Amber Read online

  “Barbara!” I shout out into the air. “Someone’s here.”

  “Who is it, Amber?” my mother answers faintly from upstairs. She’s busy making everyone’s beds, one of the many in-house chores she performs for our large, unconventional family.

  My other mother, Carol, joins in, her voice muffled as it comes from inside the pantry where she’s running an inventory of the jams and jellies we sell at the local farmers’ market. “Is it that woman from the town council again? Because if it is, I’m fully committed to giving her another piece of my mind. She’s already had two, but I can dole out a third if necessary.”

  I smile at my mother’s sass. Nobody ever comes back for a third helping of that. “No, it’s not a woman. It’s a guy.” I walk over and push aside the linen curtain that hangs in the window to the side of the front door, assessing our visitor from head to toe. “He’s getting out of the car now. And he’s wearing a suit.”

  The stranger stares up at our old white farmhouse as he buttons his coat. His black leather shoes shine like they’re made of obsidian. The dark suit seems tailored to fit his broad shoulders and narrow hips. His blue shirt with its bright-white collar looks like it’s been starched enough to stand on its own. Diamond cuff links sparkle in the sunlight as he adjusts his briefcase to the other hand.

  “And he’s got money,” I mumble under my breath. Instant distrust rises up and seizes my heart. He looks like trouble, and not the fun kind.

  A door opens and closes behind me, bringing with it the smell of potatoes, onions, dried herbs, and something slightly musty. I glance over my shoulder to see that my sister Emerald—Em to everyone who knows her—has come up from the basement.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, lifting an apron over her head and hanging it on a nearby hook in the entrance to the kitchen before joining me at the front door.

  I let the curtain fall back into place. “A suit. Here to buy some organic honey for his girlfriend so he can impress her with his new-age sensibilities.” I roll my eyes as Em takes a turn gazing through the curtain.

  “Do you know that or are you just guessing?” she asks absently, as she takes in the sight of our visitor.

  I sigh. So gullible. “Why else would a guy like him drive out here . . . to a hippie commune in the middle of nowhere?”

  Em stops gawking to turn and frown at me for a few seconds. “Would you stop calling our home a hippie commune? Come on.” She goes back to staring at the stranger. “It’s a communal farm. Intentional living. There’s a difference.”

  I wave my hand between us, brushing off her supposed distinction. “Potato, tomato, pa-tah-to, ta-mah-to.”

  We glare at each other for two seconds before we both break down and smile. I’ve never found it even remotely possible to stay mad at her for longer than three seconds.

  “You are such a dork,” she says.

  I press my finger to the tip of her nose. “Boop. Takes one to know one.”

  She slaps my hand away gently, talking under her breath as she shifts her focus back to our visitor. “Boop? Who says boop? Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

  She’s wondered on more than one occasion how I stay updated on the coolest trends when we have limited television reception, no newspaper subscriptions, turtle-slow dial-up Internet working on a fifteen-year-old dinosaur of a computer, and very little contact with the outside world. The difference between her and me is that I’m not pathologically shy, and when I do get out to the farmers’ market or the local bar, I interact with people and make connections. Em doesn’t understand, because she prefers to stay out here in the middle of nowheresville and not socialize.

  I ignore the next question she’s about to ask in favor of pulling the door open and grinning at the stranger, who is now walking up our front porch steps. I adopt a flirty, mocking tone. “Could I interest you in some organic honey, honey?” I wiggle my eyebrows, trying to make him smile at least. He looks so damn serious in that black suit, like he’s coming to attend a funeral.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Em throw her hand up to her mouth to hide the snicker that threatens to fly out. Entertaining my sisters at the expense of completely clueless men is one of my favorite hobbies. Life on the communal farm can get really boring sometimes. I grin harder.

  The man stares at us standing in the doorway, no expression on his face as he responds. “No. I’m here to see Sally Lancaster, Barbara Fields, and/or Carol Collins.”

  More distrust filters in. I sense my temperature rising and my face flushing with anger. He’s not playing along at all, which tells me this isn’t a friendly stopover to buy some organic honey. We’ve already been sued by the town several times for zoning issues, and I’m not looking forward to going through that again. I fold my arms over my chest, bunching up the oversize denim shirt I’m wearing over my one and only white camisole. He looks way too much like a lawyer for my comfort. “Sounds serious.”

  He’s not here as a customer, and his suit and car together are worth a couple hundred grand, give or take five figures. My family and I live a very simple, harmless life, and there’s no room in it for greed or the kind of bullshit this guy is obviously peddling. My first and only instinct is to get rid of him.

  “It is serious,” he says, taking a step closer.

  I reverse back over the threshold, pulling my sister along with me. “Sorry. Wrong house.” I slam the door in his face and stare at the lock, wondering if I should engage it. Is he the kind of man who’d force his way in? Our mothers have spent the last twenty-odd years telling us how dangerous the real world can be, and up until now I wasn’t sure I bought into their paranoia, because, honestly, we don’t get much action out here on the commune, good or bad. But this guy . . . ? He makes me nervous.

  “Amber, what in the heck are you doing?” Em whispers, glaring at me.

  The doorbell rings.

  “Shhh,” I whisper back, “he’ll hear you.” My hand is itching to lock the door, but I don’t want to seem like a naïve weirdo who can’t handle a conversation with a harmless stranger.

  “I can hear both of you,” the man says wryly. “I just need to talk to you for five minutes . . . ten max. Please open the door. I know who you are, you know.”

  Em and I stare at each other. “Who are we?” Em whispers, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  My emotions go from angry to good-humored, as if my sister just flicked on a light switch with her silly words. “Did you just ask me who we are?” I giggle.

  Em slaps me softly. “Shut up. I’m panicking. You know I panic when people push me. Besides, how can he possibly know us? I’ve never seen him in my life.”

  I put my hands on my sister’s shoulders and lean in close, staring into her eyes. “Okay, scaredy-cat, here’s the deal: I’m Amber and you’re Emerald. We’re sisters and we live on a hippie commune together . . .”

  “Shush.” Em twists out of my grip, brushing off my goofiness. Squaring her shoulders, she lifts her chin. “What do you want and who are you?” she demands of the man on the other side of the door. I nod, proud that my normally shy sister is busting out her lady balls.

  “I’m someone you want to talk to. Trust me. I come bearing good news.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” I say, raising my voice to be heard through the door. All the women in this house know how the lawyers for the various levels of government work. They’ll lie and cheat to get what they want, but we’re not falling for it.

  He sighs, managing to sound both bored and annoyed. “I’m here to talk to Amber Fields, daughter of Barbara Fields, born May 18th, 1993; Emerald Collins, daughter of Carol Collins, born May 25th, 1993; and Rose Lancaster, daughter of Sally Lancaster, born June 15th, 1993.”

  “Wow. He does know who we are,” Em says, nodding like she’s impressed. “Our own mothers never get the dates right.”

  My mind races as I consider various possibilities. One: he’s a hit man, come to collect his due. Our mothers’ story that they chose to live
in this godforsaken hippie commune in the middle of Maine twenty-six years ago to escape the rat race was merely a lie covering up the fact that they took out a mob boss and were forced to go on the lam. Two: he’s an insurance salesman, ready to quote us some killer life insurance rates. Three: he’s a Mormon who’s upped his game, no longer riding a bicycle and wearing a short-sleeved white business shirt with a skinny black tie. Four: he’s a lawyer here to inform us that we’ve got a big fat inheritance coming to us from a long-lost dead relative.

  It’s number four that has me opening the door. Not that we need money to support our simple lifestyle, but it might be nice to learn about a family member we’ve never met. As far as we’ve been told, we’re all we have left in the world. According to our mothers, there are no fathers, no grandparents, no cousins, no nobodies—just me, Em, Rose, and our three moms . . . one big happy family sharing space on this two-hundred-acre farm with a few other people who have a tendency to wear hemp and meditate while contemplating their navels.

  “What exactly do you want to talk to us about?” I ask the well-dressed stranger on our porch, resting one hand on my hip and the other on the open door, ready to close it immediately if necessary . . . because we’re not looking for any life insurance, we’re already as saved as we’re ever going to be, and no hit man is coming into my house.

  “May I come in?” He looks past me into the nearby living room.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” I say, sliding out onto the porch, leaving my sister behind. I shut the door in Em’s face, ignoring her exclamation of surprise.

  He stares me up and down quietly, nothing in his expression giving me any clue as to what he’s thinking. I shrug, completely unconcerned with his assessment. I know what I’m all about and I’m cool with it. “Like what you see?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow in challenge.

  “Not particularly.”

  I hadn’t expected such a blunt response. I guess he’s not into my natural-fiber clothing and Birkenstock sandals that label me an earth child who lives off the land and does my best to leave no footprint behind. It kind of bursts my bubble if you want to know the truth. My mood goes testy.

  He balances his briefcase on one of his arms so he can open it. The top of it is suddenly in my face, blocking my view of him.

  “Excuse me,” I say, frowning at his complete lack of manners.

  A squeaking and crunching sound comes from the driveway, distracting me from delivering my next statement, which was going to be a biting comment directed at his need to drive an overly flashy car. I glance to my right, knowing what I’ll see.

  The briefcase closes, and the stranger turns to watch my other sister, Rose, approach on her ancient bicycle that needs about a can of WD-40 to get it running well again. We don’t use those kinds of chemicals out here, though, so it will continue to squeak until it eventually falls apart—hemp oil can only go so far. There’s a scrappy-looking, three-legged border collie—otherwise known as Banana—running beside her. As she parks her bike against the porch, the animal goes over to the stranger’s car and starts barking.

  “Hey,” the man says loudly, the briefcase and the file he removed from it forgotten and dropping to his sides as he descends the stairs. “Be careful. I don’t want him scratching my car.”

  Rose completely ignores Briefcase Guy, walking over to the Mercedes and putting her finger on the window. “Hello there, little fella.” She tucks her blond hair behind her ear as she peers into the car.

  A small brown head pops up in the window, surprising me. This guy does not strike me as a dog person. He probably kidnapped the poor thing. The tiny dog inside puts his nose on the glass, and Banana jumps up to put his paws on the driver’s door, trying desperately to sniff his new friend through the window. When that fails, he begins licking the glass, leaving behind wide swaths of dog drool. The smaller canine inside the car looks confused by this show of affection. I smile because revenge is so very sweet, especially when it comes in the form of a dog-drool car wash.

  “Hey!” the guy says, approaching Rose and the dog as he waves the papers at them. “Off! Down! Get down!”

  I almost think he’s yelling at my sister, but then the dog responds by dropping to his three legs, staring at the man with his head tilted.

  Rose straightens and loses her smile instantly. “There’s no need to shout. He’s not deaf and neither am I.” She gives the guy a hard look and then walks up to the porch, her pet at her heels. She always has something following her home from her animal clinic down the lane from the main house, but Banana has been a regular for a couple of years now. “You shouldn’t leave your dog in a car, even for a single minute. The heat from the greenhouse effect could kill her.”

  “I know that,” he says loudly from behind her.

  “Coulda fooled me,” she says, brushing past me with a little smile and a wink.

  I shake my head at him. “Some people.” I turn to join my sisters inside. Em is waiting by the door, watching through the window. As soon as we’re all over the threshold, I shut the door behind us and lean against it. My heart is thumping wildly in my chest. I haven’t had this much fun in ages.

  “What just happened?” Em asks. “Who is that?”

  Rose and I look at each other and say the same thing at exactly the same time: “Yuppy guppy with a puppy.” We’ve had several yuppy guppies visit our farm over the years. We have nicknames for almost every group we see out here.

  We all burst out in laughter as our mothers appear from various parts of the house. The doorbell ringing and a fist banging on the door instantly sobers us up, though. Spoilsport.

  “Well?” Barbara asks me. “Are you going to answer that?”

  I give her my best innocent look. “Answer what?”

  “The door.” She glowers at me.

  I stick my thumb over my shoulder. “This door?”

  She nods.

  “Do I have to?” I whine, begging with my eyes. If we ignore him, he’ll go away, I know he will. This guy is freaking me out a little too much. I have a bad feeling about what he has in that briefcase of his. It could very well be a subpoena.

  All she does is sigh.

  “Amber, who’s out there?” Sally asks. One of her gray-streaked braids is falling down, so I step over to fix it. I take a hairpin that’s loose and slide it into place, securing the plait once more.

  “Nobody important.” Sally is the most fragile one among us, and we all take pains to make sure she’s not stressed.

  “He sure looks important,” Em says, peeking through the curtain again.

  “I am important,” the guy says loudly. “I mean, the things I have with me are important.”

  Carol walks through the gaggle of women to the door. “Step aside, girls. Let’s see what the man wants.”

  “Should I get the shotgun?” I ask, smiling at the idea. That’d put the fear of hippies in him, all right.

  “Not just yet,” she says, pulling the door open and fixing our visitor with a stare. She gets right to the point, as usual. “I don’t know who you are, but if you’re here to cause trouble, you can just turn yourself right around and get the heck out of here.” She sees his car. “And go on back to whatever city you obviously came from.”

  He holds out a stack of papers. “I’m here to deliver these.”

  My heart freezes in my chest. It looks like legal stuff. A summons. Are we being sued? For what? We have money to live on, but being sued is a different deal altogether. The town council has been giving us crap for so long about our land-use activities, it’s almost become a normal part of our lives. None of us ever thought we’d go to court over anything, though. We’ve always won our cases before they came to a trial.

  Carol looks down, refusing to take the documents. “And what would these be?”

  He jiggles the papers a few times, but when he finally figures out that Carol isn’t going to take them, he places them against his chest. “Please, Mrs. Lancaster, may I come in?”

&n
bsp; She looks over her shoulder at Sally. “May he come in, Mrs. Lancaster?”

  Sally rubs the loose hairs back away from her face and sighs. “I suppose.” She gestures to the dining-room table, visible across the foyer.

  He steps through the entrance and walks right into the other room without a single glance or a word for any of us.

  We watch as he places his briefcase down on the table and takes out two more stacks of papers to join the others already there. “I don’t have all day, and I bill by the hour, so if you wouldn’t mind?” He gestures at the other seats before finally looking at us.

  We file into the room, exchanging silent glances. This is a first for us, and if nothing else, this man has aroused our curiosity. Clearly, we don’t get much excitement around here at Glenhollow Farms.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My sisters and I each have a stack of legal papers in front of us. Em and Rose are too stunned to speak, but unlike them, I’ve never suffered that effect when under stress.

  “So, what you’re saying is, we all have fathers who are alive and well, and after twenty-five years of ignoring us, they’ve decided they want to give us a pile of money?” I still can’t believe the number I saw on that paper. Eight figures? Ten million dollars each? Utter and complete bullshit is what it is. I can feel my ears burning with the anger that’s building up inside me. I honestly don’t know who exactly I should be angry at right now, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing red. Em reaches over and takes my hand. Her fingers are clammy.

  “Not exactly,” the lawyer says—Greg Lister, Esq., his business card reads. “They want to meet you. They want to see the women you’ve become. And in exchange for this privilege . . .”—he says that last word with a heavy note of sarcasm—“. . . you will be given an inheritance that activates on your twenty-fifth birthdays.”

  I shove my stack of papers back at him. “Not interested.” I stand with the intention of leaving, but Em’s grip holds me in place.

  “All they want to do is meet us?” Rose asks. She glances up at me before continuing. “Where? Here?”