Free Black Creek Crossing by John Saul

on it in perpetuity, so long as they preserved certain acreage—including the Maple Grove—as wilderness.
    Or, at least, his great-grandfather’s definition of wilderness, which wasn’t exactly the kind of untamed forest most people associated with that word. The Maple Grove—which had come to be capitalized at least in the members’ minds, if not in any of the legal documents that pertained to the small forest—was kept free of anything that might distract from the magnificence of the trees themselves. No undergrowth was allowed to sprout from the soil around their roots, no twig or branch was allowed to lie where it fell for more than a day or two. Only the leaves could stay on the ground, for one of old Thaddeus Fletcher’s few pleasures in life had come from scuffling through them in the fall, listening to them rustle around his feet.
    Given the hard-eyed, angry scowl that adorned the portrait of Thaddeus that hung over the fireplace in the club’s main dining room, Ed Fletcher suspected it more likely that he liked crushing the leaves under his boots. Still, whatever his great-grandfather’s motivations, the Roundtree Country Club was a magnificent place that was open to everyone in Roundtree, assuming, of course, that they could afford the initiation fee and the annual dues. The irony was not lost on Ed that Thaddeus Fletcher himself probably wouldn’t have been able to afford the fee and dues had he not managed to unload the property onto the club in the first place, but it wasn’t something either he or any of the other members ever talked about.
    He pulled the Mercedes up to the front door, turned it over to the valet, and followed Joni and Zack into the clubhouse. At least a hundred people had already gathered there, the men dressed in perfectly pressed khaki pants and Ralph Lauren shirts, the women in the kind of peasant skirts that real peasants never would have been able to afford.
    “I’m going to go find Heather Dunne and Chad Jackson,” Zack announced, heading for the French doors that led out to the terrace and the swimming pool beyond.
    “You and Heather stay out of the bushes,” his father said with a wink that earned him a warning look from his wife. “Hey, you can’t stop them from growing up,” he said when Zack was gone.
    “Why don’t I think that ‘growing up’ and ‘seducing innocent girls in the bushes behind the pool house’ are synonymous?”
    “It worked with you,” Ed teased. “Wouldn’t you say you grew up that night?”
    Joni lifted an eyebrow. “Me?” she countered. “As I recall, exploring those bushes was my idea, not yours.” Glancing around to see if anyone was watching them, she licked her lips lasciviously. “And I wasn’t any more innocent then than I am now. Myra was always the religious one. Want to go back there again?” She reached out and stroked his chest, slipping her finger between the buttons to touch his bare flesh. “Just for old times’ sake? Let yourself be seduced by the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks one more time?”
    “I think we’d better leave it to the kids,” Ed replied. “Let’s go get a drink and see who’s here.” He’d started toward the bar when Joni put a hand on his arm, stopping him. When he turned back to her, the mischief of a moment ago had vanished.
    “I know you didn’t really want to hire Marty,” she said quietly.
    Ed shrugged. “Hey, I promised, didn’t I?” His expression clouded. “But if it doesn’t work out, I’m not promising to keep him on.”
    “It’ll work out,” Joni said. “Myra’s the only family I have left, and . . .” Her voice trailed off, then she added, “I just want her closer to me, that’s all. Everything’s going to be perfect—I can just feel it.”
    Ed turned away, but not quickly enough to keep his wife from seeing the doubt in his eyes.
    Seth Baker saw Zack Fletcher coming out of the clubhouse, and in response he found himself moving toward the