Nora Roberts - The Hollow

None of their families had ever been infected, none of them had ever been threatened. That wasn’t going to change. He simply wouldn’t allow it to change. The threat was coming sooner, and harder, that was fact. But his family remained safe.

He pulled in front of the farmhouse just ahead of Cal and Gage.

“I’ve got two hours,” he told them as they got out. “If we need more, I can try to shuffle some stuff. Otherwise, it has to wait until tomorrow. Saturday’s clear.”

“We’ll work it out.” Cal stepped aside so that Lump and the two host dogs could sniff each other and get reacquainted.

“Here comes the estrogen.” Gage lifted his chin toward the road. “Is your lady ready to ante up, Hawkins?”

“She said she is, so she is.” But Cal walked to the car, drew Quinn aside when the women piled out. “I don’t know if I can help you with this.”

“Cal-”

“I know we went over this last night, but I’m allowed to be obsessive about the woman I love.”

“Absolutely.” She linked her hands around his neck so that her bright blue eyes smiled into his. “Obsess me.”

He took the offered mouth, let himself sink in. “I’ll do what I can, you know that. But the fact is, I’ve been coming here all my life, slept in this house, ate in it, played in it, ran the fields, helped with chores. It was my second home, and I never got a single flash of the past, of Ann, of anything.”

“Giles Dent wasn’t here, neither were the ones-the guardians that came before him. Not so far as we know. If Ann came here to stay, she came here without him, and stayed on after Dent was already gone. This one’s on me, Cal.”

“I know.” He touched her lips with his again. “Just take it easy on yourself, Blondie.”

“It’s a wonderful house,” Layla said to Fox. “Just a wonderful spot. Isn’t it, Cybil?”

“Like a Pissarro painting. What kind of farming, Fox?”

“Organic family farming, you could say. They’ll be around back this time of morning, dealing with the animals.”

“Cows?” Layla fell into step behind him.

“No. Goats, for the milk. Chickens, for the eggs. Bees for the honey. Vegetables, herbs, flowers. Everything gets used, and what’s surplus we-they-sell or barter.”

The scent of animals wound through the morning air, exotic to her city-girl senses. She spotted a tire swing hanging from the thick, gnarled branch of what she thought might be a sycamore. “It must’ve been great growing up here.”

“It was. I might not have thought so when I was shoveling chicken manure or hacking at bindweed, but it was great.”

Chickens clucked in their busy and urgent voices. As they rounded the house Fox saw his mother casting feed for them. She wore jeans, her ancient Wellingtons, a frayed plaid shirt over a thermal pullover. Her hair was down her back, a long, thick braid.

Now it was his turn for a flash from the past. He saw her in his mind, doing the same chore on a bright summer morning, but she’d worn a long blue dress, with a sling around her, and his baby sister tucked into it.

Singing, he remembered. She so often sang while she worked. He heard her now, as he’d heard her then.

“I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away-in the morning.”

In the near paddock, his father milked one of the nannies, and sang with her.

And Fox’s love for them was almost impossible to hold. She saw him, smiled at him. “Timed it to miss the chores, I see.”

“I was always good at it.”

She cast the rest of the seed before setting her bucket down to come to him. She kissed him-forehead, one cheek, the other, the lips. “Morning.” Then turned to Cal and did exactly the same. “Caleb. I heard you had news.”

“I do. Here she is. Quinn, this is Joanne Barry, my childhood sweetheart.”

“Apparently I have quite an act to follow. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice meeting you.” She gave Quinn’s arm a pat, then turned to Gage. “Where have you been, and why haven’t you come to see me?”

She kissed him, then wrapped her arms around him in a hard hug.

He hugged back-that’s what Cybil noted. He held on, closed his eyes and held tight. “Missed you,” he murmured.

“Then don’t stay away so long.” She eased back. “Hello, Layla, it’s good to see you again. And this must be Cybil.”

“It must be. You have a very handsome farm, Ms. Barry.”

“Thanks. Here comes my man.”

“LaMancha goats?” Cybil commented and had Jo giving her another, longer look.

“That’s right. You don’t look like a goatherd.”

“I saw some a couple of years ago in Oregon. The way the tips of the ears turn up is distinctive. High butterfat content in the milk, isn’t that right?”

“It is. Would you like to try some?”

“I have. It’s excellent, and fabulous for baking.”

“It certainly is. Bri, Cybil, Quinn, and Layla.”

“Nice to-hey, we’ve met.” He grinned at Layla. “Sort of. I saw you yesterday, walking down Main.”

“You were replacing a door at the bookstore. I thought how comforting it was that there are people who know how to fix what’s broken.”

“Our specialty. Nice job with the blonde, Cal,” he added, giving Cal a one-armed hug and a wink. “About damn time,” he said to Gage, and hugged him in turn. “You guys want breakfast?”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Fox told him. “Sorry.”

“No problem. I’ll take the milk in, Jo.”

“I’ll get the eggs. Go ahead and put tea on, Bri. It’s cold this morning.” She turned back to Fox. “Let us know if you need anything, or if we can help.”

“Thanks.” Fox gestured the group aside while his mother began gathering eggs into a basket. “How do you want to start? Inside?”

“We know the house wasn’t here then?” Quinn looked at Fox for confirmation.

“About a hundred years later, but it could have been built on another’s foundation. I just don’t know. That shed? Well, what’s left of that shed, the one covered with vines? That was here.”

“It’s too small.” Layla studied the remaining walls. “Would be, even for the time period for a house. If we’re talking about a small family taking in a woman and her three babies, that couldn’t have been big enough.”

“A smokehouse maybe,” Cybil mused. “Or an animal shelter. But it’s interesting that most of it’s still here. There could be a reason for that.”

“Let me try the house first.” Quinn studied the shed, the land, the big stone house. “Maybe walking around the house out here. I might get something. If not, we’ll do a walk-through, since it’s okay with Fox’s parents. If nothing then… there’s the land, that grove of trees, the fields, certainly the little ruin there. Fingers crossed, okay?”

She crossed the fingers of her left hand, held the right out for Cal. “The clearing in the woods, that’s sacred ground-magic spot. And the stone, it pushed those flashes right in. The attic in the library, that grabbed hold, too. I didn’t have to do anything. I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Think about Ann,” Cal told her. “You’ve seen her, you’ve heard her. Think about her.”

Quinn pictured Ann Hawkins as she’d seen her the first time, with her hair loose, carrying pails of water from the stream, her belly huge with her sons, and her face alight with love for the man who waited for her. She pictured her as she’d seen her the second time, slim again, dressed demurely. Older, sadder.

She walked over the tough winter grass, the thick gravel, over stepping stones. The air was cool and brisk on her cheeks, and was tinged with the scent of animal and earth. She held firm to Cal’s hand, knowing-feeling-he gave her whatever he had so that their abilities linked as their fingers did.