The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  “She didn’t imagine it,” Gage agreed, “and she handled it. There’s not a weak spine among the three of them. That’s an advantage.”

  “She was alone.” Fox swung back. “She had to handle it alone.”

  “There are six of us, Fox.” Cal’s voice was calm, reasoned. “We can’t be together or even buddied up twenty-four hours out of the day. We have to work, sleep, live, that’s just the way it is. The way it’s always been.”

  “She knows the score.” Gage spread his hands. “Just like the rest of us.”

  “It’s not a fucking hockey game.”

  “And she’s not Carly.”

  At Cal’s statement, the room went silent.

  “She’s not Carly,” he repeated, quietly now. “What happened here today isn’t your fault any more than what happened seven years ago was your fault. If you drag that around with you, you’re not doing yourself, or Layla, any favors.”

  “Neither of you ever lost anyone you loved in this,” Fox shot back. “So you don’t know.”

  “We were there,” Gage corrected. “So we damn well know. We know.” He slid up his sleeve and held out the wrist scored with a thin white scar. “Because we’ve always been there.”

  Because it was pure truth, Fox let out a breath. And let go of the anger. “We need to come up with a system, a contact system. So if any of us are threatened while we’re alone, all of us get the signal.

  “We’ll have to come up with something,” Fox added. “But right now I need to close up, and get out of this suit. Then I want a beer.”

  BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED AT THE RENTAL house, dinner preparations were already under way, with Quinn dragooned into serving as Cybil’s line chef.

  “What’s cooking?” Cal leaned down, tipped Quinn’s chin up, and kissed her mouth.

  “All I know is I’m ordered to peel these carrots and potatoes.”

  “It was your idea to have dinner for six,” Cybil reminded her, but smiled at Cal. “What’s cooking is delicious. You’ll like it. Now go away.”

  “He can peel carrots,” Quinn objected.

  “Fox can peel carrots,” Cal volunteered. “He can handle vegetables because that’s about all they ate at his house.”

  “Which is why you should practice,” Fox shot back. “I want to talk to Layla. Where is she?”

  “Upstairs. She . . . hmm,” Quinn finished when Fox simply turned and walked out. “This ought to be interesting. Sorry I’m missing it.”

  He headed straight up. Fox knew the layout of the second floor, as he’d been drafted into carting up bits and pieces of furniture when the women were settling in. He turned straight into her bedroom, through the open door, where she was wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of low-cut briefs.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Out. Get out. Jesus.” She grabbed a shirt from the bed, whipped it in front of her.

  “It won’t take that long.”

  “I don’t care how long it takes, I’m not dressed.”

  “For Christ’s sake, I’ve seen women in their underwear before.” But since she merely lifted her arm, pointed at the door, he compromised by turning around. “If you’ve got modesty issues, you should close your door.”

  “This is a houseful of women, and I . . . never mind.”

  He heard the rustling of clothes, slamming of drawers. “How’s the headache?”

  “It’s fine—gone, I mean. I’m fine, so if that’s all—”

  “You might as well dismount.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “From your high horse. And you can toss out the idea of me apologizing for reading you before. You were pumping off fear, and it rammed right into me. What happened after was instinctive, and doesn’t make me a psychic Peeping Tom.”

  “You can curb your instincts, and do it all the time. You told me.”

  “It’s a little tougher when it’s someone I care about in crisis. So deal. Meanwhile you might want to start thinking about another job.”

  “You’re firing me?”

  He figured she’d had enough time to pull something on, so he turned around. He still had a crystal-clear picture of her wearing only bra and panties in his head, but had to admit she made an equally impressive picture wearing jeans, a sweater, and outrage.

  “I’m suggesting you think about finding a job where you work around people, so you’re not left alone. I’m in and out of the office, and once Mrs. H—”

  “You’re suggesting I need a babysitter?”

  “No, and right now I’m saying you have a big overreact button, and your finger’s stuck on it. I’m suggesting you shouldn’t feel obligated to come back to the office, that if it makes you uneasy, I get it, and I’ll make other arrangements.”

  “I’m living and working in a town where a demon comes to play every seven years. I have a lot more to be uneasy about than doing your damn filing.”

  “There are other jobs where you wouldn’t be doing anyone’s damn filing alone in an office on a regular basis. Alone in an office where you were singled out and attacked.”

  “In an office where I fought back and did some damage.”

  “I’m not discounting that, Layla.”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “I don’t want to feel responsible for something happening to you. Don’t say it.” He held up a hand. “My office, my schedule, my feelings.”

  She angled her head, the gesture both acknowledgment and challenge. “Then you’ll have to fire me or, to toss back your own advice, deal.”

  “Then I will—deal. We’re going to try to come up with some sort of alarm or signal that can reach everyone at the same time. No more phone trees.”

  “What, like the Bat Signal?”

  He had to smile. “That’d be cool. We’ll talk about it.”

  When they walked out together, he asked, “Are we smooth now?”

  “Smooth enough.”

  Despite Cybil’s edict, the rest gathered in the kitchen. Whatever was on the menu already scented the air. Cal’s dog, Lump, sprawled under the little cafe table, snoring.

  “There’s a perfectly good living room in the house,” Cybil pointed out. “Well-suited for men and dogs, considering its current decor.”

  “Cyb still objects to the flea-market-special ambiance.” Quinn grinned and crunched into a stalk of celery. “Feeling better, Layla?”

  “Much. I’m just going to grab a glass of wine then go up and chart this latest business. By the way, why were you calling me? You said you’d tried to call me on the office phone and my cell.”

  “Oh God, with all the excitement, we forgot.” Quinn looked over at Cybil. “Our top researcher’s come up with another lead to where Ann Hawkins might have lived after the night at the Pagan Stone.”

  “A family by the name of Ellsworth, a few miles outside of the settlement here in sixteen fifty-two. They arrived shortly after Hawkins, about three months after from what I’ve dug up.”

  “Is there a connection?” Cal asked.

  “They both came over from England. Fletcher Ellsworth. Ann named one of her sons Fletcher. And Ellsworth’s wife, Honor, was third cousin to Hawkins’s wife.”

  “I define that as connection,” Quinn stated.

  “Have you pinpointed the location?”

  “Working on it,” Cybil told Cal. “I got as much as I got because one of Ellsworth’s descendents was at Valley Forge with George, and one of his descendents wrote a book about the family. I got in touch—chatty guy.”

  “They always talk to Cyb.” Quinn took another bite of celery.

  “Yes, they do. He was able to verify that the Ellsworths we’re interested in had a farm west of town, in a place that was called Hollow Creek.”

  “So we just have to—” Quinn broke off, catching Cal’s expression. “What?” Because he was staring at Fox, she turned, repeated. “What?”

  “Some of the locals still call it that,” Fox explained. “Or did, when my parents bought t
he land thirty-three years ago. That’s my family’s farm.”

  Six

  IT WAS FULL DARK BY THE TIME FOX PULLED UP behind his father’s truck. The lateness of the hour had been one of the reasons his parents weren’t going to be invaded by six people on a kind of scavenger hunt.

  They’d have handled it, he knew. The house had always been open to anyone, anytime. Relatives, old friends, new friends, the occasional stranger could count on a bed, a meal, a refuge at the Barry-O’Dells. Payment for the hospitality might be feeding chickens, milking goats, weeding a garden, splitting wood.

  Throughout his childhood the house had been noisy, busy, and often still was. It was a house where those who lived in it were encouraged to pursue and explore their own paths, where the rules were flexible and individualized, and where everyone had been expected to contribute to the whole.

  It was still home, he thought, the rambling house of stone and wood with its wide front porch, its interesting juts and painted shutters (currently a sassy red). He supposed even if he ever got the chance to make his own, to build his own family, this farm, this house, this place would always be home.

  There was music when he stepped into the big living room with its eccentric mix of art, its bold use of color and texture. Every piece of furniture was handcrafted, most by his father. Lamps, paintings, vases, bowls, throws, pillows, candles, all original work—family or friends.

  Had he appreciated that as a child? he wondered. Probably not. It was just home.

  A pair of dogs rushed from the rear of the house to greet him with welcoming barks and swinging tails. There’d always been dogs here. These, Mick and Dylan, were mutts—as they always were—rescued from the pound. Fox crouched to give them both a rub when his father followed them out.

  “Hey.” Brian’s grin flashed, that instant sign of pleasure. “How’s it going? You eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on back. We’re still at it, and there’s a rumor about apple cobbler.” Brian swung an arm over Fox’s shoulders as they walked back to the kitchen.

  “I was going to drop by today while I was working in town,” Brian continued, “but I got hung up. Look what I found,” he said to Jo. “He must’ve heard about the cobbler.”

  “It’s all over town.” Fox went around the big butcher-block table to kiss his mother. The kitchen smelled of his mother’s herbs and candles, and the thick soup from the pot on the stove. “And before you ask, I’ve had dinner.”

  He sat in a chair he helped make when he’d been thirteen. “I came by to talk to you guys about the house—the farm.”

  “Moving back in?” Brian asked and picked up his spoon to dig back into what Fox recognized as his mother’s lentil and brown rice soup.

  “No.” Though that door would always be open, he knew. “The main part of the house is pre-Civil War, right?”

  “Eighteen fifties,” Jo confirmed. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, but I wondered if you knew if it was built on any earlier structure.”

  “Possible,” his father answered. “The stone shed out back’s earlier. It stands to reason there was more here at one time.”

  “Right. You looked into the history. I remember.”

  “That’s right.” Jo studied his face. “There were people farming here before the white man came over to run them out.”

  “I’m not talking about the indigenous, or their exploitation by invaders.” He did not want to get her started on that one. “I’m more interested in what you might know about after the settlers came here.”

  “When the Hollow was settled,” Jo said. “When Lazarus Twisse arrived.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know the land was farmed then, that the area was known as Hollow Creek. I have some paperwork on it. Why, Fox? We’re not close to the Pagan Stone, we’re outside of town.”

  “We think Ann Hawkins might have stayed here, had her sons here.”

  “On this farm?” Brian mused. “How about that?”

  “She wrote journals, I told you about that, and how there are gaps in them. We haven’t found any from the time she left—or supposedly left—the Hollow until she came back a couple years later. If we could find them. . . .”

  “That was three hundred years ago,” Jo pointed out.

  “I know, but we have to try. If we could come by in the morning, first thing in the morning before I have any clients coming in—”

  “You know you don’t have to ask,” Brian said. “We’ll be here.”

  Jo said nothing for a moment. “I’ll get the famous cobbler.” She rose, stroking a hand over her son’s shoulder on her way to the cupboard.

  HE’D WANTED TO KEEP ALL OF IT AWAY FROM HIS family, away from home. When he drove the familiar roads back to the farm at the first break of dawn, Fox told himself this search didn’t, wouldn’t, pull his family in any further. Even if they proved Ann had stayed there on their land, even if they found her journals, it didn’t change the fact the farm was one of the safe zones.

  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.”