Guarding the Soldier's Secret (10 page)

Grandpa’s house. How homey that sounds, as if it’s over the river and through the woods, and we’ve done it a hundred times before. Not the hideaway of some eccentric reclusive billionaire I don’t even remember.

Oh, I do hope this isn’t a huge mistake.

“Well, I hope he’s nice,” Laila said in a tone that suggested she wasn’t holding out much hope.

She’d been in a mood ever since they’d left Kabul, disappointed, Yancy knew, at having their trip cut short and clearly less than satisfied with the explanation she’d been given as to why they had to leave
right now
, when they’d barely had any time at all with Akaa Hunt.

Better get used to that, baby girl, because that’s all anyone ever gets with Hunt Grainger. A few crazy, unexpected stolen minutes and then years of silence. And how much harder it would be if you knew he wasn’t your uncle, but your daddy.

Yancy’s chest shivered, and she took a few calming breaths before saying brightly, “Oh, I’m sure he is. And Mr. Branson told us there’s a pool, remember? And horses.”

Laila muttered, “Well, that’s just great,” kicking at a bit of rock Yancy was pretty sure had recently fallen from the mountainside looming above them. “Only I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

“Then you will have to learn, won’t you? Come on—hop back in here. The sooner we get on the road, the sooner we’ll be there.”

It was a good thing, Yancy thought, that this time of year, mid-June, there was still lots of daylight left.

As she had promised Laila, after only a few more of those hair-raising twists and turns, the road widened out into a four-lane highway that swooped across bridges and sliced through mountains, making it possible for her to drive at freeway speeds. Now she could even find moments to notice the scenery. And she had to admit the river canyon was rather awesome, even if the mountainsides were dry and brown and some slopes showed signs of fairly recent wildfire.

The truth was, none of it seemed real. The scenery, beautiful as it was, seemed to flash by like the vista in a driver-training simulator while her eyes focused narrowly on the road ahead, and her mind was left free to wander into places she really didn’t want to go.

Blood and smoke and crowds and chaos in the streets of Kabul, and the voices on the news:

At least seven confirmed dead...

Forty injured...names of victims have not been released...

Taliban appears to have been responsible...

Hunt’s eyes boring into mine as he says goodbye at the airport.

The feel of his hand...just his hand, touching mine so briefly. Naturally, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—hug me the way he hugged Laila.

The image of Hunt kneeling down so a little girl could wrap her arms around his neck and bury her face in his tunic, and her shoulders shaking because she was trying so hard not to sob.

And as I watch them I’m drawing shuddering breaths to keep from bursting into tears.

Now, remembering, she was drawing the same kind of breaths as she glanced in the rearview mirror to confirm what the silence from the backseat had suggested, that Laila had indeed fallen asleep. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to grip the steering wheel with convulsive anguish while her face tightened in a grimace of rage and grief.

Damn you, Hunt. Why couldn’t you have just stayed dead?

But the spasm was brief. By the time the freeway section of highway had narrowed once more to a winding two-lane road, Yancy had herself well in hand. This was partly due to her years of experience working in front of cameras in the most stressful and emotionally fraught situations imaginable. But there was also the fact that her own inquiring mind had begun increasingly to wonder why her grandfather had chosen such an odd location for his hideaway. To call the area “bucolic” was probably an understatement. Definitely not the sort of place she’d have thought an eccentric and reclusive billionaire would find to his liking.

But then, she supposed, that was what made him eccentric.

After passing through a town, of sorts, one that seemed to boast stores, fast-food restaurants, motels, gas stations and even some county services like fire and sheriff’s departments and a public library, the highway wound along the shores of a man-made lake. Judging by the distance between its choppy waters and the high-water mark carved into the rocky hillsides, the lake was at a low ebb.

The highway then straightened out and arrowed through a valley where black and brown cattle grazed in lush green pastures. Beyond the pastures, against more of the dry brown mountains, a thick bank of trees suggested a river’s course. Although, after her GPS instructed her to turn left at an elementary school onto June Canyon Road, and she had driven between more of those verdant fields and across a narrow bridge, she found the bridge traversed only a sandy streambed, with not so much as a trickle of water flowing beneath it.

A drought-stricken land, she thought and felt a pang of homesickness for the summer rains and green Virginia forests of her childhood.

Leaving the riparian woods behind, the paved road narrowed and began to climb, zigzagging its way up a hillside covered with boulders and brush. Higher up, the brush gave way to juniper, manzanita and some sort of long-needled bluish-gray pine trees Yancy didn’t know the name of. And the pavement gave way to rutted and rock-studded dirt. After one particularly hard jolt, Yancy swore aloud, glancing in the mirror to make sure Laila was still sleeping through all of this.

This can’t be right
, she thought, although the rental car’s GPS still maintained her destination lay some distance ahead on this very road. Her misgivings grew stronger as the road continued to wind and dip and climb its way up and up, deeper into a wide canyon while the river course and pastures, the occasional house and finally all signs of human habitation fell away below. Nowhere could she see anything that might suggest the location of the guarded compound of a reclusive billionaire. Where, she wondered, were the walls, the gates, the high-tech security?

At last, when nothing lay ahead of her but granite crags and timber-covered mountains, she caught a glimpse, off to the left, beyond a grove of stately pines and poplar trees, of a red-tile roof and a green meadow where horses grazed. A short distance farther on, the dirt road—a track, really—cut sharply to the left then dipped down into a deep ravine where willows grew and a shallow stream ran chuckling across concrete paving, before making a stomach-dropping climb up the other side.

“Should have rented a four-wheel drive,” Yancy muttered as she downshifted into the lowest gear and gunned the engine, nursing the compact sedan up the steep track and out of the ravine.

The truth was, she’d been on worse roads.

And now suddenly the road was graded and smooth and relatively straight, though still dirt, leading to a T intersection. There Yancy stopped the car and sat for a moment, gazing at the view. Which she had to admit was quite beautiful.

Straight ahead, behind a barbed-wire fence, lay a long meadow—or pasture?—with lush green grass and some sort of little yellow flowers, and some taller blue ones she thought might be cornflowers. A half-dozen or so horses had stopped their placid grazing and now stood with heads turned and ears cocked to watch the new arrival with lazy curiosity. On the far side of the meadow, a line of trees marked yet another streambed, this one following the base of the granite mountainside that formed the western side of the canyon. The sun had already set behind the mountain, veiling the canyon’s floor and the car in which she sat in soft lavender shadow.

From the backseat came a gusty waking-up exhalation and a sleepy voice. “Why are we stopping? Are we there?”

“Almost,” Yancy said, turning to smile at her sleep-grumpy child.

“Where is it? I don’t see any houses.”

“I’m not sure.” Looking to her right, Yancy could see barns and corrals and a small house nestled behind huge cottonwood trees. Could the house possibly be built of
adobe
?

Oh, surely not, she thought.
Eccentric
was one thing, but she doubted her billionaire grandfather would be living in a tiny old adobe ranch house.

Left, the road was paved. “This way, I think,” she announced in a voice more sure than she felt.

The paved road meandered among the pines and poplars she’d glimpsed from across the ravine, the shadows deepening as they passed rose beds and flower gardens and a long, low whitewashed adobe building with red-tile roof that might have been a stable. Or a garage?

Ahead and to the left, perched on the side of the mountain, a villa stood like a sentinel overlooking the valley. It resembled a Spanish monastery, even to the bell tower at one end, though the bell had evidently been removed and windows put in the openings. The top of the tower caught the last of the sun’s rays, turning the windows to golden mirrors.

With her eyes glued to the view of the villa and its tower, Yancy didn’t see the two people strolling down the road, hand in hand, accompanied by a shaggy black-and-white dog, until Laila said, “Mommy, look!”

Yancy jerked her eyes back to the road and stomped on the brake, but the couple—and the dog—had already moved to the side and stood waiting with welcoming smiles. Her first thought was that they were two of the most beautiful people she had ever seen. And a study in opposites, the man dusky dark, the woman Nordic fair. Both wore their hair in single long braids hanging down their backs, one pale blond, the other glossy black. The man wore work clothes—jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt—and boots. The woman wore a tank top, shorts and athletic shoes, and her legs were long and slim and smooth.

Yancy opened her window and leaned out. “Hi—am I in the right place? I’m looking for Sam Malone’s, uh...”

The man smiled, showing beautiful teeth. “This is it, just keep going. I’m guessing you’re Yancy, right?”

“Yes, and this is Laila.” She half turned to make room for her daughter, who was now wide-awake, crowded against her shoulder and gazing out the open window at the dog, who sat on his haunches grinning back at her and panting.

The man stepped forward, holding out his hand. “I’m Sage—I manage the ranch. That’s my place down there—the adobe.” With the hand still holding the woman’s, he drew her forward. “And this is Abby.”

They exchanged hellos and handshakes, and Yancy, looking from one to the other, asked, “Forgive me, but...are you relatives of mine?”

Sage made a rueful face and rubbed one sun-browned hand over his glossy hair. “I’m, uh, your uncle, actually.”

“Uncle! But you don’t— I didn’t know my father had any living siblings.”

“Just found out myself, not too long ago,” Sage said with a dry laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll learn all the family scandals soon enough.”

“And... Abby? Are you one of Sam’s—”

The woman gave her head a rapid shake and glanced at her shoes. “Oh, no—no relation.”

“Not blood,” Sage said, looking at his companion and giving her hand a squeeze and a tug, insisting she return his gaze. “But she’s family.”

There was an awkward pause during which the dog got up, ambled over to the car and put his paws on the windowsill. He panted juicily on Yancy’s shoulder, ignored Sage’s command to “get down, Freckles” and gave Laila’s face a swipe with his tongue. There followed a few moments of chaos while Laila gasped and giggled and shrieked and Sage gave futile orders to the dog, who was trying his best to climb into the car through the open window.

“Sorry about that,” Sage said, when order had been restored and the dog was once more sitting, panting, beside him, now held there by a firm grip on his collar. “This is Freckles. He loves everybody, especially company. Hope he didn’t scare you.”

“It’s all right,” Laila said with dignity. “I like
dogs
. But I do not like horses.”

“Ah,” said Sage. “What about cats?”

Laila considered, head to one side. “I’m not sure. I’ve never had a cat.”

“Well, you probably won’t like Abby’s cat. She’s kind of hard to get along with.”

“But,” said Abby, “there are lots of other cats—baby kittens, too.”

“I might like baby kittens,” Laila said thoughtfully. “What else do you have?”

“Chickens,” said Abby. “And cows and calves.”

“Do you got any—”

“
Have
, Laila!”

“Do you
have
any goats?”

“Sorry, no goats.”

“What about donkeys?”

“Nope—no donkeys, either.”

Laila subsided with a heart-wrenching sigh. “I
knew
it.”

“We were just heading up to the big house for supper,” Sage said, then smiled at Laila. “Would you like to walk with us? It’d make Freckles happy, and you’d probably like a chance to stretch your legs, after that drive up the canyon.” He shifted his dark-eyed gaze to Yancy. “If it’s okay with your mom.”

Yancy said, “Oh—sure. Laila?”

Laila had the door open already and was immediately engulfed in ecstatic, wriggling dog. For a moment all three adults watched the giggling child try—not very hard—to avoid the canine kisses. Then Yancy gave a breathy laugh and said, “Okay, I guess that’s settled. Where should I—”

“Just park in the driveway by the front steps for now. There will be a welcoming committee, so don’t worry about unpacking anything. My mother will take you in hand the minute you set one foot on the ground anyway. We’ll see to everything after you’ve had something to eat and met the rest of the family.”

“Will that include my, uh...grandfather?”

Sage’s smile was wry. “No telling. We never know where or when he’ll decide to make an appearance. Sam spends most of his time in the high country, these summer days. Or the tower.” He tilted his head toward the gilded windows showing through the trees. “He pretty much does his own thing.”

“So I’ve heard,” Yancy said with an answering smile.

With a nod of thanks, she put the car in gear and rolled on up the curving drive. In the rearview mirror she saw the young couple smiling indulgently at the antics of the child and the dog as they resumed their unhurried stroll, hand in hand. For some reason the term “significant other” popped into her mind, and she felt an odd little pang in the vicinity of her heart. Because it was unfamiliar to her, it was a moment or two before she recognized it as envy.