Silver Hollow (2 page)
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Jo pursed her lips and nodded. “War
,
is it? Having any luck?”
Amie cast a cursory glance
at
her silver Dell. “I’ve rewritten the last chapter so many times…”
“You’ll have to refresh my memory,” Jo said
,
after settling Amie’s unanswered bills and occasional fan mail upon the coffee table and gathering her feet upon the couch. Amie could smell the life of the farm on her best friend even now. Along with her love of nature, Jo’s occasional short-term memory loss also had not changed.
Amie grinned and sighed before replying, “Al
l
right…Richard has just returned to Lady Desdemona after facing Lord Rupert in a duel on the battlefield.” She paused, waiting for some kind of recognition, but Jo only stared at her with
confusion
. Gesturing wildly with her hands, Amie pressed on. “Rupert accused Richard and Desdemona of being French spies, remember?”
“Oh yeah, and the war finally caught up with them, right?”
Amie nodded. “Rupert accidentally stabs Desdemona and Richard finds her bleeding to death back at the camp. He’s using his gift to bring her to life…I just can’t decide if I want her to live or not.”
“He’s supposed to be an angel
,
right?”
Amie shrugged and said, “They wanted another paranormal romance…thought I’d try and meld my original idea with their twist.”
Jo
frowned
. “Why should they tell you what you can and can’t write?” The smaller woman seemed to grow with her mounting frustration. Jo had always been the first to stand against the world’
s
injustices.
“The story? Focus
,
Joey…”
Jo nodded,
her bobbed blonde hair falling into her face. “Why wouldn’t you want Desdemona to live?”
Amie frowned. “That’s what I can’t figure out. I mean everyone wants their happy ending, right? No one cares about reading actual literature anymore anyway. All they want is
v
ampires and supernatural mumbo
-
jumbo. It’s sick
,
really.”
Sick because once upon a time Amie had dreamed of writing a truly great novel. She had written her first fantasy novel just to get her name on the market more than anything, not so she too would be swept onto the paranormal romance bandwagon.
“What’s that?” Jo pointed to the key resting beside Amie’s laptop, her eyebrows rising until her forehead creased.
“I found it on the street earlier.” Amie subconsciously clutched the ring hidden beneath her T-shirt and repressed a shudder. T
he t
ale of the stranger was on the tip of her tongue, but
Jo
interrupted before she could tell it.
Jo leaped
from her seat almost t
oo gracefu
l
l
y
,
and
landed on the other side of the couch
. She stood and
skipped to pick up the newly polished metal
, then
studied it closely, her curiosity replaced by a growing frown.
Amie sidled up to her and said, “Cool, huh? It was pretty much the only good thing that came out of my morning.”
Nodding, Jo replied belatedly, “Hmm
? O
h
,
yeah. This isn’t silver, is it?”
Amie took the key by its bow and noticed the strange luminosity in Jo’s blue eyes. “It cleaned up good. I’ve never seen a silver key this old before though.” Her heart ached as she stared down at the interweaving Celtic knot.
Jo’s finger intruded
into
her view as it lightly dabbed the square
-
cut metal blade. Her words barely more than a whisper
,
she said, “Did anything else strange happen this morning?” Her blue eyes narrowed in on Amie.
Sinking into her rolling chair, Amie groaned, “No, Joey, I’m fine. Just dropped my papers in the square and found this underneath.” It was a b
a
ld
-
faced lie, but she wasn’t fond of the twins when their protective streak lit up. Not to mention Jo’s retired military boyfriend, who took protecting the family to the mafia level. If she were to mention the Englishman whose accent happened to sound so close to Father’s, Amie would wind up with a bodyguard before she knew it.
“Are you sure you’re not forgetting anything?” Jo rested her fists on her hips.
Keeping solid eye contact throughout, Amie replied, “No! I swear I’m fine. For crying out loud, it’s just a key!”
Again another lie
, her conscience reminded her. She knew the chances of finding a key with the same obscure symbol as her father’s ring w
ere
slim to none.
It
wasn’t
as if she hadn’t researched it after her parents’ deaths. Nothing of his family or family crest came up on the net and no jewelers recognized the symbol. All Amie knew was the ring was old as a rock and made out of an unknown metal. One jeweler had offered a college education’s worth to fork over the heirloom. If she
’d
thought she could actually get through the insanely tough courses this time Amie might have taken him up on his offer. But her father’s ring was the only thing he had passed on to her from his old life.
Finally, after a solid minute of their star
ing
contest, Jo nodded to herself, expression relaxing. “Okay, sorry. If you say nothing else happened I trust you. It’s just hard to break old habits.” She shrugged and Amie grimaced. After the car crash the twins had been especially protective of her until she could stand on her own feet. Even now, not a day went by she didn’t see at least one of them or Jo’s boyfriend.
“Oh crap, it’s almost six!” Jo rushed to grab her purse and keys before darting to the door and Amie followed.
“James?” Amie grinned as she mentioned Jo’s cowboy boyfriend and partner on the nearby ranch they were working on. While Amie had dreamed of
books
, Jo dreamed of horses. James was six foot, blond and more of a dreamboat than Jo could have imagined for herself. Even at the mention of his name a pale blush colored her friend’s perfect features.
“Yeah…he wants to check out this new tea room that just opened. Sorry to drop in and run like this. I lost track of time. Don’t forget about Friday
,
okay? Don’t get too lost in the story this time! You know how Faye gets. Oh, here, I forgot to give this to you earlier.”
Amie’s amusement quickly turned to curiosity as Jo pulled a worn letter from the pile she had set down earlier. Taking it from her friend with her free hand
,
Amie asked, “Who’s this from?”
Jo’s eyes were sad as she replied, “Mom forwarded it to me. I gotta go…look
,
if you want to talk later
,
call me. See ya
,
girl!”
Amie nodded, eyes focused upon the weather
-
worn paper. She barely heard the door click, reading over the address inked upon its surface as a dozen memories clouded her mind. It had been addressed to her neighbor’s Kansas address
,
sure enough. Amie’s parents had died in a car accident when she was a junior in high school, and it was her neighbors and best friends who
had taken
her in. Mail sometimes came through them still, ten years later.
The parchment was thick in texture, the sort of paper Amie loved to just feel. She had only ever received one such letter before in her life, the day of her parents’ funeral. All was forgotten as her eyes swept over the letter and its contents.
“My dearest Jessamiene,
It grieves me that so much time has passed since our last correspondence. Circumstances have prevented me from writing sooner, and I am afraid will delay your response. Forgive me
,
dear one, as you can forgive a poor old fool. When I heard nothing in return of my last letter
I thought it best perhaps
you did not reply. In the beginning I believed I was obeying your father’s wishes, to keep you closeted in the dark. I know now this is folly.
To better understand I ask
you
to
come to my country estate, following the instructions and tickets I have included in this letter.
Travel safely
,
dear one. Tell no one of your plans.
Love,
Uncle Henry”
Letting the parchment slip from her fingers and into her lap, Amie stared at the phosphorescent Christmas lights on the wall.
She was a
gitated by the grumbling of her stomach and weight of her upcoming deadline pressing on her mind
. T
his letter was the last thing she wanted to read. She’d spent many years building up protective walls against the painful memories. Sometimes it was almost too easy to forget the past when she wanted.
Until Uncle Henry’s letter Amie had done a fairly good job of shutting out the fact she
had
begun to rebel against her parents
before their car accident. Steeling herself against the tears forming behind her eyelids, she folded and tucked the paper into her pocket.
There would be time to think about how she was going to respond later. For now she needed to stay the course of her own life. She had spent too long rebuilding her identity, years her last living blood relative hadn’t attempted to include himself in.
His fingers left bloody streaks upon her perfectly fashioned cheeks, blood
yet pouring from the wound in her side. Tears blurred his vision until he could see little, until he could only see flashes of their time together in his mind…Until
—
“Richard
,
you back
stabbing coward!” Lord Rupert’s shirt had been torn during their duel hours before. He had been lying dead on the battlefield the last time Richard saw him. Pale as his countenance was, thick chest heaving, how was the blasted devil still alive? Rapier brandished, he cut through the air as he continued his tirade
.
“How dare you tell me lies when all I ever showed you both was kindness?
”
Richard clutched the motionless form of his love even closer
. “Kindness?” Were they back to this again? “You named us as spies to the Emperor! We’ve been running for our lives ever since! How can you still name us your friends?”
Rupert towered over them both, ominous, spittle coating his words. “She never loved you! Have you not realized yet your precious Mary is the Lady Desdemona? That she lured you to her, making you all believe she wanted to betray her own countrymen, when she has been my wife these two
-
and
-
ten years?
”
Richard trembled, shook as a beast roared inside of him. His voice sounded with the distant cannon yet overpowered it
.
“LIES!”
“Bah!” Lord Rupe—
Pausing, Amie stared at the mostly blank white screen and the blinking cursor waiting for her next move. She’d been attempting to write for the last two hours and rewritten the same paragraph at least ten times. Giving up, she let out a small scream of frustration, and snatched up the lost key to twirl between her fingers again. In the short hours since she’d discovered it the silvery metal had become something of a good luck charm. It also had the knack of continuously reminding her of the Englishman and consequently her father’s ring and Uncle Henry’s letter.
Amie sank back into her chair, arms falling upon either side of the leather rest. “The old codger’s out of his mind!” she grumbled to the half
-
full screen of her laptop. The tickets
hidden in the envelope
were for tomorrow night. No doubt they had cost the old man a fortune, therefore making her feel even guiltier for wanting to refuse.
Bet he had
a blast orchestrating that one.
Tilting her head back
,
she twirled, eyes focusing on the Christmas lights she had yet to box up. She had always loved Christmas lights. In high school she
had
pinned them up around her room, refusing to take them down after the holidays, though her mother laughed and protested. Amie won
,
of course. She
had
always got what she wanted then.
Uncle Henry had been nothing more than
a part of
the occasional cursory
mention
of her father’s past
. The rare occasion she dared ask him anything, Drustan would grow silent, and then change the subject. So
few
answer
s had she gleaned from him,
she hardly
knew
anything
about him
.
O
nly
that
he was her father’s elder brother and still lived
on
their family estate back in northern England.
