Abigail willed her legs to be still. She would need them. She tried not to choke, but she gagged against the barrel.
“That’s pretty, darling. That’s what I like to see. You’re a good girl. Will you keep being good for me?”
Abigail tried to nod, but the gun wouldn’t let her, so she tried to signal with her eyes that she would.
“What was that?”
Abigail moaned around the barrel.
Samuel licked his lips. He pulled the gun out of her mouth roughly. “Say it again.”
“I’ll be good,” she managed.
“You know I’ll shoot you, right? If you try anything, and I mean if you so much as look at me sideways, I’ll shoot you in the stomach, then in the legs. I don’t plan on killing you, but you never know. Tell me again you’re going to be good. If you’re good I’ll be nice.”
Abigail thought she might throw up. Hang on. Hold on. “I’ll be good.”
“How good?”
“Very good.”
Samuel’s eyes seemed to shiver in their sockets when she said it. “Say it again,” he whispered. Still on top of her, using his hips to hold her down, his arm still holding both her wrists, he ground against her pelvis.
Abigail tried something.
“So good. I’ll be so good for you. I’ll do anything for you.”
Yes, it happened again. When she spoke, Samuel looked like he got almost dizzy. Was it lust? Or something he was on? Maybe this was the weapon she needed.
It would have to be.
“Anything you want, Samuel. I want you.” Again, Abigail pushed down the bile that rose in her throat. Samuel ground his hips into her even harder.
“More,” he groaned. He ran the barrel of the gun across her cheek, down to her throat. He scraped it along her neck and then tapped her cheek with it, as if testing her.
“Mmmm,” she said. “I love that.”
Samuel’s eyes flared with something that made Abigail’s heart race even faster than it already was.
“Have you been bad?”
“So bad.” It was a gamble. She was gambling with her life. She couldn’t think of anything else. She gauged every word by the way he was shivering against her. If she was right, he was falling for it. If she was wrong, there was nothing she could do about it. “I’ll do anything for you.”
“Oh, God.” Samuel set the gun down and pushed it down by his leg. “Now don’t try anything funny. You’ve already been warned.” He put his hand against her face. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
“I know,” Abigail said. She could do this.
He tapped her face. Touched her nose with the tip of his finger. Kissed her on the mouth, forcing his tongue past her lips. He tasted of meat and metal. Abigail struggled to breathe. She kept her legs still, so still.
Samuel sat up, just a little. He took a little of his weight off her hips. “What do you want?”
She looked into his eyes. Yes. She prayed to God this would work.
“In me. I want you in me. Please.”
Samuel’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s what I need.” Abigail tried to make her voice sound pleading. It seemed to convince him.
“You want it, I’ll give it to you, baby,” he said. “I’ve got what you need.” He released her wrists and both his hands went to his belt.
Time. The right time.
Abigail waited.
As he unbuckled his belt, she stayed perfectly still. “I want to see you,” she whispered.
Samuel shivered again. His hands moved to his fly. He undid the button. He lowered the zipper. He moved up, taking his weight all the way off her as he pushed his pants halfway over his hips. Pushing down his underwear with one hand, he reached to pull up her skirt.
Abigail exploded. Her knee came up, and she kneed his exposed groin with all her weight. The fingers on her right hand went for his eyes. She hit one; it felt fleshy and full as she stabbed. Her left hand formed a fist and she drove the knuckles into his neck, right into his Adam’s apple. As he folded forward in pain, she rolled out from under his now useless leg. She kept hitting and kicking whatever she could reach. She used her arms to scoot backward across the tile floor.
Samuel lunged after her, but she kicked him twice in the head so hard she heard something crack. He screamed. She felt the iron by her hand, where it had fallen earlier. She swung it in the best roundhouse she could manage from her half crouch. The sharp edge made sickening contact with his temple.
Samuel went still. His eyes, still open, unfocused as he fell forward. Blood poured from his head. Both his legs jerked spastically.
It was the last thing Abigail saw before she ran screaming from the house. She didn’t remember flagging down the next car, didn’t remember the call to the police, didn’t remember fainting.
When she came to, she was in the hospital, in a bed, covered by a white sheet. A very nice doctor told her she had to stay for a few hours, for shock. A very nice police officer told her that she’d done a great job, but that unfortunately, he’d gotten away. When they’d arrived, they’d found the pool of blood on the kitchen floor and nothing else. They’d even used their tracking bloodhound, but the dog had lost the scent five blocks away.
Abigail had stayed with Eliza for months after that. She never saw evidence of him. His SUV wasn’t around. She didn’t get any pink roses. The police told her they had a warrant out and they’d get him the next time he was pulled over for something. They’d keep her posted. He hadn’t been at work since it happened. They said he’d probably fled the state.
She moved back into her apartment two months later and installed a security system. Not long after that, Eliza had her heart attack, and weeks later Abigail moved to the ranch. It had been such a relief to stop looking over her shoulder. To stop being afraid.
There was no way he was here, now. If anything, he’d be scared of her. That’s what the cops said.
Abigail realized, suddenly, that she wasn’t in San Diego. She shook her head and her vision cleared. The porch. The bread and cheese in front of her. Waiting for Cade.
She reached for her wineglass and watched it tremble in her hand.
Clara whined and stretched. It was getting colder, fast. The sun had set and Abigail was freezing. Where was Cade? She craved seeing him, striding from his house, coming to see her, a grin on his face. She wanted his arms around her again.
She checked her cell phone. Seven twenty. She’d been out here on the porch for twenty minutes already.
At half past seven, she picked up the cheese plate so Clara couldn’t indulge. She went inside to check on the food. It was too damn cold out there anyway. Yes, she’d move the whole thing inside. She took the place settings and the glasses and wine inside and set them up at the project table, surrounded by wool.
Nicer in here anyway.
The food had cooled in the pan, and the pasta looked as if it was hardening. If, God forbid, she had to reheat it in her new microwave, she would. But no, Cade would be here any moment, wouldn’t he?
Abigail stood by the front door and waited. She saw a light turn on in the hall of the house, and then it went out, and then she saw the light in his room come on. Maybe he was changing.
Thirty minutes later, his light went out.
Ten minutes after that, she admitted to herself that it wasn’t just taking him a really long time to come over.
He wasn’t coming over.
She took Clara outside. God, it was bitter cold tonight. Freezing. She wrapped her arms around herself, glad for the alpaca sweater she was wearing.
She walked around the side of the house.
The note had been removed from the kitchen door. He’d seen it. He’d seen the invitation, and he hadn’t come, hadn’t even told her he couldn’t.
Or wouldn’t.
He would have known she had dinner waiting, must have known she would come to check the door and then walk back, alone, to the cottage. Was he watching her now, from a dark window? Sh
e wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
She dashed away tears.
The tears burned her cheeks as she threw out the entire dinner. She chewed a crust of the sourdough, but her appetite had disappeared.
She finally poured herself another glass of wine.
“Should have done this hours ago,” she said to Clara. “To Eliza. And this store. And to me. And to you, dog. But to no one else.” She lifted her glass and drank the wine like water.
Half an hour and two more glasses later, she stumbled tipsily to bed, where she undressed with the curtains closed. Then she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, dry-eyed and heartsick.
Chapter Thirty-two
Sometimes, though, the whole sweater will end up a disaster. When you sew it up and try it on, it doesn’t work, doesn’t fit, looks like the dog’s breakfast. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes.
—E.C.
Five or ten grand. Five or ten thousand dollars.
Cade stomped around the pasture in the freezing air. First damn night of frost and it had to be the date three of his ewes were due to lamb, the first lambs of the season. He always lambed in November, to make the most of the Easter 4-H rush in spring, but this was the hardest part. Being out here in the cold. He’d hoped they’d birth before he went to bed, but there’d been no sign of lambs when he last checked.
What a shitty day. It had started off well, waking up with Abigail naked next to him. A good start. But then, at the diner, what Bonnie York had said—God, he could still barely get his mind around it.
Bonnie had fiddled with pouring cream in her coffee while she said, “I found spalling on the concrete. It’s kind of like a stain, shows where the fire burned the hottest and fastest. A liquid was poured there, and ignited. I can’t actually prove malice, so even though it might be arson, it’s classified as gross negligence, Cade. I’m sorry.” Cade had listened, his heart plummeting.
She went on. “The state will be sending you a bill.”
“A bill,” he’d said. “For what? I pay my taxes, like everyone else.”
“We don’t charge if it’s accidental. But if it’s negligence, and you’re in a state resource area, the state will bill for services.”
“I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my whole life. How much is it going to cost me?”
She sighed. “Between five and ten grand, I’d guess. I’m sorry.”
Cade had pushed past her and out into the open air outside the diner, where he could breathe.
Shit.
He’d worked all day, as hard as he could.
He should have gone to the cottage for dinner. He knew he should have. But he’d been too upset.
She had moved out. He hadn’t needed the invitation to dinner she’d left on the kitchen door to know that she was gone. The house echoed and felt empty. Hollow, like when he was a kid and his mother had gone again.
Cade had held Abigail’s invitation in his hands as he went upstairs. He had stared into his closet, and then he’d walked down the hall and stared into the room she’d been sleeping in.
Last night they’d been together.
Now she was too far away, even though the distance was mere steps.
His doubt made her seem even farther away.
He slept a little. A couple hours at the most. Then his alarm went off, the middle-of-the-night, check-the-ewes alarm that would ring almost every night for the next month.
He’d found two of the ewes already, and he’d put them in the barn with their new babies, one single and one pair of lambs. He’d given the babies their vitamin spray that his vet laughed at but Tom swore by, and he’d doused their umbilical cords with iodine.
The freezing air was making his nose and eyes ache. By the end of lambing season, he’d barely feel it, but tonight it hurt.
His first thought when the alarm had gone off had been of her. Then the fire. Then disbelief all over again. Bonnie’s words rang in his head. Spalling. A liquid was poured…
Impossible. He knew Abigail. She wouldn’t have any reason to set a fire. None at all. She already had everything she wanted. She had her land, her shop, and now her living space.
And she wasn’t crazy.
Or had he been blind this whole time?
What was crazy was this, what he was doing. Out here, in this flock of about a hundred of his sheep—only a fifth of all he owned—he was looking for one that might be giving birth. In the dark. He held a flashlight, cutting its light through the bitter-cold air. Sheep baaed in protest as he moved among them. They didn’t like this, didn’t like things to be outside their routine. Cade was like them in that way.
He stumbled over a gopher hole. Christ, it was cold. Still no sign of the other new mother.
Setting a fire was a mark of a crazy person, and he’d lived with her for a month. He’d know if she was crazy.
Wouldn’t he?
He couldn’t be in love with a psycho who set fire to his property.
In love.
Godammit.
He really had the best timing.
But then again, so did she. It was sure a strange coincidence, wasn’t it, that she moved out days after the fire was set? And she sure had been quiet while the chief talked to them.
No. There was no way. Not her. He’d dated crazy women in the past, plenty of them. He’d thought for a while he preferred them that way. But Abigail wasn’t crazy.
He hated this doubt.
If she hadn’t set the fire, then who had? He didn’t have enemies. They’d never had problems with arsonists in this valley.
It couldn’t be her.
Cade was about to give up. Maybe the other ewe was going to wait until the morning. He’d done his due diligence looking for her out here in this weather. He’d crawl back into bed.
One more place to look, over there, in the shadow of the concrete trough. Something was on the ground, a light-colored lump. Damn, why hadn’t he checked over there first?
Cade walked to where a newborn lamb lay on the cold ground. He touched it. Stone cold. He put his finger in the lamb’s open mouth. The tongue was hard, dry, and cold. It wasn’t breathing.
He shined his flashlight around. Where was the mother ewe? She might have abandoned this one because she was giving birth to another one. There, on the other side…
A ewe lay in the shadow of the trough. Blood pooled around her body.
“Oh, hell,” said Cade. She must have bled out while giving birth to the lamb that appeared pretty damn dead just feet away.
He left the mother. There was nothing he could do for her now. Focus on the lamb.
He opened his jacket, gasping at the night air. He placed the cold lamb under his clothing, against his skin. He ran out of the pasture and toward the house at a trot.
Once in the house, he filled half the double sink with water. He ran it cooler than tepid, a notch warmer than cold. When the sink was full, he carefully placed the lamb in the water.
No reaction. The lamb didn’t breathe. Cade felt no heartbeat.
Shit, he might not get this one back. Sometimes they were just too far gone, too cold, too far in shock.
He checked—it was a boy. A little ram lamb. They weren’t good for much, just for selling to the kids at Easter or auctioning off, but it was still a lamb.
“Come on, pal,” he said. “You can do it.”
After a minute, he ran a little warm water in the sink, raising the temperature slightly.
A few minutes more, another dose of warm water. Still nothing.
After the fourth warming of the water, he felt it. Just a twitch, and he couldn’t even say where he’d felt it.
Cade put his finger again into the lamb’s mouth. This time it was warm. The tongue was soft again and Cade felt a tiny suckling motion against his finger.
He whooped, and the lamb jerked in his hands.
“Yes! I knew you could do it!”
He took his time, raising the temperature of the water gently
until it felt like it was just right. The lamb kicked and jerked and threw its ungainly head around.
“I know, it’s not much fun. It’ll get better.”
Cade wrapped the lamb in towels and carried it into the parlor, where he lit the fire that, thankfully, he’d already laid. In minutes it was roaring. Cade set the lamb down on another dry stack of towels.
“What you need is the hair dryer. Stay there.” The lamb wouldn’t move much now. It was exhausted from its being-almost-dead ordeal. He raced up the stairs to the bathroom where he kept the hair dryer. It was stupid, really. He never used it for anything but drying lambs. He should keep it in the parlor, but for some reason he always returned it to the bathroom when he was done.
He plugged it in downstairs. He pointed it at the lamb, who was kicking but not walking. There was a snap and a frizzling sound and the hair dryer went dead.
Shit. The fire would work, but it was slow. The faster he got the little guy warm, the better.
Cade didn’t have another dryer. But she might.
Chapter Thirty-three
Men are very good for some things, including finding needles and stitch markers lost in the couch.
—E.C.
When Abigail heard Cade calling her name, she had no idea where she was. This wasn’t the right bed. She didn’t understand the configuration of the windows. She hardly recognized the curtains when her eyes focused.
In the top room of her cottage. In her new bed.
Why was Cade yelling at her from outside?
The room swung as Abigail stood. She was still a little drunk from the wine, she realized. She pulled the curtain back. Cade was outside, standing below her window.
She tugged up on the window. It was heavy and squeaked as she raised it. She didn’t trust that it wouldn’t slam shut, so she held it up with one hand as she leaned out in her pajamas. The cold air flooded into her room.
“Do you have a hair dryer?” Cade yelled up at her.
“A hair dryer? What do you need it for?”
How to Knit a Love Song Page 25
