clothes in the van,” she said.

“Okay, the girls can go inside for a snack or something while you and I use the showers in the pool house.”

There was a pool house. With showers. Definitely not Kansas anymore.

“You remember the way in?” he asked Cara.

She nodded.

“Tell Regina we’re back, everything’s going to be okay with the guy and that your mom and I will be in after we get cleaned up.”

“Sure. Okay. Come on, Ruby.”

Ruby towed her Gruffalo along. She clung to the threadbare plush toy in times of stress.

Faith grabbed a bag with a clean dress in it.

Mason briefly checked out the van. “This a paratransit vehicle?”

She nodded. “It’s pretty old, but the lift still works.” Noting his inquisitive expression, she said, “It hasn’t been used for paratransport in quite a while.”

“Is it for clients?” he asked.

“My late husband was in a wheelchair.”

“Oh. I’m... I see.”

She could sense him processing the information. People didn’t expect a woman in her midthirties to be a widow, so that always came as a surprise.

“He passed away six years ago,” she said.

“I’m sorry.” Awkward silence. No one ever knew what to say to that.

Faith gave a brisk nod. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

The pool house had separate showers, the space divided by weathered cedar boards in a louver pattern.

Faith scrubbed her hands and arms with a cake of soap that smelled of lemon and herbs.

“I have to admit, that’s a first for me,” Mason called from the adjacent shower stall.

Even though they couldn’t see each other, Faith felt awkward and exposed while she showered within earshot of a man she’d just met. “I wish I could say the same.” She watched a thin stream of watered-down blood drain into the river-stone bed of the shower. “In my line of work, things sometimes get messy.”

“How long have you been a nurse?”

“All my life, pretty much. I was raised by a single mom. She was sick—congestive heart failure—and I was her caregiver until she passed away when I was about Cara’s age.”

“Damn. That’s rough. I’m sorry to hear it, Faith.”

“I went to school but couldn’t afford to get my RN degree. I trained in a work-study program and I’ve worked in the field ever since.”

She dried off with a big bath towel, which was as thick and luxurious as a robe at a Turkish spa—not that she’d ever been to a Turkish spa. But she’d imagined one, many times.

Then she put on a clean dress, hoping it wasn’t too wrinkled from packing. It was a blue cotton wrap dress, not her first choice for meeting a potential client, but it would do in a pinch.

“All set,” she said, finger combing her wet hair as she stepped out of the cabana. “I just need to— Oh.”

Words failed her as Mason Bellamy came out of the shower stall wearing nothing but a towel and a smile. Time seemed to stop as she had a swift, heated reaction to the sight of his body, a reminder of just how much time had passed since she’d had a boyfriend—or even a date. He was built like a men’s underwear model, perfectly proportioned, with sculpted arms and legs, shoulders and abs not found in nature. His towel-dried hair lay in damp waves, framing his face. His lips curved upward at the corners even when he wasn’t smiling, and she detected both kindness and wariness in his eyes. A small, upside-down crescent scar at the top of his cheekbone kept him from being too handsome. She gave herself a stern, silent reminder that a guy who looked like this undoubtedly spent too much time at the gym. He was probably obsessed with himself.

Or maybe he might just be the kind of guy who took care of himself, said another little voice in her head. In her profession, she saw too little of that. Might as well enjoy a little eye candy.

“Guess I need to find some clean clothes, too,” he said. “Getting drenched in a stranger’s blood wasn’t on the agenda today.”

“I need to check you out.”

He raised one eyebrow, looking intrigued. “Yeah?”

She flushed, wondering if he’d read her mind. “What I mean is, I should check your hands, see if you have any open wounds. When we follow up at the hospital, they’ll need to check again.”

Mason blanched and stuck out both hands toward her. Immediately, the towel hit the ground. “Whoops,” he said, bending to pick it up. He tucked the towel in more securely around his waist. “Didn’t mean to flash you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She felt a bit light-headed, because of course she’d peeked. His body was amazing.

“I’m not worried. Just don’t want to seem rude.” He held out his hands again. “So you mentioned blood-borne pathogens. Like HIV?”

“It’s extremely rare, but yes. Also, HBV, hepatitis, malaria—all very unlikely, though it’s best to rule them out.”

“How will we find out if the guy is okay? Will the hospital tell us?”

“There are privacy issues. The victim doesn’t have to share the results of his panel if he doesn’t want to. Most people are pretty reasonable about it.” She bit her lip, deciding not to postulate what might happen if the guy never regained consciousness, or died. “The hospital will help us figure out if there’s a serious risk. You can also be tested every few months just to make sure you’re in the clear.”

“Lovely.”

“Hazard of the trade.”

“Not my trade,” he murmured.

She took hold of one hand at a time, inspecting every detail—nail beds, cuticles, palms, wrists. She could tell a lot about a person just by checking out his hands. Thick calluses meant manual labor, or hours at the gym, handling body-sculpting equipment. He didn’t have any calluses to speak of.

Ill-kept nails meant poor grooming. Bitten nails were a sign of issues.

His hands were well-shaped and well-groomed, no surprise. His skin was warm and damp, and he smelled heavenly. She turned his hands over in hers again. As a nurse, she did a lot of touching, but usually with more clinical detachment than she currently felt. Maybe it would seem more professional if he didn’t happen to be standing there in a towel. Smelling heavenly.

He wore no wedding ring, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that he wasn’t taken. She ran her fingers over a recently healed cut at the base of his thumb.

“Cut it on a beer stein,” he said.

Was he a wild party animal, smashing beer steins while drinking with his buddies? If that were the case, it would be easier to crush this funny feeling inside her. She pushed his hand aside and stepped back. “A beer stein. Like a pottery mug?”

He nodded. “This is probably going to sound weird to you, but my dad’s ashes were in the stein. My brother and sister and I were scattering them according to his wishes.”

“Where, out on the lake?”

“No. The three of us were on a mountain in New Zealand. It’s kind of a long story.”

“New Zealand. Wow, that’s a long way to go for...” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry about your dad.” Then she turned his hands over in hers and was surprised to discover he was trembling. Delayed reaction to the emergency? She looked up and studied his eyes, her gaze flicking to the faint crescent scar. “Hey, are you feeling all right?” she asked.

He flexed his hands, giving hers a brief squeeze. “Yes, sure.”

The hesitation in his voice snagged her attention. “You don’t sound so sure.”

“I’m not good with stuff like this. Traumatic injuries and blood. I’m fine now.” He looked down at their joined hands, then gently let go. “Thanks for asking.”

There was a spot of blood on the side of his neck. “Hold still, you missed something,” she said, dabbing at it with the corner of a towel. She stood close enough to feel his body warmth, to catch the soap-and-water smell of them both, mingling together. In her work, she got close to people; in her personal life, not so much. It occurred to her that this was the most intimate she’d been with a man in...forever, it seemed. She needed to get out more. Maybe after she was no longer homeless and broke, she would give it some thought.

“You’re most likely okay,” she told him, finishing up the exam quickly. “Are you free to go to the hospital tomorrow?”

“Sure. Guess I won’t worry until there’s something to worry about,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll send someone to help you move your things into the house.” He spoke like a man used to taking charge.

“That’s getting ahead of things,” she said. She hadn’t even set foot in the house or met the client.

“You mentioned in your email that you’d be able to start right away.”

“That’s assuming your mother and I agree that this is a good match. I need to learn more about the job. It might not be the right thing for me.”

As if she had a choice.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”

She couldn’t decide whether his can-do attitude was annoying or attractive. “First things first. Your mother and I need to meet and have a nice long chat.”

“She’ll agree. She’d be crazy not to.”

“Why do you say that?”

He held open the door and stood aside to let her pass. “Because you’re awesome. See you inside.”

7

Cara tried her best to act totally chill about sitting in the fanciest living room she’d ever seen. She leaned her elbow on the arm of the cushy leather sofa, crossed her legs at the ankles and stared out the French doors at an amazing view of Willow Lake. Every few seconds she surreptitiously checked out some detail of the room—a tall grandfather clock that softly ticked into the silence, a rustic chandelier perfectly centered over the middle of the room, an oil painting that looked exactly like a Renoir. It probably was a Renoir.

On the opposite end of the sofa, Ruby sat twirling her feet in small circles, her brown eyes like saucers and her fingers twisting into the fur of her Gruffalo. New situations always intimidated the hell out of Ruby.

The woman named Regina was acting all flustered as they waited for Cara’s mom and the Bellamy guy to get cleaned up and join them. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Regina jumped up, smoothing her hands down the front of her expensive-looking beige slacks, and said, “I’m going to get some refreshments from the kitchen. Alice, what sounds good to you?”

“A sloe gin fizz, but it’s too early in the day for that.” Old Mrs. Bellamy didn’t crack a smile.

“How about you, Cara? Lemonade? Iced tea?”

“I’m fine,” said Cara. “Thanks.”

“Ruby?” Regina’s voice went up an octave, the way some people’s did when they talked to little kids. Everybody assumed Ruby was younger than she looked, because she was so puny. “I bet I can talk Wayan—he’s the chef—into bringing you a plate of his special frosted sugar cookies.”

“No, thank you.” Ruby’s eyes widened in terror. She was so damned bashful all the time.

“Well, then.” Regina grinned with phony brightness. “I’ll go ask for a tray of lemonade and snacks. In case you change your mind.” She practically ran out of the room, as uncomfortable as Cara felt inside.

Cara wasn’t sure who Regina was or how she fit into the Bellamy household. She seemed way too stylish to be a housekeeper or whatever. She looked totally polished, with shiny, straight hair, expertly applied makeup and nails, and an outfit a TV news anchor might wear. She was attractive, but Cara couldn’t be sure if that was due to the hair and makeup, or if she really was attractive.

Cara’s mom was pretty, but it was a tired kind of pretty that just happened naturally, because she was slender and had light brown hair, kind eyes and a nice smile. Cara sometimes wished her mom would find time to get a makeover or whatever, but of course there was never time. Or money.

Throughout high school, Cara had given herself several makeovers. One of the few—very few—perks of having to move all the time was that she got to reinvent herself, and no one thought it was odd. Yet despite all her experiments with different looks, nothing seemed to work. She had tried going boho, with layers of organic cotton and weird footwear, but that kind of made her look like a homeless person. Which technically she had been off and on ever since Dad had died. Last year she tried to go preppy with stuff from thrift shops, but it had made her look like a total poseur. Knee socks had gone away for a reason. Her current look was her version of steampunk. It wasn’t working, either, but at the moment she couldn’t decide what to pursue next. Besides, she didn’t have the dough.

She sneaked a glance at Mrs. Bellamy, but the old lady caught her.

“So this accident,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “You simply happened to come upon it.”

“Yep.” Cara nodded. “Just like that.”

“And it was at the end of the driveway.”

“Across the road from the driveway. Motorcycle versus ditch.”

“It was Cara who saw him first,” Ruby ventured in a tiny voice.

“I spotted him out the window,” said Cara. “A puff of smoke and the sun glinting off a piece of metal. He must have just crashed.”

“I see.”

At least Mrs. Bellamy didn’t say something patronizing like it was a good thing Cara had come running for help and all that crap. It was kind of a no-brainer. It would’ve been simpler if Mom had let her drive the van, but Cara didn’t know how to drive. Mom had shown her the basics, but the stick shift was way too challenging. It was embarrassing. All the kids in her school drove or were currently in driver’s ed. Cara just went to study hall during that block and wished with all her heart she could join the class. Most days the only other kid in study hall was Milo Waxman, an oddball who thought the whole world should ride bicycles or dogsleds or something that didn’t pollute the environment. Cara secretly found him interesting, but it would be social suicide to hang out with him.

She yearned to be normal, whatever normal was. Driving a car and living in one place for more than a few months at a time. But she didn’t like asking her mom for anything, because she knew damn well that Mom would give her and Ruby everything if she could afford it. And she couldn’t afford it.

Cara remembered the day she finally understood that they were poor. And not just ordinary, having-to-clip-coupons poor, but poor like we-don’t-have-a-place-to-live poor. Not long after Dad had died, the three of them had spent several nights “camping” in the van. Mom had acted as if it was a fun adventure, even when the mornings were so cold that the van’s windows were etched with frost. Cara had pretended to be asleep when a park ranger had come along, telling Mom it was time to check and see if the county housing agency had found a place for them yet.

“You’re seventeen, according to the letter your mother sent last night,” said Mrs. Bellamy, interrupting her thoughts.

It wasn’t a question, so Cara simply nodded, happy enough to quit thinking about the past.

“And you’re eight,” the old lady said to Ruby.

The woman wasn’t really old, Cara observed. She just looked that way because she was a sourpuss, and she wore her blond hair in a granny bun.

“Yes,” Ruby replied in a soft, shaky voice.

“What grade are you in?”

“Second grade. My teacher’s name is Ms. Iversen.”

“Your mother said you have special needs. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ruby trembled as if the old lady were breathing fire. “I...I...”

Mrs. Bellamy blew into a tube on her wheelchair and the thing moved closer to Ruby. “Speak up. I can’t hear you. What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Ruby looked as if she were about to pee her pants.

Just then Regina came back with a fancy tray loaded with frosted cookies and icy glasses of lemonade. “I brought extra, in case you changed your mind,” she chirped. “Once you taste Wayan’s treats, you won’t be able to resist.”

“Well?” demanded Mrs. Bellamy, glaring at Ruby. “I was asking about your needs. Your special needs.”

Ruby’s mouth moved, forming the words, I’m diabetic, but no sound came out. Cara always hated when Ruby acted ashamed, as if the disease were somehow her own failing.

“She’s diabetic,” Cara snapped. “And no, thank you,” she added as Regina set down the tray. “We both totally appreciate the offer, but she can’t have any of Wayan’s damn cookies.”

Ruby’s hands came up to her cheeks, and her eyes got even rounder. At the same time, Mason Bellamy and Mom walked into the room.

“Well,” said Mom, surveying the situation, “I see everyone is getting along just fine.”

Cara shut her stupid mouth, but she didn’t see any reason to apologize to the dragon lady or to Regina. Her outburst might have cost Mom the job, in which case she owed her mother an apology, not anyone else.

Mom walked right over to Mrs. Bellamy and sat down in the wingback chair beside her. “I’m Faith McCallum,” she said. “I’m glad to meet you.”

“Likewise, I suppose,” said old lady Bellamy. Cara could tell already that she had a way of sizing people up with her eyes.

“This is Regina Jeffries,” said the guy named Mason. He had changed out of his bloody clothes and now wore clean jeans and a white shirt, open at the collar, the cuffs turned back. He was super good-looking for a guy in his thirties. Now Cara understood how Regina fit into the picture—she was his girlfriend. It was obvious by the way she stared at him.

Mom stood up briefly and shook hands with Regina. There was an obvious contrast between the two of them. Regina had every hair in place, while Mom looked...well, just kind of ordinary in a dress with pockets and flat shoes, her damp brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. No makeup. Ever.

“That was more drama than we expected this morning,” said Mason. “How about we start over?”

“Lemonade?” asked Regina. “Cookie?”

“I’m fine,” said Mom. She shifted her focus to Mrs. Bellamy. “I’d love to hear about you—what you need, what you want. Your expectations.”

Mrs. Bellamy narrowed her eyes. “You are to be in charge of assisting me, including the supervision of the two other home health aides who cover the evening and early-morning shifts.”

Mom nodded. “All right.”

“The compensation package includes parking, room and board for one person. I hadn’t anticipated two extra children.”

“I did bring it up in my reply,” Mom said. “Obviously, it’s nonnegotiable.”

Cara’s mother had this thing she did. She usually seemed all meek and mild because she was quiet and small. But when something came up involving the family or people she cared about, there was a subtle shift, and Mom became a rock. She was doing it now, regarding Mrs. Bellamy with a perfectly pleasant expression on her face, but anyone in the room could see that the balance of power had shifted.

Which was funny, Cara reflected, seeing how Mom didn’t have any bargaining power, none at all. She was out of options. Then again, she had nothing to lose, because they had already lost everything. If old lady Bellamy said no deal, Mom would be scrambling for a place in line at the county housing office.

This was not a new situation for the McCallum family. This was the norm, thought Cara, slumping back on the sofa and tucking her chin into her chest.

“You’re slumping.” Suddenly Mrs. Bellamy was talking to Cara. “Sit up straight.”

Cara shot her a look.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m your elder.”

“You sure are,” Cara murmured, then sat up as instructed, all innocence. “Just agreeing with you.”

Then Mrs. Bellamy turned to Ruby. “You’re a beautiful child, but too scrawny. You need to eat something. Now that I realize you can’t have sugar, I’m going to have to consult with the kitchen staff. We’ll make sure there are plenty of sugar-free options for you.”

Holy crap, thought Cara. The woman was schizoid, barking like a mad dog one moment and then catering to everybody the next.

“What’s that disreputable-looking thing you’re dragging around with you?” the woman asked Ruby.

“My Gruffalo.”

“What is a Gruffalo?”

“It’s from a book called The Gruffalo,” Ruby patiently explained. “When I was younger, it was my favorite. My mom made me my very own. She sewed it herself out of a sock and some yarn and buttons. He’s one of a kind. Did you ever make stuff for your kids when they were little?”

“I made trips to FAO Schwarz, but that’s about it.”

“What’s FAO Schwarz?”

“It’s a very large toy store in New York City. You should visit there sometime.”

“Will you take me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not capable of taking you anywhere.” She swiveled the chair to face Mom. “Where’s their father? He’s not going to come barging in uninvited, is he?”

Mom regarded her steadily. “I can guarantee he will not.”

“Are they noisy?” asked Mrs. Bellamy.

“They’re kids. They make noise.”

“I imagine they’re messy, as well.”

Ruby walked over to their mother and looked Mrs. Bellamy in the eye. She was still acting scared, but intensely determined as she faced the old woman. “Last year at the end of first grade, I got the Neat as a Pin award.”

The old lady returned the steady gaze. “What about this year?”

“I’m working on it. But Shelley Romano is in my class, and she’s giving me a run for my money.”

Mrs. Bellamy glared at the kid with dragon eyes. Yet buried beneath the fierce glare was something Cara recognized—a glimmer of humor.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting your own room.”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

“And your own bathroom?”

Ruby relented. “We could share.”

“Why don’t you finish telling us about your expectations,” Mom suggested gently.

“I expect each day to be no different from the last. My schedule is quite simple.” She rattled everything off in a brusque, bitter tone. “I wake up at nine each morning and have coffee. Then I’m bathed and dressed for a late breakfast. Lunch is at one o’clock and dinner at seven-thirty. I’m in bed by ten. Any questions?” She seemed to be daring them.

No one spoke. Then, to Cara’s surprise, Ruby raised a tentative hand.

“Yes?” demanded Mrs. Bellamy. “What is it?”

“You asked if there were any questions,” Ruby said. “I have a question.”

“You have a question. And what might that be?”

“I was wondering... What do you do?”

Aw, jeez, thought Cara, watching the old lady’s face.

“I beg your pardon,” the old lady fired back. “What do you mean, what do I do?”

“I mean like, do you go to a job, or have meetings, or run errands? Stuff like that.”

It was a good thing Ruby was tiny and supercute, because it made people more tolerant of her.

But maybe not Mrs. Bellamy. She had the look of a fire-breathing dragon again. “Child, can’t you see I’m confined to this chair?”

“Yes, ma’am. I can see that.”

“Then you must understand that I can’t do anything. I can sit, and on a good day, I might have the tiniest bit of function in my arms. But I don’t actually have any good days, because I can’t do anything.”

“Oh.” Ruby simply stared at her, unperturbed. After the initial scare, the kid was showing some backbone.

“I’m open to suggestions, if you happen to have any.”

“You could sing,” Ruby said without missing a beat. “Or if you don’t like singing—”

“How did you guess?”

“You could listen to music. Or audiobooks—I used to listen to them before I learned to read. You could also tell jokes and talk on the phone if you put it on speakerphone. You could tell me all your favorite flowers, and I would plant them in the garden so you can have a bouquet whenever you want one.” She shrugged matter-of-factly. “I can think up more stuff and make you a list if you want.”

The silence in the room felt like a storm about to descend. Mom looked mortified. If Cara’s rudeness had put the job in jeopardy, Ruby had finished it off. Poor Mom.

Then Mrs. Bellamy blew into her tube, and the chair glided toward an arched doorway leading to a long hallway.

No one moved. Mrs. Bellamy stopped, and the chair swung back. “Well?” she asked, eyeballing Ruby. “Are you coming?”

Ruby blanched. “Coming where?”

“To see where you’ll be living.”

* * *

The job posting had simply stated that the offer included “ample living quarters.” Cara thought she knew what was meant by ample, but this was definitely more than ample.

Mrs. Bellamy led the procession down the hallway and through the house. Each room they passed was pretty and sparkling with the light reflecting off Willow Lake. The rooms had old-fashioned names like the conservatory, the library, the card room, the solarium. The place at the end of the hallway was known as the quarters.

The quarters turned out to be bigger than most apartments they had lived in. It was a sunlit suite of two bedrooms, separated by a fancy bathroom with black-and-white tile, a deep claw-foot tub and a separate shower surrounded by clear glass. There was an antique-looking desk and, best of all, a deck on the outside, with a view of the lake. Everything was as elegant as a set on Masterpiece Theatre.

Ruby acted as if she had entered the Magic Kingdom, not that anyone in the McCallum family could afford to go to Disneyland.

“This reminds me of Mary Lennox’s house,” Ruby exclaimed. She turned to Mrs. Bellamy. “Mary Lennox is the girl in—”

“The Secret Garden,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “I’m a cripple, not an ignoramus.”

Cara wondered if it was politically incorrect to say cripple when you were the one in the wheelchair.

“Do you like books?” Ruby asked her. “I love books, and I can already read chapter books all by myself. I still like reading aloud, though.”

“So do I. We will have to begin reading together,” said Mrs. B.

“It’s beautiful, Mom,” said Ruby. “Do we get to stay?”

Mrs. Bellamy swiveled to face Mom. For the first time, the old lady seemed to smile. It wasn’t an actual smile but almost. A lightness in her eyes, like the sun reflecting off the lake. And Cara realized old Mrs. Bellamy really wasn’t actually old, and she wasn’t a total sourpuss, after all.

“I was just about to ask you the same question.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.