The Secrets of Bell River

She’d left Los Angeles, where she’d lived all her life, and she’d come to Silverdell thinking she might, just might, tell them. That had been her mother’s dying wish—to leave a safety net for the only child she was leaving too soon. In Tess’s imagination, introducing herself to Rowena, Brianna and Penelope Wright had seemed possible. Terrifying, but possible.

But now that Tess saw the beautiful ranch, nestled in its rolling winter landscape like a warm brown egg in a silver-white fairy nest...

How could she tell these elegant, successful strangers—her “sisters”—anything? According to Tess’s mother, the three women seemed to be decent people. They’d known plenty of heartache as well as privilege. They probably wouldn’t even be terribly shocked to learn about Tess. Their dad, Johnny Wright, had done a lot worse in his life than take a mistress and father one secret illegitimate baby.

Eighteen years ago, he had killed his wife. Their mother.

Tragic, but...still. Soaring Greek tragedy and low, dirty squalor weren’t the same problems. Tess Spencer and the legitimate Wright sisters didn’t speak the same language. One was a struggling, divorced massage therapist who had lived in crummy apartments all her life, hand to mouth—and that was on a good day. On bad days, she went hungry. The Wrights were landowners, Colorado heiresses who, in spite of their childhood calamity, had always possessed every tree, rock, building and animal they could see.

The gap between their worlds was as wide as the gap between earthlings and martians.

Besides, though they might not be shocked to meet a secret sister, they would undoubtedly be dismayed. Obviously Bell River Ranch was working very hard to leave its scandalous past behind. Nothing proclaimed civilized and unsullied more than this well-kept, orderly cluster of buildings with sweet blue smoke curling out of chimneys and sunshine sparkling off pristine windows.

“Sorry, Mom,” Tess muttered as she parked the car beside the charming wood-and-glass building that housed the spa. “A bastard of Johnny Wright would be about as welcome here as a hole in a lifeboat.”

She killed the engine and regrouped. Okay, no thrilled surprise family reunion. She’d always known that was greeting-card schlock, anyhow, not real life.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t work here. Work was something Tess knew how to do—and she desperately needed a good job. Her mother’s illness had cleaned her out emotionally, and the divorce from Craig had done the same financially.

All the Wright sisters had to do was hire her. That shouldn’t be hard to pull off. She was a damn good massage therapist with extensive training, enthusiastic recommendations and five years of experience. Hire her, pay her, maybe appreciate her talents a little, and she wouldn’t ask for anything more.

Well, she admitted as she got out of the car, she’d satisfy her curiosity about her birth father at the same time, of course. But that wouldn’t cost anyone anything.

“Hi,” she said as she opened the door to the spa. She was greeted by soft harp music, and the aroma of expensive lotions mixing with the sharp, piney scent of new construction. The spa had obviously been added quite recently, no expenses spared.

“Good morning,” the young blonde goddess behind the streamlined wooden reception desk said. She gave Tess the official “serenity” smile known to any spa employee. Cool, unflappable, full of grace.

You can be a goddess, too, the look was designed to whisper to the client. A few procedures, a small fee...

Tess felt like applauding. A fabulous, incredibly subtle sales pitch. But all wasted. The goddess obviously hadn’t yet figured out that Tess wasn’t a paying client.

A real client, a late-middle-aged woman in crisp navy blue pants and starched white shirt, sat in the waiting room, perched on the edge of one of the stylish armchairs. She’d been reading a celebrity magazine, but glanced up sharply when Tess entered.

“You haven’t forgotten me, have you? My appointment was five minutes ago.” The woman’s voice was as crisp as her clothes, but held an undercurrent of chronic dissatisfaction. Her frown had been so immediate, and the vertical lines between her eyebrows were so firmly grooved, that Tess had to assume scowling was her instinctive reaction to almost anything.

A fussbudget. Tess smiled—her own inner spa employee taking over—though she didn’t expect the scowl to go away, and it didn’t. She’d encountered clients like this, and she knew how hopeless it was. These people wouldn’t ever relax, not if massaged for a week with angel feathers.

“Of course not, Mrs. Fillmore,” the goddess purred, unfazed. “How could we ever forget you?”

Tess glanced at the goddess/receptionist. Was she imagining things, or did Blondie’s placid voice have an undercurrent of irony?

“I’m Tess Spencer,” Tess said. “I have an appointment with Rowena Wright.”

“Ah.” The young woman looked relieved behind that perfect smile. She wasn’t quite as cool and impenetrable as Tess had first thought. She actually said a lot with those blue eyes. “Good to meet you, Tess. I’m Bree. I’m sure Rowena will be here any minute, but—”

“Cancel the search-and-rescue team. I’m here!” Behind Tess, the door blew open with a swoosh of clean, frosty air. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Bree. Don’t shoot me. It’s insane at the house. Absolutely insane!”

Tess turned to see a willowy young woman shaking snow from a tangle of long, black hair. The flakes fell to the floor, adding to the crusty crystals left by the tread of her expensive boots. When she finished, she raked back her hair with one hand and lifted her face.

Tess stopped breathing for a second—not because the newcomer was beautiful, though she was absolutely that. When you worked with a pampered, well-heeled clientele, you got accustomed to physical beauty. This woman took Tess’s breath away with her sheer radiating vitality. And those green eyes—they seemed lit from behind, alive in an almost otherworldly way, like a forest animal, or a fairy.

It had to be Rowena. Or at least one of the other Wright sisters, since the blonde was Bree. Brianna, the middle sister.

Yes, this new woman was Rowena—and she was maybe seven months pregnant, her belly the one rounded spot on an otherwise lean, athletic frame.

Tess had done her homework. Most of the stories she’d found had been either archived ones about Johnny Wright’s murder case, in which most papers had been too delicate to print photos of the motherless daughters, or business stories about the opening of Bell River Ranch and its implications for Silverdell’s economy, also short on pictures.

She hadn’t been surprised. Why should women who had been through a public scandal at such a tender age seek publicity?

Still, she knew the basic facts. Rowena was the eldest, and the only one with gypsy-black hair. The youngest was Penelope, and the one picture of her as a child showed a honey-brown fall of hair half-hiding a sweet, timid face.

Rowena was obviously the pack leader. Her air of authority was unmistakable. It showed in her indifference to how she tracked slush into the pristine space, in her willingness to bluster into Serenity Central and never be cowed for a second.

Rowena was living proof that everything Tess had been thinking was true. Tess Spencer, the hard-scrabbling itinerant employee with a chip on her shoulder the size of Colorado, had nothing in common with the poised, ebullient Wright sisters.

“You must be Tess!” Rowena turned the amazing green eyes toward her, and her smile deepened, projecting warmth in spite of the chill that still clung to her gold sweater and cords. “I’m Rowena! I’m so sorry I’m late. Gawd, why do I keep saying that? I couldn’t help it, really I couldn’t. Some meddling fool called the health inspector, and now I’m going to have to dance him around, proving we’re not serving ptomaine every night for dinner.”

“Ro.” Bree pursed her lips, though her eyes had an inner light that hinted at repressed laughter. “You know you’re saying this stuff out loud, right? And everyone can hear you?”

“I can’t hear her,” a male voice called out from behind the reception area. “And I’m not planning a lawsuit as we speak.”

Rowena and Brianna burst into laughter. “You’d better not be, Jude,” Rowena said merrily, raising her voice a little to be sure the invisible man could hear her. “What would be the point? You know firsthand how broke we are. In fact, if you get paid this week, you’ll be lucky!”

“Ro.” Bree shook her head, giving the starchy client a meaningful glance. “Again. You said that out loud.”

Ro gave the woman a look of her own. “Oh, we don’t have any secrets at Bell River. Silverdell’s too small a town for secrets, isn’t it, Mrs. Fillmore?”

Tess raised her eyebrows. Again, the subtext of irony. These two didn’t like Mrs. Fillmore one bit. She wondered if the feeling was mutual, but the scowl on Mrs. Fillmore’s face was too firmly entrenched to be sure it meant anything.

“Indeed,” the woman said, pinching her nose with a sniff. “Too small, and sadly too addicted to petty gossiping.” She twisted her wrist to look at her watch. “Rowena, my masseuse is ten minutes late.”

Tess bristled. No one said masseuse anymore. It had been used too often as a substitute for activities a lot less professional.

“Your massage therapist is Ashley today, Mrs. Fillmore.”

One point for Rowena, who had corrected Mrs. Fillmore without making an issue of it.

“And?” Mrs. Fillmore seemed to find Rowena’s explanation inadequate.

“You know Ashley always gives everyone a little extra attention if they need it.” Rowena smiled warmly. “That’s why you always ask for her, I’m sure.”

Another sniff. Mrs. Fillmore looked down without answering, turning the pages of her magazine, as if intensely interested in the paparazzi photo spread.

How exactly that differed from petty gossip, Tess couldn’t say. But she didn’t have the job yet, and she couldn’t be snarky with the clients. Luckily, she rarely wanted to. Once she got her hands on a person, even a person like Mrs. Fillmore—

Tess was a tactile person. She thought, and heard, and spoke, and even learned, through her hands. It was her talent. Really, her only talent. If she’d had a choice, she would have chosen something far more lucrative, like computer programming or rocket science.

But she hadn’t had a choice. All she had was the ability to learn about a person by touching their skin, working their body. By hearing the tension in their muscles and the strain in their joints. By knowing which pressure points they responded to, what made their blood flow more easily, what drained the unhappiness from their faces.