Wed To A Stranger?

by Jule McBride

  Nathan’s one word was a mere whisper. “Please…”

  “I have to follow logic.”

  “No—” He cupped her elbow and squeezed. “You have to follow your heart.”

  Swallowing hard, Fritzi edged away. This time Nathan let her go. But then he did the worst imaginable thing. His eyes still on hers, he reached into the candy dish, pulled out some candies and proffered his hand. “Truce?”

  Fritzi’s eyes darted to his palm. He was holding six candies—and a bullet.

  She felt faint and breathless as he reached into his palm with his free hand, opened a candy, then popped it into his mouth, dropping the wrapper into an unused ashtray. Couldn’t he feel the metal against his palm?

  “Sure you won’t have one?” he said.

  There were five left. And her hands were trembling. If she took the bullet now, she could drop it. “I’ll think about telling you where I put the gun,” she managed to say. “But for now, maybe I could just fix us some lunch.”

  Looking pleased by her change in attitude, Nathan sent her a faint smile and ate another candy. Four left. Fritzi tried to hold his gaze. Oh, please, she thought. Don’t let him look down. “Maybe I will have a piece of candy,” she forced herself to say.

  Nathan lifted his hand in her direction.

  And Fritzi’s warm fingers curled around the cold, hard metal of the bullet.

  Somehow, she found her voice. “Thanks.”

  With that, she swiftly lifted Malcolm and headed to the kitchen, where she hid the bullet in a drawer. Luck was with her now. Nathan was like a magnet, after all. And that meant the farther she got from his. warm lips, the more her head cleared. She had to get out of here!

  She just hoped Abby would be able to watch Malcolm, since Fritzi couldn’t take the baby to the schoolhouse. Even though woods blocked a view of Abby’s house, it was close enough that Malcolm would be fine on the short ride. Suddenly the photos she’d found in the cabin flitted through her mind again.

  Fritzi shuddered. “It’ll just take me a minute to make us some sandwiches,” she called.

  “Take your time,” Nathan yelled back.

  Fritzi’s temper flared. Did he really think a kiss would turn her into putty in his hands? Ever so quietly, she readied Malcolm’s bottles. Then she lifted him and tiptoed into the garage.

  What she saw was too good to be true. Nathan had left the garage door wide open—maybe he’d meant to come back out—and the nose of the snowmobile faced the doors. She ran her trembling fingers along the ledge above the door separating the garage and kitchen.

  Where was the key? It wasn’t there!

  Panicked, her fingers crawled across the ledge. She’d checked to make sure it was there earlier this morning. Then Fritzi sighed in relief. Her fidgety fingers had just missed it. Soundlessly she took the key from the ledge, then retrieved the snowsuits she’d hidden behind the metal cabinet. She quickly dressed both Malcolm and herself and climbed onto the snowmobile seat, securing Malcolm in front of her.

  A second later, as she gunned the snowmobile motor and shot through the garage doors, she tried to ignore her most persistent thought—that the raspyvoiced man who awaited her was a cold-blooded killer.

  Chapter Seven

  The tall trees surrounding the deserted four-story schoolhouse had seemed to come to life. Their ancient, massive trunks bending forward, they leaned into the gale-force winds like cold old men circling the building. Up high, bare branches battered the darkened windows—so hard Fritzi kept waiting for those gnarled fingers to shatter the glass. All those cold old men seemed to be knocking, trying to get inside.

  Turning off the snowmobile, Fritzi winced against the pain in her ankle. It was only afternoon, so the darkness was uncanny, unnatural. Blowing snow had obscured the terrain, creating shadowy dunes, craters and drifts. The longer Fritzi peered-at the eerie moonscape, the more she wished she hadn’t come.

  No one seemed to be here. It had been a while since the call, and stopping at Abby’s had taken longer than Fritzi expected. Should she check inside? No doubt, the front door was unlocked. Her first day at work she’d been appalled to find it open, but Abby had only laughed.

  “This is White Wolf Pass!” she’d exclaimed. “What could get in here? A moose?”

  A moose, Fritzi thought dryly. Right.

  She got off the snowmobile. The snow was kneedeep in the road, deeper in the drifts. In places, it could even bury her. As she gritted her teeth against the pain in her ankle and fought her way to the door, Main Street’s faraway lights provided some small comfort.

  The door opened with ease. Inside, the building was tomblike—dark, cold and deadly calm. With the sudden silence beating at her eardrums, Fritzi unzipped her parka, pocketed her pawlike thermal mittens and reached for a light switch. Then she changed her mind.

  If Joe Tanook noticed lights at the school, he’d investigate. And what could she tell him? That she’d ventured out to meet a raspy-voiced stranger who claimed to have information about David Frayne? Hardly, not when Joe Tanook thought David Frayne was the man he’d pulled out of the river.

  Fritzi glanced around. Directly in front of her, a darkened staircase led to the first-floor classrooms. On both sides of her, to her right and left, two sets of stairs descended into the basement; two also ascended to the ghost town of endless hallways and forgotten rooms upstairs.

  A sudden shiver of warning snaked down her spine, and she drew the snowmobile key from her pocket, her fist closing around it, a reminder she could bolt at any time. Then she heard footsteps. A man was lumbering across the basement.

  “Hello?” she started to call out, but the word died on her lips. She was desperate to find out what had become of David—and who had killed the man in the river. But there was a murderer running loose, and the caller hadn’t identified himself. She suddenly wished she’d hidden the snowmobile in the trees, because there was only one solution—to see the man before he saw her.

  He was definitely the caller.

  His harsh wheezing got louder as he neared. Fritzi’s eyes darted around the darkness. Why had the man been waiting for her in an unlit basement? And if he’d heard her enter the building, why hadn’t he called out? Think, Fritzi!

  But it was too late.

  Downstairs, the basement door clanged wide open. A rush of colder air tunneled up the stairwells, carrying an earthy smell—as if a trapdoor to hell had just opened. As the man started to come up, she could actually hear his glove sliding and raking the metal stair rail. Fritzi sank against the wall, into the shadows, edging toward the opposite staircase. As he came up one set of stairs, she’d go down the other.

  Slowly, he came up another step…another…then another.

  And then she saw the gun.

  It was nothing more than a shadow, but it was there. Like an extension of his arm. The man’s footsteps halted. Had he heard her? Or was he catching his sickly, hissing breath?

  “Is—ssss…Is—ssss somebody there?” he said.

  She clutched the snowmobile key so tightly it almost cut her palm. Had she walked right into a killer’s trap? Get moving, Fritzi Get downstairs—and be quiet. But she couldn’t move. Her muscles had locked.

  Just as he rounded the corner to the landing, Fritzi sank onto the first step downward. He was wearing a parka, and for a jarring instant, she could swear it was Nathan. But the parka was the kind everyone wore, and it was too dark to see the color. Just don’t let him look outside, she prayed, her eyes riveted on the gun. If he sees the snowmobile, he’ll know I’m here.

  Reaching the door, the man hesitated.

  Fritzi bit her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. Oh, please don’t look outside. Please. But he already had. And now he was turning, swinging the gun around.

  Fritzi fled downstairs—her ankle wrenching, her sharp cry piercing the air, something clattering on the tiles. The man gave chase—moving too fast now for someone whose breathing had been so labored. Was the breathing faked,
meant to frighten her?

  Pumping adrenaline numbed her ankle as she plunged through the basement door. She thought he’d run down the staircase where she’d been hiding, but he’d used the other one. Which meant she could have run upstairs or back outside.

  But it was too late.

  She darted blindly between rows of metal shelves in the basement—grabbing at them, trying to pull them down behind her. Instead, supplies fell—books, boxes. A bubble chain swung against her face—the kind attached to bald lightbulbs lining the ceiling. She swiped the air, hoping to pull it, but it slipped through her fingers. Suddenly, she realized she’d dropped the snowmobile key. That’s what had clattered on the stairs.

  The man was still behind her.

  Something hit her forehead, stunning her. Pinpoints of light danced in darkness as she staggered sideways, sure she’d been shot. But no, she’d smacked headfirst into a wall.

  And a dead end.

  The man was still coming. Somehow, she whirled to face him. She heard his breathing, felt it on the air. Wildly she pulled at the shelves. This time they toppled—and she flattened herself against the wall.

  A shot rang out. Then others as the man fell—boom, boom, boom. A bullet ricocheted right by Fritzi’s head, but she moaned through her clenched teeth and scrambled over the rubble at a headlong limping run. Her attacker was trapped beneath the shelves—for now.

  Suddenly a beefy hand shot from under the shelving, and closed hard around her injured ankle, tearing an inhuman scream from her throat. Hot, piercing needles of pain threaded through her ankle, as if binding bone to bone. “Let go of me!”

  He held tight.

  Leaning, she clawed at his beefy hand with both her own, drawing blood. “Let go! Let go!”

  All at once, the grip relaxed—and a great heaving gasp sounded. Was he having a heart attack? Fritzi didn’t wait to find out. She ran. Dropping to her knees on the stairs, her fingers skated over the tiles for the snowmobile key. It was gone!

  In the basement, metal crashed as he threw shelves aside. Given his sickly breathing and her injured ankle, would they be evenly matched if she made a run for Main Street? No, I don’t have a prayer. The lights! She’d light up the place. Someone would see. Maybe the phones were back on again. Maybe someone would call Joe Tanook and he’d investigate.

  It was a chance.

  She gripped the stair rail, pulling herself upward as fast as she could. When she reached the first-floor hallway, she swung inside a classroom and turned on a light. Seconds later, she was swinging from door molding to door molding like a monkey climbing tree limbs. Each time she flicked on a light, she took away lightning-quick impressions—bare branches scraping windows, a heart drawn on a blackboard, Malcolm’s playpen.

  At the hallway’s end, Fritzi tugged open a fire door and scrambled hand over fist up the steps. But the second-floor door was locked! And below her another clanged open. He was chasing her. Had he dropped the gun or did he still have it?

  She headed upward, then zigzagged crazily down the third-floor hallway—turning on lights, her hands trailing over walls and closed metal lockers, seeking fire alarms, an extinguisher—anything she could use as a weapon.

  She grabbed a forgotten baseball bat. Using it as a cane, she plunged through the final fire door. Her closed fist pounded at light switches inside the fourth-floor rooms, and she didn’t stop until she was staring into the only dark room left. She’d made it!

  She staggered toward the windows, her lungs burning, her chest heaving. Something was wrong! Light should be pouring from the building now, streaming across the snow and glistening in the trees. Beaconing for help.

  But everything was black.

  Oh, no, she thought in terror. Please, no. She clamped her hand over her mouth, stifling a scream. Her attacker had been following—and one by one, he’d turned off all the lights.

  She couldn’t hear past her own hammering heart and the deafening rush of her blood. She strained, until she heard stealthy footsteps. As the man switched off each light on this floor, the faint illumination that seeped from classrooms into the hallway diminished by torturous degrees.

  Fritzi felt a trickle on her forehead, sweat or blood—she didn’t know which. She limped toward the door, then raised the bat. Her other hand hovered right above the light switch. Holding her breath, she waited until the man was right on the other side.

  His gloved hand appeared, wrapping around the molding; then he moved inside the room. With all her might, she swung the bat—and heard the dull impact of wood hitting leather. He’d caught the bat in his gloved hand! Fritzi gasped, wrenching to face him as she hit the light switch.

  And in that splinter of illumination—right before he extinguished the light again—she saw Nathan.

  NATHAN WAS TOO SHOCKED to move. Or too furious.

  If the bat had hit his head, it could have killed him. Besides which, in the lightning-quick flash, Fritzi had looked like a woman fleeing a murderer. She was wide-eyed and terrified, gasping for breath. And he was the object of her terror. He, who had been so hell-bent on protecting her and the baby. He, who for so long had suppressed all his own needs, wants and desires.

  So many nights he’d lain awake with his eyes shut—his warm body aching while his mind recalled her skin’s scent. He’d think about how the flavor of her lips might linger for hours after a languid kiss. Or how she might look naked in bed as his fingers loosely encircled her delicate ankles. Lifting her hands and feet one by one, he’d press hot, liquid kisses into her palms, her insteps….

  But that was fantasy.

  In reality, he’d followed her out into a cold, cruel storm and this was his only reward—having her stare at him as if he was going to kill her.

  That alone made him mad enough to kill.

  So did her sudden movement away from him. Fritzi scuttled backward through the dark classroom like a crab, her arms raised at her sides, the fingers fidgety, their constant crawling movements keeping them ready for action should he try to advance.

  Which, of course, he did. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  Fritzi lunged and withdrew quickly, like a knife fighter. But instead of thrusting a rapier, she threw a child-size desk into his path. Another followed, crashing into the first. Then she stood her ground, favoring her good foot.

  “Don’t come near me!”

  Her panic stopped Nathan in his tracks. At the first sight of her, his temper had spiked. But now he squinted into the dark until his eyes finished adjusting. When he registered the rest—the dirt streaking across her pale cheek, the blood trickling from a gash on her forehead—what remained of his bad temper drained away like water through a sieve.

  “Oh, damn,” he muttered. “Are you all right?”

  “Get back!” she screamed. “Turn the light on!”

  Her vocal cords strained with a raw-boned hysteria that thoroughly unnerved him. She sounded so crazy, so close to snapping. He mustered a soothing tone. “Getting Joe Tanook up here sure won’t help matters.”

  “I said, turn on the light!”

  Nathan was half tempted. He wanted nothing more than to get a better look at her injuries, especially that gash on her head. She could be concussed—or worse. And if she didn’t stay off her ankle, she risked damaging it permanently.

  “I said, turn it on!”

  He kept his voice calm. “C’mon, you know the last thing we need is Joe Tanook.”

  “The last thing you need is Tanook!”

  It was true. Nathan didn’t want the sheriff watching him. He might start suspecting Nathan had knifed the man who’d been found in the river. And he’d be right.

  The whites of Fritzi’s eyes gleamed, bobbing in the dark as she began creeping toward the casement windows behind her. Nathan sighed. “What are you going to do-jump?”

  “I’d rather kill myself,” Fritzi returned swiftly, “than have you do it for me!”

  His stomach muscles clenched. “I’m not going to kill
—”

  Fritzi’s swift movement stopped him in midsentence. Whirling around, she bolted the last paces to the casement windows. As she flung them open, her bad ankle gave out, and the icy blast that gusted inside swept her cry of pain back to his ears.

  “Help!” she screamed, stretching so far out the window she nearly fell. “Help me! Somebody help me!”

  Nathan sidestepped the toppled desks. Just paces away from her, he stopped, wondering if it would be better to drag her back inside bodily or coax her.

  He wasn’t sure. But seeing Fritzi lean out the window reminded him of how she’d nearly caught him spying on her a few days ago. He’d been hiding in the shadows of trees outside the schoolhouse, stamping his feet to fend off the cold. Inside, she’d been seated at a desk, her head bent over her class plans, then she’d talked to Abby for a while, the baby sleeping in a nearby playpen.

  For hours he’d watched her through the windows, just as he’d watched her countless times as she slept in her bedroom. That had been foolish, of course. Especially the night he’d kissed her. Not only had she awakened, but he’d almost taken her, right then and there. It had been so wrong, but he just couldn’t stop.

  He’d felt the same way here, at the schoolhouse—as breathless as a teenage boy waiting for a girl after classes, just watching her, wanting to touch her….

  Until Fritzi had glanced up in alarm. Crossing the classroom, she’d flung open the windows just as she had a moment ago. And she’d leaned way too far out.

  “David,” she’d cried into the furious night. “Is that you, David?”

  Of course, those windows had been on the first floor, Nathan reminded himself now. Not the fourth. And now he was going to have to do something. “Quit screaming,” he said under his breath. Not that it did any good. Or that anyone could hear her.

  “Help! Please! He’s going to kill me!” she shouted again into the howling wind. It seemed she leaned out the window even farther now.

  Nathan forgot about coaxing her. Covering the distance between them, he grabbed her upper arm and yanked her back inside. As he wedged his body between her and the windowsill, Fritzi resisted, twisting her torso. Holding her firmly with one hand, Nathan closed the windows with the other.