Oberon Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Welcome to Oberon

by P. G. Forte

  Even now, just the thought of Nick – his eyes, his voice, his kisses – had the power to move her. Whereas, Glenn –

  But why was she thinking about that now? She emptied her wineglass and signaled for another. It probably shouldn’t have surprised her, how unmoved she’d been by the idea of letting Glenn have her body. Not when she’d already lost her mind to Lisa and her heart to Nick.

  She’d made so many bad decisions back then. But had that really been her fault? She hadn’t been herself for weeks. Or maybe months.

  She reached into the bowl of Chinese noodles, just for the pleasure of feeling them snap between her fingers. She’d given up too much back then, that was the problem. Too much control. Too much self-respect. Too much of herself. Too much of everything.

  And she was doing it again, too, wasn’t she? She’d been doing it all week, ever since she’d been back in Oberon. Allowing myths and memories to frighten or seduce her. Allowing herself to dream about things she’d spent years forgetting. Like the home she’d lost years ago; the family she only thought she’d had; or the love she could never recapture.

  Only this time, there was no excuse for it. It was time she grew up. Time she found the courage to walk away from her past – not run from it. To confront her ghosts, take them on, and send them packing.

  All of them. The specters of Caroline and Lisa. Robyn’s elusive stranger. Marsha. Lucy. Glenn. Even Nick – he of the velvet voice and the brandy-colored eyes.

  She had seen eyes like that just recently, her wine-dulled mind seemed to recall, but where? Oh, yes. Nick’s daughter. A sudden chill spread sadness through her soul. Of course, Nick had a daughter. Why wouldn’t he? Obviously, Nick had a life.

  What did she have? And why was she still pining after him, anyway? Even now, when it was clear he had moved on and forgotten all about her.

  Well, no more. It was time for her to be over him. Time for her to get on with her own life. She searched her bag for her cell phone. Maybe she’d give Larry a call, see if he’d been able to put together that gallery showing they’d talked about. Maybe she’d take Glenn up on his offer to handle things here. How much could she really hope to accomplish, after all? But where the hell was her phone? And then she remembered. Oh, God. Last night. The canyon. She’d thrown her phone over the cliff, hadn’t she? The memory washed through her and left her dizzy. What the hell had possessed her last night?

  She was saved from answering her own question by Glenn’s belated arrival. He looked good, she thought sadly, as she watched him walk across the crowded restaurant toward her table. Too bad he moved her not at all. His somber clothing and inscrutable expression were eerily reminiscent of a priest. Black turtleneck, black jacket and slacks. All that was missing was the white collar.

  Not that a priest should ever be caught dead with that particular look in his eyes. She bit back a giggle. Uh-oh. Could be she’d have a little trouble with old Glenn tonight.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he was just what she needed, to take her mind off the sorry mess she called her life.

  So what if he wasn’t the man of her dreams? She was lonely, he was willing – who would it harm? What they’d had together hadn’t been too awful, really. And, maybe, sometimes, not-too-awful beat nothing at all.

  “So. Glenn.” Scout greeted him with a friendly smile as he sat down across from her. “This is kind of an interesting look for you. Dark, a little edgy, but still kinda sexy.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He leaned forward, smiling, his eyes for once not watchful, but wide and hopeful. In his eagerness she could still see the faint traces of the boy she’d seduced all those years ago. “Do you really think so?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, her mood dropping as reality hit. Get involved with Glenn? Again? Not in this lifetime. She felt suddenly sorry for the both of them, without quite knowing why. “Uh, yeah, Glory, sure. You got a real Angel of Death look goin’ on.”

  * * *

  Nick swore he wouldn’t do this. All day long he had promised himself that he’d behave like an adult: a mature, rational, mostly functional adult. Not the skewed, randy psychopath he seemed to have morphed into over the last forty-eight hours.

  You have a kid, he told himself, again. You don’t need to be acting like one. But thinking of Kate really didn’t help matters.

  She said I have your eyes.

  So here he sat, parked on the street across from Scout’s house, without a clue in the world as to what he would say or do if he saw her. But wanting to see her all the same.

  Just before dark, a woman had ridden up on a bicycle, and his heart had leapt into his throat. But it couldn’t be her. This woman was way too young. Her daughter, perhaps? For an agonizing minute, he considered the idea. Finally, he’d recognized the girl. He had seen her before, with Lucy. Robyn somebody. She was one of the interns at Dan’s nursery.

  He didn’t know why the idea that Scout might have a daughter should bother him. But it did. It bothered him a lot. He didn’t like to think of himself as being prone to such primitive emotions as jealousy or possessiveness, and not even his ex-wife had thought to lay those particular sins at his door. But – Oh, God. Blood flooded his face as he remembered the blind rages that had seized him during the days and weeks after she had left town.

  No fucking way he was gonna go through that again!

  The idea scared him half to death. Memories churned in his gut. Shit, nothing was worth going through that again.

  He should go home. She probably wasn’t even in the damn house. And the last thing he needed was for Robyn what’s-her-name to mention to Lucy that he’d been there. His life was complicated enough as it was.

  He should leave. Now. Before he got in any deeper. He could always come back and make a fool of himself again tomorrow, unless he had the great good luck of regaining his senses before morning.

  But he didn’t turn the car on. He couldn’t bring himself to leave.

  For just a while longer, he sat there, staring once more through the growing darkness, as he’d done so many times in the past, at the house where she used to live.

  * * *

  Scout sighed wearily. “Look, Glenn, it’s like I told you, it was a joke, all right? I didn’t mean anything by it.” It was already the third time she’d said it. And what was she apologizing for anyway? He was the one who’d knocked over the table, spilling the water and what was left of her wine. Noodles and plum sauce flying all over the place.

  Why was he such a wreck all of a sudden? Just because she’d used his old nickname? Could that possibly have upset him that much? Hell, he wasn’t the one who’d nearly blown himself up today. If anyone had a right to be jumpy tonight, it was her. And you didn’t see her dropping tables over a stupid joke.

  Now the table had been reset, their food had arrived, and still he was fretting. Fussing for no reason, phrasing every remark in such a way that it meant absolutely nothing. It was almost enough to make her long for the old, brash, obnoxiously insistent Glenn. This wishy-washy, careful crap was starting to annoy the shit out of her.

  All she wanted was to concentrate on her Kung Pao chicken, find out what he knew about Lisa, maybe order some lychees and another glass of wine. And then go home. Alone. Most definitely alone.

  “Why don’t we cut to the chase here, Glenn. Tell me what you know about Lisa, and then we can both call it quits.”

  He set down his Kirin with a frown. “What makes you think I know anything other than what I’ve already told you?”

  Scout sighed. “Oh, please. It sticks out a mile. And, anyway, you called me, remember? You said we had to talk.”

  “How do you know I wasn’t just making excuses to see you again?” The ghost of his old smile flickered on his face and Scout couldn’t help but smile back.

  She shook her head. “What, you mean for old time’s sake? C’mon, Glenn, we did this already the other night. Besides, we weren’t exactly an item, you know? And even if we were once, we’re two completely different people
now.”

  “We could have been an item. We almost were. Who knows what might have happened if things had been different? If it weren’t for Lisa. I always thought we would have made a good couple. Maybe we still could.”

  Scout felt a pang of remorse. Did he really think that? “Glenn—”

  “We had something, Scout,” Glenn insisted, his blue eyes boring into hers. “You know that as well as I do.”

  Well, she’d asked for it, hadn’t she? Scout suppressed a sigh. But it didn’t really matter. New Glenn or old, she still wasn’t playing with him. “Yeah, we had something, all right. I’m just not sure what.”

  “We could still find out, couldn’t we? What’s stopping us? It’s not too late, you know.” Glenn reached across the table toward her hand, but she slipped it out of his way and picked up her glass. He sighed and stared at her sadly.

  Scout sighed, too. The puppy-dog look was in his eyes again. Some things never change, they just become more of the same. She still wasn’t falling for it. “Actually, Glenn, I think it’s very late. So maybe you should just tell me what you know.”

  “You know, I really would hate to see you get hurt, Scout,” he said rather ponderously, with maybe just an edge of temper.

  “Same here. Although I don’t see any reason why knowing what happened to Lisa would hurt more than not knowing. I lost her a long time ago.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “No, I mean physically hurt,” he said at last. “I think you should give serious consideration to the idea that somebody might be, as Robyn said, out to get you. These accidents—”

  Scout ground her teeth. Here we go again. “Oh, come on, Glenn! Out to get me? You can’t really believe that. And anyway, I think what she said was that the guy was after me. Which could be interpreted any number of different ways, don’t you think? Maybe a secret admirer, or a bill collector. Or maybe I’d won a raffle. It could happen.”

  “You’re being very casual about this.”

  “So, what, then? You’re saying you think this thing with the stove was some kind of warning?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I? But I do think you were lucky. And maybe you should worry a little about your luck changing.”

  No, she guessed he hadn’t said it. Not exactly. Scout speared a little piece of chicken with her fork. In fact, he hadn’t said anything worth listening to. This conversation was getting her nowhere.

  “Look, Glenn, why don’t you just tell me what you know about Lisa. And why you’re so sure I won’t be able to find her.”

  Glenn’s expression darkened. “Scout, I – Shit, Lisa again. You never give up, do you? You think Caroline didn’t try to find her? Of course she did! She did almost nothing else for twenty years. Believe me, I know all about it, because she did a lot of it through the firm; through guys we hired for her. Some of the best investigators in the state. It was a total waste of time. And money. What makes you think you can do better?”

  “Because, for one thing, none of them knew Lisa. Don’t you think that would give me an edge?”

  “Oh, and what? Her mother didn’t know her? I’m sure Caroline gave them just as much information as you could.”

  Scout shook her head. “Come on, Glenn. You know better than that. There was a whole lot of stuff that Caroline didn’t know about Lisa. In some ways, yeah, I think I did know her better than her mother did. Hell, in some ways you probably did too.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’m not real sure any of what I knew about her would be useful to a PI.” He smirked as he said it, and Scout felt her eyes narrow.

  “Don’t make jokes about this,” she snapped.

  “Okay, fine.” Glenn sighed. “You do know that none of the investigators Caroline hired were able to find out a single thing, don’t you?”

  “That’s not true. Lloyd Donahue said Caroline was in touch with someone about ten years ago who claimed to have information about Lisa.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Glenn slammed down his fork and glared at her. “That was just some kind of scam, Scout. Caroline was contacted anonymously, and after paying a lot of money in advance, she never received the promised information, or even heard from the person again.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Scout insisted. “Maybe the reason the investigators you hired didn’t find any clues was because they weren’t looking in the right place.”

  “Really? And where do you think they should have looked, then?”

  “Right here in Oberon, of course.”

  “Here?” Glenn’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. Scout wondered if anyone would know what to do if he went ahead and had the heart attack he seemed to be working himself up to.

  “You think you’re going to find Lisa here? After all this time?”

  “Not Lisa herself, but – look, that letter she sent Lucy was mailed locally, remember? She had to be hiding out somewhere close by. At least for those first few days. Even if she’d rented a motel room for a couple of nights, which isn’t too likely given the fact that she didn’t seem to have taken any money with her, someone would have known about it.”

  Glenn’s face had gone ashen. Maybe she was finally getting through to him.

  “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice subdued

  “Someone knows something, Glenn. I know they do. And whatever it is, I’m going to find it out.”

  For a moment, Glenn said nothing, just picked at his Szechuan Beef. Finally, he put his fork down and fixed her with a steady gaze. “Okay,” he said, sounding like he’d come to a decision. “I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t see how it could help, but when Lisa left town... she was pregnant... with my child.”

  Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn’t been this.

  “No. That can’t be true.” Scout’s head swam. “Glenn, Lisa would never have left town if she was going to have a baby. Why would she leave if—”

  “Because I wouldn’t marry her, that’s why,” he said quietly. “We talked about it. And she wanted to. But I told her I wouldn’t. I told her I was in love with you.”

  “Oh, my God.” She stared at him in horror. Surely, he hadn’t thought that? Poor Lisa.

  He leaned forward to capture her hand. Holding it tight. Too tight. Painfully tight. But she didn’t care.

  “You see what I’m saying, don’t you, Scout? She was angry. And she wanted to hurt me. I think she even hated me a little. But she hated you more. I knew it would hurt you to hear that. But you just wouldn’t listen. You just wouldn’t stop.”

  Glenn paused for a moment, and then went on again. “Now do you see why you have to quit looking for her? You could get hurt, Scout. Badly hurt.”

  Hurt? Scout stared at him, her mind blank. Worse than this? “How—”

  “Think about it.” he insisted. “I think she’s dead, but what if... what if she isn’t? You remember Lisa, don’t you, Scout? You remember how she got when she was angry? If you crossed her? She’s spent a lot of time pretending to be dead. If you track her down now... how happy do you think she’s gonna be to see you?”

  * * *

  Glenn watched as Scout disappeared into the night. Going home to walk her dog, or so she said. He’d thought, perhaps, if he drove her home – but no, it was probably better this way.

  He’d tried. He’d given it his best shot. But he could tell that nothing he said had changed her mind. She’d been shocked, all right. For all of about a minute. But not enough to give it up. She’d keep prying and digging and who knew what she might find.

  It was such a shame. He’d hoped they could start over, begin again, but it wasn’t going to happen. He had wanted so much for things to turn out differently. But tonight hadn’t been a new beginning, after all. If anything, it was just the beginning of the end.

  * * *

  Robyn jumped when she heard the door open; she ran to take a look. After sneaking a peek around the kitchen door, she had to concede that maybe Lucy had been ri
ght. Scout looked tired and she was still limping a little, but all in all, she looked so much less like an axe murderer than she had the night before.

  “Hi,” Robyn called out tentatively.

  Scout looked up. “Oh, hi Robyn.” Her voice sounded weary but reasonably devoid of hysteria.

  “You okay tonight?”

  “What? Oh, sure.” Scout yawned. “Just really tired, is all. How about you?”

  “I’m good. Uh, listen, I have to go out again tonight. Is it okay if I take the dog?”

  “Sure. She needs a walk anyway. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “Well, great. I might be out pretty late, though.”

  “That’s okay.” Scout yawned again, and started up the stairs. “With any luck, maybe I’ll be asleep when you get back.”

  Robyn watched Scout walk slowly up the stairs. Well, it looks like I was wrong about her. Maybe things will go back to normal now. I guess I don’t have to worry about being killed tonight, after all.

  She got her things together, called for the dog, and headed out the door.

  Unfortunately, Robyn was wrong.

  Back to Top

  * * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  * * * *

  Out in the garden, the morning mist had not yet lifted. Dew furred the leaves and blossoms of the trumpet vine that grew around the porch and glistened on the huge spider web stretched between two of the redwood posts supporting the grape arbor.

  Lucy watched as her little flock of chickens stalked across the lawn. They clucked and cackled excitedly, scratching for snails in the wet grass. The sun danced in the rooster’s iridescent green neck feathers as he flapped his wings and let loose with a loud, long undulating crow. “Show-off,” she muttered fondly. She was a big fan of testosterone-fueled displays.

  In spite of the glorious morning unfolding all around her, Lucy was feeling considerably less than glorious today. Dan and the kids were getting ready for their camping trip; with Mandy still unsure about whether to go, Lucy suddenly not at all certain she wanted to be left behind.