The Stranger in Her Bed

by Janet Chapman

  Anna had picked up the older journal Ethan had been reading and started leafing through the pages that followed the disclosure of the first sale. "Then if Gramps got ten thousand dollars to start restoring Fox Run, where is it? He obviously never spent it on the mill."

  "We're probably going to have to read all the journals to find that out," Ethan said, still turning pages. He sat on the couch, pulling her down beside him. "You read forward from sixteen years ago, and I'll start reading backward from when he bought back the land from Joshua five years ago."

  "That'll take us forever."

  "Just scan the pages." He leaned the journal against his chest and looked over at her. "What else did dear old Frank have to say last night?"

  "Only that his father has lost his mind, and that he's going to try and get a judge to void the sale on the grounds that Gramps took advantage of Joshua by paying so little for land worth nearly a million dollars." She grinned derisively. "Or I could become his partner and we could combine his mountain and my mill and offer the package to the developers."

  Ethan tapped the book she was holding. "That means Frank Coots could very well be your ghost. Or he might have hired two men to do his dirty work. They must be looking for the document that states the conditions of the original sale. Frank could very well argue that his father was already showing signs of dementia five years ago, but if you show up with the original sales agreement, it would prove Joshua Coots was merely honoring a promise he made sixteen years ago."

  "But wouldn't that document have been with all the papers my lawyers got when Gramps died? Land sales have to be recorded."

  Ethan shook his head. "Only the deed needs to be recorded. And you know how old people are; most of the time deals are sealed with only a handshake. This was likely a private agreement between Samuel and Joshua, but your grandfather was smart enough to actually put it in writing."

  "And Frank knows about the agreement, and he and his goons are trying to find that document so I won't have any proof it was a legitimate sale?"

  "Frank must know about it; his father also would have had a copy. But we're all assuming Samuel didn't tear up his copy of the agreement after he bought back the land." Ethan lifted the journal in his hands. "Let's hope he told you about it in his letters."

  With a sigh, Anna propped her feet up on the coffee table and looked down at her book. "He wrote about every other detail of his daily life, so it's probably in here somewhere."

  Ethan reached out and pushed the book down to her lap so that she'd look at him. "Anna," he said softly. "I have a suspicion that Samuel's accident wasn't really an accident."

  She went utterly still, her face paling and her bright green eyes going wide. "What makes you say that?" she whispered.

  "And I don't think yours was an accident, either." He turned to face her, his hand still covering hers. "I haven't found a spring anywhere near that section of road, and it's been completely free of ice since you spun out there."

  "But how…"

  "That piece of road is quite steep and curving, and if someone were to dump enough water on it so that it froze to black ice, you wouldn't be able to negotiate the turn."

  "But they said it was an accident with Gramps. That's what the sheriff's office told Daddy when he called to find out what happened."

  He squeezed her hand. "I don't have any proof otherwise— just a gut feeling. Don't you think both incidents are a little too coincidental?"

  "But that would mean Gramps was murdered."

  "And that someone attempted to murder you. Or at least get you out of the way long enough to find what he's looking for."

  She leaned back into her couch cushion. "You really think someone tried to kill me?" She suddenly narrowed her eyes at him. "You've obviously given this a lot of thought. How long have you suspected the accidents were deliberate?"

  "Since yours."

  "And you never said anything to me. Why?" She dropped her feet to the floor and leaned toward him, getting right in his face. "Honest to God, if you say you were trying to protect me, I'll smack you clear into tomorrow."

  Ethan settled back and started reading. He could feel her glare boring into him for a full minute before he heard her sigh, put her feet back up on the coffee table, and start reading as well.

  He'd dodged a dent in his armor that time, though he'd probably be wise to sleep with one eye open tonight— since he didn't want to miss even one moment of Anna driving him crazy.

  * * *

  "What do you mean, you're not going to work? You can't expect Keith to run Loon Cove all by himself," Anna said.

  Ethan tucked his shirt in his pants and buckled his belt as he eyed Anna's pajamas— which she'd slept in again last night— with loathing. He might have bullied his way into bed, but her flannel armor made it clear that he wouldn't be making love to her.

  Lord, she was wonderfully stubborn.

  "Alex is working the mill today," he told her, sitting down on the bed to put on his socks. "So I can stay here and help you finish tearing apart your saw engine. Or start demolishing the building around it, if you'd prefer." He stood up and faced her. "Or we could take the day off and run down to Bangor and shop for wedding rings."

  Anna's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She spun around and stomped into the hall and down the stairs, the soft flannel feet of her pajamas completely ruining her display of outrage.

  It was obvious she knew he was hanging around to make sure she didn't suddenly head for Quebec, and she didn't care for the notion that he didn't trust her word not to run. But the fact was, he didn't trust himself not to chase after her, and he definitely didn't relish the idea of facing all four Segee brothers on their home turf.

  He stepped into the hallway. "I hope our kids have my disposition," he called down after her.

  "Bite me!" she shouted from the kitchen.

  Giving her a moment to cool down, Ethan made the bed and straightened up a bit— which included leaning out the window to pick up the dirty clothes that Anna had thrown onto the porch roof when she'd realized they were making the bedroom reek of grease. He tossed them into the hallway to remind him to put them with the rest of the laundry, then stuffed a baby-pink bra in the drawer and straightened the lotions scattered all over the bureau. He picked up the diamond stud earrings she'd been wearing Saturday night and shook his head at her carelessness.

  He softly whistled when he lifted the cover of her jewelry box and discovered that Miss Anna Segee owned a small fortune in jewelry. He stared at the colorful array of gems set in a couple of rings, three or four necklaces, and several pairs of earrings. He picked up one ring that particularly caught his eye and examined what he suspected was a genuine ruby surrounded by small, glittering diamonds. He hadn't thought about Anna coming from money; she was… well, she was just Anna, his bossy ex-foreman, aggravating landlord, and mind-blowing lover.

  What if her decision to never get married had as much to do with gold-digging boyfriends as it did with Madeline's parade of husbands? And what if she thought he wanted to marry her for her money and not for the way she made him crazy-happy?

  Aw, hell. Why couldn't she just be the owner of a broken-down old mill that was going to take a year of Sundays to restore instead of heiress to a logging empire with the assets of a small nation?

  Maybe he could offer to draw up a prenuptial agreement between them, so she'd realize he didn't want any part of her inheritance. Or he could have a private man-to-man talk with her daddy. After the wedding, so he'd get to enjoy his honeymoon before the Segee brothers showed up en masse and tried to feed his guts to the wolves.

  Ethan closed the jewelry box and scowled at himself in the mirror over the bureau. He didn't care if Anna had more money than God; he was marrying her in three weeks if he had to single-handedly take on André Segee and his four sons.

  Ethan suddenly sat down on the bed, stunned. He loved her, dammit. Sometime in the last couple of weeks, he had fallen in love with Anna. And not the grow-old-
together sort of love, but the walk-through-the-fires-of-hell kind of love that turns a guy's mind to mush and twists his insides into knots until he doesn't know if he's coming or going.

  Ethan rested his arms on his knees and hung his head. Well, hell. He hadn't even seen this coming. He'd always assumed that when the right woman came along, he'd instinctively know she was the one. But he hadn't expected her to come walking out of his past. Who would have thought, eighteen years ago, that the shy, quiet little girl he'd caught more than once eyeing him from afar would be the future Mrs. Knight?

  Ethan lifted his head with a snort. Maybe she'd be Mrs. Knight, if he didn't do anything dumb in the next three weeks— like act too protective, get too bossy, or become so frustrated with her that he threw her in the lake.

  But he did intend to burn those flannel pajamas.

  With the resolve of a brave and noble knight with slightly tarnished armor, who was facing the greatest test of his courage, Ethan stood up and walked downstairs. He found Anna sitting on the couch, sipping tea and reading one of Samuel's journals, still in those damn pajamas.

  "Are we tearing apart the saw engine or not?" he asked on his way to the kitchen.

  "I have no idea what you're doing," she said. "But I'm finding that sales agreement today."

  "What makes you think you can find it in one day if your ghosts have been looking for it for the last six months? They had this entire place to themselves right after Samuel died, and they never found it," he called to her as he poured lukewarm water over his tea bag. He really needed to get a coffeemaker; Anna's tea just didn't have the morning kick he needed.

  "They didn't have Gramps's journals," she called back. "And I'm not leaving this couch until I find out what he did with that document."

  Ethan poked his head into the living room. "I've thought about that, and I think we're looking in the wrong direction. Instead of reading backward from the sale five years ago, we should read forward from it. It's after the sale that Samuel would have either filed away or torn up the agreement."

  "But he didn't have to actually have it to buy the land." Her forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Joshua and Gramps knew about their agreement, so producing the piece of paper was unnecessary." She shook her head. "I think Gramps hid it right after he sold the land to Joshua sixteen years ago, and I also think he told me where." She canted her head. "If Gramps had died before he bought back the land, do you think the agreement would have passed down to me?"

  Ethan shrugged. "That depends on whether Samuel stated that condition." He took a sip of tea as he thought. "Having learned a lot about your grandfather from reading those journals, I'd say yeah, he would have made sure you could buy back the land."

  "Then we have to find that document before Frank takes me to court."

  "Which means we have to think like an eighty-three-year-old man," Ethan mused.

  "Or a sixty-seven-year-old man if he hid it sixteen years ago."

  Ethan walked into the living room and sat down on the hearth facing her. "And we know your grandfather's generation didn't trust banks after the depression, so what did they trust?"

  "Old mason jars buried out back."

  "Hell, that leaves two thousand acres for us to dig up."

  She lifted the journal on her lap. "Gramps wouldn't have hidden it very far away. It's got to be someplace here in camp. A root cellar or springhouse, maybe?" She shook her head with a laugh. "Or it's as easy as digging under the porch."

  Ethan eyed Bear snoozing in his bed. "I bet he knows," he said, using his mug to point at the dog. "And them, too," he added, pointing at the chickadees roosting on the curtain rod. "They would have seen Samuel coming and going to his stash over the years, which means that it's got to be someplace easily accessible for an old man. Samuel wouldn't have risked his valuables anyplace that could burn down, so that rules out buildings, including under the porch, since the ground would get hot enough to ignite any papers buried there."

  Anna stood up. "I'll get dressed and we can start walking the property, looking for ground that's been disturbed."

  Ethan shook his head. "He wouldn't have buried it in the ground, either. The frost would have prevented him from getting to it in the winter."

  She ran up the stairs. "Then we'll look for a spring-house or root cellar or something," she said, her voice trailing off as she entered her bedroom. She suddenly stuck her head back out her door. "Making the bed does not give you brownie points, Knight," she called down to him.

  "I am not a suck-up," he shot back, carrying her empty mug into the kitchen to rinse it out.

  He noticed his vitamins sitting on the counter and smiled. So she wanted him to live to be a hundred, did she? He popped the pills in his mouth and turned when she came running into the kitchen, completely dressed. "That was fast," he commented, just before washing down the horse pill with his cold tea.

  "We'll hunt until sunset and read the journals in the evening, if we don't find it today," she said, slipping on her jacket.

  Ethan nodded agreement, not wanting to point out that she had enlisted his help without bothering to ask. Apparently as long as he was useful, he could stick around. "You go get started," he said. "I want to call Alex and make sure he's doing okay at the mill. I'll join you in a few minutes."

  The second she was out the door, Ethan headed upstairs, picked up the pajamas that she'd thrown on the bed, and crammed them as far back under the bureau as he could. Satisfied he'd taken care of that little problem, he pulled out his cell phone and walked back downstairs, stepped out onto the front porch, and dialed Alex's number.

  "This place is a madhouse," Alex said without preamble when he answered his phone. "And this yard is so goddamned tight, you've got to step outside the gate to change your mind. How's Anna doing?"

  "She's fine," Ethan said with a chuckle. "And welcome to my world."

  "If she's fine, then come to work before I padlock the gate and give everyone a paid holiday."

  "She's not that fine. I'm still afraid that if I let her out of my sight, she'll head for Quebec."

  There was a heartbeat of silence, then Alex said softly, "Maybe that's for the best, Ethan. It's going to be hell for her to live in this town now."

  "I'm marrying her in three weeks."

  There was a long silence. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

  "I'm sure," he told Alex. "I love her."

  "And does she love you?"

  Ethan hesitated. "She must. She keeps feeding me vitamins."

  Alex snorted. "She's probably laced them with rat poison."

  Ethan grinned. He hadn't thought about that. "She's still here," he offered. "And I'm still here with her."

  "Ethan, you can't force it just because you want it."

  "I just need some time alone with her. She'll come around."

  "Then why don't you spend your time together here, running Loon Cove Lumber?" Alex growled. Ethan heard an air horn blast in the background.

  "I fired her, remember? If I hire her back, it will look bad to my crew. Besides, I need quality time alone with her. Did you find her purse and coat at the school?"

  "Sarah did," Alex told him. "And we drove Anna's truck to Loon Cove and parked it just inside the gate."

  "Thanks. By the way, do you remember where Grampy Knight used to hide his valuables? I know he had a secret stash outside someplace, but I can't remember where."

  "Grampy's stash?" Alex repeated, obviously confused.

  "Yeah. I remember being just a little kid and him telling me that a wise man kept his valuables tucked in a safe place out of the house. Anna and I are looking for a document Samuel Fox would have wanted to keep safe. Where was Grampy's stash?"

  Alex's chuckle came over the phone. "I think he kept a gallon jug buried out by an old rock down the path to the lake. But Samuel's stash could be anyplace. I remember Grampy telling me it was sort of an ongoing contest between men as to who could come up with the most inventive hidey-hole. He told me about one man
who hid his entire savings someplace on his property, then couldn't find it for nearly three years because he hadn't even told his wife where it was. Another guy thought he was being smarter than everyone else by hiding his stash under a false bottom in their rain barrel. But the squirrels chewed through the wood because he'd used an old peanut butter tin, and they ate his money. Samuel could have hidden his stuff anyplace on Fox Run."

  "Damn," Ethan muttered.

  "Honest to God," Alex snapped, obviously running. "I never realized what big babies these truckers are. That load needs to go over there!" he shouted. "I have to go," he said in a rush. "If you want your mill to still be standing, you and Anna better be here tomorrow morning."

  The connection cut off, and Ethan headed down the steps to catch up with Anna.