The Island House Read online

  Rich as they were, the Blackhorses had sent their children to a private school. Monty had the distinction of being kicked out of that school this spring. Everyone in Emporia knew about it. Monty was kind of a celebrity.

  Confronted by the real-life legendary Monty, Courtney took a moment to consider her options. He terrified her, but he was only a kid, and the rumors about him made him seem like he’d be fun to know.

  Courtney’s long brown hair was clipped back under her cowboy hat—no two ways about it, this design protected the skin from the spring sun like no other hat could do—jeans, boots, a sports bra because everything was going to be jounced around, and a light cotton shirt. No makeup. It would be just silly to wear makeup riding. She was not dressed to impress.

  Monty was thirteen, but he held himself like a man—like an arrogant, wealthy, challenging man. Courtney was fascinated—and challenged.

  “I’m trespassing? I didn’t see any signs.” She held her chin high and stared back at him, her gaze unwavering, giving him as good as she got.

  Monty shifted slightly, obviously surprised by her spunk. “Where do you stable your horse?”

  “Where do you stable yours?” she shot back.

  His black eyes glittered with momentary irritation—how could anyone not know instantly who he was? As he stared down at her, though, his mouth quirked upward. He knew she was playing a game. “This is my land. I’m Monty Blackhorse.”

  “Monty Blackhorse,” Courtney echoed. “I’ve heard about you.”

  He frowned. “What have you heard?”

  Courtney cocked her head. “You got caught in the school after hours with a fifteen-year-old girl.”

  A lazy smile crossed Monty’s face. “We were just messing around.”

  “Really,” she replied sarcastically. “So you’ll be going to my school next fall?”

  Monty shrugged.

  “What grade?” she asked, although she knew.

  “Eighth.” His smile was gone.

  “That’s the grade I’ll be in. I know a lot of stuff you should know. About teachers, other kids.”

  His eyes narrowed. He didn’t reply. Courtney guessed he was weighing how much he wanted to know stuff against how much he wanted to seem cool.

  “I didn’t know this was your property, by the way,” she told him. “I jumped an old decrepit fence back there…” She pointed. Star knocked Courtney with her head, impatient to move. “Tell you what. Forgive me for trespassing on your land”—she said this in a tone that clearly meant like she cared—“and I’ll tell you some stuff about the teachers and the principal at our pedestrian little public school.”

  Monty took one long minute to decide. “It’s a deal.”

  Courtney hoisted herself up into the saddle. Star nickered and fidgeted, wanting to get going.

  “We can talk back at the house. Wanna see the rest of the land first?” Monty asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Can you keep up with me?” Monty asked.

  Courtney did a fake girlie-girl simper. “I’ll certainly try.”

  Monty turned and let his horse amble away from the creek. Courtney followed. Before them stretched an eternity of rolling pasture, with a blur of trees far in the east.

  “Race?” he asked.

  She nodded, and they were off.

  Quickly Monty was ahead, but that didn’t bother Courtney. Star loved to run, and Courtney let her go and soon they were side by side. They thundered across the pasture, whooping and laughing with excitement, slowing down as they approached the Blackhorses’ big white house.

  “Told you I could keep up with you,” Courtney bragged.

  “You can ride,” he admitted as he urged his horse through a gate into a corral. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some lemonade.”

  In the kitchen, he poured them each a glass of sweet lemonade from a pitcher in the refrigerator. “Let’s go in the den.”

  The den was at the back of the house, one wall shelved with books and games. Clue. Monopoly. Scrabble.

  Courtney studied the television, which wasn’t even as big as the one in her own home. “Don’t you have an Xbox? Or Wii?”

  Monty wouldn’t meet her eyes. “My parents won’t allow them in the house. They’re kind of strict about that.”

  Courtney drew back, as if he’d said something really terrible. “Gosh, we have Xbox and Nintendo. I thought everybody did. You should come over to my house sometime.”

  “How about now?” Monty suggested eagerly.

  “I’ve got to get Star back to the Schmidts’,” Courtney told him. “But maybe tomorrow?”

  His face fell. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ve got to go to church and stay home on Sundays. And during the week I have to help with the ranch…maybe next Saturday?”

  “Sure,” Courtney said easily. “Absolutely.”

  Their friendship had begun that day. It might never have happened at all if she hadn’t accidentally trespassed on the Blackhorses’ land. Monty’s parents were stern and standoffish, looming over their son’s life like ogres from a Grimm’s fairy tale. They were ready to punish Monty severely at the slightest offense, and when he started at the local school, he kept to himself for the first year. He was allowed to go to Courtney’s house on Saturdays—they didn’t know about the videogames. After the first few weeks, Monty satisfied his electronic fix. He and Courtney would walk around town, get sodas in the ice cream store, bike around town, or sit in the air-conditioned house and play cards. Courtney’s parents liked Monty. They invited him to dinner and the Blackhorses allowed him to come.

  Any insecurity Courtney might have felt from being in the presence of the infamous and utterly dreamboat Monty Blackhorse was balanced out by her knowledge of what kind of freaks his parents were, so harsh, so suspicious. Monty had an older sister who was in boarding school and then in college, headed for a career in law. Monty was the chosen one. He had to take over the farm, stop acting like a fool, behave like an intelligent teenage boy, and be responsible. With Courtney, he could be a normal kid, laughing till milk shot out his nose, making ridiculous fart jokes, eating enormous sundaes from the ice cream the Hendricks kept in the freezer.

  When school started, that first year, Courtney casually drew Monty into her crowd, which was, she had to admit, the cool crowd. Monty effortlessly became one of them, although he seldom spoke about himself. When Courtney’s friends asked her about him, she gave bland answers. She’d never betray him about his weird parents, and Monty was aware of that, and their friendship grew stronger. By the time he was a sophomore, he was picked for junior varsity football, and after that, varsity football his junior and senior years. He seldom came to her house on Saturdays in the fall, but once the snow fell, he came again, regularly.

  Days passed, months, and then years. Years of Saturday afternoons when Monty played videogames in the Hendricks’s den, while Courtney curled up in a chair, reading. Her parents called her a bookworm, and worried about her being too introverted, so they were always delighted when Monty stopped by, never realizing that while Monty was annihilating monsters, Courtney was in Russia with Anna Karenina or in France with Madame Bovary. Her tastes were wide. She read Huckleberry Finn one weekend. The next weekend, she read Rebecca. She read Ernest Hemingway; she read Georgette Heyer. She read Danielle Steel; she read Edgar Allan Poe. She read every bit of Gone with the Wind, even though Scarlett’s taste in men made her impatient and frustrated. Why on earth did Scarlett love that wimpy Ashley? She wanted to throw the book across the room. Monty sat on the sofa exploding buildings while Courtney wept over a romance.

  When she read Peyton Place, she got so embarrassed, even though Monty didn’t know the book, that she carried it out of her room, shut it in her desk drawer, and returned with a copy of Oliver Twist.

  Of course, when the weather allowed it, they went riding. Her parents or brother would drop her at the Schmidts’ stable, and she’d rocket off to the creek where Monty would be waiting. They’d let their horses have their heads and race over the pasture, until they came to one of the white board fences corralling the Black Angus. If the herd was over in another pasture, they’d dare each other to jump. They jumped over fallen trees, they jumped over tractor tires. Courtney knew she had no proper seat or form, not like a show jumper, but she didn’t care a fig about that. When Star jumped, Courtney was heart struck with terror and ecstasy. She’d land inelegantly back in her saddle, let Star slow down, and circle around to meet Monty. They’d grin at each other like they possessed the secret of happiness, and maybe they did.

  In the long golden sun of late afternoon, they took their time riding back, allowing their horses to amble side by side while they talked. Out here in the open air, they chatted about all sorts of things they never spoke of in her den.

  In the early months, they kept their conversation light, speaking of the dogs and cats living on the ranch, and Courtney’s parents’ ancient golden retriever who by law shouldn’t be allowed in the pharmacy but was always led in the back door so she could lie in the office at the back with her head on one of Courtney’s mother’s old coats. Courtney told Monty about her brother, Donnie, who had his own truck and drove Courtney to and from the stable on Saturdays.

  Monty told Courtney about his Native American heritage. His great-grandmother had married Joseph Blackhorse of the Wichita tribe that was scattered across Kansas and Oklahoma. Their son had homesteaded the land that now belonged to the Blackhorses and married a young orphaned Irish girl from back East. Their son was Monty’s father. By the time Monty’s father came of age, the Blackhorse ranch had hit prosperity, what with the stockyards in Emporia and Kansas City.

  “Lots of people have some kind of Native American blood,” Monty said. “I’m fortunate to have coa
l black hair.” He grinned. “Girls seem to like that a lot.”

  “I guess modesty comes along with that gene,” Courtney teased.

  But it was true, girls liked Monty. Almost every girl in the high school flirted with him and absolutely every girl in the school envied Courtney’s easygoing friendship with him.

  When Courtney was a sophomore, she started dating. Not Monty—that would have been like dating her brother. She enjoyed flirting with the guys and the occasional make-out session in the cab of a truck, but she never spent time giggling or weeping over some boy like her girlfriends did. She read. She had plans.

  During the high school years, Courtney and Monty had less time to ride together. When they did, they didn’t spend as much time riding as they did talking. They let their horses idle along over the pasture, sometimes stopping to eat the sweet green grass, and they talked. It was easy that way.

  Her junior year, Courtney got serious with Tanner Warren, a big guy, defensive guard on the school’s football team, the same team Monty played quarterback for. She didn’t actually have sex with Tanner, but she did get naked with him. Once or twice she gave him oral sex, because he was kind of desperate, and all her friends were doing it with their boyfriends, and it made him so happy.

  That spring, once the snow melted and the air softened, Monty insisted they go riding. They were halfway to the creek when he said to her, “You’d better watch yourself with Tanner.”

  Courtney’s neck nearly snapped off, she turned so fast to stare at Monty. “What are you even talking about?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Tanner talks in the locker room.”

  Embarrassment coursed through Courtney, turning her face red, scalding her blood way down to her toes. “What has he said?”

  “Hey. Guys talk. You’d better be careful.”

  “I haven’t had sex with him,” Courtney snapped.

  “I’m not saying you have. He’s not saying you have. I’m just saying, be careful.”

  “Monty, you ought to know by now I am careful.” Tears filled Courtney’s eyes and she was glad they were riding side by side, so Monty couldn’t see her face. “You know I want to go to college, I want to teach in college. I most certainly do not want to get knocked up!”

  “I hear you,” Monty said, uncomfortable around her tears. “Come on. Let’s race to the creek.”

  She wept bitter tears that flew backward as she let Star gallop over the field, and once at the creek, Monty didn’t bring up the subject again. But she was grateful for his warning. That week she broke up with Tanner, and for the rest of her high school days, she kept herself away from guys and concentrated on making the best grades she could. She wanted to go East to college. She was determined.

  She gave Monty his own warning, too, when he started dating one of her good friends, Donna. Donna had fallen fast and hard for Monty. She was having sex with Monty every chance she got. She begged Courtney to find out if Monty loved her.

  “Don’t be crazy,” Courtney told Donna. “We don’t talk about stuff like that.”

  But the next time she went riding with Monty, she said, “I wish you’d stop messing around with Donna. She thinks you two are serious. As in wedding bells serious.”

  Monty was quiet for a few minutes. After a while, he said, “Yeah, no, that’s wrong. I want to get married and have a herd of kids—but not with her. I’ve got someone else in my sights for marriage, for the long haul.”

  “Maybe you’ve said that to Donna, but what’s that ol’ saying? Actions speak louder than words?”

  Monty kicked his horse and raced off. Courtney didn’t try to keep up with him. She could tell he was angry. That week Monty told Donna he didn’t want to see her anymore. Donna lost ten pounds, she was so heartbroken. The way things worked in high school, Courtney had to choose between them and she chose Donna. Their senior year of high school, Courtney and Monty ran with different crowds and never went riding together.

  Then Courtney went off East to college. Monty went to the University of Missouri at Columbia, playing football every year. During school vacations, Courtney and Monty slowly became best friends again. They emailed each other, had long walks at Christmas vacation, and sent silly pictures of themselves through their cellphones. After college, Monty took over the ranch. Courtney got her master’s degree and started teaching at UMKC. They kept in touch, but not as often. They were only a couple of hours away by car, but they were separated by their adult lives. They never went riding together anymore.

  —

  So Courtney was shocked this morning when Monty phoned to tell her he wanted to drive her to the airport.

  She was amazed at what he said when they got there.

  The first time Robin met Courtney, she wanted to lie down and cover her face with her pillow. Courtney was as optimistic and glossy as a cheerleader—which of course she’d been back at her Kansas high school. With long, shiny, dark brown hair, huge brown eyes with thick lashes and exquisitely arched velvet eyebrows, and an athletic, energetic, slender body, Courtney went through the world liking everyone she met and expecting everyone to like her right back. She was the most enthusiastic person Robin had ever met.

  Courtney and Robin were both eighteen, freshman at Smith College. They’d been thrown together as roommates in the dorm. Courtney was as friendly and eager as a Labrador puppy, almost wriggling in her excitement to be starting college. She knew she wanted to major in English literature so she could eventually teach at a university; she wanted to go on for a master’s, but she didn’t know where; she was nearly foaming at the mouth with excitement because a famous authority on contemporary literature was a guest professor and although Courtney hadn’t found a place in her class yet, she was going to attend the woman’s open lectures.

  Robin had no idea what her major would be. She had no idea about what she wanted to do. She was desperately homesick for her beautiful island with all its weathers and all her friends, and especially for her family. Iris was only eleven years old, a darling little girl who adored Robin. Who would braid Iris’s hair before she went to school in the morning? Who would ride bikes on the moors with her and show her the secret places? Who would play paper dolls with her when she was sick or sit on the sofa on long winter evenings reading Anne of Green Gables to her in front of the fire?

  Her mother would do all of that, of course, and it was probably time that Iris got to be alone with her parents instead of the tagalong pet of her older siblings. Robin missed her mother, too, enormously. Her mother was radiant, nurturing, funny, alive.

  Her father she wouldn’t miss so much. He was, well, almost a shadow. Alastair Vickerey was a genius surgeon practicing at Mass General, and when he wasn’t actually at the hospital, he was in his study at home, writing up cases. Robin could remember him being more present in her life when she was little, but he was never a tickle-the-baby, throw-the-baseball kind of dad with any of his children. As the years passed, her father became increasingly obsessed with his work.

  These days people often referred to Dr. Vickerey as Dr. V, even, sometimes, his children. They had started doing it as a gibe, reminding their father they existed, that not only patients and body parts needed his attention. He didn’t even notice. Tall, portly, his red hair streaked with gray and white, his shaggy white eyebrows growing thicker, his back rounding into a hump from too much time over the operating table, the computer, his books, he resembled some kind of musk ox stuffed into a suit. His basic means of communication was a sniff, a snort, or a growl. No, she couldn’t say she’d really miss her father.

  Her older brother, Henry? He was three years older than Robin. She had adored him when she was small, and even though they both had changed, she still did. He was her handsome, magnificent big brother. He’d carried her on his shoulders, he’d taught her how to swim and sail, he’d gotten taller and more handsome every year. But when he was in high school, he lost interest in his younger siblings, and then, when he was nineteen, he’d had a kind of nervous breakdown. Different doctors were working with him on diverse therapies and medications, but Robin never knew what to expect from him, and she worried about him constantly.