Hallow House - Part Two (28 page)

As they walked back toward the house, she said, "I've never been in Seattle. What's it like?"

"Wet, mostly. We have a lot of rain and drizzle. The city is built on hills along the bay."

"Do you like living there?" she persisted.

"I used to think I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, though I admit this is beautiful country."

"Have you traveled much?"

He laughed, a short sharp sound with nothing of humor in it. "I've been to Korea."

Oh. Maybe he was injured in the war over there and that's why he jumps at sudden sounds.

Katrina joined them in the pool. She was shy with Ronal, obviously not knowing how to act with this stranger who said so little.

"Talk to him," Naomi whispered to her when Ronal dived under water.

"What'll I say?"

Ronal's head popped out of the water near them and the twins began to splash each other, putting on a show to cover their uneasiness. This big blond man wasn't like any of the boys they knew.

Later, stretched out by the side of the enclosed pool, they watched him swim lap after lap, monotonously, back and forth, back and forth.

"He's good-looking, but he's not much fun," Katrina said in a low tone.

"He was in Korea," Naomi told her. "That's all I found out so far."

At last Ronal pulled himself from the pool. Water dripped from his glistening body and, when she looked at him, Naomi felt a quiver deep inside herself. She sat up, very conscious of her own body in the skimpy two piece orange swim suit.

Katrina sat up, too, and Naomi saw his gaze shift between the two of them.

"Would you like some lemonade or something else to drink?" she asked.

"Thanks, not now." He toweled himself and went into the house. Naomi noticed her sister was watching him as closely as she did.

"What do you think of him?" she asked.

"I'm glad he's going to stay and help Mama," Katrina replied.

"Why do you think Kevin acted so odd about that?"

Naomi shrugged. "The money, probably."

"Oh. I thought maybe Kevin and Samara were worried for fear Mama would fall in love with Ronal and marry him and he'd make her unhappy."

"Or run off with the money," Naomi added. "But that's stupid. Anyone can see he's not like that. Besides, Mama wouldn't do such a thing. She loved Daddy too much. Anyway, she's forty and I figure Ronal can't be much older than twenty-five."

Katrina sighed. "He's terribly good-looking. Do you think he was wounded in the war?"

"Maybe." Naomi gave her sister a measuring glance. Did Ronal make Katrina feel the same inner excitement she felt when he looked at her?

Katrina stared back at her and neither of them said anything more.

The following evening, Ronal went riding with the twins. Naomi rode the new mare, Marushka, and had trouble controlling her at first. Ronal stood by on Rasputin, the chestnut gelding that had been bought for Brian.

When Naomi finally made the mare behave, Ronal said, "Good handling."

"Thanks. She hasn't been ridden this week and that always makes her feisty."

Katrina was content with old Tanya. While she enjoyed riding, she didn't enjoy having a fight on her hands.

In the summer twilight they rode past the groves, up into the hills.

"This country's so different than anything I'm used to," Ronal said.

Naomi wanted to ask him what Korea was like. Was it a barren land? Rocky? Flat? But she thought better of bringing it up.

"I love the ocean," Katrina said. "One summer we stayed in a cabin over on Morro Bay for a month with Samara and Kevin. It was wonderful."

Naomi glanced at her sister in surprise. Katrina had never mentioned such a strong feeling to her. "Is there skiing in Seattle?" she asked.

"Not in the city. In the mountains."

"I'd like to see Seattle," Naomi said. "And Oregon--the whole United States. Canada. Mexico. The world."

Ronal looked at her. "Why don't you travel?"

"I don't have any money of my own. Daddy left a trust for us but my mother has control of the way we spend the money. She'll make us go the university first." Naomi sighed. That's four more years."

"How old will you be in four years--twenty-two? Not very old."

She made a face at him. "You're no help."

He grinned at her. "I'm not a traveling man, myself, but I understand." He turned to Katrina. "I suppose you're eager to be off, too."

Katrina shook her head. "I like Hallow House. I don't mind being here."

"Where does this trail lead?" Ronal asked.

"Up to Tall Pine Canyon if you go far enough," Katrina said. "Or to Deerhorn Meadow if you veer to the right."

"And to Skull Cave if you branch to the left and know how to find it," Naomi put in.

"We're not supposed to go there," Katrina reminded her.

"Oh, that was when we were little." Naomi slanted a look at Ronal. "Wouldn't you like to see Skull Cave?"

"Why is it called that?"

"There's supposed to be human skulls inside," Naomi said. We've never seen them, though. It comes from an old legend about
El Valle de los Esqueletos sin Cabezas."

"The valley of the skeletons without heads?" Ronal translated.

"You know Spanish?"

"And French. Is this your valley you're speaking of?"

Naomi nodded. "Our great-grandfather is supposed to have built Hallow House in the midst of a sort of graveyard of bones--without heads. Those are the skulls in the cave. Or so the story goes."

"Sounds weird."

"There's a curse on the house," Katrina said.

Both Naomi and Ronal looked at her.

"On the house and on the people who live in it. I heard Aunt Adele say so more than once."

"You know that's superstition," Naomi said.

"Aunt Adele believed it," Katrina said. "I don't like to think about things like that."

"Very wise," Ronal said. "Let's put off a visit to Skull Cave."

As the days passed it began to seem as though there'd never been a time they hadn't known Ronal. The twins sought his company and he seemed to enjoy theirs, soon talking as much as anyone else.

Mervin was called upon to reinstall the powered chair that Aunt Adele had used so Mrs. Stevens could ride up and down the stairs in comfort. The twins found the old lady a treasury of information about Ronal.

"Oh, my, yes, he served in the Army in Korea. A lieutenant in the Special Forces, he was. They took him right out of college."

"Did he get wounded there?" Naomi asked.

"Not wounded, exactly. He got captured by the Chinese. He doesn't ever say much about being in the prison camp, but after he came back to this country he was in the hospital for ever so long."

"Ronal was in a hospital?" Katrina asked.

"Because of what they called brainwashing, the chaplain told me. A type of mental torture, he said. Ronal's much better now. When he first came home he couldn't stand a telephone in the house. I had ours rigged up so a red light flashed instead a bell-ring and that helped."

"A bell ringing bothers him?" Naomi asked, remembering his strange reaction the kitchen.

"It has something to do with whatever nasty tricks the Chinese were up to--they used bells. I've never asked how, not only because I doubt he'd tell me, but because I don't want to know. There's just Ronal left of all the family. I married a man with a young son and that stepson was my only child. He married and they had Ronal, My stepson's dead and gone now--they all are except me. And Ronal. He's like my own flesh and blood. A fine young man like your father was when I met him at the wedding. To Delores, I mean."

Naomi had difficulty picturing her father as a young man. Yet he must have been even younger when he married Delores than Ronal was now.

"Does Ronal have a girl in Seattle he's serious about?" Naomi couldn't resist asking.

Amanda Steven's knowing glance made her blush. "I think he's had a time just getting used to being free again. He hasn't been much for girls since Korea. It's good for him to have you twins for company."

"He's very good-looking," Katrina put in.

"Like his father. And my husband. Most handsome, the Stevens men. In the same way the Gregory family has beautiful girls. I can tell Ronal thinks so, too. You're both striking young women. And so well-mannered and pleasant. Your mother has done as excellent job of raising you."

Somewhat embarrassed at the praise, the twins thanked her. Naomi, though, couldn't help wondering if Ronal thought she and Katrina were carbon copies of each other, as so many people did, or if he preferred one or the other.

Vera believed wearing black for mourning was an outmoded custom, so Naomi felt free to buy some new clothes, even though the choice in Porterville was not all that great. For the first time in her life, she bought a dress that was totally unlike anything Katrina had.

While they hadn't dressed exactly alike in years, they often chose similar costumes with only the colors different. Since they wore the same size, most of their clothes were interchangeable.

The cotton dress she chose was scarlet with a vee neck much lower than she ordinarily wore. Then she had her hair cut and styled differently--hoping it made her look older. At the very least, she wouldn't be Katrina's carbon copy.

Naomi got her first chance to wear the dress when Samara asked one of the twins to drive into town and baby-sit since she and Kevin had been invited out and their maid was ill. Naomi, who answered the phone, told Samara she might be coming down with a cold and offered Katrina's services. Katrina, who adored Ivan, drove off happily in the late afternoon and Naomi put on the red dress for dinner.

Vera eyed her disapprovingly, but said nothing. Naomi resisted the impulse to try to pull the low cut bodice up a little. After all it was part of the reason she'd brought it. She couldn't tell if Ronal had noticed the dress or not, but they wandered out on the porch after they ate and, as the twilight deepened, went for a walk.

"I like the way these little paths meander over the grounds," he said.

"Yes, but you always know where you're going," she said. "A surprise would be nice once in a while."

"You're rather a surprise," he told her. "I often seem to know what your sister will say--how she thinks. But you dart here and there with your ideas."

As they approached the pines, something flew low over Naomi's head and she gasped, then laughed. "Only an owl."

"A white owl. Are they common here?"

"That one or one like him has been around Hallow House ever since I can remember. Some of the grove workers here don't like it--they say white owls are bad luck."

"I've used up all my bad luck," Ronal said. He stopped and faced her. "Nothing but good can happen to me now."

He stood so close to her she could feel the heat of his body, but he made no move to touch her. Impatient, Naomi took the initiative and closed the gap between him, lifting her face to his. As her body touched his, he put his arms around her and kissed her hard and hungrily.

Boys had kissed her before, but his kiss was not the same. She felt as though she were melting, bones and all consumed in a hot, liquid fire that rose from within her. She clung to Ronal.

When at last they drew apart, he cupped her face in his hand and gazed into her eyes for a long time. You're a lovely girl, Naomi," he said. "I want you very much."

She threw herself into his arms again, pulses throbbing with her own desire, delirious at being chosen instead of Katrina. They rocked back and forth in a passionate embrace until he tried to ease her down onto the pine needles.

Afraid of the way she felt, of what might happen, she pushed free, straightened and said breathlessly, "I'd better go in."

The next day she pushed away twinges of guilt as she listened to Katrina's chatter.

"I hope Ronal stays a long time," her sister said. "I heard Mama ask him if he'd be able to help her when the San Francisco lawyers come here next month and he didn't refuse."

"He's supposed to start law school in September," Naomi said. "At Harvard. His father went there."

"That's back east," Katrina said. "We'd never see him again. "Oh, Naomi, I like him so much, I can't bear to think of him gone."

Naomi turned away, unable to tell her sister about the evening with Ronal and what he'd said to her. She was disturbed, though, at the hint Ronal might not be going east in September because she'd already had a plan in mind.

She and Ronal would marry and she'd go to Massachusetts with him, leaving Hallow House behind. It would have to be a quiet wedding because of Daddy's death, but Mama liked Ronal, she'd approve.