Montana Connection

by B. J Daniels

He looked down at his glass, surprised it was empty, and went back in to make another drink, trying to convince himself that whatever happened to Rozalyn Sawyer, she wasn’t his responsibility. He would just get what he wanted and get out. Like he always had.

  Inside the guest house, he sloshed a little more Scotch into his glass. The screen door banged against the door frame as the storm picked up. The first few drops of rain splattered loudly on the porch roof.

  Ford could feel the power of the storm in the cold air blowing in through the screen door. He was already wired but now the night held an odd expectation that made the hair rise on his forearms.

  He slipped on athletic shoes and a T-shirt, picked up his drink and went back out on the porch again to watch the storm. Between the crashes of thunder, he could hear the rain pelting the leaves out in the darkness as the storm centered itself over the town as if hunkering down for the duration.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. Rain. Wonderful monotonous rain that would let him sleep. He realized he didn’t need the Scotch and dumped the contents of his glass over the railing, anxious now for the oblivion of sleep, the one place he might find peace.

  But as he turned to go back inside, he made the mistake of glancing toward the house again. This time there was no mistaking the flicker of a flashlight beam behind one of the attic windows. He watched the light bob across the attic and wondered what someone was doing up there. He imagined most of the family agreed with Suzanne; they wouldn’t be caught dead up there.

  The flashlight went out as a lamp flared in the right-hand corner of the attic. Odd. The person who had turned it on was behind a pillar. He waited for the person to step out.

  Instead, the movement came from off to the right. A figure in a long white nightgown appeared as if an apparition. Even from this distance he recognized the hair. Long and strawberry-blond, it floated around her shoulders, shimmering in the lamplight.

  She moved to one of the windows at the center of the attic. For the first time he noticed the widow’s walk.

  His glass slipped from his fingers. He was already running toward the house as Rozalyn Sawyer opened the windows wide and climbed out onto the widow’s walk four stories above the ground, the wind whipping the cloth of the white nightgown around her slim body, her strawberry-blond hair now aglow in the light of the storm, as rain fell in large, hard and angry drops from the darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ford let out an oath as he barreled through the dense vegetation of the garden to the back of the house. Above him, Rozalyn balanced on the edge of the widow’s walk—just as she had at the falls. The hem of her nightgown snapped in the wind through a curtain of rain.

  He didn’t dare call to her. Didn’t dare draw her attention downward. Running to the back door, he tried the knob, not surprised to find it locked. Bang on the door. Get someone up there. Quick.

  He rejected the idea as quickly as it had come. The noise alone might cause her to jump. Looking upward, he realized there was only one way to reach her. He’d have to climb the tree next to the house.

  The cold soaking rain beat down on him as he quickly began to climb. Lightning fractured the darkness. Thunder detonated overhead.

  Climbing a tree in a thunderstorm. Great, Lancaster. And all to save a woman who was bound and determined to kill herself. If he lucked out and didn’t slip and fall from the wet tree limbs, he’d probably get struck by lightning.

  And as if his luck couldn’t get any worse, the tree wasn’t high enough to take him all the way to the attic. He crawled out on a limb near one of the windows on the third floor. He started to break the window but saw that someone had already broken the lock. A screwdriver lay on the edge of the windowsill out of view from inside.

  He took the screwdriver, inserted it between the window and frame in the same grooves made earlier and lifted. The window rose with a groan.

  A flash of lightning illuminated a girl’s room. Rozalyn’s former bedroom?

  Still hanging on to the limb, he swung over to the windowsill, then ducking down, dropped into the room with a thud. A cat burglar he wasn’t.

  On top of the open suitcase on a trunk at the end of the bed was the rust-colored sweater Rozalyn had been wearing earlier. It was her bedroom all right. Except she should have been sacked out, sound asleep. But the bed was empty, the covers thrown back.

  He rushed out into the hallway wondering how to get to the attic as he glanced toward the staircase. Not that way. He swung his gaze back down the hallway and felt a chill. There was a dark space between the paneling and wall at the end the hall. A secret door of some kind.

  He ran down the hall. Definitely a secret door. A faint light glowed at the top of a set of steep narrow steps that rose upward. On the closest step he saw one small barefoot print in the dust. Rozalyn.

  With only a moment’s hesitation at the thought of the door closing behind him and being trapped inside, he scrambled up the steps, hoping he could get out at the top as easily as he’d gotten in.

  He hadn’t gone far when he heard something that made him miss a step. A shudder tore through him. Cripes, what the hell was that?

  But he knew even before he reached the top of the stairs, grateful to see another hidden door—also open, and beyond it the source of the light and the bloodcurdling sound.

  A small lamp glowed in a corner of the huge attic. Most of the room was filled with antiques that had been piled along one side, leaving the side along the windows open.

  His breath caught when he recognized the source of the high-pitched keening. Rozalyn. He followed the horrific sound and her dusty barefooted prints across the attic, drawing up short just behind the widow’s walk.

  The hair rose on the back of his neck. Rozalyn stood framed against the darkness, her feet balancing on the six-inch wide railing, nothing else but air between her and the ground four stories below. Her head was thrown back, the hideous pain-filled cry emanating from her throat.

  “Rozalyn?” he said softly, afraid that he might startle her. He thought of when he’d grabbed her earlier tonight at the waterfall. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as close this time.

  He took a couple of steps toward her. The old wooden floorboards under him groaned. He froze.

  She hadn’t moved, hadn’t seemed to have heard him over her cries. Her arms stretched out as if she planned to do a swan dive off a high board. Her soaking wet nightgown clung to her body, the hem snapping in the wind.

  He took another couple of steps toward her, afraid to say anything this close to her for fear she might fall. Or jump. Another step or two and he would be close enough to make a grab for her. But her flesh would be wet and slick. She’d be damned hard to hang on to.

  The keening sound stopped with a suddenness that rattled him. The deathly silence that followed was almost more frightening. Suddenly her head jerked to one side as if she heard something on the wind.

  His breath caught in his throat as she turned her head slowly toward him. He feared seeing him would frighten her.

  Her eyes. Oh God, her eyes.

  He swore under his breath and grabbed for her.

  The moment his fingers clamped over her wrist, she blinked, the glazed eyes fighting to focus on him. She let out a cry of alarm, swaying on the railing. Her wrist was slick from the rain. He got his arm around her waist as she tried to pull away, seeming confused, frightened, disoriented.

  She looked down then at the ground far below her and let out a startled cry, staggering backward. He caught her in his arms and carried her away from the widow’s walk and the four-story drop back into the attic.

  “Where is she?” Rozalyn cried the moment he set her down a safe distance from the windows. She sunk to the floor as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. She was trembling and her eyes were still glassy. “Where is she?”

  His heart quickened.

  She looked past him as if she thought there was someone else in the attic with them. “Didn’t you hear her?”

  “
Who?” he asked on a breath.

  “My mother. She was calling me.” Her voice broke with emotion as she glanced toward the widow’s walk and shuddered, tears welling in her eyes. “Tell me you heard her,” she said in a whisper, looking up at him as if she was depending on him.

  You’re looking at the wrong guy, he thought. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t understand—” A sob broke from her.

  “You were walking in your sleep. I have a little sister who does the same thing.” He couldn’t get the frightening image of her eyes from his mind. She’d looked blind, lost in another world miles away.

  “Sleepwalking?” She was trembling so hard he could practically hear her teeth chatter. He dragged a worn quilt from a pile on one of the ornate antique tables and draped it around her.

  “Lisa usually walked during a bad dream.” He hoped that was all it was in Rozalyn’s case.

  “I heard something.”

  Just like she’d seen something earlier at the waterfall? “Old houses make strange noises sometimes—”

  “It wasn’t the house.” She shuddered. “My mother. She was calling me, to help her.” Eyes swimming in tears, she glanced toward the widow’s walk where her mother had committed suicide. Her face crumpled. “What was I doing out there?”

  He wished he knew. “I’m sure it was just a bad dream,” he said, not sure of that at all. If anything, it was more like a nightmare since something had gotten her to climb out onto the railing of that widow’s walk.

  She looked around again, clearly not so sure now, still seeming disoriented. “It was so real,” she whispered.

  “Dreams can be like that,” he said softly and brushed a lock of wet hair back from her cheek. Just before her brown eyes boiled over with tears again, he got a good look at them. “What are you on?”

  “What?” She wiped at her tears, staring up at him.

  “Drugs, what did you take?”

  “Nothing. I don’t take drugs.”

  “Not even something to sleep?”

  She shook her head, quickly stopping the motion, eyes closing tightly as if the movement had made her sick.

  “You’re coming with me.” He pulled her to her feet. She swayed, obviously woozy. He expected her to put up a fight but without a word she let him carry her to the paneled opening and the hidden staircase.

  She was trembling, from the cold, fear and whatever drug dulled her eyes as he helped her descend the narrow steps. Then he carried her to her bedroom.

  “We have to get you into something dry,” he said quietly as he closed the door behind them. When he turned back to her, she had slumped on the edge of the bed clutching the quilt as if lost.

  He went into the bathroom, came back with a couple of large towels and toweled the rainwater from her hair. He was tempted to get her into the bathtub but it would take too long to fill. He had a shower in the guest house. All he had to do was get her there.

  He found clothing, hiking boots, her toothbrush and stuffed everything into a pillowcase from the bed. He handed it to her, swept her up again and quietly carried her down the stairs, out the back door and through the rain and garden to the guest house.

  Once inside, he took her into the bathroom. She sat on the toilet seat still wrapped in the quilt as he turned on the shower. Steam filled the room quickly and, when he was sure it was warm enough, he gently pulled her to her feet and slipped the quilt off her shoulders.

  The nightgown clung to her like a second skin. He sucked in a breath at the sight of her body flushed under the thin white fabric.

  “Damn,” he breathed. She was beautiful, her skin lightly freckled and pale, her breasts full and round, her nipples dark and hard against the wet cotton. She had a slim waist, a flat stomach and a small mound of strawberry-blond hair at the vee between her legs.

  She took his breath away.

  “Rozalyn,” he said softly as he looked into her dark eyes. She trembled, still looking dazed, and he couldn’t be sure if it was because of the drug she’d ingested or hypothermia setting in. He had to get her warmed up and straightened out. “I’m going to take off your wet nightgown.”

  She didn’t resist, didn’t speak or even blink as he pulled the nightgown up over her head and drew her toward the shower. She stumbled and leaned into him as if her legs still would not hold her.

  Kicking off his shoes, still in his jeans and T-shirt, he stepped into the shower with her, holding her as the warm water cascaded over her naked body. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her face against his chest, and he held her to him and thought about baseball rather than the naked woman in his arms.

  After a few minutes, her trembling slowed. Warm steam filled the small bathroom like thick warm fog. He stood with her until they’d emptied the hot water tank, until her skin was bright pink.

  She seemed stronger, more steady once they were out of the shower as if shedding the effects of the drug—if not the horror of what could have happened up there on the widow’s walk.

  Mentally reciting major league statistics, he quickly toweled her dry and pulled one of his dry T-shirts over her head. It was large enough that it dropped to below her knees, covering her glorious body.

  Wrapping her in a dry quilt from the bed, he carried her to the living room couch where he deposited her while he went into the bedroom to change into dry clothes himself. He needed a drink. Desperately.

  When he came back out, she looked up. She hadn’t said a word in the shower or out. She looked a hundred percent better. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt that,” he said softly.

  “You think I went up there to jump,” she said in a whisper.

  He shook his head. “I think someone drugged you and somehow tricked you into going up to the attic and getting on that widow’s walk.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. You appeared to be in a hypnotic state. At first I thought you were walking in your sleep. Until I got a good look at your pupils.”

  “My mother jumped to her death from that same widow’s walk,” she said shakily.

  He nodded.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that I would go up there like I did and—” Her voice broke.

  “You weren’t up there trying to kill yourself or you would have jumped before I got to you,” he said.

  She didn’t look so sure about that. “How did you happen to see me in the attic? I don’t remember anything except being really drowsy and going to bed.”

  He sighed. “I was out on the guest house porch waiting for the storm when I saw a light in one of the attic windows. Then I saw you. I climbed the tree beside the house, went through your bedroom and up those stairs hidden in the wall.”

  “The door was open?” she asked surprised.

  He nodded. “Your bare footprints were in the dust so I knew that was the way you’d gone up.” Now that he thought about it, there were no other footprints.

  “You climbed the tree outside my bedroom?” Her cheeks flushed.

  He wondered why she was blushing. “The lock was already broken. There was a screwdriver on the ledge where someone had pried open the window before I came along.”

  “Well, whatever made me go up there, thank you for—” she waved a hand through the air, her gaze shifting toward the bathroom, her cheeks in high color “—for saving me.”

  He met her gaze and didn’t like what he saw. She thought he was some kind of hero. Far from it. “You would have awakened and climbed down if I hadn’t shown up.”

  She gave him a look that said they both knew better than that.

  “After you came back from the hospital, what did you have to drink?” he asked.

  She frowned. “Nothing. I had a couple of Swiss chocolates—”

  “Ones you brought with you?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, they were in a dish beside the bed with a note from Drew.”

  He swore under his breath. “I didn’t see a note w
hen I was looking for a change of clothing for you. Are you sure Drew left the chocolates?”

  “No. His name was on the note but I wouldn’t know his handwriting.” She stared at him as if just starting to comprehend what he was saying. “You think there was something in the chocolates? You can’t think that someone in the house put drugs in—”

  “Any member of that family is capable, Emily included. They all had access to your room and someone had either gone in your bedroom window or wanted you to believe they had.”

  She bit her lower lip. “That’s what I thought when I returned from the hospital to find the window open. Someone had gone through my suitcase.” She looked at him. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “I’m not saying that.” He smiled. “You want some coffee?”

  She shook her head. “I want to sleep for a week.”

  Her brown eyes were clearer, the effects of the drug wearing off. He went to the bar and sloshed some Scotch into a glass. He pressed it into her hand. “Just a sip.”

  She stared down at it, lifted the glass to her lips, drank a little and made a face.

  He smiled at her. “It’s an acquired taste.”

  “Not one I care to acquire,” she said and handed him back the glass.

  He drained what little was left and looked down at her. She looked as if she’d been dragged through the wringer. Right now she was giving him one of her narrowed-eye looks. He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. She was trying to figure him out, no doubt finally realizing that he might have an ulterior motive for everything he’d been doing. He smiled to himself, liking the fact that the woman was sharp.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked.

  “What makes you think I’m not always nice?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I can see that.”

  She studied him. He tried not to flinch.

  “I don’t mean to sound unappreciative but…I just feel like there might be some reason you keep saving me.”

  “Just my bad luck at being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

  “Or my good luck?”