Homecoming (11 page)

Paul

Note taped to Lilly Langtry Sutter Wright’s refrigerator.

Hi Lil,

Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve invited Federica over tonight. She’ll be getting some real food. Sorry Norman fell off the wagon. Tell him to just say no, then put his laptop under lock and key with a timer. Don’t worry about me, Lil, everything’s under control. I think. You’ll find some leftover hamburger for Cavendish on a red plastic plate I put in your fridge. See you tomorrow.

Jack

P.S. I don’t want you coming through the gate tonight asking to borrow some sugar, understood?

Federica woke up in the late afternoon. At first she was disoriented. The last thing she remembered was leaning up against Jack’s broad chest, listening to his low deep voice talking about… She frowned. Talking about something. Something to do with Carson’s Bluff.

She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She took a deep breath of Carson’s Bluff air. It was sweet and cool.

Cool. She and Ellen used to fight over whether cool could still be used as an adjective.

Ellen.

Federica closed her eyes.

Oh God, Ellen. Her best friend in the whole world. The one constant in her shifting life. The friend she’d had a date with.

Springsteen, yet.

How could she have forgotten Ellen? If anything could make Federica frightened that she was losing—no, had
lost
her grip, it was that. Forgetting a date with Ellen.

How could she?

Federica mulled over how to get in touch with Ellen without getting in touch with anyone. Contact with the outside world was still too much to contemplate.

Feeling logy, Federica stepped under the big showerhead and turned on the cold water full blast, and stood there for fifteen minutes, hoping for her old self back. Her old self was always invigorated by a cold shower. But there she was, twisting this way and that under the cold spray, with no ambition greater than to spend some time with Jack, puttering around his house, putting together a meal…kissing him…feeling his lips, his tongue against hers…

Federica turned the water spout off with a jerk of her wrist when she realized that it felt like steam on her overheated skin.

She had no business thinking about Jack’s kisses. No business wanting a repeat of last night. As soon as she was herself again, whenever that would be, she would, she would…

But the thoughts just wouldn’t form. Every time she tried to think about the future or her duty, she pulled a blank.

“Federica!” Jack’s voice sounded from below. She was so out of it, she hadn’t even heard the engine.

“Coming!” she shouted back contentedly, and went down.

Jack was standing in the foyer, face tilted up. Federica started down the beautiful old staircase, then suddenly stopped, hand on the banister, one foot up and one foot down, looking at Jack and feeling her heart go into double overdrive. She just looked and looked, and at that moment, Jack was the most beautiful man in the world and everything she had ever wanted, had ever dreamed of having, was right here, in a gorgeous old mansion in the mountains. She started trembling as a stab of desire so strong it nearly brought her to her knees pierced through her.

“Federica?” Jack peered uncertainly up at her. “You all right?”

No
, she wanted to answer
, I’m under attack. Alien hormones have taken over my body.

“Federica?”

Federica opened her mouth to answer, but as she breathed in air it was like fire in her lungs. Her whole body was aflame and she was sure her face was burning.

“Federica?” Jack sounded worried now and he started up the stairs.

“
No!”
If he came too close right now, she’d blow up in a conflagration. “No,” she said, more calmly, walking down on wobbly knees. “I just had a-a dizzy spell, that’s all. I’ll be okay.”

“Must be the altitude.”

“The altitude,” she said. “Right.”

FAX FROM: Ellen Larsen, Inter Airways Terminal, JFK

FAX TO: Federica Mansion, c/o Clerk’s Office, Carson’s Bluff

Honey,

This is my last attempt at communication stateside. The Inter Airways terminal here at JFK is in a state of utter chaos because my flight almost crashed. We’re on go/no-go status. Flights are being delayed by four-five hours and there are so many irate passengers storming the citadel that the local manager just locked his office and has taken off for parts unknown.

I’m being besieged by desperate requests for information which I don’t have, an overly amorous dentist I whacked over the head is threatening to sue me and it’s too much for me to take, so I’ve slipped into our office here for some respite and a final stab at communicating with you.

I called the local telephone company to find out why the sheriff’s fax isn’t answering and they said it was switched off. I asked for the number of the mayor’s fax and they said it was the same number. So then I asked for the number of the clerk’s fax and I can only hope that this one is switched on.

I’m really, really worried. It’s not like you to forget a date or to be out of touch like this. Something very strange is going on. The SF Mansion Enterprises office isn’t giving out any information and it seems like there’s no way to communicate with Carson’s Bluff.

Are you in any danger? Maybe it was the close brush with the Grim Reaper on the flight, but really weird thoughts are going through my head—like you’ve been kidnapped and are being held for ransom. Tell me it isn’t so and that it’s the usual—Uncle Frederick asking you to work three hundred hours a day. Just like Inter Airways.

Maybe we should both quit. I’ll move out West. Surely there are some jobs for smart, overweight brunettes in California? Maybe in Silicon Valley—one look at my hips and thighs and they’ll realize I’m a software expert.

I’m flying straight back to California from Paris. Can you leave a message at the usual hotel in SF?

Love, El

MESSAGE NOT RECEIVED/ NO SIGNAL

Jack’s house was charming, Federica wasn’t surprised to see. It was next door to Lilly’s, but the wisteria growing in fat clumps over a high wooden fence effectively shut out Lilly’s house and enclosed Jack’s house in a private, purple embrace.

“It must be nice living so close to your sister,” Federica said wistfully. Most of the luxury flats in her high-rise were owned by corporations for the convenience of out-of town executives, and she didn’t know any of her neighbors. It didn’t really matter, since she spent so little time there.

“Yeah.” Jack hauled out two deck chairs and started wrestling obstinately with one. “Sometimes she has a little difficulty in distinguishing between mine and thine, though. Ah.” The chair opened miraculously and he waved at it with a flourish, inviting Federica to have a seat. He looked at the other one with narrowed eyes. “But don’t worry. She’s got strict instructions to stay on her side of the fence tonight.”

“I’m not worried.” Federica eyed the deck chair and realized that if she sat down, she would sink into it and fall asleep again.

It was late afternoon and the sun was so low it peeped through the willows and oaks and dazzled and lulled her. She bit back a yawn. How could she be sleepy and aroused at the same time? Embarrassed, she cast about for something to say. “Your picnic table looks like Lilly’s.”

“It should. Wyatt made both of them.”

“Wyatt is a professional woodcarver?” Federica asked, startled.

“Nah.” Jack shot her an amused glance. “He just dabbles in woodworking. But he’s good at picnic tables and shelves.” He looked at her closely. “Listen, why don’t you go down and look at the river while I cook? It’s real pretty and relaxing. It’s also a part of the history of Carson’s Bluff. It’s where gold was found in 1878 and every hungry drifter west of the Rockies came rushing over. I seem to remember telling you the whole story,” he smiled slyly, “but you slept right through it.”

“I’d had—” Federica began defensively.

“A hard day. I know.” Jack went into the house and came out with a wet cloth and some plates. Gorgeous plates, Federica couldn’t help noticing, in Lilly’s distinct vivid colors. He wiped the picnic table. “Look, you go on down and commune with the river while I fix dinner. Just don’t fall asleep.”

“I’ll try not to.” Federica shot him a wry look. Probably everyone in Carson’s Bluff thought she suffered from narcolepsy.

“You want leather or feather?”

The steak the night before had been tough and undigestible. What could go wrong with chicken? “Feather.”

“Right.” Jack shooed her away. “Go and relax. You’ve had—”

“—a hard day,” Federica finished for him. She wondered if he knew she ordinarily put in twelve-hour days.

Maybe he did.

She smiled and tipped back an imaginary ten-gallon hat with her thumb. “Thanks. Well, pardner,” she said in a very bad imitation of John Wayne, “think I’ll just mosey on down to the river and rest mah weary bones.”

“Don’t work too hard while you’re at it.”

“Nope,” she assured him. “Shore won’t.”

She wandered down a charmingly unkempt lawn with more clover and alfalfa than grass, until she came to the steep riverbank she’d had just a glimpse of at Lilly’s. Federica sat down on the rim of the bank and watched the river flow gently past.

It was hypnotic. The river shone silver in the late evening sun and she could count two trout at least, maybe more, making bubbles and shimmers in the water.

The water was so clear she could see the gray stones and beige sand of the bottom. The water burbled by, flowing neatly over a large granite boulder, making a rippling noise Federica found incredibly soothing. Two giant willows on either side of the bank dangled drooping green tendrils in the water. She was hypnotized by the peace and beauty of the river. She let herself sink into a place where there was no yesterday, no tomorrow, only an endless, peaceful now.

This
is meditation, she thought.

How many times she’d tried to meditate in an anonymous hotel room, hoping to quiet jangled nerves and prepare herself for a nerve-wracking meeting. She even had her own mantra, but it never worked.

This was the first time she truly understood all those New Age truisms.
Go with the flow. You are a part of the Universe. You are part of the tapestry of life.

They’d all seemed such hackneyed phrases, until she found herself melting into the flowing river, dissolving into the willows, part of the peace of the sunlit evening. Federica didn’t even notice the passage of time until she felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. It felt as right, as elemental, as the river and the trees and the trout.

“Feels good out here, doesn’t it?” he asked quietly.

He knew. Somehow he knew.

“Mm-hmm.”

“When you’re ready, I’ll feed you.”

The food was delicious. Somehow, Federica was surprised.

“More?” he asked.

A massive appetite had roared out of nowhere. She’d had two chicken breasts with mushrooms, heaps of steamed broccoli with sesame seeds and several slices of wholemeal bread.

“I shouldn’t…” she hesitated.

“Of course you should.” Jack ladled more broccoli onto her plate. “You need to keep your strength up.”

“Actually, all I seem to be doing is sleeping lately.”

His eyes met hers. “If you need it, do it.”

If you need it, do it.
The words hung there in the air, heavy with meaning. What she wanted to do,
needed
to do, was exactly what she shouldn’t do.

“Is that a Carson’s Bluff motto?”

“No, it’s mine.”

“Oh.”

She sucked in a breath and made a conscious effort to shift the conversation into a more…comfortable mode. Not that she wasn’t comfortable. Actually, she was spectacularly comfortable. And spectacularly aroused. It was the weirdest feeling in the world to have all her muscles lax with contentment while anticipation and excitement tingled through her nervous system.

Jack stretched out his legs under the table, coming into contact with Federica’s legs. She glanced up, startled, then blushed at the expression in his eyes.

“Jack,” she whispered.

Jack’s whole body tightened. He wanted to trap Federica’s legs between his and drag her under the table with him. He was barely able to restrain himself. From the red blush tingeing her cheeks, she was as affected by the contact as he was.

Casual affairs weren’t his style. They never had been. That was Wyatt’s scene, stuck in perpetual adolescence.

What could there possibly be between him and Federica but a casual affair, an affair that would haunt them and taunt them later?

He’d bought her—and them—a few days by pulling the plug on Carson’s Bluff. That wasn’t hard. Carson’s Bluff citizens didn’t like the outside world that much, anyway. But if not today, then tomorrow or the next day, sooner rather than later, the proverbial fecal matter would hit the proverbial fan.