Crow Mountain (7 page)

‘OK.'

Two hours later, Cal helped Hope down from Misty, catching her as she slid to the ground on legs clumsy with being in the saddle.

‘Oops!'

‘Go easy, the blood can rush to your feet.'

She laughed, giddy with the riding and being held. ‘That was such fun, thank you! She's so lovely.'

They shifted apart, self-conscious.

Cal cleared his throat. ‘You look a little peaked. Maybe you should go back to the house and have some tea or a nap or something.'

‘I have a chemistry project. And Mum will be annoyed if she catches me sleeping in the day.'

He gestured with his chin without meeting her eyes. ‘In the barn, if you head to this end, there are some stairs to the loft. You can crash out there if you like and no one will know. You'll have to ignore all the crates of junk Mom's cleared from the attic though. She wants me to go through it and see if there's anything I want before it goes to the incinerator. Take a look if you like.'

‘OK, thanks. And thanks for this.' She patted Misty. ‘It was great.'

He nodded, walking away, the horse trailing in his wake. Hope found the stairs to the barn loft. It was far bigger than their flat in East London. It was all one space, with a sink and a kitchen counter, a two-burner gas ring and a few shelves at one end, with jars of coffee and sugar. The rest was taken up with a big bed and two broken sofas facing an old TV.

All along one side were crates and boxes filled with typical attic contents. Hope began to look inside. Some of them contained a large collection of fairly recent football trophies, an athletics medal, a pile of school exercise books and a sketchbook of drawings, all of horses. Another of the boxes contained cookery books from the 1960s and another held all sorts of old treasures, including a little black beadwork bag, a sewing kit, a pair of silver-framed spectacles, and a pretty shawl.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and examined each item. Hope loved old things. At the bottom of the crate was a box decorated with different kinds of wood, some of which had chipped off. She lifted it out and opened it. It looked like a
small writing set. The lid folded out to make a sloping surface, and inside was a dried-up inkpot and a steel pen. It felt strangely heavy. Something moved inside. Hope frowned and lifted it up to look underneath. Nothing. Then she looked at the sides. One side had a seam in the wood not apparent on the other, but nothing she did made a difference. She got up and put it on the table, fetching a knife to try and dislodge the seamed side. It wouldn't budge.

She yawned, suddenly tired. She eyed the bed for a few seconds before collapsing on to one of the dusty-smelling sofas, pulled the knitted throw over her and was asleep almost instantly.

When she woke it was past two o'clock and time to get on with her schoolwork. The box still sat on the table but the side was now open. Inside was a worn black leather-bound book. Hope opened it and saw thin, almost onionskin pages covered in flowing lines of handwritten script. At the tops of some of the pages were printed mottoes about the duties of married women. She turned to the title page.

THE YOUNG BRIDE-TO-BE'S COMPANION

Flipping to where the writing started, she read,
Montana, 1867
. Down in the yard, a loud, outside bell signalled a phone was ringing somewhere, making her jump. She pocketed the book and headed back to the house, intending to continue when she'd got some homework done.

*

Immersed in her school projects, Hope's afternoon passed quickly. Languages, sciences – all of her subjects had strict tasks and timetables meant to replace ordinary school classes. Her best friend Lauren thought Hope's schedule was crazy and told her so, frequently, as she sat on Hope's bed and looked at the colour-coded wallchart over the desk.

Now, Hope sighed. She was just finishing a chemistry equation when the sun came through the window and hit the diary on the edge of the desk, making the worn black leather cover shine. Putting down her pen, she opened it again, resting her chin on her hand.

Married life. I was not quite sixteen . . .

There was a knock on her door and it opened. Meredith came in.

‘How has your day been?'

‘Good, thanks,' Hope said, meaning it. ‘Yours?'

‘Excellent. It really is everything I expected and more. The place is totally unspoilt. I'm going to start writing up my notes. Dinner is in an hour, apparently.'

Hope nodded, stomach rumbling. She really did want something to eat, and went down to the kitchen just before the hour was up. There, Caleb was looking freshened up and had a beer wrapped in his hand. Meredith was sitting at a stool at the counter, holding a glass of white wine. Dinner was spread out on the dining table.

‘I'm afraid this is it, as Mom's still with my aunt in Kalispell,' Cal said.

‘This looks perfect, thank you,' said Meredith.

‘Some cook, my son here. He'll make someone a great wife one day,' Caleb joked.

Cal rolled his eyes while Meredith's mouth set like a steel trap.

‘I made you some pasta to go along with it,' he said to Hope, ‘because vegetarians get short-changed.'

‘As I said in my email, Hope's a picky eater,' Meredith said.

Hope gripped her fork, white-knuckled, but said nothing. In front of them was a meatloaf, buttered jacket potatoes, a salad and a bowl of pasta with what looked like pesto. Hope took a jacket potato and some salad. And some pasta.

‘You usually like just pasta,' Meredith said, looking at her plate.

Hope put the spoon back in the bowl, slowly. ‘I can have seconds if I want to.'

‘You sure can,' Cal's father said. ‘Get the little lady a glass of wine, son. If she wants one.'

‘Yes pl—'

‘No. Hope won't have any. And Mr Crow, Caleb, might I insist that just as you have a name, my daughter, Hope, also has a name.'

Cal had already stood up. Hope's eyes flickered to his, and held. He hesitated, then sat back down, still looking at her.

‘Oh well, sure. Didn't mean nothing by it.' His father began to make stilted conversation about Meredith's research.

Hope picked miserably at her food, appetite gone. The Crows ate a lot, helping themselves to more, listening attentively to Meredith.

‘Considering how vast swathes of Montana have suffered so terribly with the pollution from mining, the ranch is a remarkable survival story.'

Cal's father nodded. ‘The problems are more down Butte way, but yes, this state has got more than its fair share of troubles because of mining. Then again, a lot of Montana was built on mining, so that's a snake eating its own tail.'

Hope's phone chimed in her pocket. She pulled it out, wondering who would be texting her in the early hours from England. The message displayed on the screen. She shoved the phone back into her jeans.

‘Who was that?' Meredith's voice was sharp.

‘No one.'

‘No one doesn't text you at three in the morning.'

Hope studied her plate. ‘It's just one of those welcome to a foreign country messages.'

Meredith stood up and held out her hand. ‘Give it to me.'

‘Honestly. They're just reminding me to make sure my data roaming is turned off. Which it is.'

‘Give.'

Hope put the phone into her mother's hand. When Meredith finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion.

‘You
told
me you didn't have any contact with him.'

‘I don't. Much. He's having a break on a night shoot and was trying to make sure we got here safely.'

Meredith's voice rose. ‘A night shoot? For this ridiculous detective thing? And you told him we were coming here? When?'

‘He emailed.'

‘
Emailed
? How does he have your address?'

Hope hesitated. ‘James messaged me.' James was the eldest of Hope's half-brothers. There was only three months between them. The row was escalating, and there seemed to be nothing at all Hope could do about it.

‘Messaged you how?'

Biting her lip, Hope cringed. ‘On Facebook.'

‘Facebook? We agreed social media wasn't healthy.'

Hope's fingers tightened around her fork, white-knuckled. ‘No. You
told
me it wasn't. The way you
tell
me what to do all the time.'

Meredith's volume rose again. ‘Only to protect you. That's all.'

‘I don't need protecting from
your
problems with what
he
did to us. I need a life of my own,' Hope flat-out yelled back.

‘How could you? After everything? How could you betray me like this?' Tears glittered in Meredith's eyes.

Hope pushed up from the table and headed for the door to the terrace, almost blinded by her own tears. She felt sick and dizzy. The bluff in front of her spun as her knees gave out and the hard wooden decking came up to meet her.