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“Hello, Mother.”
“Well, I guess you made it safely since you’re able to talk on the phone.”
Nothing like a snide remark from a parent to start the day off on a low note. Why couldn’t the woman just admit that she’d been worried?
“By the time I got settled in last night, it was too late to call.”
A small exaggeration perhaps, but it would’ve been rude to admit to the truth, that she’d never even considered calling.
“I can’t believe that you’re really up there.” Rayanne could picture her mother leaning against the kitchen counter, with a nonfat double latte in her hand.
“Of course, I never understood the appeal of the great outdoors. Seriously, Rayanne, I know you loved my brother, but you don’t have to exile yourself up there just to prove it. I should’ve put my foot down about this.”
As if that would’ve done any good. Maybe someday the woman would accept the fact that Rayanne had grown up and could make her own decisions, even ones her mother didn’t approve of.
Especially ones she didn’t approve of.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m safe. I’m happy.”
Please let it go at that. She really didn’t want to start the day off rehashing old arguments.
“That’s good for you. But what about Shawn? Is he happy?” Her voice clearly indicated she was playing her trump card.
She was wrong. “My relationship with Shawn is not open for discussion.”
Mainly because she wasn’t all that sure they still had one. He hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to her after she’d announced her decision to leave school early and move to the mountain.
“Your father isn’t pleased to hear that you’re back up there.”
Okay, that got Rayanne’s attention. “Since when are you and Dad on speaking terms?”
Her mother’s voice turned frosty. “He deserved to know what you were up to, especially when your last visit ended up such a disaster.”
“Mom, that was years ago. I’m here to do research, nothing more. You shouldn’t have gotten Dad all worried for nothing.”
She’d give her mother another thirty seconds and then pretend that her reception was failing.
“If I don’t hear from you every day, I will be calling the authorities to report you missing or something. Whatever it takes to get someone up there to check on you.”
Oh, brother. Rayanne counteroffered. “I’ll call you once a week and no more than that.”
Rayanne’s hand ached from gripping the phone so hard.
“That’s not enough.” Her mom was going into full martyr mode now. Tears wouldn’t be far behind.
“It’s my best offer, Mom.” And just to make sure her mother got it straight, she repeated it. “Once a week or not at all.”
After a long, painful silence, her mother conceded defeat. “Fine, Rayanne. Be selfish. Once a week will have to do.”
“I love you, Mom.” She did, really, even if the woman drove her crazy most of the time. “I’ll call you on Saturday. Bye.”
She disconnected the call before her mother could think of something else to argue about. With that behind her, Rayanne headed for the shower, anxious for the day to begin. It was going to be a good one; she could just tell.
Chapter 3
He wasn’t sure why he’d returned to the clearing. Curiosity wasn’t something he normally indulged in anymore, but it had drawn him back to the cabin. There was no smoke coming out of the chimney. Either the woman must not mind the morning chill or else she wasn’t up yet.
When he reached the door of the cabin, he sneered at the lock. As if that flimsy bit of steel could keep him out. Once inside, he looked around. Had he been in the cabin recently? He couldn’t remember. Most of the time he’d watched the man from the cover of the woods or where the shadows deepened to near black by the porch at night.
Ray had usually sensed his presence, even though he’d rarely said anything. Maybe it was because what Ray had seen in the war had been so much worse. Either way, there had been real strength in the man right up to the end. The former soldier had always been silent but content in his own skin.
Unless his demons were riding him hard. Then Ray would stalk the woods, muttering under his breath. Sometimes he stood at the edge of a cliff and screamed out the names of men who’d never set foot on the mountain except in his mind.
But Ray was gone now. They’d come with flashing lights and carried his body back down the mountain. Now someone else, the woman, had come to the mountain to live. He hated having his routine disturbed, but he’d have no choice but to adjust to her presence.
She’d seen him once. Did she remember?
A noise from overhead caught his attention. She was talking to someone, even though he knew full well that she was alone. No one passed through his territory unnoticed. A few minutes later, the shower came on, warning him that his time was limited. He needed to leave before she walked down those steps, although it was tempting to linger long enough to get a closer look at her.
But for the moment, he had time to poke around a bit. He moved toward the kitchen where she’d dumped a few things on the table the night before. He studied the clutter, trying to make sense of the stuff. It wasn’t worth the energy it would take to dump the bag out. Besides, he wasn’t there to drive her away, just to learn more about the woman who would be sharing his mountain and town.
A paper caught his attention. Careful not to disturb anything, he gently reached out to touch it. Would she remember if she’d left it faceup or facedown? He didn’t care. Hell, what was life without a few risks?
Laughing at his own joke, he turned the paper over. Shock rolled through him as soon as he got a good look at the picture staring up at him, leaving him unable to do anything but stand and stare down at the image.
Where the hell had she gotten that?
So caught up in the memories that came flooding back, he failed to notice the silence from upstairs. The shower was no longer running. Before he could react, one of the steps behind him creaked. Hellfire and damnation, the woman was coming down the stairs.
* * *
The hot steam had washed away the last bit of tension from talking to her mother. Eventually, maybe she’d long for the company at the other end of the phone line but definitely not today.
About halfway down the stairs, a weird shiver started at the base of her spine and danced its way right up to her head. Even the hair on her arms stood up, as if lightning were about to strike. Had the late spring weather taken a sudden turn for the worse?
No, sunshine was streaming in through the skylights overhead.
Rayanne couldn’t shrug off the feeling that something wasn’t right. As a city girl born and bred, maybe she wasn’t ready to face life alone on the mountain. However, she wasn’t about to admit that her mother had been right all along. No, it was only a matter of adjusting to the quiet murmurs of nature outside the window rather than the jarring cacophony of city noise.
That was when she heard a sound that had nothing to do with any four-legged beast that lived on the mountain: human footsteps. She swallowed, trying to get her heart out of her throat so she could breathe. The silence felt frozen now, as if in anticipation of the next sweep of cloth against cloth. It wasn’t long in coming.
“Who’s there?” Her voice echoed hollowly.
No answer. To her surprise, that made her mad. She came down two more stairs, hoping to find evidence that it was only her imagination running wild. This time the steps were more definite and headed right for the door. Should she remain cowering on the stairs forever or take control of the situation?
This was her home; she would not be a prisoner of her own fear. Besides, if the intruder had meant her harm, he’d had ample opportunity.
Bracing herself for the worst, she charged down the last few steps, determined to give someone a piece of her mind. The bottom few stairs curved down into the kitchen near the door. One glance told her that the door was still bolted but that didn’t mean much. If someone had broken in, it could have been through a window, instead. But if so, why hadn’t she heard anything?
Nothing in the kitchen looked disturbed, but then she sensed a movement off to her right. Time slowed as her mind scrambled to make sense of what she was seeing. She made a grab for the wall as her knees gave way. Surely this was some kind of joke.
“Who are you?”
Her question was little more than a whisper, but the man heard it all right. There was no mistaking the temper in those ice-blue eyes, not that she really needed him to answer her. His outfit matched the one he’d worn in the picture he held clutched in his fist: scuffed boots, a faded shirt, dark trousers and a worn duster. It couldn’t really be him, but every cell in her body screamed that it was.
“Wyatt McCain?”
His name was the last thing she said as the floor rushed up to meet her.
Cool. Smooth. Hard.
Slowly, the fog in Rayanne’s mind faded and awareness of her surroundings returned. Right now, her cheek was pressed against something flat and cool to the touch. Her eyes refused to open; instead, she concentrated on moving her right hand and then her left.
Her fingertips felt just the slightest grittiness to the surface, like a hardwood floor that hadn’t been swept recently. She slowly processed all the data, because the side of her face was pounding. Finally, she arrived at the obvious conclusion that she was sprawled on the floor, most likely in the kitchen.
Why?
Flashes of memory played out in her head. Shower. Brushing her teeth. Sweats rather than jeans. All of that made sense. What next? She’d started downstairs to fix her breakfast. Halfway down she’d heard something.
No. Someone. Wyatt McCain. Well, not him, but someone who looked just like him, down to the faded blue shirt and scuffed boots. Thanks to her dream, his image had been the first one she thought of.
Her eyes popped open, and she found the strength to push herself up to a sitting position. Ignoring the fresh wave of dizziness, she scooted back until she bumped up against the nearest wall. It offered support but no comfort as she surveyed her surroundings.
From where she sat, she could see the entire ground floor of the A-frame cabin. She was alone. Gradually, her pulse slowed to somewhere near normal, and the pain on the right side of her face eased up enough to allow her to think straight.
The deadbolt on the front door was still firmly in place. No broken windows. No back door, so no other exit. Adding up all the facts, she had to think that she’d imagined the whole thing. Whatever she’d heard had to have been just the wind or a tree limb brushing against the cabin in the wind.
The side of her face was tender to the touch. Obviously, she’d tripped and fallen, landing hard enough to bruise. Nothing that a bag of ice and some aspirin wouldn’t cure. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, taking care not to move too quickly.
She rooted around in the cabinets until she found a small plastic bag and filled it with ice. After zipping it shut, she wrapped it in a thin dish towel and pressed it to her cheek. The cold burn stung but gradually numbed the pain. Next up, the painkillers.
She always carried some in her purse, which she thought she’d left here in the kitchen. Where was it? Hadn’t she set it down on the counter when she’d first come in last night?
It wasn’t there now. She was sure she hadn’t taken it upstairs with her, so that left the living room. Before she’d gone two steps, she spotted the strap of her purse sticking out from underneath the microwave cart. She bent down to pick it up, wincing as the motion exacerbated the throbbing in her face.
How had her purse gotten down there? It wasn’t anywhere close to where she’d landed on the floor, so she hadn’t knocked it off the counter. Another mystery with no answer. Rather than dwell on it, she dug out the small bottle at the bottom of the purse and took out two pills. She swallowed them with a drink of water.
Next up, caffeine and lots of it. The few minutes that it took to set the coffee to brewing kept her too busy to think about the things that didn’t quite add up.
Such as the noise she’d heard, and how her purse came to be under the cart. While she waited for the coffee to perk, she leaned against the counter and studied the room to see if anything else was out of place.
Her computer pack sat right where she’d left it on the kitchen counter. She frowned. Something was different, though. Last night, one of the last things she’d done was look at the picture of Wyatt McCain that she’d printed out. She smiled. Uncle Ray would’ve gotten such a kick out of what she’d learned about Blessing when the town had been alive.
But now the picture wasn’t where she’d left it.
She searched her pack in case she’d put it back. No dice. Nor was it in the living room or anywhere in plain sight. She’d found her purse under the cart. Had the picture fallen there, too?
Only one way to find out. She tugged on the cart, wheeling it out of its usual position. The only thing she uncovered was a wadded-up piece of paper, obviously not the picture of Wyatt. Uncle Ray must have missed the trash can with it.
She bent down to pick it up. Before throwing the paper away, she’d make sure it wasn’t something important. As she smoothed it out on the counter, her pulse kicked right back into overdrive. Okay, so she’d been wrong. Uncle Ray hadn’t thrown this paper away. He couldn’t have for one important reason: he’d never seen it. Wyatt McCain’s piercing pale eyes glared up at her, the wrinkled paper doing nothing to dilute the intensity of his gaze.
This was the picture she’d brought with her, but she hadn’t been the one to crumple it up. Chills washed through her as she looked around the room. She had proof positive right there in her hands that she hadn’t imagined the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen earlier.
She dropped the paper on the counter and hurried to double-check the lock on the door and the windows. It didn’t take long to verify that everything was locked up tight. Even if someone had the key to the deadbolt, they couldn’t have fastened the chain from the outside. There was no obvious sign that the cabin walls had been breached.
Surely she would’ve heard someone climbing to the second floor? Had she left her window open when she came downstairs? She grabbed the nearest weapon she could find, her uncle’s rolling pin, and charged upstairs. Sure enough, her window was still open. She knelt on the bed to close it and throw the latch.
She paused long enough to survey the clearing surrounding the cabin. Her past visits had taught her that anyone walking across the meadow while the dew was still on the grass left a visible trail. From what she could see, there was no sign that anyone had passed that way.
She checked the tree line, too. No movement there except for a few birds flittering among the leaves. So it was just her, the bright morning sunshine and the mountain.
From there, she went into the bathroom, but the window in there was too narrow for anyone but a small child to squeeze through.
That left Uncle Ray’s room. She hesitated before opening the door. Eventually, she’d have to cross that threshold, but she hadn’t planned on doing it so soon. It was Uncle Ray’s most private space, his sanctuary from the world outside. Even when she’d visited him, she’d never been allowed inside.
She turned the doorknob but still hesitated before pushing the door open. This was silly. What did she expect to find? She gave the door a soft shove and took a single step forward into the space that her uncle had kept private.
Tears stung her eyes as she realized how much the room looked like her uncle—solid, comfortable, plain. The queen-size bed filled up most of the space. Made from pine, the design was simple, which matched the patchwork quilt and utilitarian blue curtains. The haphazard pile of books on the bedside table came as no surprise. Nor did the closet full of flannel shirts and T-shirts featuring the names of old rock bands.
“Uncle Ray, you sure loved your books and music.”
Something else they’d both shared besides their love for his mountain home. She pulled one of the flannel shirts off its hanger and slipped it on. Maybe it was whimsical of her, but wearing the soft cotton felt like one of Uncle Ray’s hugs. For the first time since waking up on the kitchen floor, she felt safe.
Eventually, she’d figure out what had happened downstairs. Maybe she’d walked in her sleep; not exactly a comforting thought. And even if it were true, why would she have crumpled Wyatt McCain’s picture? Too many questions she had no answers for.
But now that she’d reassured herself that she was alone in the cabin, it was time to do something useful. At some point, she’d have to go through Ray’s things and dispose of them. Surely there was a homeless shelter in one of the nearby towns that could make good use of his clothing. Maybe some of his books, too. His extensive music collection, though, she’d keep.
As she walked back out of the room, she rolled the sleeves of the flannel shirt up several turns. Despite being a couple sizes too big for her, the black-and-white-plaid fit her just fine.
At the bottom of the steps, she hesitated briefly. Nothing but silence this time. Good. Where to start? The attorney had gone over the terms of Uncle Ray’s will with her in great detail, some of which were odd to say the least. To start with, he’d made the attorney include a message from him saying that he’d loved Rayanne and had known that she’d loved him right back.
Bless the man, those few words had melted away her guilt over not visiting him up here on the mountain. He’d known how she felt about him and that’s all that mattered.
Next on the list was the requirement that she had to move to the cabin immediately. If she stayed until Labor Day, the property and everything on it was hers to take care of for her lifetime. She couldn’t sell it, rent it, or give it away. Failure to comply would result in the place being left to a distant cousin, and Rayanne and her parents would be banned from ever setting foot on the property again.
He’d also set aside enough money to see her through the summer. Once September rolled around, the rest of Ray’s surprisingly substantial estate would also be hers. With care, she wouldn’t have to work again.
Meanwhile, the attorney had suggested that she begin by doing a room-by-room inventory of the cabin. The only question was where to start?
The kitchen would be the simplest. Before starting, she picked out some CDs from Ray’s collection and put them on to play. His taste was eclectic, but this morning some red-dirt rock and country fit her mood.
With the sound of fiddle and guitar filling the empty silence, she got out her spiral notebook and favorite pen and started to work.
* * *
Wyatt drifted closer to the edge of the woods to listen. With the doors and windows closed up tight, he couldn’t make out the lyrics. The singer had a smoky voice, the kind that had a man thinking of a pair of lovers breathing hard as they tangled up together in between soft sheets.
After all this time, he had only vague memories of what it had been like to coax a woman into sharing his bed for the night. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the scent of his last lover’s perfume. Something flowery, maybe. He had better luck remembering how silky smooth her skin had been, but nothing at all about what she looked like. Could have been a blonde or a brunette, not that it mattered. She was long dead and buried.
