son without apparent regret when he married Rachel. Not even the birth of the granddaughter Ronnie had optimistically insisted on naming after her had made a difference. And that made the legacy of the house all the more inexplicable.
“I’m going to risk putting my foot in my mouth again,” Helen said, leaning toward her. “But I believe Amanda realized, once it was too late, that she’d been wrong in the way she’d treated her son.”
Rachel studied her face, but Helen seemed genuine. “Perhaps. But she never tried to get in touch with him.”
“She wouldn’t have known how to say she was sorry. Amanda wasn’t always so rigid, you know. She changed after her husband died. Dear Ronald.” Helen sighed. “He was devoted to her, and his death was such a shock.”
“He had a heart attack, didn’t he?” Ronnie had rarely spoken of his father’s death.
Helen nodded. “Right down there at the creek.” She gestured toward the rear of the house. “And then a few years later that Amish boy drowned in practically the same spot. You probably don’t remember that, do you? Anyway, I think Amanda blamed herself that she hadn’t put up a fence. Not that that would necessarily have stopped anyone from reaching the creek if they were determined to get there....”
Helen’s voice seemed to fade as she prattled on about the dangers of the small dam on the stream behind the house, while Rachel’s memory slipped backward twenty summers. She might have forgotten the death of Ronnie’s father, but the memory of Aaron Mast was clear as crystal even though she hadn’t thought of him in years. He’d been eighteen when she was ten, and she’d had the sort of crush on him that girls now seemed to have on the latest teen pop star. His death had been devastating.
She realized Helen was eyeing her curiously and knew she’d been lost in memories too long. “I do remember Aaron, yes. I didn’t realize his accident bothered Ronnie’s mother so much though.”
“She became so strict with Ronnie after that summer.” Helen’s tone was mournful. “She was overprotective, and no boy appreciates that sort of thing. And she seemed to pin all her hopes for the future on him.”
She knew this part of the story too well. “Those hopes were ruined when he ran away with me,” she said bluntly.
“Yes, well...” Again Helen seemed to search for words. “I always thought if she’d handled it better, and frankly, dear, if your parents had, as well, things might have ended differently.”
They might not have married at all—that was what Helen meant, and Rachel was mature enough now to know that was true. If it hadn’t been for so much outspoken opposition...again, that was the past. She had to concentrate on now and on the future, for her daughter.
“I knew how Amanda felt, of course. That’s why it surprised me so much when she left Mason House to me.” Rachel let the comment lie, hoping Helen would pick it up.
“I was sure she’d do the right thing in the end,” Helen said. “She might talk of leaving everything to charity, but at bottom, she’d never consider letting Mason House go out of the family. I remember the day Jacob Evans came to have her sign her will. That’s Jacob Senior, not the son who’s in the firm now. She said she’d provided for little Amanda’s education. And she was content knowing that she’d grow up in this house. ‘There’s been enough sorrow and anger in Mason House,’ she said. ‘Maybe Ronnie’s child will bring the joy back.’”
Ronnie’s child. Of course that was how Amanda would have seen it, leaving out the woman of whom she’d disapproved so completely. There would have been no thought of Rachel in her final dispositions, except as the necessary guardian of Ronnie’s child.
Well, she’d wanted to know why Amanda had left the place to her, and now she did. She could hardly complain if the answer wasn’t to her liking.
* * *
“I’M HOME.” Colin figured the announcement was hardly needed, since Duke, Dad’s elderly black lab, had given his customary woof of welcome and padded over to receive a thump on the back.
But there was no answering call from the kitchen or the study. “Where is he, Duke?” Colin walked back the hall toward the kitchen, poking his head into the study and laundry room en route, his pulse accelerating as each place he looked turned up empty. Duke padded after him, head down, as if accepting blame for his master’s absence.
Colin opened the back door for a quick look at the yard, but his father wasn’t dusting the rose bushes or checking out the young tomato plants in the garden. Colin stood for a moment, hand gripping the knob.
Okay, think. Don’t panic. If his father had fallen somewhere in the house, Duke wouldn’t be trailing along at Colin’s heels. That meant Dad had gone out.
“Did he go for a walk without you?”
Colin must be losing track of his mental facilities himself, standing here questioning the dog as if expecting an answer. Dad was an inveterate walker, but he ordinarily took the dog with him, and that fact provided Colin with a minimal measure of assurance. If Dad forgot why he’d gone out or how to get back home, something that happened at times, Duke could be relied on to pilot him safely home.
“Stay, Duke.” Leaving the dog sitting forlornly in the living room, Colin headed out the front door. He’d take the car and do a quick spin around town. No doubt he’d find his father walking casually back from the coffee shop. There was no need for the apprehension that prickled along his skin.
Rachel would hardly credit it if she could see him now, he thought wryly. In her eyes, he was obviously still the hell-raiser who’d turned his parents’ hair gray. She’d never believe he could be as panicked over his seventy-year-old father as she must sometimes be over her nine-year-old child.
He’d nearly reached the car he’d left in the driveway when another vehicle pulled in behind his. Jake Evans, driving the battered pickup he’d had since college, came to a stop. Dad sat next to him, frowning a little with that faintly lost look he’d worn so often since Mom’s death.
“Hey, Colin.” Jake slid out, going around and opening the passenger-side door before Colin could get there. “I ran into your dad down by the antique shop and gave him a lift home.” The look he sent Colin suggested there had been more to it than that, but whatever it was would keep until his father was out of earshot.
Colin nodded, caught between gratitude and grief—gratitude that most people in Deer Run seemed to accept his father’s mental lapses with kindness, and grief that his father, always so sharp and in control, had to rely on others just to find his way home.
“Why didn’t you take Duke with you, Dad?” He attempted to take his father’s arm, but Dad pulled free with a sudden spurt of independence.
“Didn’t feel like it,” he said shortly, his lean face showing irritation. “I don’t need Duke to babysit me, you know.”
Don’t you? Colin suppressed the thought. “Maybe not, but you know how hurt he is to be left behind.” Colin turned to Jake. “You should have seen that dog when I came in, head hanging like he’d done something wrong and couldn’t figure out what it was. Come on in. There’s probably some cold beer in the fridge.”
“Sounds good.” Jake fell into step with him, his faded jeans and frayed Lafayette T-shirt an ironic comment on having been recently named one of the area’s
