The Firstborn. Dani Sinclair
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canopy of tree limbs overhead darkened the final road home, matching her mood as she sped through the sleepy hamlet of Stony Ridge, New York. As she plunged deeper into horse country, the scenery changed yet again, to velvety green fields basking in the fading sun. The unusually intense heat wave of early June hadn’t yet taken its toll, but soon enough the lush green would turn a scorched golden-brown.
Rolling her head to stretch the kinks from her neck and shoulders, Hayley was relieved to finally come upon the lane leading to Heartskeep until she turned into the wide-mouthed entrance. She braked the car to a jarring halt.
What had he done?
Hayley tried to still the clamor of her heart as she stepped from the idling car and stared in disbelief. Towering brick pillars had replaced the shorter, crumbling ones on which two stone lions had perched, standing guard for more than sixty years. Spanning the new pillars was an intricately worked, yet formidable wrought-iron gate, closed against intruders.
Marcus didn’t really believe he could bar her from her own family home with a metal gate. Did he?
Shaking in outrage, Hayley strode up to the wrought-iron fixture. Both the art major and the business major in her appreciated the fascinating piece. Another time, she would have enjoyed examining the artistry and craftsmanship that had gone into creating this incredible gate. The work was like nothing she’d seen before. But now, its unexpected presence caused a surge of pure anger.
What had Marcus done with her lions?
He had no right!
Hayley rattled the gate in a rare explosion of temper. Only then did she realize it wasn’t locked. With effort, the bar that held the massive gates closed could be lifted and slid aside from where she stood. Still, she pulsed with anger as the gates swung open smoothly. She was not a child anymore. She would not let her own father intimidate her by putting a gate in front of her house.
Darn it, Marcus was the outsider here at Heartskeep, and it was definitely past time to tell him so. Out of respect for her mother, Hayley had never challenged his right to live here. Not even when he’d remarried. But this was going too far. This gate was a deliberate slap in her face. He was staking his claim and daring her to take exception.
Fine. She would accept his challenge, and she’d be the one to come out the winner. According to the law, Heartskeep belonged to her. Removing the gate and reinstalling her stone lions had just become her first priority when she assumed control of the estate.
The small car bounced hard as she drove recklessly up the tree-lined driveway. If Marcus had finally felt a compulsion to do something around the estate, why hadn’t he started by making some badly needed repairs? This driveway was a disgrace. The ruts were deeper and more numerous than she remembered from her last visit. Hayley hoped she didn’t break an axle or some other essential item on the car, even as she pushed the compact relentlessly over the pitted surface. She was anxious now for the confrontation to come.
She’d spent most of her life treading warily around the man who was her biological father. She and her twin sister had learned early to stay out of his way. While she couldn’t remember when they had started actually calling him Marcus out loud, he had never been anything else in their thoughts.
The sight of the sprawling brick mansion never failed to surprise her as she rounded the last curve. It did even more so tonight as the house appeared, starkly forlorn, silhouetted against the rapidly darkening sky. Had it always looked so eerie?
Hayley shook her head. Once, Heartskeep had been a welcome haven. The past seven years had changed all that. And tonight there wasn’t even a welcoming glimmer of light. The structure looked like an abandoned movie set for a slasher film.
“Great. Psyche yourself into a case of nerves, why don’t you?” she muttered.
But it was true. The happy memories the house had once evoked were long gone. They’d disappeared along with her mother.
Hayley and Leigh had been back to Heartskeep only a handful of times since the two of them had started at Wellesley College. The visits had never been pleasant so they’d been careful to keep their stays as brief as possible.
How dare he remove her lions?
Heartskeep and everything connected with the estate belonged to Hayley and Leigh, not Marcus Thomas. As her mother’s firstborn child, ownership of the house and grounds would revert to Hayley when she turned twenty-five next year. Didn’t Marcus know that?
Of course he did. Wasn’t that why he’d put up the gate? She’d known Marcus and his wife, Eden, would not be happy to see her, but Hayley hadn’t anticipated anything like this.
Despite this new provocation, she had no real intention of turning them out. She might not like Marcus, but the blood relationship existed, and she would acknowledge and respect that fact, as her mother had done. However, Marcus would have to come to terms with Hayley’s ownership of the estate. He was not master here any longer even if she wasn’t twenty-five yet. She was no longer a minor under his jurisdiction.
Of course, she’d feel a lot braver with Leigh at her side. The deep bond between them had been forged at conception. But Hayley had wanted to spare her twin the coming unpleasantness.
Too bad she hadn’t realized just how unpleasant things were going to be. Still, she wouldn’t have asked Leigh to cut short her visit with her friends in England. Hayley could take the brunt of Marcus’s anger. After all, there was nothing he could do to alter the situation.
Unless he made her disappear, as he had her mother.
Hayley tossed aside that morbid thought and tried to concentrate on missing the worst of the ruts. No one had ever been able to prove Marcus had had anything to do with their mother’s disappearance, no matter what Hayley and Leigh believed. Not that the local police had tried all that hard.
Hayley bypassed the wide, sweeping circle in front of the house and drove around to the back entrance she generally used. She suppressed a shiver. The truth was, she was secretly afraid of Marcus. She always had been. While her grandfather was alive, Marcus hadn’t mattered. Her grandfather had taken on the paternal role, since Marcus ignored his daughters most of the time. That had suited everyone just fine. In the beginning, their mother had tried to make excuses for his indifference, but it wasn’t long before she’d stopped trying.
Shortly after her eleventh birthday, Hayley had gone looking for her birth certificate, convinced Marcus couldn’t really be her father. She had cried uncontrollably after discovering the document said otherwise.
How could a real father be so cold? He was a doctor, of all things. And not just any doctor, a gynecologist and obstetrician for a very select clientele. No one had ever been able to explain his indifference to his own family. Hayley and Leigh had learned to accept the situation. They’d lived with their parents and grandfather on the vast estate for most of their lives, but they often had gone days at a time without seeing Marcus.
Hayley knew Dennison Hart had shared their dislike of Marcus, though he’d never said a critical word in their hearing. He’d even had the front wing of the house remodeled into an office for his son-in-law, after Marcus complained about his long commute to work. Leigh surmised it was her grandfather’s way of keeping Marcus from moving his family away from Heartskeep. Hayley thought her sister probably had it right.
Everything had changed when their grandfather died without warning one night. The vast estate seemed to shrink. Teenagers by then, she and Leigh had frequently heard Marcus ranting at their mother. They’d worked harder than ever to stay out of his way, but they couldn’t help wishing their mother would toss him out and file for divorce.
Instead, it was Amy Thomas who’d gone away. A few months after her father’s death, their mother took a sudden, inexplicable trip to New York City and vanished without a trace. Hayley and Leigh knew something awful had happened when she didn’t call home to check in with them after the first night.
Valet parking at Amy’s hotel said they’d retrieved her car for her early the morning after