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  HE WALKED INTO THE DOORWAY AND HALTED

  Ten years compressed in the nerve-racking space of a few seconds.

  This tall, broad-shouldered stranger was her husband. Every memory she had of his appearance was there, stamped with a brutal decade of maturity, but there. Except for the look in his eyes. Nothing had ever been bleak and hard about him, before. He stared at her with an intensity that could have burned her shadow on the floor.

  Words were hopeless, but all that they had. “Welcome back,” she said. Then, brokenly, “Jake.”

  He took a deep breath, as if a shiver had run through him. He closed the doors without ever taking his eyes off her. Then he was at her in two long steps, grasping her by the shoulders, lifting her to her toes. “I trained myself not to think about you,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “Because if I had, I would have lost my mind.”

  “I never deserted you. I wanted to be a part of your life, but you wouldn’t let me. Will you please try, now?”

  “Do you still have it?” he asked.

  Anger. Defeat. The hoarse sound she made contained both. “Yes.”

  He released her. “Good. That’s all that matters.”

  Sam turned away, tears coming helplessly. After all these years, there was still only one thing he wanted from her, and it was the one thing she hated, a symbol of pride and obsession she would never understand, a bloodred stone that had controlled the lives of too many people already, including theirs.

  The Pandora ruby.

  By Deborah Smith

  WHEN VENUS FELL

  A PLACE TO CALL HOME

  SILK AND STONE

  BLUE WILLOW

  MIRACLE

  FOLLOW THE SUN

  THE BELOVED WOMAN

  SILK AND STONE

  A Bantam Book/March 1994

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint from the following: Reprinted with permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company from LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, by Thomas Wolfe. Copyright 1929 Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed © 1957 Edward C. Aswell, as Administrator, C.T.A. of the Estate of Thomas Wolfe and/or Fred W. Wolfe.

  TALES FROM THE CHEROKEE HILLS by Jean Starr. Reprinted with permission of John F. Blair, Publisher, Winston-Salem, NC.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1994 by Deborah Smith.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

  means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any

  information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

  from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79654-7

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  For Nita and Andrea

  Whisper the words.

  Say that name as little as you can,

  Don’t draw their attention.

  Raven Mockers.

  They can look old or young, man or woman,

  Beautiful, ugly, kind, mean …

  The Mockers take the shape of others,

  Seeming to be old Grandfather, Grandson,

  Wife, harmless friend,

  Sweetly speaking, coming closer,

  Placing a gentle hand on the forehead,

  Looking at the helpless one

  With pitiless two-hundred-year-old eyes,

  Waiting, waiting, until heads turn,

  Until others leave the room,

  Then, in a flash, ripping out the heart …

  These who love life so much

  That they would steal it

  Are not evil strangers, but kinsmen,

  And every Raven Mocker

  Is one of us,

  One of us.

  JEAN STARR

  Cherokee storyteller

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Two Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Three Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  About the Author

  Prologue

  She had everything ready for him, everything but herself. What could she say to a husband she hadn’t seen or spoken to in ten years: Hi, honey, how’d your decade go?

  The humor was nervous, and morbid. She knew that. Samantha Raincrow hurt for him, hurt in ways she couldn’t put into words. Ten years of waiting, of thinking about what he was going through, of why he’d been subjected to it, had worn her down to bare steel.

  What he’d endured would always be her fault.

  She moved restlessly around the finest hotel suite in the city, obsessed with straightening fresh flowers that were already perfectly arranged in their vases. He wouldn’t have seen many flowers. She wanted him to remember the scent of youth and freedom. Of love.

  Broad windows looked out over Raleigh. A nice city for a reunion. The North Carolina summer had just begun; the trees still wore the dark shades of new spring leaves.

  She wanted everything to be new for him, but realized it could never be, that they were both haunted by the past—betrayals that couldn’t be undone. She was Alexandra Lomax’s niece; she couldn’t scrub that stain out of her blood.

  Her gifts were arranged around the suite’s sitting room; Sam went to them and ran her hands over each one. A silk tapestry, six feet square and woven in geometrics from an old Cherokee design, was draped over a chair. She wanted him to see one of the ways she’d spent all the hours alone. Lined up in a precise row along one wall were five large boxes filled with letters she’d written to him and never sent, because he wouldn’t have read them. A journal of every day. On a desk in front of the windows were stacks of bulging photo albums. One was filled with snapshots of her small apartment in California, the car she’d bought second-hand, years ago, and still drove, more of her tapestries, and her loom. And the Cove. Pictures of the wild Cove, and the big log house he’d built for them. She wanted him to see how lovingly she’d cared for it over the years.

  The other albums were filled with her modeling portfolio. A strange one, by most standards. Just hands. Her hands, the only beautiful thing about her, holding soaps and perfumes and jewelry, caressing lingerie and detergent and denture cleaner, and a thousand other products. Because she wanted him to understand everything about her work, she’d brought the DeMeda book
too—page after oversize, sensual page of black and white art photos. Photos of her fingertips touching a man’s glistening, naked back, or molded to the crest of a muscular bare thigh.

  If he cared, she would explain about the ludicrous amount of money she’d gotten for that work, and that the book had been created by a famous photographer, and was considered an art form. If he cared, she’d assure him that there was nothing provocative about standing under hot studio lights with her hands cramping, while beautiful, half-clothed male models yawned and told her about their latest boyfriends.

  If he cared.

  The phone rang. She ran to answer. “Dreyfus delivery service,” a smooth, elegantly drawling voice said somberly. “I have one slightly used husband for you, ma’am.”

  Their lawyer’s black sense of humor didn’t help matters. Her heart pounded, and she felt dizzy. “Ben, you’re downstairs?”

  “Yes, in the lobby. Actually, I’m in the lobby. He’s in the men’s room, changing clothes.”

  “Changing clothes?”

  “He asked me to stop on the way here. I perform many functions, Sam, but helping my clients pick a new outfit is a first.”

  “Why in the world—”

  “He didn’t want you to see him in what they gave him to wear. In a matter of speaking, he wanted to look like a civilian again.”

  Sam inhaled raggedly and bowed her head, pressing her fingertips under her eyes, pushing hard. She wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t let him see her for the first time in ten years with her face swollen and her nose running. Small dignities were all she had left. “Has he said anything?” she asked when she could trust herself to speak calmly.

  “Hmmm, lawyer-client confidentiality, Sam. I represent both of you. What kind of lawyer do you think I am? Never mind, I don’t want to hear the brutal truth.”

  “One who’s become a good friend.”

  Ben hesitated. “Idle flattery.” Then, slowly, he added, “He said he would walk away without seeing you again if he could.”

  She gripped the phone numbly. That’s no worse than you expected, she told herself. But she felt dead inside. “Tell him the doors to the suite will be open.”

  “All right. I’m sure he needs all the open doors he can get.”

  “I can’t leave them all open. If I did, I’d lose him.”

  “Parole is not freedom,” Ben said. “He understands that.”

  “And I’m sure he’s thrilled that he’s being forced to live with a wife he doesn’t want.”

  “I suspect he doesn’t know what he wants at the moment.”

  “He’s always known, Ben. That’s the problem.”

  She said good-bye, put the phone down, and walked with leaden resolve to the suite’s double doors. She opened them and stepped back. For a moment she considered checking herself in a mirror one last time, turned halfway, then realized she was operating on the assumption that what she looked like mattered to him. So she faced the doors and waited.

  Each faint whir and rumble of the elevators down the hall made her nerves dance. She could barely breathe, listening for the sound of those doors opening. She smoothed her upswept hair, then anxiously fingered a blond strand that had escaped. Jerking at each hair, she pulled them out. A dozen or more, each unwilling to go. If it hurt, she didn’t notice.

  She clasped her hands in front of her pale yellow suit-dress, then unclasped them, fiddled with the gold braid along the neck, twisted the plain gold wedding band on her left hand. She never completely removed it from her body, even when she worked. It had either remained on her finger or on a sturdy gold chain around her neck, all these years.

  That chain, lying coldly between her breasts, also held his wedding ring.

  She heard the hydraulic purr of an elevator settling into place, then the softer rush of metal doors sliding apart. Ten years compressed in the nerve-racking space of a few seconds. If he weren’t the one walking up the long hall right now, if some unsuspecting stranger strolled by instead, she thought her shaking legs would collapse.

  Damn the thick carpeting. She couldn’t gauge his steps. She wasn’t ready. No, she would always be ready. Her life stopped, and she was waiting, waiting.…

  He walked into the doorway and halted. This tall, broad-shouldered stranger was her husband. Every memory she had of his appearance was there, stamped with a brutal decade of maturity, but there. Except for the look in his eyes. Nothing had ever been bleak and hard about him before. He stared at her with an intensity that could have burned her shadow on the floor.

  Words were hopeless, but all that they had. “Welcome back,” she said. Then, brokenly, “Jake”

  He took a deep breath, as if a shiver had run through him. He closed the doors without ever taking his eyes off her. Then he was at her in two long steps, grasping her by the shoulders, lifting her to her toes. They were close enough to share a breath, a heartbeat. “I trained myself not to think about you,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “Because if I had, I would have lost my mind.”

  “I never deserted you. I wanted to be part of your life, but you wouldn’t let me. Will you please try now?”

  “Do you still have it?” he asked.

  Anger. Defeat. The hoarse sound she made contained both. “Yes.”

  He released her. “Good. That’s all that matters.”

  Sam turned away, tears coming helplessly. After all these years, there was still only one thing he wanted from her, and it was the one thing she hated, a symbol of pride and obsession she would never understand, a bloodred stone that had controlled the lives of too many people already, including theirs.

  The Pandora ruby.

  Part

  One

  Chapter

  One

  1961

  The living room of the old Vanderveer family home, Highview, had been transformed into a glorious wedding chapel of white satin bows, enormous white urns filled with flowers, and, at the end of the aisle between rows of white wooden chairs, a white wooden trellis strung with garlands of white orchids. Judge Vanderveer’s wedding was the biggest social event the town had seen in decades. Life moved slowly in Pandora; the mountain gentry rarely ventured into the lowlands to find brides.

  Mountain people were clannish. Indian or white, they looked down on the rest of North Carolina in more ways than one.

  The bride, swaddled under a white veil and miles of pearl-encrusted white satin, floated up the aisle, as perfect as Doris Day. Standing beside the trellis with a bouquet of orchids trembling in her fists, Sarah Vanderveer Raincrow stared in horrified disbelief. This couldn’t be happening.

  Held by a delicate gold setting, shimmering in the light, the Pandora star ruby gleamed at the end of a long necklace on the bodice of Alexandra Duke’s wedding gown.

  Sarah felt smothered by disbelief, as if the pink tulle and satin of her matron-of-honor’s dress had become a hot blanket.

  My ruby. My heirloom. A gift from my husband’s ancestors. William gave it to her. No, no, no—how could he, like this, without even an explanation or warning? There must be some terrible mistake. Her head swam. Her brother would not ignore generations of tradition. But he has.

  There were gasps from the Vanderveers and Raincrows. The Dukes reacted with awkward, stony silence. Rachel Raincrow gaped at Alexandra as if she’d grown horns and a tail. Sarah had never seen anything rattle her mother-in-law’s serenity before.

  Sarah turned toward Hugh desperately.

  He stood under the trellis beside her big redheaded, red-faced, stern brother, and next to William he looked lean and exotic and achingly handsome in a black tuxedo. His dark gaze was already on Sarah. Her husband seemed as stunned and betrayed as she.

  In the electric silence the minister cleared his throat. People waited, fidgeting. Sarah gave her future sister-in-law a venomous stare. Alexandra returned it.

  Five minutes later Alexandra Duke took a giant step up the social ladder, and became Alexandra Vanderveer.

  The parlor doors wer
e shut, a hundred guests milling outside, confused and curious. William looked uncomfortable but firm, his eyes shifting away from Sarah’s wounded, condemning questions. His new wife kept one hand in his and the other delicately posed over her ruby in elegant horror. “I didn’t realize Alexandra would wear the necklace today,” William said gruffly.

  “Oh, William, I’m sorry,” Alexandra answered. “You said Sarah would understand. I thought you were going to discuss it with her after the rehearsal dinner.”

  “I decided to wait until after we returned from our honeymoon.” William looked away, scowling. “This is a damned mess. My fault.”

  Sarah cried out harshly and pointed at Alexandra. “You let her talk you into this. You’d never hurt me this way otherwise.”

  William had tears in his eyes. “I believe”—he cleared his throat and his troubled gaze went to Sarah—“I believe, because our parents are dead and there are only the two of us to carry on, Sarah, that an invaluable heirloom should remain with the one of us who bears the family name. You’ve never expressed much interest in the ruby. All these years it’s been locked away in my office safe, and you don’t care for jewelry—”

  “This isn’t about a piece of jewelry, it’s about trust. And our family’s traditions.” She turned toward Hugh, who stood beside her, somber and alert, one broad hand pressed against the small of her back in silent support. “And about Hugh’s family traditions too,” Sarah added urgently.

  “Will, you’re as fair a man as I’ve ever known,” Hugh told him grimly. “This isn’t right. Not to Sarah, and not to me. My people gave that ruby to yours. The Vanderveers have always passed it down from mother to daughter. It belongs to Sarah.”

  “William, I don’t want your sister to be jealous of me,” Alexandra interjected. She slid her fingers up the necklace, fingering the clasp. “I’m certainly not trying to steal a family heirloom. It’s just that I’m so proud to be your wife, to be a Vanderveer, and when you showed me the ruby, I admired it for what it means to you, William.” Her mouth trembled. “To me, it symbolizes a very dear, fine old family—one I want to be part of.” She undid the necklace. “Here. Sarah, please—take it.”