Forbidden Ground Read Free Page B

carved tree trunks as a wedding gift. Paul rolled the oak carving into the front tiled foyer area on a dolly, while everyone came to take a look, and Tess clapped her hands in excitement like a young child. Paul’s wife, Nadine, beamed as if she’d carved the three-foot-high, in-the-round piece herself.
    “Couldn’t see hauling it out to the waterfall or lodge for your wedding,” Paul told Gabe and Tess. “I’ll be sure it gets to your new house when you get back from the honeymoon. I did fairies since I thought it might be nice for your new nursery school, Tess.”
    Tess was teary-eyed at the array of winged beings that looked like pretty little girls in party dresses, emerging from behind leaves and fronds. “It’s wonderful. As you can see,” she said, turning to Kate, “Paul is a talented artist. When Grant’s group cuts trees, Paul has his choice of trunks and turns them into wonderful creatures like gnomes, leprechauns, fairies or other mythical beings. It’s a wonderful, special gift!”
    “It really is,” Kate agreed. “Do you do assignment carvings, Paul?”
    “As long as it fits the Kettering style,” he said.
    His plump wife, Nadine, spoke up. “These tough financial times around here make living on art a real calling and sometimes a sacrifice, so please tell anyone you know about Paul’s work. I have a business card I can give you. Some city folks don’t want to drive out into the wilds to find a unique artist, and it’s hard to take tree trunks on the road to art shows. A website helps, of course, but I think Paul always underprices his work.”
    Grant was relieved when everyone arrived and seemed to be mingling well. Despite the high ceiling of the large room, the noise level rose. He had Gabe and Tess go first at the buffet table, and others followed. After they ate, he noticed Kate kept looking out his back window, which, as darkness descended, had turned into a huge, black mirror reflecting all of them.
    After much group talk, dessert and a champagne toast, Grant finally managed to talk to Kate alone. She was still glancing out the window. “I’d love to see Mason Mound during daylight,” she told him when he approached.
    “Gabe mentioned that, huh? It’s pretty overgrown. Bushes on top, brush below and surrounded by several huge, prime maples, one with my boyhood tree house in it.”
    “How wonderful. I love hearing about people’s pasts. The mound’s never been excavated, right?”
    He hesitated, took a swig of his champagne. Either it was starting to get to him or she was. How much to tell this beautiful, interesting and interested woman? “My grandfather and my father both believed in letting the dead stay dead—undisturbed.”
    “Most mounds in this area are tombs.”
    “It’s only about twenty-four feet high, conical like most of the others, so it’s not a big or grand one.”
    “Which is probably why it’s been ignored. I found it on an old map I came across. Actually, the smaller mounds are often more productive and intriguing.”
    Was it his imagination that the word
intriguing
hung between them for a moment? Of course it was. He just didn’t need her questions getting too close for comfort, although that warred with his desire to get closer to her.
    “Productive and intriguing?” he repeated as across the room a burst of laughter broke out.
    When she raised her voice slightly to be heard, he realized they’d been whispering. “Because,” she explained, “if bodies or grave goods are interred there, they would be easier to excavate. In the big, well-known mounds, there may be burials stacked on top of each other in wood-lined tiers but everything’s caved in and smashed. Did Tess or Gabe mention I’m fascinated by the Adena and need proof to link them to my major area of study, the Celtic people of northern Europe?”
    “Tess told me. Anyway, I look at the mound as a monument—on private land—not to be tampered with or desecrated. But sure, I’d be