At Marti’s final hushed words, a log shifted on their small fire and dimmed the flames.
Dale emitted a ghostly laugh, “And so you’re all doomed–cursed! Just like everybody in town says–the Far Hills Curse, that’s why all those Suslands die like flies.”
“Shut up, Dale,” ordered Amy. “You don’t know anything about it–you’re not a Susland.”
“So what. Neither’s Luke!”
Luke calmly watched Dale and Amy, but contributed nothing to the dispute his name had been dragged into.
“He’s a lot closer than you’ll ever be, because he’s part of Far Hills Ranch.”
“Big deal. And Ellyn isn’t even–”
“How could he not go back to his children?” Kendra’s voice trembled, but it seemed to be with outrage, not tears.
“Maybe he didn’t know how to be a father.” Grif stared into the fire as he spoke. “Some men just don’t.”
Marti licked her dry lips, tasting the whisper of winter coming. “There’s one more part I’ve never told you before.”
All eyes turned to her.
“But now . . . now I think I have to tell you. In case there’s not another time . . . in case we’re not all together again.”
Marti swallowed and resumed her story-telling voice. “Leaping Star said one more thing to Charles Susland. ‘If these wrongs are not righted in five generations of your blood, then they will never be undone, and Far Hills will be ever silent.’ ”
Amy’s wide eyes stared at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means somebody who had Charles Susland as an ancestor needs to make right all those things he did wrong,” said Kendra. “But there are others besides us, aren’t there?”
Grif shook his head. “I remember Mom showing me a family tree. Lots of people died off young and–”
“Just like I said!” crowed Dale.
“–that means the group of us sitting here are the last of Charles Susland’s descendants. But even if you believe in this sort of thing, Aunt Marti, how could folks living now make right something that happened a hundred years ago?”
“If I knew, Grif, I’d do it, no matter what.”
By his widening eyes, she could see her nephew recognized her words gave away that she did believe.
“All I know is that Amy and I are the last to carry the Susland name, but it will be our children, if we have any, and you, Grif, and you, Kendra, who must make sure the curse is lifted. Because you’re the fifth generation of Charles Susland’s blood.
“You’re the last hope of Far Hills.”
CHAPTER ONE
“I am not cursed.”
Kendra Jenner set the mug on the wood table with an emphatic clunk. The gesture lost a good deal of its effect because the mug resembled the head of a cartoon duck, complete with blue bill. It was her son’s favorite.
“First of all, the entire idea of that legend is absurd,” Kendra declared. “And second–”
“Oh, I don’t know–” started her friend and neighbor, Ellyn Sinclair.
“And second,” Kendra repeated, “I’m not a Susland.”
“Not by name, but Charles was your ancestor, right?”
Kendra opened her mouth to reply, but a more pressing matter intruded.
“Mo’ doose.”
Kendra looked at her son seated beside her at their kitchen table. Despite the familiar swell of love that always twinned with an ache of loss, she kept her voice light. “Only if you’ll drink it this time instead of using it as hair mousse.”
Matthew, his thick, dark hair displaying new and interesting spikes, ignored that caveat and returned to the heart of the matter, hands opening and closing as he reached for the mug. “Mo’ doose.”
“Single-minded child you have there,” Ellyn said with a smile from across the table. She had arrived early for their meeting, catching Matthew in the midst of a lunch where more food went on than in. Although Meg and Ben Sinclair were school-age now, as a widowed mother of two, Ellyn had taken in the situation–including, no doubt, Kendra’s frazzled state–served herself coffee and took a chair at a safe distance. “Must take after his mother.”
You wouldn’t think so if you met his father.
The thought came before Kendra could stop it, and so did the ache. She pushed both away.
“Determination is a good quality,” she said as she gave her son the mug. “Both hands, Matthew.”
“Doose.” He drank loudly then raised his head to beam her a smile. “Dank you.”
Matthew’s smile eased some of her tiredness. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
“Hello, sorry we’re late.” The back door opened to Marti Susland and her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Emily.
“Come on in, Marti.”
Kendra had stopped calling Marti Susland “aunt” so long before she had come back to Far Hills to live that she couldn’t remember exactly when she’d started viewing the older woman as an equal. Maybe it had been when Amy died, leaving Kendra and Marti united in grief. Since Kendra’s return to Far Hills, she and Marti and Ellyn had formed a support system built on friendship and all being single parents.
“I’d like to blame it on traffic–” Kendra and Ellyn chuckled, since Marti lived just up the private road at the Far Hills home ranch. She shook her head, setting her mixed brown and gray chin-length hair swishing. “–but I fear I’m getting slower and slower. Sometimes keeping up with Emily makes me feel like I’m a relic from history, instead of researching it.”
They were meeting today to organize their work on a freelance local history supplement to the Far Hills Banner, where both Ellyn and Kendra worked part-time. Using Marti’s research, Kendra would do the writing and Ellyn the graphics and layout. Kendra had the extra income earmarked for her son’s college fund.
Matthew’s interest was riveted on Marti’s daughter, a dark-haired, dark-eyed sprite. He craned his head around the side of the high chair to call hello, then whipped his head back to his mother.
“Down. Down.” he ordered, already trying to undo the tray.
“First you need to be cleaned up, young man, or the first time you touch Emily the two of you will be permanently bonded.” Wiping the worst of the damage from Matthew’s scrunched up face and squirming arms, hands and
