Read Serena for Free Online Page A

remained on the pad as he spoke, as if to belie any favoritism even as he rendered the verdict.
    “Mrs. Pemberton the winner by thirty board feet,” Campbell said, and he stepped down without further comment.
    The men began to disperse, those who had bet and won, such as Ross, stepping more lightly than the losers. Soon only those who’d watched from the porch remained.
    “Cause for a celebratory drink of our best scotch,” Buchanan announced.
    He and Wilkie followed Doctor Cheney and the Pembertons into the office. They passed through the front room and entered a smaller room with a bar on one wall and a fourteen-foot dining table in the center, around it a dozen well-padded captain’s chairs. The room had a creek-stone fireplace and a single window. Buchanan stepped behind the bar and set a bottle of Glenlivet and soda water on the lacquered wood. He lifted five Steuben tumblers from under the bar and filled a silver canister with chips from the ice box.
    “I call this the Recovery Room,” Doctor Cheney said to Serena. “You see it is well stocked with all manner of alcohol. I find it quite sufficient for my own medicinal needs.”
    “Doctor Cheney has no need for a recovery room elsewhere, because the good doctor’s patients rarely recover,” Buchanan said from behind the bar. “I know these rogues’ preferences, but what is yours, Mrs. Pemberton?”
    “The same.”
    Everyone sat except Buchanan. Serena studied the table, let the fingers of her left hand trail across its surface.
    “A single piece of chestnut,” Serena said appreciatively. “Was the tree cut nearby?”
    “In this very valley,” Buchanan said. “It measured one-hundred-and-twelve feet. We’ve yet to find a bigger one.”
    Serena raised her eyes from the table and looked around the room.
    “I’m afraid this room is quite austere, Mrs. Pemberton,” Wilkie said, “but comfortable, even cozy in its way, especially during winter. We hope you’ll take your evening meals here, as the four of us have done before the pleasure of your arrival.”
    Still apprising the room, Serena nodded.
    “Excellent,” Doctor Cheney said. “A woman’s beauty would do much to brighten these drab surroundings.”
    Buchanan spoke as he handed Serena her drink.
    “Pemberton has told me of your parents’ unfortunate demise in the 1918 flu epidemic, but do you have siblings?”
    “I had a brother and two sisters. They died as well.”
    “All in the epidemic?” Wilkie asked.
    “Yes.”
    Wilkie’s moustache quivered slightly, and his rheumy eyes saddened.
    “How old were you, my dear?”
    “Sixteen.”
    “I lost a sibling as well in that epidemic, my youngest sister,” Wilkie said to Serena, “but to lose your whole family, and at such a young age. I just can’t imagine.”
    “I too am sorry for your losses, but your good fortune is now our good fortune,” Doctor Cheney quipped.
    “It was more than good fortune,” Serena replied. “The doctor said so himself.”
    “What then did my fellow healer ascribe your survival to?”
    Serena looked steadily at Cheney, her eyes as inexpressive as her tone.
    “He said I simply refused to die.”
    Doctor Cheney slowly tilted his head, as if peering around a corner. The physician stared at Serena curiously, his thick eyebrows raised a few moments, then relaxed. Buchanan brought the other drinks to the table and sat down. Pemberton raised his drink, offered a smile as well to lighten the moment.
    “A toast to another victory for management over labor,” he said.
    “I toast you as well, Mrs. Pemberton,” Doctor Cheney said. “The nature of the fairer sex is to lack the male’s analytical skills, but, at least in this instance, you have somehow compensated for that weakness.”
    Serena’s features tightened, but the irritation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, swept clear from her face like a lock of unruly hair.
    “My husband tells me that you are from these very mountains, a place called Wild