Dangerous Attraction

by Melinda Cross

  Test of Courage had been a straightforward, if maddening story—the after-impressions it left were as black and white as the book’s printed pages. Johnny Rivard was a hapless victim, Charity was a grief-stricken innocent, and Marcus Flint was a black-hearted villain. So far her greatest problem had been accepting him as a villain when he wasn’t behaving like one. There was no doubt that he had a temper, of course, but if he had really cared so little for Johnny, how did you explain all those photographs on his desk, his vehement defense of Johnny when he thought Rebecca had insulted him?

  Rebecca shivered inside her jacket and walked a little faster, as if she could outrun yet another small mystery she’d left behind at the house.

  She’d telephoned the local sheriff after finishing her breakfast, hoping to arrange a brief interview with the deputy who had finally discovered Charity a full two weeks after the plane crash. The last line of the book had painted a blurry picture of Charity peering through the wind-whipped snow on an old logging road, collapsing with relief when she finally saw the patrol car and knew her rescue was imminent. But Rebecca—and movie-goers, she was convinced—would want to see more of the rescue itself.

  ‘I’m not interested in giving any interviews,’ Deputy Thomas had answered her request abruptly. There had been an undercurrent of hostility in his voice that had given Rebecca pause.

  ‘You are the one who finally found Charity Lauder, aren’t you?’ she’d finally asked.

  ‘I didn’t exactly “find” her. She was walking a road I patrol every day.’

  ‘I understand that, Deputy Thomas, but your impressions of how she looked and what was said, what happened after you saw her crumpled in the road.’

  ‘I found her on the road, I took her to the hospital. That’s all there was to it. Talk to Doc Billings.’ And without another word he had hung up on her.

  Thoroughly baffled by his curtness, Rebecca had called the hospital, but was told that Dr Billings was out of town for the next three days, and she’d have to call back.

  She raised her head, slightly distracted by the sound of the river rushing over rocks just ahead, but the corners of her mouth were turned down. The deputy’s inexplicable hostility troubled her more than she wanted to admit.

  She sighed and stopped at the river’s edge, trying to clear her mind. Too many thoughts were buzzing inside her head, cluttering the spaces that should have been reserved for absorbing and memorizing the surroundings.

  Her mouth tightened in a hard little line of determination, and she focused on a makeshift bridge of planks spanning a bottleneck in the narrow river. Her tennis shoes thumped a hollow beat on the boards as she crossed.

  On the other side of the field the woods looked almost impenetrable, climbing the face of a steep hill. Perhaps from the top she’d get a sense of one of the terrifying, hair-raising falls that Charity had described in her book.

  It took her half an hour to climb the hill, scrambling over deadfalls, detouring around washouts left by the heavy fall rains. By the time she reached the summit she was slightly winded, and strands of her short blonde hair clung damply to her forehead, in spite of the chill in the air. She paused to catch her breath and get her bearings.

  The underbrush was thinner up here, where oldgrowth maples shaded the forest floor from sunlight. Looking back the way she had come was a panoramic view of the colorful, mountain-ringed valley, the river a silvery thread slicing through the golden field. The house and outbuildings looked like miniatures from this distance, with several chimneys spouting almost transparent smoke skyward. It was an idyllic setting-almost a postcard-perfect shot of Vermont in all her autumn glory.

  Rebecca eased to a sitting position on a dried, mosscovered deadfall and stared out over the valley, enjoying the view almost as much as she enjoyed the solitude. It wasn’t quite as soothing as the vista of the constantly rolling Pacific, stretching all the way to the horizon, but it would still be easy to fall in love with a place like this.

  She glanced down when the movement of her hand dislodged a piece of bark from the deadfall, then did a double-take when the glint of sunlight on metal caught her eye.

  Pushing aside the freshly fallen scarlet leaves piled at her feet, she saw a thin edge of tarnished gold peeking up through the dirt. She grasped it with two fingers, freed it from the packed soil, and brought it up to her eyes, frowning. It was one of those corny charms in the shape of half a heart, and when she wiped the dirt from the back with her thumb the engraving read, ‘Love, Johnny.’

  She closed the charm in her palm and looked off into the distance, strangely saddened by this evidence of a dead man’s love. Obviously the charm was Charity’s, lost, perhaps, on some romantic stroll through the forest before their visit here had turned tragic. Rebecca tucked it deep into her jacket pocket, resolving to mail it to Charity at the first opportunity, then rose almost reluctantly to explore the rest of the forest.

  Fifteen minutes later she came upon a small, wellbuilt shed nestled among the trees on the opposite side of the hill. It faced nothing but wilderness, but there was a faint path through the underbrush to its door, and a blackened stove-pipe chimney on the roof indicated periodic use. Rebecca pulled open the door and peered into the dark structure, barely making out the shadows of stacked buckets and an old pot-bellied stove. A warming house, she surmised, where workers could temporarily store recently tapped sap from the maples before transporting it to the processing shed near the main house.

  Sure enough, there was a two-lane dirt track a short distance downslope from the shed that probably skirted the hill and headed back toward the house.

  Rebecca walked down to it, disappointed that the evidence of man’s existence had spoiled this particular section of forest wilderness.

  She was trying to decide if she should follow the primitive road or go back the way she had come when she heard the engine. In another heartbeat, an open Jeep appeared around a curve, slowed, then stopped just in front of her.

  Marcus was behind the wheel, his black hair swept back by the wind, his face reddened by the cold. He fixed her with eyes that looked black from a distance, then got out of the Jeep and walked toward her. He was wearing heavy logger’s boots and a red flannel shirt over his black turtleneck…and he was carrying an axe.

  Rebecca felt her heart skip a beat and took a quick, involuntary step backward.

  Marcus stopped dead, stared at her for a moment, glanced down at the axe, then laughed out loud. It was a caustic, bitter sound. ‘Axe murder is about the only thing I haven’t been accused of,’ he said contemptuously.

  Rebecca scowled and took a deep breath, feeling foolish. She hadn’t really been afraid of him, although he certainly looked menacing enough; it was just that…

  ‘You surprised me, that’s all,’ she grumbled the finish to her thought.

  He nodded absently, studying her. ‘And you surprise me. I assumed you’d take off the minute you found out your producer wasn’t going to show up.’

  Rebecca’s brows lifted. Was that why he’d left the house in a huff? Because he’d expected her to turn tail and run when she learned she’d be alone with him? She looked down at the ground, pushed at a pile of drying leaves with her toe. ‘I considered it,’ she confessed, ‘but in the end I decided it made more sense to. stay on and finish the job I came to do, with or without Victor. Unless you’d rather he were present, of course.’

  His eyes remained riveted to hers. ‘As far as I’m concerned, his presence was never necessary.’ Rebecca’s brows twitched a little at that and he added almost gently, ‘You’ll be writing the screenplay, not Victor. I wouldn’t have left the house if I’d known you intended to stay. We can go back, if you like, and start the interview.’

  Rebecca looked around idly, breathing in the mingled aromas of the north woods crisping under an autumn sun, suddenly reluctant to trade these surroundings for walls and a roof. ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A f
ew hours won’t make much difference. You said there were things you needed to do while the weather held.’

  He nodded past her, up toward the shed. ‘Autumn rounds. All the sheds have to be stocked with firewood before winter, just in case.’ He started to walk up the slope toward the shed.

  ‘In case what?’ she asked, following him.

  ‘In case the harvesters get caught in a late storm and need a place to wait it out.’

  ‘But the house is just over the hill and across the field…’

  He opened the shed door then paused, looking down at her. ‘That might as well be a million miles in a whiteout. We start collecting sap in February, and that’s blizzard season this far north. They come up fast, and they hit hard. More than one of my workers owes his life to these sheds. We’ve got them scattered all over the estate, each one stocked with enough food and firewood to last a couple of days, if necessary. Come on in. I’ll show you.’

  The interior of the shed would have been pitch-black if he hadn’t propped the door open with a rock. As it was, Rebecca could barely see the little light there was glinting off the stacks of shiny metal buckets.

  ‘Your eyes will adjust in a minute,’ he told her, moving deeper into the building. Apparently his eyes adjusted a lot faster than hers did.

  Suddenly a square of new light was admitted when he pushed open a shutter on the back wall. ‘See?’ He gestured at the pot-bellied stove and the few sticks of firewood stacked beside it, then scowled abruptly. ‘Dammit, there should be half a cord of wood there.’ He turned his head to look at a single shelf nailed high on a side wall, and his scowl deepened.

  Rebecca followed his gaze to where a few cans sat on the shelf next to a couple of battered saucepans. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Most of the food’s gone, that’s what’s wrong. No one had to use this shed last spring. There should be a dozen cans there, at least.’

  ‘Maybe your workers got hungry…’

  ‘The workers are the last ones who would take food from these sheds without replacing it. They know their lives could depend on it one day. Besides, we’ve never harvested this section of woods. This was to be the first spring the workers would even be near this particular ridge.’

  ‘Well, how about the animals?’

  He shook his head again. ‘That’s why we only use canned goods—no scent to attract bears.’ He walked over to the pot-bellied stove, opened the door and peered inside. ‘Besides, animals don’t make fires in wood stoves. Look at the pile of ashes in there.’

  Rebecca pretended to look, then shrugged. ‘So, you’ve got a vagrant taking advantage of the facilities,’ she said, wondering what all the fuss was about.

  He straightened and slammed the heavy metal door closed angrily. ‘This isn’t the city. We don’t have vagrants in the north woods of Vermont, but apparently I’ve got someone on the payroll using this place for something.’ He released a sharp exhalation. ‘I suppose I’d better quit griping and get to work. This is going to set me back a full day as it is.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ Rebecca said without thinking.

  Marcus stopped in the doorway and looked at her over his shoulder. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not why you’re here. Take a walk through the woods. Enjoy the scenery…’

  ‘I’d rather be doing something a little more physical. I’ve done nothing but sit for the past two days, and I’m not much of a sitter.’

  He hesitated, one dark brow arched skeptically.

  Rebecca pushed up her jacket sleeves and scowled at him. ‘I’m a lot stronger than I look, you know.’

  Suppressing the kind of smile a man wore when he was humoring a child, he lowered the axe head slowly to the ground and leaned on the handle. ‘You want to chop or stack?’

  Rebecca set her jaw and glared at him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the flash of sunlight on the sharp axe blade. ‘You chop. I’ll stack and carry.’

  For the first fifteen minutes she watched him hack away at the larger branches of a fallen tree, cutting stove-lengths, then standing them on end and splitting them with a last, powerful swing of the axe.

  Even though there was nothing for her to do until he cut enough to carry, there was a certain satisfaction in watching him work—a righteous rhythm to the lift and swing of his arms and the downward plunge that ended with a sharp crack, like an audible exclamation point.

  After five minutes he shed his flannel shirt and pushed up the sleeves of his turtleneck. Another five minutes and drops of perspiration gleamed on his brow and sparkled in the dark hairs that peppered his forearms.

  He moved easily, gracefully, his spread legs the anchor for the regular, pendulum-like movements of his arms and torso. The sheer repetitiveness of his actions were almost hypnotic, and Rebecca was soon mesmerized.

  In her mind she separated Marcus Flint from the physical entity chopping wood in front of her, and marveled at the sheer beauty of the male form, the stunning grace and power of broad shoulders and narrow waist, moving in perfect synchronization with muscular arms.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t had an opportunity to appreciate the male body before. She saw it every day in California, as golden young men on the beach performed for the bikini-clad beauties who were their counterparts. Bodies slicked with oil to accentuate the ripple of muscles, those glorious young men thrust and pivoted in strenuous games of volleyball, or grunted under the astounding weight of massive barbells; but, whatever their choice of display, it had always made Rebecca think of the courtship rites of animals she’d seen on public television nature programs. In them the male animal always strutted and bellowed while the females watched quietly, making their selections. Rebecca had never quite understood the process. All the posturing seemed strangely unfinished, and a little sad.

  But this…Marcus Flint wielding a woodsman’s axe…this was very different. Perhaps, she mused, it was because it was a performance of work, not play. There was purpose behind the display that gave it validity; that made ft theater.

  The notion made her smile, and it was then that Marcus suddenly straightened and turned in one smooth movement, his eyes finding hers immediately. There was no reason for her to blush, and yet she did, as if watching him work had been some unthinkable, perverted act. His own face was flushed with exertion, his eyes so lightened that they looked more silver than gray.

  ‘This should get you started,’ he said, gesturing with the axe at the pile of logs at his feet without ever taking his eyes from hers.

  With something like horror, Rebecca realized she was staring at his mouth, watching those extraordinarily sculptured lips form words. She blinked hard once, then hurried, head down, toward the cut wood.

  ‘I’ll work on that deadfall over there while you clear this away,’ she heard him say. She nodded without replying, without even looking up. She scurried to gather an armload of wood, suddenly desperate to be inside the protective walls of the shed where he couldn’t see her.

  By the time she finished gathering, carrying and stacking the first logs he’d cut, she felt as if a furnace was burning beneath her jacket. She stripped it off and draped it over a bare bush near the shed door, and wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her sweater.

  ‘Had enough?’ he called over from the deadfall where he’d accumulated another pile of wood.

  ‘Not nearly!’ she called back, energized by sudden chill without her jacket, feeling better than she had felt since she’d first boarded the plane in Los Angeles.

  She heard the steady blow of his axe as they both went back to work, even heard the regular soft grunt he made at the end of every swing; but she avoided looking at him entirely.

  It was only much later, when she came back outside to gather another armload of wood, that she realized there was no more wood to carry; that the ring of the axe had stopped some time ago.

  ‘I’m down here!’ Marcus called from the Jeep.

  Rebecca shielded her eyes with one hand and squinted down the slope. ‘What a
re you doing?’

  Instead of answering, he grabbed something from under a canvas tarp and started back up the hill toward her. When he got close enough, she saw that he’d exchanged his axe for a six-pack of beer.

  He literally collapsed on the ground next to where she stood, patted the ground next to him and broke out two cans. ‘You’re a hell of a worker,’ he said, popping a top and holding the opened can toward her. ‘Sit down. Take a break.’

  She accepted the beer, but remained standing.

  ‘Come on, Rebecca. I won’t tell anyone you had a friendly beer with the despicable Marcus Flint.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ she said hastily, although the truth was it might have been. ‘But shouldn’t we finish first…?’

  ‘We are finished. You stack the wood any higher in that shed and there won’t be room for any poor soul who needs to use it. Didn’t you notice?’

  She eased down reluctantly, careful to keep a respectable distance between them. It surprised her a little to feel the rubbery after-effects of overworked muscles finally allowed to relax.

  Marcus drank long and deep from his can, then released a prolonged sigh that made her think of a beer commercial.

  She tipped her own can and felt the sparkling sting of icy, bubbling liquid on her throat, then wrapped her arms around her knees and looked out across a wonderland of scarlet and rose and yellow. The sun was warm on her face in spite of the cool air.

  ‘Nothing like a little physical exhaustion to ease the mind, is there?’ he mused, staring off into his own piece of the scenery. Suddenly she felt his eyes on her. ‘You’re no stranger to hard work. What did you do all those years you lived over the laundry?’

  She smiled a little, completely unaware of how much that slight movement of her lips warmed her face. ‘Laundry. What else? They had a lot of commercial accounts—restaurants, hotels, that sort of thing—so the loads were heavy. I developed muscles I never knew I had.’