Forbidden Ground by Harper Karen

Author:Harper, Karen [Harper, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780778316701
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Published: 2014-10-28T07:00:00+00:00

15

Kate was appalled she’d slept late the next morning, but she and Grant—Brad, too, sober—had stayed up late talking about everything except Mason Mound. She’d promised to get their breakfast, but they’d obviously been quiet and just let her sleep. The house was silent.

She got up, threw on her robe and padded into the kitchen. They’d left some coffee, so she poured a cup and stared out the window. The mound beckoned to her, just as it must have to generations of inhabitants here. Especially, it seemed, Grant’s grandfather.

She looked around for a local phone book and found a skinny, old one that covered the whole county. Amber had said Sam Custer’s daughter Mary Ann was unmarried. Kate was guessing the old man might live with her. Despite Grant’s smooth shift of topics and his comments that Sam was senile, which she’d seen for herself, she wanted another interview with the man.

She called the Custer number. Yes! Mary Ann lived in her parents’ home not far from here, and Kate was welcome to come over. “I meant to ask your father more about my father yesterday and didn’t get a chance,” she told Mary Ann. Kate had to admit to herself that if Grant was bending the truth, he wasn’t the only one. Yet she would be sure to make what she’d said true—she would ask Sam about her own father, too. Maybe it would be a first step to understanding not only Sam, but also her dad, at last.

* * *

Grant had spoken to Nadine about Paul’s carvings after the funeral. She’d told him to come by, and she’d give him first choice on the ones she was selling. She also told him Jace Miller said she could collect the one that had killed Paul.

“How about I stop by the police station and bring that back to you?” he’d asked her, so here he was, rolling the Adena carving up Nadine’s driveway in a wheelbarrow. When he’d loaded it on his truck, he’d carefully looked it over for a hiding place.

“Thanks so much, Grant,” Nadine said as she opened the garage door for him to roll the trunk into Paul’s workshop. Grant noticed the chaos had been straightened; order restored; things rearranged. Of all the places over the years Grant would picture his longtime friend, it would be here or up in the lost tree house, cut down just as prematurely as Paul had been.

“You know Kate wants to buy this,” he reminded her as he carefully tipped the wheelbarrow and slid the tree trunk to the floor where she indicated, among the others.

“She said she’d stop by soon, but I suppose she’ll need you to haul it. I’ll be glad to get it out of here,” she admitted, throwing a canvas work apron over it. He saw her shudder. “That squat, strange Adena shaman he carved always gave me the creeps anyway, like he was guarding something with a curse on it. It’s almost like it came to life and struck Paul down.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.