It went through Wyatt’s mind that she was the perfect woman for him. He hadn’t voiced his yearning to just sit for a while. It was if she’d read his mind. Only he didn’t think that was the case. She seemed to appreciate the beauty around them as much as he did.
When they reached the water, drinks in hand, they sat side by side on the shore with their legs curled partly under them, one arm braced on the earth. He expected Erin to press him for conversation, but instead she just stared across the lake as if mesmerized by everything she saw. He knew how that felt, and he was content to enjoy the moment, too.
Erin elbowed him and pointed. He followed her gaze and saw the fawns that they’d seen the day before. The babies stood together, one a little larger than the other and on slightly higher ground. Their spots gleamed like white polka dots against their reddish-blond fur.
“One’s a little girl,” he whispered to Erin. Well, he hoped he’d pitched his voice to a whisper, anyway. “Look at how dainty her head is compared to her brother’s.”
Erin studied the babies. Turning her face toward him, she said, “I don’t see their mother. Maybe they’re orphaned.”
Wyatt considered the possibility. Awful things happened in the wild. Four Toes had been only a tiny cub when his mother had been killed in a rockslide. “Maybe so.”
She smiled. “Or maybe they were both orphaned separately. Then they found each other and have become best friends. Someday, after they grow up, she’ll love him, and he’ll love her, and they’ll get married in a deer-style wedding.”
Wyatt didn’t fantasize much about wildlife, but he guessed the part about the fawns being orphaned and finding each other was possible. He doubted a full-grown buck would confine his arduous pursuits to only one doe, though, and a marriage between two deer was a plot for children’s storybooks.
Still, it was fun to imagine that happening, impossibly romantic though it was. But just then, an osprey circled over the lake and made a spectacular dive into the water. Erin grew so excited she grabbed Wyatt’s arm, her gaze fixed on the bird. He found himself watching her instead of the raptor.
“She got a fish!” Erin told him. “Watch! She’s going to take it back to the nest.” She pointed high into a pine tree at the opposite side of the lake. “I can hear the babies cheeping.”
Wyatt wished he could hear them. He had no idea what cheeping sounded like and couldn’t even imagine it. But Erin turned toward him and said, “Cheep, cheep, cheep,” and the quick movement of her lips gave him an inkling. He located the nest high in the trees, saw that it was quite large, and wondered how old it was. Ospreys returned each year to their nesting location, and sometimes generations of them remodeled the same residence year after year. Wyatt had read that ospreys could end up with nests ten to thirteen feet deep and up to six feet wide, large enough for a man to easily sit in. In what he hoped was a low voice, he shared that information with Erin.
“Wow. Really?”
She seemed genuinely interested, so Wyatt shared more with her, ending with, “The osprey parents work together to build the nest and locate it within twelve miles of water where the fish swim close to the surface. Ospreys can dive only three feet down.”
“Imagine carrying a fish in your beak for twelve miles,” Erin said. “How incredible is that?”
Wyatt gazed at her upturned face and wanted to kiss her so badly that he ached. From the start, he had suspected Erin had been sent with him because Vickie and Slade hoped the two of them might fall for each other. What they didn’t know was that Wyatt had already lost his heart to Erin, but he wouldn’t ever act on it.
“What are you thinking? You’re looking at me oddly.”
Thinking fast, Wyatt said, “I’m thinking I’d better feed you before you faint from hunger.” He stood, shifted his cup into his left hand, and extended his arm toward her. “Up you go. Let’s roast wieners and marshmallows.”
* * *
* * *
For the second time since knowing Wyatt, Erin had seen in his eyes a depth of emotion and yearning that rocked her whole world. Down by the lake, he’d gazed at her as if he were committing every plane of her face to memory. He cares for me, she thought. She’d wished that he might return her feelings someday, but she hadn’t expected it to ever happen. And now that she knew it had, she felt almost sick with guilt. He had no idea that she’d wrongly used her position as a deputy to invade his privacy. No idea that she’d read all the testimonies that had been given at his trial. No idea that she’d learned his secrets and his worst fears.
The way he had been looking at her told Erin he thought a lot more highly of her than she deserved. She wasn’t a perfect person. Julie had argued against Erin ever telling Wyatt what she’d done, but that just didn’t seem right. He’d been so honest with her that afternoon when he’d told her about feeling broken and in need of fixing as a little boy, and his willingness to share something so personal and painful had helped her realize that she, too, had been made to feel broken as a child.
While Wyatt whittled bark from their roasting sticks and laid out their food, Erin went to feed the horses at the highline. They’d already drunk their fill from the lake, so she only had to pitch each of them some hay. In the morning, they’d be hobbled in the meadow to graze again. While she worked, her conscience bedeviled her. A part of her wanted to follow Julie’s advice and never tell Wyatt what she’d done, but another part of her believed honesty was always the best policy, especially in relationships where feelings ran deep. And she had seen in Wyatt’s eyes that he was starting to love her. The thought both excited and terrified her, because if she told him what she’d done, he might walk away from her and never look back.
She remembered her dream about loving Wyatt and watching him walk away. At the time, she had kept assuring herself that she didn’t really love him. But she’d been lying to herself that night. She didn’t know what it was about him, but she’d been strongly attracted to him on almost every level even then, and those feelings had morphed into something far more meaningful now.
As Erin walked back to camp, she steeled herself to tell him what she’d done. Only how should she start a conversation like that? Their hot dogs were nearly ready to eat when she reached the campfire. Wyatt flashed her one of those crooked grins that always made her feel a little weak in the knees.
“You about ready for a wilderness feast?” he asked.
She forced herself to smile. “Ready? I’m starving.” Only that wasn’t true. Her stomach was tied in knots, and she wasn’t sure she could eat. Wyatt had to be hungry, though, so she decided to wait until after he’d had his meal before she told him what she’d done. “Where are the condiments? I’ll run and grab them.”
“White cooler,” he told her.
When she returned a moment later, Wyatt had assembled their hot dogs on paper plates, four for him and two for her. She set the squeeze bottles of mayo, mustard, ketchup, and relish on a folded plastic tablecloth that he’d laid on the grass. He immediately began drizzling his choice of flavors onto his buns. Erin sat cross-legged opposite him and followed his lead.
Erin’s appetite returned the moment she took her first bite. They’d worked hard that day, and her body demanded nourishment. Wyatt reached across their makeshift table to dab at her chin with a paper towel.
She smiled and finished the job with her own napkin. “Sorry. I went overboard with the relish.”
He chewed and swallowed. “I’ll have mustard all over my face before I’m finished.”
They both applied themselves to the meal. After they had disposed of the plates by tossing them into the fire, Wyatt pushed marshmallows onto sticks and stood by the flames to roast them. Erin took advantage of the opportunity to study him while he was unaware of her perusal. He was, without question, one of the handsomest men she’d ever met, but his attractiveness went far beyond the physical. He was also one of the most honest and princip
led men she’d ever met, and he deserved the same level of integrity from her.
To go with their marshmallow desserts, Wyatt made them each another drink, his straight up, hers mixed with just the right amount of Coke. The marshmallows went fast, and Erin soon found herself with no excuse to keep putting off the inevitable. Maybe she was the biggest fool ever born, but she couldn’t lie to this man by omission.
It was nearly dark, but by the light of the fire, Erin could clearly see his face and assumed he could see hers. “Wyatt, there’s something I really need to tell you. And I’m afraid you may be very angry with me when I do.”
He locked gazes with her. “Okay. Hit me.”
“Remember when you told me you had a brush with the law over a woman? It was the day you came to my house while I was throwing away pots of petunias.”
He curled both hands around his cup and rested his muscular arms on his bent knees. “I remember.”
“Do you also remember the day I was at the ranch and helped Uncle Slade repair fencing?”
“Sure. I remember.”
“When I left, you didn’t walk back to the ranch proper with me. I thought we had forged a friendship, and I hoped you would leave with me, but you didn’t, and it bothered me.” Erin’s heart squeezed. She was making excuses for herself, and in reality there was no excuse for what she’d done. But she at least wanted him to understand why she’d done it. “You’re probably going to tell me that my conceit knows no bounds again, but you’d told me that you were attracted to me, and yet you seemed so determined to avoid being around me that I couldn’t help but wonder why. If you were really attracted to me, why would you avoid being alone with me to that degree? It was broad daylight, and we would have been in plain sight.”
“Where are you going with this, Erin?”
An awful ache in her chest moved upward into her throat. “I did something reprehensible that night. I went to the sheriff’s department and used my clearance to get on a computer to search all your records. Please know I immediately regretted doing it. I had no right to invade your privacy that way. I read all about the rape charge filed against you and also the trial transcripts.”
For what seemed an interminably long while to Erin, Wyatt just stared at her. Finally, he said, “Why did you do that? I told you what I chose to share with you. The rest of it—that’s something I’ve deliberately left in the past. The only people I care about who know are my parents and grandfather. More recently, I finally told Kennedy, but only because I had to disabuse him of the notion that I was gay.”
“I’m so sorry, Wyatt. I should never have done it. It was your secret to keep, and I was wrong to dig into your past. In my own defense, it didn’t seem wrong to me until I read all the testimony. All court documents are normally public records. Civilians can order the transcripts, but they have to pay for them. I didn’t realize until afterward that I had unearthed something that was, to you, very private and painful.”
He pushed to his feet and tossed what remained of the liquid in his glass onto the fire. The alcohol flared in the flames like a mini bomb. “Private and painful?” His jaw muscle began to tic. “What happened that night will haunt me until I die. And the trial was the most frightening and humiliating time of my life. Do you think I’m proud of what I did to that poor woman? Do you think I want anyone to know?” He crushed the Solo cup with a squeeze of his big hand, and the loud snap of the plastic made Erin jerk. “I wasn’t found guilty, but the truth is, I raped her. When a woman says no, she means no, and the man with her should stop. I didn’t.”
“You couldn’t hear her!” Erin cried.
“But I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear her. I wanted to score that night. In order to pick up women, I had to pretend I wasn’t deaf. And that was all I cared about, scoring. Don’t you get it? Can’t you comprehend how ashamed I am now of my thought process that night? You had no right to read all that shit. If I’d wanted you to know all the awful details, I would have told you, damn it!”
Erin gazed after him as he strode away into the darkness. It was just like in her dream. He had turned his back on her.
“I love you!” she screamed.
Wyatt couldn’t hear her and just kept walking.
* * *
* * *
Wyatt was shaking with outrage as he circled the lake. He was furious with Erin, and he needed to walk it off. How could she have dared to dig up his past? He’d never read the court documents, but it was humiliating to think of Erin seeing them. Did those transcripts reveal only the words spoken? Or did they also include the emotional outbursts of the witnesses? He had blubbered like a baby on the stand. And that poor woman. Dear God, she’d grown so upset during cross-examination that she’d fallen apart and the judge had called for a recess. If any man on earth needed to feel guilty for the rest of his life, it was undoubtedly him. He had harmed a woman, all in the name of painting the town red and getting his rocks off.
Wyatt sat on a log on the opposite side of the lake from camp. He could see Erin still sitting by the fire. Domino had been staying with her instead of going with Wyatt ever since he’d ordered the dog to stay with her last night. Erin appeared to be crying, and Domino was trying to lick the tears from her face. Wyatt didn’t want to care, but he did. He took a deep breath and tried to tamp down his anger. She’d made a totally crazy reference to the time he’d told her that her conceit knew no bounds. What the hell did that have to do with anything?
And then he suddenly got it. He’d been wildly attracted to her and admitted that to her. And yet, when she’d left the men that afternoon, he hadn’t made his apologies in order to leave with her. Why wouldn’t a guy who was into a woman try his best to be with her whenever he could? If his and Erin’s roles had been reversed, he might have wondered the same thing. And the only answer he would have been able to come up with was that some really bad shit had gone down.
Wouldn’t he have been curious about what had happened, just as Erin had been? Was he positive that he wouldn’t have done a little research on the woman he was interested in? Oh, yeah, he liked to think he was noble, but the reality was that he’d tried to satisfy his own physical needs nearly seven years ago and ended up doing great harm to a woman he hadn’t even cared about. She’d meant nothing more to him than a means to an end.
Still staring at Erin, Wyatt saw her suddenly leap to her feet and run off into the darkness. Domino, being the loyal dog he was, ran behind her. Once he stopped to bark. Even though Wyatt couldn’t hear the animal, he knew how Dom’s front feet left the ground when he grew vocal. Then they were both swallowed up by blackness. A moment later, Erin ran back into the circular illumination cast by their campfire, and she was carrying the rifle. Wyatt sprang to his feet.
And then he felt it. He’d been so upset and lost in his musings that he hadn’t been paying attention, but now he realized that all the hair on his body was standing on end—just as it had last night when the wolves had come in close to their camp. He couldn’t hear them, but now he felt them, and he knew he was surrounded. He broke into a run to get back around the lake. It probably wasn’t the smartest move he’d ever made. Predatory animals grew excited when potential prey ran. But every fiber of his being screamed with fear for Erin’s safety. How close were the wolves to her? How many were there? He fleetingly thought of the horses and Domino, which were more likely to be the victims of hungry, wild dogs. He loved his horse and dog. He truly did. But his feelings for them were eclipsed by how deeply he’d come to love Erin De Laney. As she got closer to the fire, he could see her more clearly, and he saw her jack a cartridge into the firing chamber.
As he raced along the lakeshore, his cheeks jiggled with every impact of his boots against the ground. He saw a tree limb that had washed up on the bank and bent to grab it, never breaking stride. Erin. She wasn’t a rookie who took her weapon off safety for no reason. She definitely wasn’t a person who wou
ld jack a bullet into the chamber unless she intended to fire.
His lungs began to burn. He couldn’t see the ground clearly and tripped on a rock, barely managing to keep his feet. It seemed to him he was running against a headwind. Erin. If something happened to her because he’d gotten into a snit and forgotten about the damned wolves, he would never forgive himself.
As he rounded the last curve to get around the body of water, he was about a hundred yards from the campfire, only he didn’t see Erin or Domino. Where had they gone? Had the wolves come in? Had Domino run from them? Had Erin gone after him to try and protect him? Dear God, please, no. Normally wolves didn’t choose humans as a food source, but Wyatt doubted they would hesitate to go for blood if a woman got between them and their next meal.
When Wyatt reached the fire, he screamed Erin’s name. But even if she had answered, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her. He turned in a circle, yelling with nearly every breath. This was why he’d sworn never to love a woman. If the situation wasn’t just right, he couldn’t protect her, not even from himself.
Just as Wyatt broke into a run to find Erin, Domino came charging up to him. His feet not only left the ground with his barks but cleared the earth by several inches, telling Wyatt the dog was beside himself. Still holding the tree limb, Wyatt whirled in a circle, desperately trying to see Erin, only he couldn’t. Domino lunged at Wyatt’s leg, sinking his teeth into the denim of his jeans. The tug from the dog was language all of its own. Domino was asking Wyatt to follow him.
“Go!” Wyatt yelled. “Find Erin!”
The border collie mix took off like a shot, and Wyatt fell in behind him. It was all he could do to keep up. And as he ran, he knew exactly where Erin had gone. She was protecting the horses. Fear for her lent Wyatt speed he didn’t know he possessed.
When he reached the highline, he saw Erin lying on her belly and facing the forest. She held the butt of the rifle snug against her shoulder. He ran toward her, and she rolled onto her back, throwing up the barrel of the weapon to sight in on him. Then she rolled back onto her stomach and reassumed a firing position. He saw her body jerk and knew she’d pulled the trigger. With a jerk of his gaze, he followed where the weapon was pointed and saw large, gray shapes skulking through the trees.
Huckleberry Lake Page 39
