Forbidden Ground. Karen Harper

about Paul’s work. I have a business card I can give you. Some city folks don’t want to drive out into the wilds to find a unique artist, and it’s hard to take tree trunks on the road to art shows. A website helps, of course, but I think Paul always underprices his work.”

      Grant was relieved when everyone arrived and seemed to be mingling well. Despite the high ceiling of the large room, the noise level rose. He had Gabe and Tess go first at the buffet table, and others followed. After they ate, he noticed Kate kept looking out his back window, which, as darkness descended, had turned into a huge, black mirror reflecting all of them.

      After much group talk, dessert and a champagne toast, Grant finally managed to talk to Kate alone. She was still glancing out the window. “I’d love to see Mason Mound during daylight,” she told him when he approached.

      “Gabe mentioned that, huh? It’s pretty overgrown. Bushes on top, brush below and surrounded by several huge, prime maples, one with my boyhood tree house in it.”

      “How wonderful. I love hearing about people’s pasts. The mound’s never been excavated, right?”

      He hesitated, took a swig of his champagne. Either it was starting to get to him or she was. How much to tell this beautiful, interesting and interested woman? “My grandfather and my father both believed in letting the dead stay dead—undisturbed.”

      “Most mounds in this area are tombs.”

      “It’s only about twenty-four feet high, conical like most of the others, so it’s not a big or grand one.”

      “Which is probably why it’s been ignored. I found it on an old map I came across. Actually, the smaller mounds are often more productive and intriguing.”

      Was it his imagination that the word intriguing hung between them for a moment? Of course it was. He just didn’t need her questions getting too close for comfort, although that warred with his desire to get closer to her.

      “Productive and intriguing?” he repeated as across the room a burst of laughter broke out.

      When she raised her voice slightly to be heard, he realized they’d been whispering. “Because,” she explained, “if bodies or grave goods are interred there, they would be easier to excavate. In the big, well-known mounds, there may be burials stacked on top of each other in wood-lined tiers but everything’s caved in and smashed. Did Tess or Gabe mention I’m fascinated by the Adena and need proof to link them to my major area of study, the Celtic people of northern Europe?”

      “Tess told me. Anyway, I look at the mound as a monument—on private land—not to be tampered with or desecrated. But sure, I’d be happy to show it to you. Maybe after all the wedding hoopla. I hear your other sister is coming in tomorrow, so I know you’ll be busy. Drop by the mill if you’d like a tour of our facilities there.”

      She cocked her head, which made her hair brush her bare shoulder. She seemed to study him again. Did she sense he was putting her off about the mound? It actually had been entered in 1939 by his grandfather and then much later—by Grant, Brad, Todd and Paul—but he’d never tell her any of that. Though he had to admit, she was the kind of woman who could probably pry anything out of him if she put her mind to it, which made her damned dangerous as well as a temptation. All he needed was her wanting to take a really close look at the mound, including inside it.

      * * *

      As Kate sat between Gabe’s mother and Tess during the bridesmaids’ luncheon—at another surprising new-town venue called Miss Marple’s Tea Room—Kate could not believe how fast time flew toward the wedding. She knew it would be wonderful, except for having to be nice to Dad and his new family. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep because he’d left them? Before Mom got them an apartment and found a job in Jackson, Michigan, Kate used to be afraid they’d all starve to death, despite the money Dad sent every month. And when she’d later learned Jack Lockwood had cheated on his wife with the sheriff’s wife—Gabe’s mother, since Gabe’s dad was sheriff before Gabe—her pain had turned to stony hate.

      Of course, as an adult, she saw there were two sides to every love story, every breakup and divorce. Sheriff Rod McCord had seldom been home, so his wife must have been lonely. Obviously, the affair and divorce had been her fault, too. Mom had always seemed to be raising the three of them alone while Dad traveled for his job. Kate had always blamed him for leaving them at a time when it was crucial for them to bond as a family—right after Tess was abducted and then came back. And now, Kate knew, she’d have to be civil to him as she’d promised Tess. At least she couldn’t blame his new wife and their kids for the man he was or, at least, had been.

      Char burst out laughing at something Tess had said. Kate was so glad Char had arrived safely, though her skin was deeply tanned. She’d have to urge her to keep a hat on and her arms covered out there in Navajo land. Char had always been as bubbly as Kate was serious, and she was really enjoying herself now, sitting on Tess’s other side, giggling. Well, the two of them had always been close, while Kate had sometimes felt like their second mother.

      Char leaned over Tess to speak to Kate. “Isn’t it something we have two half brothers? I know it’s the sperm that decides the sex of the child, but since we had three girls and now, with another woman, Dad has two boys, you have to wonder if the female doesn’t make the difference.”

      “Char, can we please save this discussion until our real hen party later tonight?” Tess said. “I’d like both a boy and a girl, and I heard, depending on when you have sex, there are ways to hedge your bets on that.”

      Kate smiled while everyone laughed again. The chatter went on, but it was really hard to wrap her brain around the fact she had two young half brothers. She could only hope and pray they would live better lives than their father had.

      * * *

      Back at the old family house, where the three of them would be staying until the wedding, Sarah McCord, Gabe’s mom, was the first topic of conversation while the three of them sat around the kitchen table with glasses of Chardonnay.

      “She’s still an attractive woman,” Char said. “I think she’s pretty protective of Gabe, so maybe it’s good she lives in Florida. You don’t need your mother-in-law over at your house all the time.”

      “I wouldn’t mind a bit if she lived closer to us,” Tess insisted. “I’m planning on needing some babysitting help in the future.”

      “You do have babies on the brain,” Kate said. “Don’t you want to get your preschool going well before you have munchkins of your own? By the way, I’ve noticed how Vic Reingold’s been paying close attention to Gabe’s mother. I overheard he’s picking her up at Gabe’s for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, then taking her to the airport after you and Gabe leave for your honeymoon—your mystery spot you still haven’t told us about.”

      “All Gabe told me so far is I need a passport and clothes for some possibly cool weather.”

      “Ah,” Char said with a little laugh as she raised her wineglass. “Antarctica, here we come.” Kate clinked glasses with each of her sisters.

      “Oh, by the way,” Tess, the master of shifting topics, said, “Grant said his brother, Brad, is back in town for a while, so I said he should invite him to the wedding. He’s down on his luck lately. Some business deal fell through. What’s one more person on top of half the town at the ceremony and reception?”

      “Half of old town, you mean,” Kate said. “I can see that great social divide you mentioned. It’s always been the haves and have-nots. We’re theorizing now that the lower-class Adenas were cremated and only the upper or shaman class were interred in their elaborate burials—along with a few sacrificed slaves to serve them in the afterlife, much like the Egyptians.”

      “Kate!” Char threw a wadded-up paper napkin at her. “No talk about funerals past or present right now. Okay?”

      “Sorry,” Kate said. “I heard you talking about live Navajos, but I only have dead Adenas.”