Agatha leaned back and brought her nails to tap at her red lips. The tension was clearly getting to Henry Strauss. She had never before heard him use profanity or even raise his voice out of a monotone. Strauss prided himself in his Old World ways; he being from old money. Agatha despised his pretentiousness. She knew that the old money was long gone. They were poor as church mice, the lot of them.

"Relax, Henry," she replied, wary now. "All bad pennies turn up."

"It's not like him to run off like that. Maybe he's dead. He was a mess when he left. A raging drunk." He shook his head.

"Since when do you have sympathy for Charles Blair?"

Strauss looked up again, his pale eyes hooded. "I don't. I simply don't trust him. Charles is like a snake. One never knows when or where he'll strike. He can be very dangerous, you know, especially when riled."

Agatha's eyes narrowed. She thought of Charles's phone call to Sidney Teller. A small sense of alarm seized her. "Has Bellows turned up anything?"

"No. Bellows has come up short."

She swiveled in her chair. "He's out," she snapped. "Understood?"

"Quite so."

Agatha sat back in her chair, tapping the tips of her polished fingernails. "I hear MacKenzie's widow has left town."

"That's right. Bellows a.s.sures me she's out of the picture. A pathetic figure, actually."

"Who cares about her? It's MacKenzie's papers I want. That conniving b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It would be just like him to keep a secret file on the deal. He was a double-dealer."

"We have no reason to believe he did."

"All MacKenzie would have had to do was implicate me in any way and that would have been enough for Charles Blair. He is too sharp and he loves the kill as much as I do. No, if those papers exist, I want them."

"This whole deal reeks. MacKenzie never should have died. It was supposed to be a done deal. Prop up MacCorp. stock: buy low, sell high. Quick and clean. Who ever would have thought..."

Agatha narrowed her eyes. "MacKenzie couldn't make the repayment schedule."

"We held twenty-five million in the company as collateral for the loan, for G.o.d's sake! We should have been well protected. If Charles hadn't sniffed it out and called in the loan, we could have stalled. That was the plan."

Agatha sank back in the upholstery, looking with disdain at the sulking figure. Oh no, she thought with satisfaction, that was not the plan. MacKenzie may have duped other bankers into believing his illusion of wealth, but not her. She'd known all along he was too highly leveraged; why else would she have chosen him for her plan? She felt a ripple of pleasure. Banking could be o.r.g.a.s.mically delightful.

Henry gritted his teeth. "There are going to be some embarra.s.sing questions if this gets out."

Agatha raised her brows. "If? Surely, you mean when."

Henry Strauss flushed along his starched collar. It had to be a first. "We have got to keep MacKenzie's bankruptcy under wraps," he said. "It's agreed."

"By whom?"

"Everyone. The banks, the auditors-everyone wants to get paid back and no one wants a scandal."

"His company is headed for receivership. It's being raided even as we speak. My dear boy. It's too late."

"It's not too late." Henry's voice rose as he did. "The MacKenzie auction can satisfy our loans, at least. We just have to allow a delayed payment schedule. If not, the s.h.i.t will hit the fan. Sidney Teller is already hot on my trail, trying to call them in. He's a solid banker. Teller won't give up."

"Think, Henry." Agatha's fingers tapped impatiently over the ball of her cane. "What if the auction does not satisfy the loans?"

"The board will trace the loans to Charles Blair's office. He'll be forced out. We all will."

"Not all of us. I will not be implicated." She flicked lint from her lapel. "I will protect you."

"And let Charles take the fall?"

Agatha smiled. "He's the top man. It was always the risk."

Henry Strauss straightened his shoulders and looked Agatha in the eye. For a moment she thought the old Henry had returned. He appeared cool and detached.

"Of course," he eventually replied, a hint of the patrician air returning to his voice. "That was the plan all along. I was blind not to have seen it earlier."

Agatha looked at Strauss now, not even attempting to disguise her disgust.

Strauss's pale lids fluttered. "MacCorp. stock will surely plummet." His voice flattened. "I'm ruined."

Precisely, thought Agatha. They both knew that now Strauss had no choice but to go along.

"It's only money. We can make more," she told Strauss. "You're tired. Ask Miss Wilton to give you a set of keys to Bar Harbor. It should be empty." She flipped her thick leather schedule book. "Yes, Cornelia is in Palm Beach already."

Flipping the pages back again, Agatha a.s.sumed a magnanimous expression. "Take a few days to unwind. The next few weeks will be critical if we are to pull this off. And we will. Charles has no power here any longer. I hold all the strings. We can't have you tense, now can we?"

Henry narrowed his eyes. Agatha searched them but could not read them. He was the old, cold Henry.

"Yes, I think I will," he said. "I am tired." His florid features were immobile as he stood lifeless before her desk. His eyes, however, were staring without a blink straight at her, or rather, through her.

"Thank you for your concern," Strauss finally said with a slight nod of his head. Then he turned and walked stiffly to the door, never once looking behind.

Agatha watched him leave, an inordinate hatred bubbling up against the younger man. Pathetic pup! How could men be such fools? Edwin, her husband, had proven himself naive, despite his intellect. His son, Charles, was of the same ilk. One after the other, they were all little boys with egos brandished like swords at play. Swagger, spin, and fall.

She pressed the intercom b.u.t.ton. "Call Sidney Teller. Tell him I'm on my way to his office.... Yes, immediately."

With Strauss out of town and Charles Blair on the horizon, it was time to get things stirred up a bit. She'd leak just enough to see how much Charles knew. In any case, the MacKenzie estate had to fall quickly.

"Well, little Henry," she murmured, grabbing hold of her cane and raising herself up on stiff legs. "You shall get yours. Poor Henry. You were the biggest fool of all. For you, a brief parry and score. But Charles..." Her hand tightened around the cane.

"Oh, for you, stepson, I waited till the moment when you were most vulnerable. When your mental guard was down. Now, at last, it is time for the attack."

Agatha slowly, precisely, extended her arm, aimed her cane, and after a brief swirl of the wrist, thrust the cane forward in a mock fencing ritual.

"For you, Charles, the thrust lunge."

11.

NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS comes on quietly, like a thief that steals the farmer's precious light. Nora climbed from her bed and, slipping a thick robe over her flannel nightgown, padded in her slippers down the stairs into the great room. Even in the evening shadows, the room was magnificent. The ceiling vaulted to twenty-five feet at its peak over huge windows that allowed the night to flow in.

In the city, the night sky was broken by the lights of other apartments, neon signs, and headlights. Here, the wilderness poured in, thick and unbroken. From somewhere out in the silence, an owl hooted and an animal screeched a shrill wail.

She shivered and wrapped her robe high along her neck. Outside, she knew the stars shone bright in the crisp air of a country sky. She might see the Big Dipper, maybe even the Milky Way. But she couldn't bring herself to venture out into the dark unknown. Even the great room was foreboding. Its vastness mirrored the wild s.p.a.ce outdoors.

Nora went back up to her bedroom and climbed back in bed, bringing the covers up around her ears. Snug in a small s.p.a.ce, with the light from the lamp shining beside her, Nora couldn't remember when she'd felt so alone. Not even after Mike died did she sense her isolation so completely. She knew, with a sureness as cold as the night air, that no one really cared if she made this farm succeed or fail. That no one would celebrate her life or mourn her death.

What was she doing on this mountain, she asked herself. She had come up here with a heart full of dreams and an armful of books, but today in the barn she learned the difference between a dream and reality. Esther had walked so confidently among the sheep, doing everyday ch.o.r.es that she herself had only read about in one of her books.

Worst of all were the ewes. All of them with bellies swollen with life. Such a natural ch.o.r.e, birth, but one she had failed in. And then the lambs...the babies...

That thought of the baby lambs released the tears she'd held in check all day. Tears that were not for Mike, but because of him. Oh, how angry she was at him! He would not leave her alone. Instead of getting away, the farm carried his memory in each brick and stone.

Seven years they'd been married. For five of those years she had tried to be the perfect wife and hostess. But like the car that couldn't make it to the top of the hill she, too, had been discarded. He exacted revenge for the injustice he believed she had committed against him. A tremor shook her as she recalled the expression on his face the morning the doctor suggested he undergo sperm tests.

"Me?" he had shouted, exploding in characteristic vehemence. "There's nothing wrong with my sperm, Doctor. If there is something wrong, it's with my wife. She's the one with a problem. Got it?"

The doctor backed up and tried to regain his composure. Nora felt sorry for the frail physician faced with a big, boorish Irishman with fists like shovels and veins protruding from his flushed neck.

"Mike," she said softly. "The doctor's only trying to discuss the possibilities. No one is saying that the problem lies with you. It's just that-"

He turned and gave her a look so threatening that she immediately silenced and shrank back into the upholstery.

"Mr. MacKenzie," began the doctor, "Mrs. MacKenzie has already undergone a long series of tests. Nothing positive has shown up. We will, of course, pursue other avenues with her, but I feel it is in your best interests to explore other possibilities."

Mike's shoulders hunched like a cat about to pounce. "Like me," he responded in a low tone. The muscle in his jaw was twitching.

She'd wrung her hands and looked from her husband to her doctor. The doctor, too, must have sensed the danger. He walked to the other side of his desk and sat down behind it. Regaining his composure, the doctor began to reel off a list of tests and procedures. His monologue included what the results would find, and finally what options they had if Mike's sperm was in fact limited, slow, or even dead.

Nora cringed.

Mike's fist slammed down on the desk, sending the pencils flying and the doctor to his feet.

"You listen to me and listen good. There is nothing the h.e.l.l wrong with my sperm, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm gonna jerk off into some bottle for you to poke around with under some frigging microscope.

"Is this what you brought me here for?" he stormed, turning his vehemence toward Nora. He was towering over her and jabbing his index finger into her face. "You listen to me, Doctor." His gaze swept between the two of them. "I don't care what you have to do, what you have to spend. But the problem lies with her," he said, jerking his thumb in Nora's direction. "Find it and cure it. Fast."

Then he grabbed his coat in his fist and stormed toward the door. Before leaving he turned his head to catch Nora's eye. She recoiled. Again he pointed his index finger at her and said, his voice ringing with bitterness and conviction, "If you can't give me an heir, I'll get a wife who can."

He left, slamming the door on any hope for her marriage she might have harbored. Nora sat staring at the door in cold disbelief and hot shame. The doctor was muttering some thing about "normal reaction," and how "they usually come around." She knew differently. This wasn't just about having a baby. This was about Mike and how she fitted into his world.

There would be no mutual struggle to have a baby. That was her job. He had invested time and money into her. And now, she was a commodity that had come up short.

That was when he started seeing other women. He pursued them with a vengeance. Bra.s.sy blondes, fiery redheads, sloe-eyed Asians, all with that lean, hungry look. Eyebrows had raised and tongues had wagged from Nantucket to Long Island. At first her friends rallied around her in exaggerated sympathy. Yet as whiff of her descent became apparent, invitations grew few and far between.

Mike grew more brazen about his affairs, openly displaying his latest paramour at parties she should have attended. He drank more, gambled high stakes and spent large sums of money in an obsequious display of his wealth and virility.

He was running away from a truth he couldn't escape and he punished Nora for it. After years of doing her best to dress to his liking, entertain his endless hordes of cronies, arrange his social calendar, smile charmingly at a sea of meaningless faces, have his baby, his message was clear. She had failed.

And the tragedy of it all was that she had believed him.

Nora lay shivering in her bed, knees curled to her chest, when she heard the back door open. Her memories vanished as fear sharpened her senses. She heard the door click shut, then the steady footfalls across the hall, up the stairs, then at her door. Her mouth went dry. She slid her hand across the bed to the nightstand and closed it around the handle of the kitchen knife.

A gentle rapping sounded on her door.

"Mrs. MacKenzie? Nora, are you awake?"

The deep voice was unmistakable. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind, all of them ending with the question: What was C.W. doing here alone at night?

"What do you want?" Her voice was crisp, unwelcoming. One hand was tight on the knife while the other reached for the phone.

"Sorry to bother you so late. But you've been asking to see a birth."

Her breath exhaled with a great whoosh. She couldn't decide whether to be grateful or angry. Releasing the knife from her hand, she laughed a little at her cautiousness. This wasn't New York.

He knocked again. "Nora?"

"Yes, yes, I'm coming," she called, responding to his impatient tone. "Just give me a minute to get dressed."

"You don't have time for that. Just get your coat and shoes and come on. Nature can be impatient."

She grabbed her suede jacket and fumbled on the floor for her loafers. Then, shoving a bare foot in one shoe and carrying the other, she shuffled across the room and swung open the door. C.W. filled the frame. Even in the dark, his eyes glowed, and by the crinkle at their corners, she knew he was smiling.

"Do you even sleep in a braid?" he asked, gazing at her hair.

Her hand flew to her hair, opening her jacket over her long flannel gown.

He took a long look at her, then shook his head and laughed. "Come on, Wee Willie Winkie. You can tie up your shoes in the car." Laughing again, he turned and led the way down the dark stairs with his flashlight, muttering something about putting light fixtures in one of these days.

The ride down the mountain through the tunnel of foliage was both exciting and frightening. He wasn't speeding, but he had to be driving with as much instinct as skill to make the sharp turns in the blackness. The lights on the dashboard glowed green, barely piercing the darkness. Sitting close in the front seat, Nora found it hard not to notice his long, hard thighs as they pumped the clutch, or how long and tapered his fingers were as they molded around the gearshift. The darkness made the silence easy.

As soon as she entered the barn, she heard the laborious breathing of the ewe. C.W. left her side and hurried to the small pen, then grinning, he brought a finger to his lips with one hand and waved her over with the other. Careful not to run, Nora walked as quickly as she could to the pen where a ewe stood panting heavily amidst the clean hay. The ewe turned in her small stall and bleated. Nearby, other ewes bleated in reply, their ears p.r.i.c.ked and their attention focused on the pen. Nora watched the exchange and wondered if the miracle of new life didn't bond all living creatures somehow.

"Not to worry, it's all quite normal," C.W. rea.s.sured her.

She felt helpless as she stood and watched the poor ewe who seemed in such pain. Yet as the low grunts increased their pace, Nora grew inexplicably drawn to the miracle that was unfolding. All this was part of a world that had eluded her. She was desperate to learn the secrets of this natural process, somehow to become whole as a woman, if only through the efforts of a ewe. She leaned forward as the ewe bore down and a new lamb joined the world.

Nora's hand flew to her mouth as she squelched a cry of awe. Never before had she witnessed an event so excruciatingly beautiful that it touched her to the core. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"She's a fine ewe," C.W. announced. Placing the newborn under her mother's nose, he added, "It's a shame such a good mother only had one lamb." He paused then snapped his fingers. "Nora, go and get the runt. This might work."

Nora backhanded her cheeks and carefully crossed the distance to the training pen. She approached the runt. He looked weaker and could barely utter a broken bleat when she lifted him. With maternal care she delivered the runt to C.W. Then he held both lambs in his big hands and gently rubbed one against the other while Nora watched with amazement mixed with admiration.

"With a little luck, she'll accept them both."