"Middle-aged, then, for a dwarf," I said.
Kincaid nodded. "And he works too hard. He always has. The man isn't happy unless he's at his forge pounding on something. Whenever I come up here to visit him, I always tell him to slow down, but he never listens to me."
"You visit him?" Owen asked, the surprise clear in his voice.
"Of course I visit him. Don't you?"
Owen shifted in his seat. "Yeah. I just didn't think you would."
Kincaid laughed, but the sound was low, harsh, and ugly. "Still determined to believe the worst about me."
Owen didn't respond.
Kincaid leaned forward and looked at me. "But if you're asking if he could stand up to Salina, the answer is yes. I just don't know for how long. Cooper is strong, but even back then, it took everything he had to get Salina to leave town. He should have killed her when he had the chance. We both should have."
Owen didn't say anything, but his mouth tightened, and that troubled look filled his eyes again. He didn't agree with Kincaid about killing Salina, not even now, when he knew what she'd done to Eva.
I wondered what he would think of me when I did the deed for him.
My mind was made up. Maybe it had been from the moment Eva told me what Salina had done to her, but seeing the water elemental this morning, talking to her, had made me realize exactly how dangerous she was. I didn't know exactly what she was up to with McAllister and her mysterious dinner party, but like the others had said, it couldn't be anything good. She'd only been back in Ashland a few days, and she'd already killed two people and tried to off Kincaid as well. It was just a matter of time before she hurt someone else, someone Owen cared about. And I'd be damned if I'd let that happen.
I glanced at Owen, but he was staring out the window and brooding again. Yes, I wondered what my lover would think when I killed his ex-fiancee. If he would be glad she wasn't around to be a threat anymore - or if he would hate me for it.
We rode the rest of the way in silence. I drove past Warren Fox's store, Country Daze, and slowed down so I could take a good long look out the window as we passed. More than a dozen cars filled the parking lot, along with a tour bus, as folks stopped on their way to wherever to get a quick drink or snack or to browse through the mountain crafts and homemade jams, jellies, and honey that Warren sold. I smiled. Nice to see that Warren's business had picked up since I'd gotten Tobias Dawson off his back. One of the many pro bono good deeds I'd done in the last several months. The only ones that seemed to matter to me anymore.
I kept driving up into the mountains. I'd just passed a moving truck and a smaller van parked on the side of the road, their giant drivers standing in between them and conferring about something, when Owen pointed to a turnoff up ahead.
"That's it," he said.
I turned and steered the Escalade onto a bumpy dirt track that seemed to lead into the middle of nowhere. We drove about a mile back into the woods and up a ridge. Tiny flashes of light sparked in the trees to my left, almost like fireflies winking on and off, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. It took me several seconds to realize the flashes were from bright metal shapes reflecting the sun. I squinted, but I couldn't quite make out what the figures were before we rounded a curve and a large house came into view.
It was a massive structure made out of gray river rock, the kind that could be found in the waterways in and around Ashland and the surrounding mountains. The smooth stones fit together beautifully, while the house's A-line roof looked like a blanket of coal that had been thrown over the rocks.
I parked the SUV, and we got out. Owen and Kincaid stood side by side staring at the house, memories filling their faces of all the good and bad times they'd shared here.
Finally Owen shook his head, as if banishing his thoughts. "Come on," he said. "Cooper will be around back in the forge. He always is."
Owen led me to the right, and we walked around the house, with Kincaid bringing up the rear. We stepped into the backyard, which was clear of the trees that crowded around the front of the house. More of the river rock had been shaped into flat stones and placed on top of the grass, forming a patio and a winding path that led over to a forge that was almost as large as the house itself. The forge was made out of the same gray river rock as everything else. Two sides of it were open to the air, and I could see a variety of blacksmithing tools hanging down from the ceiling and stacked on the tables inside. A fire burned low in the hearth, sending out wisps of smoke and adding to the growing heat of the day.
Owen frowned. "It's not like Cooper to go off and leave the forge hot when he's not around. Too much risk of sparking a fire. Maybe he stepped into the house for a minute, after all. I'll go inside and look. He always leaves the back door unlocked."
"I'll go with you," Kincaid said.
I reached out with my magic, listening to the stone around me, but the rocks only whispered of the rivers and streams they'd been plucked out of. They also emitted a faint ringing sound - like a blacksmith's hammer hitting metal over and over again. I concentrated on the deep, throaty, vibrant sound, but there were no uneasy murmurs, no notes of worry, anger, or fear rippling through any of the stones. No one was here who shouldn't be, including Salina. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility to think that she would come after Cooper, especially since he was the one who'd forced her to leave Ashland - and Owen. But she wasn't here now, so I didn't voice my concern to the others.
"You guys go on inside. I'll search out here. Maybe he went into the woods for some reason."
Owen nodded, and he and Kincaid moved off toward the house. I headed over to the forge.
"Cooper?" I called out in a loud voice, not wanting to startle the dwarf in case he was engrossed in his work. "Are you here? My name is Gin, Gin Blanco. I'm a friend of Owen Grayson's. . . ."
No answer.
I walked through the forge, looking at all the tools and the items Cooper was crafting - everything from swords to sculptures to a very large and elaborate metal birdhouse. Once again, sly gleams of metal in the trees beyond caught my eye, and I slipped out of the back of the forge and headed in that direction, searching for the source of the flashes, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. I was rather like Fletcher that way.
A hundred feet into the woods, I found a sculpture garden.
Dotting a wide clearing and the landscape beyond, sculptures perched here and there among the trees. They were shaped like every figure you could possibly imagine. Birds, bears, rabbits, foxes, sunflowers, rainbows, and everything in between. The sculptures were made of various types of metal, from iron to steel to silverstone that glimmered like a star as the sunlight warmed its smooth surface. Iron benches had been placed along the paths that wound through the area, so folks could sit and look at their favorite pieces.