Hallow House - Part Two (36 page)

"Wait for me," Grant said. "I've got to get something. I'll just be a minute or two." He slid back down the incline to return to the cave.

Naomi stared after him. Surely he didn't mean to retrieve one of the skulls to bring back with him. Didn't he have any idea how she might feel, considering these ancient bones might well have caused her mother to die? The thought so revolted her that she turned away and went back to the horses, untied hers and urged him into a fast trot.

Leaving him in the corral, she slid into her car and roared away. Ignoring her plan to stay with her sister overnight, she drove straight to San Francisco. But she didn't return to the dorm. Instead, she stopped at Johanna's and Brian's place. Since by now it was early evening, they both were home.

"What a wonderful surprise," Johanna said. "We hardly ever see you." Then evidently seeing something in Naomi's expression, she added, "What's wrong?"

"Bones," Naomi muttered. "They've been there all the time. Grant found them. And all the missing skulls." She shook her head. "I don't ever want to see him again." Then she burst into tears.

Much later, when she'd calmed, she managed to tell a coherent story. Answering Johanna's questions, though, forced her to reveal more than she meant to about Grant himself.

"Why do you put the blame for this on the Rivers guy?" Brian asked when she paused. "He was just doing what anthropologists do--and with Gregory permission."

"Why
are
you blaming him?" Johanna asked.

"He brought back the past."

Brian and her sister exchanged a look. They didn't understand about Grant, didn't know how he violated what was between them.

"You'd better tell her, Brian," Johanna said. "Obviously Katrina hasn't."

"Tell me what?"

"Katrina and Ronal want to rebuild Hallow House," Brian said.

"Rebuild? Oh, my God, no!"

"It's still in the discussion stage." Johanna said hurriedly.

"You can't possibly intend to allow it," Naomi insisted. "You of all people."

Johanna shrugged. "The idea bothered me at first, but then I realized it wouldn't be the same place."

"It would, it would. The bones are still there, the bones that killed Mama."

"If you feel that strongly, maybe you'd better talk to your twin," Brian advised. "You'll have to wait, though. She and Ronal are in Seattle for a week visiting his grandmother. "

"The subject is now taboo for the evening," Johanna announced. "The important thing is to decide where we're going to dinner."

After spending the night with Johanna and Brian, Naomi returned to the dorm and found an angry note from Larry, who couldn't understand why she'd left for two days without telling him where she was going.

"A relationship is about trust and sharing," he'd written at the end.

She certainly hadn't been sharing with him and he had a perfect right not to trust her. She decided to confess all and tell him it'd been a mistake.

When they met two evenings later, she tried to do just that, but the words stuck in her throat. All she actually told him was that she'd gone to visit Johanna and Brian. She also apologized for not letting him know ahead of time.

She may have made up her mind that she was going to marry Larry after all, but she couldn't bring herself to so much as mention Grant's name to him. Nor did she say a word about the bones or Hallow House.

A week later, she reached Katrina on the phone.

"Oh, that," her twin said. "I've been meaning to talk to you about our plans."

"Don't lie to me, you know it never works. You didn't dare mention rebuilding Hallow House to me, that's why I'm the last to know."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have time to discuss it now. Let me know when your next days off are."

Naomi told her.

"Okay, how about this?" Katrina asked. "Samara's been at us to come for a visit. Suppose I arrange with her for it to be on those days and let Johanna and Brian know, too. Then we'll all be together in Porterville and can hear what everyone thinks."

Much as Naomi didn't want to go anywhere near where Grant was working, she grudgingly agreed that was the logical way to go about having a discussion.

"By the way, I had a foreseeing," Katrina said. "A good one, this time. I saw you getting married."

"To Larry, of course."

"No, I've met Larry. Your groom was a total stranger to me."

"Then it must have been only a dream, not a foreseeing. Because Larry's the man I plan to walk down the aisle with."

After she hung up, Naomi thought about asking Larry to come with her, but shook her head. Time enough for him to get in on family squabbles after they married.

She paused, recalling the last time they'd been together. When he'd kissed her it wasn’t unpleasant but she hadn't felt that special rush that seized her with Grant's kiss.

Marry Larry? Suddenly she knew to do so wouldn't be fair to him. Or to her, really. Not that she planned to see Grant ever again.

When she put in for her overnight pass, to give herself more time, Naomi wrangled an extra vacation day by saying it was to be a family reunion. Which, in a way, it was. Before she left, she wrote a letter to Larry and enclosed the engagement ring. A coward's way out, she knew, but, looking at it another way, hadn't she already betrayed him with another man? Larry was lucky she'd managed to realize in time that he deserved a woman who loved him whole-heartedly. But sending the letter and the package off to him depressed her.

June was always a glorious month in the valley and this June was no exception. Sunny skies, with a breeze not yet carrying the heavy heat of summer. Flowers in bloom, pleasing to the eye and the nose and birds singing everywhere. Naomi's heavy heart lightened a little as she drove through all these magic June bounties. June, the month of weddings. But she wouldn't be anyone's bride in any foreseeable June. Not Larry's and not Grant's.

No matter how hard she'd tried to eradicate Grant from her thoughts, he refused to go away. Sooner or later she'd forget him, though. She was determined.

Naomi was the first to reach Samara's, where her nephew and niece clamored for her attention, diverting her until her other two sisters arrived with their husbands. The children were immediately fascinated with the croquet set Brian and Johanna brought them and the four went outside to set up the game.

"I swear those two are going to spoil the kids with all the presents they shower on them," Samara said. "I told Kevin we have to find a way to convince them to adopt before our kids are too far gone."

Naomi, who'd noticed the wistful smile on Johanna's face as she followed the children outside, thought it was a shame Brian and Johanna had made up their minds never to have children. She supposed it had to do with the fact they were cousins, but still...

Without discussing it, everyone agreed to put off family business until the children were in bed. So it was well into the evening before the subject of rebuilding Hallow House came up.

"I want to reassure Naomi that we have no intention of building on top of any bones," Ronal said. "This anthropologist is arranging with the Yokut for burial of the skeletal bones and also the skulls presently interred in Skull Cave."

"Yes," said Katrina, looking at Naomi. "That's why we didn't mention it to you right away. We wanted to wait and see what he found."

Aware they meant Grant, Naomi found her heart pounding. "I still don't like the idea," she said.

"Why?" Brian asked. "Johanna and Samara have more cause than you to oppose the rebuilding, yet they agree."

"It's best to replace the dreadful past with a promising future," Samara said, glancing fondly at Kevin.

"The new house will be free of the shadows that haunted the place we grew up in," Johanna said.

"Even if you believe in the curse," Katrina put in, "once the bones are gone, so is the curse."

Naomi thought over what they'd said, finding her arguments dissolving one by one . She might never want to live in a rebuilt Hallow House herself, but that was no reason to try to prevent her sister from doing so. "I hadn't realized the bones were to be taken away," she said. "That changes things."

"Then you agree?" Kevin asked.

She nodded.

"Good." Kevin glanced at his watch and rose. "I've got a project going in the garage I'd like some male advice on. Ronal? Brian?"

As the men filed out, Samara said, "Johanna could you give me a hand getting dessert and coffee ready? Oh, there's the doorbell. Please get it for me, Katrina."

Naomi opened the door and stared speechless at the man on the doorstep.

“Aren‘t you going to let me inside?“ he asked. “I was invited, you know,“

Instead of standing aside, she flung herself at him.. He grabbed her, then lifted her into his arms and carried her across the threshold before setting her on her feet. “Next time I do that it’ll be for keeps,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and then kissed her thoroughly.

When they were finally able to let go of each other, he said, "Katrina tells me she foresaw our marriage."

"She's never yet been wrong in her predictions," Naomi admitted.

"Good, then we can forget the preliminaries and--"

"Not all of them," she warned.

He grinned at her. "If you don't know by now how much I love you, I may have to scandalize all your relatives by an immediate demonstration."

"Oh, Grant, I do love you."

He pulled her down onto the couch and put an arm around her. "I certainly hope so. Samara and Johanna both told me they thought you did, but I wasn't completely convinced."

"
They
thought so?"

"Apparently you gave yourself away."

Naomi shook her head. "I kept trying to convince myself I didn't, but I never quite made it."

"So they concocted this meeting tonight as a test," he added. "Either you fell into my arms or ran off like you did the other week."

"I was frightened of the bones."

"My foster grandfather believes the Old Ones brought us particular two together for a purpose. It was time for them to be reburied and, through us, they will be. As a reward, we've been given each other."

Something deep inside Naomi validated this belief. They
had
met for a purpose. The two of them she and Grant, had lifted the curse from the Gregorys once and for all, as well as reuniting the Old Ones' bones in proper burial. But there was one remaining tie to the past that must be taken care of.

"I have something I'd like your foster grandfather to bury in a place where it will never be found," she said. "Not with the bones, it was never theirs. I know this pendant has the power to evoke evil, tell him that, and ask him if he, as a medicine man, is willing to deal with such a thing."

Grant nodded. "He believes, as I do, that evil should never be encouraged. He'll do as you wish."

Naomi felt an intangible weight lift from her.

"We'll travel together for the rest of our lives," Grant told her. "And I'll ravish you in every country we visit."

"I can't wait," she told him, melting into his arms again.

"Sorry." Samara's voice jerked them back to reality. She set a tray of food on the coffee table before adding, "I'm afraid any ravishing will have to wait until after dessert and coffee. House rules."

So Hallow House would rise again, Naomi thought. Which was as it should be. She glanced at Grant and he smiled at her.

"Now that I'm finished here, I'm off to France. How does Brittany strike you for a honeymoon?"

She sighed happily. Wonderful. And it always would be with Grant.

Naomi looked at Samara, pouring coffee, and remembered something her sister had once said to her. It had been about waiting, because love came more than once and the second time could be the charm.

Recalling the message Grant had delivered to Samara about Mark. Naomi wondered if her sister had believed she loved Mark in the same way Naomi once believed she loved Ronal.

Kevin walked into the room and ruffled Samara's hair in passing. She smiled up at him and no one could miss the love they shared.

"You know," Kevin said to Naomi, "the minute I met Grant, I had the feeling you two ought to get together."

Samara grinned at them. "Well, they certainly did. Meant for each other, obviously."

Naomi's gaze met Grant's. The warmth in his eyes told her he, like she, had no doubts about their life together. As Samara had done, she'd waited and, in the ruins of the past, she'd found her future.