by L. L. Muir
After an uncomfortable year of running into each other at the little store in town, they’d come to a grown-up understanding. She was going to be a grown up, and he was going to understand. All she really saw of him now was when he stopped by to let her know when her cousin was up to something.
Her cousin, Connie, whom she liked to call Godzilla, had to be up to something serious if Donny was willing to sit on her porch until after midnight to tell her about it.
She drove around the side of the house, waved to Donny, then parked the old pickup under the carport attached to the work shed. She jumped out and opened the back before he caught up.
“Hey, Donny. You wanna help us carry these into the house?”
Donny stopped short. “Us?”
Dougal stepped out of the shadows. “Dougal Cameron, at yer service.” He extended a hand but Donny didn’t take it. Instead he frowned at her.
“Where did you find him?”
“Mendon.” She looked Dougal over and realized what Donny had to be thinking, and chuckled. She pulled out two paintings and pressed them against the deputy until he took his hand off his gun belt and took them. “Take these through the front door,” she told him, then she turned and pulled Witch’s Mist out next and set it in Dougal’s waiting arms.
He frowned at her, then nodded slightly at Donny.
She shook her head just as slightly, and he turned away.
She grabbed a box of smaller pieces and followed the boys around to the front of the house, watching them dance around each other, forced to play nice while they carried her precious cargo.
Donny stood aside while she lugged her box up the wide steps. “You sure you don’t want these in your studio?”
She set the box on the ground while she unlocked the door. “Nope. They belong in here now. And I don’t want you taking them in the back door because there are too many things you might bump them on.”
Dougal hung back to let Donny go ahead of him. Donny did the same.
“What is this, a gentleman contest? Just bring them inside, boys. There are still plenty to unload. You can leave the tent in the pickup.”
Donny rushed up the steps first like he’d decided it was a race, not a standoff. Dougal swaggered up the steps like, whatever the contest, he was sure he’d already won it.
After a long look at his kilt in the warm light of the sconces in the entryway, she thought he probably had too.
She took the paintings from Donny and set them on the hearth. He headed for the door again, but turned back when Dougal went out ahead of him.
“Mendon?” He didn’t bother whispering. “You mean the Mountain Music Festival?!”
She grinned. “Yes, Donny. That’s where I met him.”
“Hannah, really—” His hands went to his hips.
“Donny, really, I need those paintings brought in before I can go to bed, and I’m exhausted.”
“Bed?!”
She glowered at him. “Would you stop yelling? I’m not going to bed with him. I’m just going to bed. He’s going to sleep out in the work shed.”
Donny took his hands off his hips, but pouted.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s all right, Donny. He doesn’t…ski.”
The shame he tried to hide as he went out the door told her he knew exactly what she’d meant. After all, it had been Donny who had taken her statement after the ski bum robbed her blind.
CHAPTER TEN
Donny made her tired. Dougal, and those bare knees, kept her alert. She was a mess.
According to her grandma, the best remedy for moments like that was a nice cup of tea. So she made three.
The men sat at the long ends of the table and pretended not to notice each other, while at the same time, each sensed every twitch the other man made. Hannah turned all her attention to the tiny swirl of steam escaping from her cup into the kitchen rafters and pretended the house wasn’t eighty degrees. The air conditioner had some catching up to do.
“I can’t believe you went to the music festival,” Donny grumbled. “Especially on a day like today.”
She raised her eyebrows and gave him a warning look, but he ignored it.
“I went because I’m trying to make the money to pay the taxes. That’s how I sell my art. Remember?” Then she frowned. “What do you mean, on a day like today?”
He sighed dramatically. “The council met today, Hannah.”
She shook her head. It couldn’t be true. “They weren’t going to meet until after the holiday. They said—”
“They decided the 4th of July wasn’t an important enough holiday to reschedule for, I guess. They posted notices all over town. Special council meeting on Saturday.”
“All over town? You mean, where she knew I would never see them?”
Dougal cleared his throat. “I’m certain it is not my business to ask, but who is she?”
“My cousin, Zilla.”
Donny snorted.
“Her name isn’t Zilla,” Hannah confessed. I just call her…Godzilla…sometimes. She wrecks my life whenever she can, like it’s nothing more than a miniature Tokyo. And she’s on the city council. It’s complicated, but I asked for a continuance of my Greenbelt status, so my taxes wouldn’t change for another year.” She turned to Donny. “Which I’m sure they refused to do, if Zilla was there for the vote. If they’d have waited until next month, like they were supposed to, she would have been on vacation.” She slammed her hand on the table, hard. The sting felt good. She only wished she could have hit something else.
“Yeah. They voted it down.” Donny’s hand reached out to touch hers and she sat back and stretched so she had an excuse to pull her hand away with her.
“Why?” she asked the ceiling. “Would it have killed them to stand up to her?”
“Well, they kinda did. They gave you until the end of October to pay. Zilla—I mean, Connie—thought you should only have until the end of July. But it kind of looked bad for her when it came out that her husband’s bank now holds the mortgage.”
“What?”
Donny nodded. “It will be pretty easy for her to get the house now. You know, if she wanted it.”
Of course Zilla wanted the house. And it sounded like she already owned a portion of it.
Hannah let her frustration go with a drawn out sigh and tried to be grateful she could have another three months to enjoy her home before they kicked her out on her butt.
Her grandma would roll over in her grave if she knew how her good intentions had gone awry. But there was no way the old woman could have predicted how nature would conspire to ruin the farm, how gullible Hannah would be where a certain ski bum was concerned, or how vengeful Connie would become.
“I think Zilla’s been planning this for a long time,” she said aloud.
Donny ducked his head and tested his tea. “Looks like.”
“So,” Dougal interrupted, “am I to understand that ye might have afforded the tax bill if the petition would have been accepted?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not exactly. I still would have needed a miracle, just a smaller one. Selling a lot of paintings might have saved me, but not now. Zilla is just too clever for me.”
There is something strange about defeat, something that happens to the losers when the game buzzer sounds. Along with the disappointment comes a flood of relief, like being held underwater and then finally allowed to come up and breathe again.
It was so profound a weight lifting off Hannah’s shoulders at that moment that she almost felt guilty. But the emotional moment wasn’t something she felt like sharing with anyone. So she rose and took her teacup to the sink, rinsed it out, and headed for the hallway.
“Thanks for letting me know, Donny. Sorry I kept you waiting so long. And Dougal, there is a key there by the back door on a blue string. It will get you into the work shed. There is a small room off to the left with a comfortable couch inside. It stays cool in there. See you in the morning.”
She forced a little
smile and went to the living room. Silently, she bid her children goodnight, pleased they were safely inside the house with her. When she tucked them in at night, in a month or two, they would be somewhere else…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dougal sipped his tea and made no move to leave, knowing how nervous he made the other man. Donny, she’d called him, like they were chums. It was clear the man was far too interested in the lass in spite of the wedding ring upon his finger. And it was equally obvious Miss Hannah Garr was not interested in comfort from him, friend or no. When he’d reached out to her, she’d all but recoiled from his touch.
And it gave Dougal a measure of pleasure to torture the man for simply bothering his lass.
His lass.
Oy, if she had truly been his, he would have picked up Donny by the seat of his pants and hurled him out the front door and down the steps just as soon as he’d shared his bit of news.
A man of the law? No matter. If Dougal had done anything to rile the man, if he’d broken the law in some way, it would be great fun to have Donny toss him in jail. After another day, his prisoner would have escaped—into thin air no less.
He chuckled at the thought. What a befuddled look the man would wear. What grief he would experience at the hands of his superiors. It was almost a pity Dougal wasn’t at leisure to make such a thing happen. For he would enjoy telling the lads about it when he…
But he wouldn’t be returning home again, to the moor, would he?
Another day would surely be granted him, now that he knew the lass’s troubles ran deeper than before.
A miracle, she’d hoped for. It was clear that he, himself, was meant to be that miracle. But all he’d managed to do for Miss Hannah was to get her painting away from the very woman who would pay the most for it.
Had he botched it? Had his duty been to make certain the woman became more interested in Witch’s Mist simply because he was admiring it himself? If so, he’d accomplished that task. And the woman herself had caused the price to rise—child-eater that she was.
Should he have stepped back and allowed her to purchase it? If he hadn’t claimed to have already done so, would the lass have seen the wisdom in sacrificing one of her children in order to keep the home she so dearly loved?
Would that Soni was there to lend some light to the matter.
“Who are you? Where are you from?” Donny demanded. The officer, it seemed, was finished with waiting.
Dougal winked at the man and took a slow sip, then gently lowered his cup and placed it just so in the center of the saucer. He was tempted to push the man past reason, but he couldn’t help the lass from the inside of a dungeon.
“Dougal Cameron, as I said before. And I hail from Scotland, as ye may have surmised.”
“What were you doing in Mendon?”
“Listening to the pipes and drums. But I doubt ye wish to ken that. What ye truly wish to know is what I am doing in Liberty. So I’ll tell ye.” Dougal pushed aside the tea, rose to his feet, and put his hands to his hips before glowering down at the man. “I mean to stay close by the lass and protect her.”
“From?”
“From child-eaters of all sorts—from relatives with wicked intentions and supposed friends…with the same.”
The officer stood and put his chin in the air. “I’m here to protect her too.”
Dougal smiled, but there was nothing friendly about it. “Nay, laddie. We both ken why ye’re here, and there is nothing honorable about it. I suggest ye be on yer way and never look back. If ye have a message for the lass, best ye write it in a letter, or send someone else to tell her. If I catch so much as yer scent—and I’ve an excellent nose, mind—it will make no matter if ye’re an officer of the law or no. Ye’ll rue the day ye tested me.”
The man’s hand moved to his weapon. Dougal tilted his head to see it clearly, then raised a single brow. For a long moment, Donny considered his options. Eventually, he found wisdom and lowered his hand to his side and swaggered to the back door. He opened it and gestured for Dougal to go before him.
“Nay,” he said. “I’ve yet to make certain the house is locked up tight. Wouldn’t want some nefarious intruder creeping in to watch the lass sleep, now would I?”
The man winced. Dougal might have missed the reaction had he not been watching closely. But there was no question, especially after the man’s face flushed a deep scarlet.
Dougal leaned close. “Go,” he whispered. “Go and never, ever return.”
The lazy speed at which the sheriff’s vehicle left the drive was the only sign of the man’s defiance, but defiance it was. And Dougal couldn’t help but worry what would happen in a week or two when the man returned and found no sign that Dougal had ever been there.
Who would protect the lass then?
Did he dare tell her that the man had been sneaking in and watching her sleep, or whatever other devious activity for which he was guilty? Would she believe it? Would she be so upset that she might never trust again?
He’d grown to care for her. How could he not? And he wished to do as much for her as he could before he was taken out of this mortal world again. But how could he make her happy?
An untrusting, nervous life was not a happy life. But would she be any happier in a small, secure room with nothing more to comfort her than a few dozen paintings?
As far as he could tell, what would make the lass happiest would be remaining in the house she loved, surrounded by whatever art made her happiest, and safe from stalkers with badges and a sense of entitlement to her.
Could her needs be met by money alone? A great deal of money could ease most lives, of course. But there was little he could give her of worth. He’d promised to build frames for her canvases. But what else might he be capable of providing?
He could not go before her city council and plead her case. He could not peddle her paintings by the side of the road. His fighting skills were of no help, even though he managed to temporarily intimidate her stalker.
Auch, but ghosting was so much simpler than real life.
With his mortal brain spent with worry, it was high time he gave it rest. But he couldn’t bring himself to go out to the work shed and leave the lass alone. In spite of his doubt that Donny would come back in the wee hours, at least that night, the possibility was excuse enough to remain in the house uninvited.
He moved from window to door to window making certain locks were in place. Then he turned off the lights and stretched out on an old and lumpy-looking couch in a room full of books. The red fabric with tiny pink rosebuds proved to be comforting indeed, as did the lumpy cushions, and he realized why she kept the unsightly thing. It felt like a mother’s embrace. And the wee room was small, but not stifling, as it had a variety of windows on three walls. A fine place to retreat from the stress of the day and the compulsion of her art. A place he could always imagine her in…once he was gone.
It was that peaceful image that escorted him off to sleep.
~
Hannah went through her nightly ritual to help her relax, and when the worry over the house reared its ugly head, she refused to think about it. The decision had been made for her. It was all spilt milk now, and this time someone else was to blame for spilling it.
Not her monkeys. Not her zoo.
Well, it soon wouldn’t be. So she wasn’t going to waste one more sleepless night searching for a solution because there wasn’t one. She’d played her last card and lost the game. Time to move on.
And she wasn’t going to waste time worrying about the two men she’d left in the kitchen, either. They were big boys. They could take care of themselves. And she was certain Dougal Cameron would make sure Donny left the house. His nose had curled, ever so slightly, each time he’d looked at the deputy—he didn’t like the guy any more than she did.
She only wished Dougal would always be around to run the man off.
She smiled, when she remembered how bent out of shape Donny had been when Dougal stepped out o
f the shadows. She only wished she could find a way to make Donny mad enough to never come back.
He was delusional, obviously, because he assumed she had never gotten over him just because she’d moved back to town, like she’d arranged to inherit her grandmother’s house just to be closer to him. And she worried that someday, his delusion was going to shatter, and he wouldn’t handle it well. Maybe the day his wife followed him to Hannah’s house and confronted him.
She spit all thoughts of Donny into the sink with the last bit of toothpaste and washed him down the drain.
“Not tonight. Not worrying about anything tonight.”
She opened the window to let the cool canyon breeze inside and looked for some sign of life in the work shed. But there was no movement, no light. Either the Scot had already gone to bed or he was fumbling around looking for a light switch.
“Not my problem,” she muttered, then climbed into bed and pulled the sheet over her. She was so tired she could cry. But she wouldn’t waste time doing that either. Instead, she rubbed her cheek against her grandmother’s smooth percale pillowcase and let sleep take her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dougal lay on his back with a wrist over his eyes. The full moon was no brighter than it had been for the past three centuries, but his eyes were now more sensitive to the orange glow from the far side of his eyelids. So, if he were to get any rest at all, he needed to block it out.
He also needed to block out the fact that a beautiful lass lay somewhere upstairs—a lass that had not been completely immune to his charms, if he were any judge of the way her attention lingered on his broad chest and the occasional bare knee. But if he sought her out, with one excuse or another, he would be no better a man that ol’ Donny.
In fact, lingering in the house instead of heighing off to the work shed was something Donny might have done in the same situation, and the realization sickened him.
He bolted off the couch and moved quietly to the kitchen only to find that another shadowy form was moving about that night, a form that had yet to notice him. And since it might well be the armed deputy, Dougal moved silently up behind him and secured the man’s arms to his sides in a great bear hug from behind.
