Castle Rock by Carolyn Hart Page A

Minter.
    Serena smiled wryly. Nothing about them suited the rugged and dangerous land. She pictured Howard’s fleshy face and wary darting eyes, Lou’s voluptuous figure and pouting mouth. They hadn’t ridden a horse since their arrival. They seemed to spend their mornings sleeping and their afternoons and evenings watching TV, although he occasionally hit balls from the golf tee. Why should they have paid the stiff price it took to visit Castle Rock? If by some wild mistake, they came to vacation, surely it hadn’t taken them long to realize how unsuitable it was for them. Why hadn’t they left? Why did they stay on after Uncle Dan died? Surely not because they were having such a wonderful time.
    Life is, of course, full of unreason, and perhaps the Minters were only a finite example of this law.
    Serena pushed up from the flat boulder and stood for a moment to survey the entire purple-blue lake. She couldn’t imagine the Minters up here. Now, that certainly didn’t hold true for the other dudes, George VanZandt and John Morris, the coauthors of a physics text. Both of them looked as if they would be quite at home around a campfire or climbing a steep rock face. Serena wasn’t sure what made her so confident of it, but she was. The only puzzle about them was the fact that they stayed on after Uncle Dan’s death—and the reason might be as simple as VanZandt said, they had a deadline. Funny, though, how tanned they were to have spent hours closeted in their cabin, working on their text. Perhaps that claim was an exaggeration. As sensitive men, they wouldn’t want to dwell on good times out in the sun while the family mourned.
    It would be interesting, Serena thought, to look in their cabin, see the evidence of their work.
    As she walked slowly toward Hurricane, Serena forced herself to consider another anomaly at Castle Rock this summer.
    Would it be fair to say that nothing had been the same since he came? Jed had arrived two months ago, standing at the hacienda door, a duffel bag over his shoulder, an apologetic smile on his face. Lost, he’d said. Car trouble. Funny how well he had fitted in, how soon he became a new hand. Jed kissed her then turned and followed Julie. Jed warned her not to return to Castle Rock and, when she did, told her to be careful.
    If Jed was not what he seemed, what was he?
    She remembered the feel of his mouth against hers, the wild and lovely rush of desire.
    Serena jumped down from the boulder. Hurricane waited for her. She gave one last longing look at the lake but she had found no peace today. She carried unease with her as a leper carries disease. Now she must go back down the mountain and whatever threat waited, face it down.

As Hurricane stepped carefully along a narrow ledge with a thirty-foot fall beneath them, Serena thought of that last lovely day when she had ridden out with Uncle Dan and Jed to Castle Rock. She and Hurricane had thundered down the trail. That reckless dash made Jed notice her. And Uncle Dan had cautioned her, not knowing he would ride to his death the next day.
    Oh, Uncle Dan, she thought, if you were here you would know what to do.
    There was no answer to her silent cry, just the click of Hurricane’s hooves on the rocky trail, the rustle of rabbits or ‘possums in the underbrush, the cheerful summer chatter of the birds.
    Then, abruptly, Serena reined in Hurricane and sat, her face wrinkled in thought.
    How could she have forgotten?
    She had tried to figure who might be part of this summer’s strangeness at Castle Rock and she had thought of everyone but Uncle Dan himself.
    The night before he died, Uncle Dan was furious.
    The next day, Uncle Dan died.
    Her heart began to thud as though she had ridden a hard race.
    The idea was monstrous, unbelievable.
    Anything that the mind of man can conceive can happen. Serena understood that, but this time she didn’t want to accept that reality.
    â€œNo.”