Hazardous Homecoming

by Dana Mentink

  They held hands, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles and she felt a supreme comfort in the gesture, the warmth of his shoulder pressed to hers. “I’m sorry.”

  He turned to look at her. “For what?”

  “That things are so messed up.”

  “Not your fault. Life is complicated.”

  “Are you going to say it’s just something we don’t get to understand?”

  He laughed. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “Well, anyway, thank you for being here with me and the birds, in spite of the attitude you’re getting from my family.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I got that reaction from you, not too long ago. You’re still not convinced my brother is innocent, so what’s changed? Why are we here now, babysitting birds and hanging out in the woods?”

  “I...I don’t know.”

  He swiveled to face her, tracing a finger along her cheek. “Have you finally succumbed to my overwhelming boatload of charm?”

  A giggle escaped over the tumult of warmth that grew from his touch. “Maybe I just appreciate your pole-climbing skills.”

  He was close now, his mouth inches from hers. “And let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?” Their lips met, and she felt joy, warmth, comfort and longing assault her senses. She found her fingers stroking the back of his neck until they were breathless.

  His eyes were soft as he drank her in. “Our families are enemies, you know. I have no business kissing you, but for some reason I can’t get you out of my mind.”

  Bolts of sweetness shot through her, lighting up the dark corners of her heart. “Could it be my boatload of charm?” she whispered.

  He laughed and smoothed his thumb over her lips, but something dark nestled beneath the smile.

  “You’re worrying about something aside from my family, aren’t you?” She clasped his hand. “Is it about the police finding Lester?”

  Before he could answer, there was a flutter of movement.

  They watched as the male kestrel arrived to alight at the nest, tapered wings settling, his beak full of food for his young. They watched in silence as he dutifully doled out the provisions before he spread his wings and took to the air again.

  “To find more food,” she said, tracking his glorious progress into the blue sky. “When the babies are old enough, he’ll take them out to hunt as a family group until they can survive on their own.”

  “Amazing that he can take all that on.”

  “It’s not an easy job. We’ve rescued kestrel babies before. They’re high-strung and hard to feed, but this male seems to know exactly what he’s doing.”

  The sunlight glinted on the slate hue of his wings and the black bar across his orange tail feathers as he cut through the brilliant sky. Perfect in design, exquisite in motion.

  She found herself whispering the words of Victor Hugo that she’d copied in her journal and traced over with every colored pencil in her box. The little poem about the bird that feels the bough give way beneath her but sings anyway, knowing she has wings. Ruby felt at that moment as the kestrel danced through the sky, with Cooper by her side, that maybe for the first time in her life, she really might have wings. “So beautiful,” she breathed.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Pleasure rippled through Ruby when she realized Cooper was not looking at the kestrel, but at her.

  FIFTEEN

  Cooper wondered if his sanity was coming apart at the seams. His mind should be fully occupied with trying to sort out his brother’s situation, yet it kept pivoting straight back to the auburn-haired Ruby Hudson. He realized on the hike back down from the old mill that he had described to her no fewer than five species of wildflowers as they walked, and was it possible he had waxed eloquent on the difficulties of spotting matsutake mushrooms? Yet she had not appeared bored in the slightest and it somehow fueled his preoccupation. Ruby was a kindred soul, passionate, her heart light and ebullient when she let it be. It enticed him. His brain demanded he focus on his brother, but his heart longed for something entirely different.

  Perhaps it was a botany-fueled euphoria that caused him to volunteer to help Ruby lead her tour group when they returned from their hike. Both Perry and Mick were gone, and Ruby was faced with a group of twelve eager birders, one of whom would require assistance on the steepest part of the trip due to a rheumatoid arthritis condition. Though his upcoming conversation with Peter loomed heavy in his mind, he didn’t see how a delay would make much of a difference. So, he took his position at the back of the group, trying to blend his six-foot frame in with the gaggle of much smaller females.

  It was mostly older ladies from a local birding group, a younger woman with a long blond braid and two teenagers taking pictures of every square inch of the forest and themselves with their iPhones.

  He admired the energy Ruby applied to her duty. She was the perfect guide—passionate, attentive, eager to know what particular interests and questions the group shared. He laughed when she stopped at the base of a tree where a cluster of shaggy parasol mushrooms nestled.

  “We’re fortunate to have a botanist along today. Mr. Stokes, can you lend your expertise here?”

  He limited himself to a few short remarks. These were birders, after all, not botanists. They accepted his expertise with good grace, taking pictures and peppering him with questions.

  As the group moved along, the woman with the braid hung back to walk next to Cooper.

  “You used to live here a long time ago, didn’t you?”

  He could not guess her age...late twenties? Mid-thirties? Nor did she look familiar. Her eyes were a faded federal blue, face tanned and showing signs of too much sun exposure. The intensity of her gaze kicked his nerves into overdrive.

  “Yes, my family lived here back in the day. You, too?”

  She didn’t appear to hear his question. “I heard about the little girl who disappeared back then, Alice Walker. I always thought she would be found someday.” She hesitated. “I read online that the police discovered a body near the lake, but it wasn’t her.”

  Thank you, Heather Bradford. “They’re still investigating,” he hedged. “If I’m not being rude here, Miss...?”

  She did not volunteer her name, just kept staring at him, so he continued. “You seem very interested in the case. Do you have a personal connection to someone involved?”

  “Personal? No. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, is all.” She looked up as a startled warbler thrilled the group by bursting out of the brush and flapping away. “The whole thing destroyed so many families.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s right. Your brother was accused. And her,” she pointed to Ruby. “She must have been tortured all these years having her friend snatched away and never knowing who took her or what happened.”

  “And Josephine and Lester Walker.”

  “Yes, Alice’s parents. Still living?”

  He nodded, not feeling up to sharing what he knew about Lester. Josephine was living and about to find out the husband she’d thought alive was dead and there was still no sign of her missing daughter. “Mrs. Walker’s been wounded most of all.”

  The woman twisted her braid. “I can only imagine.”

  He stopped now, putting a hand gently on her forearm. “Do you know something about the Alice Walker abduction?”

  She stiffened. “No.”

  Her pinched mouth and panicked expression telegraphed the lie. “If you do have any information, it’s a crime to conceal it.”

  “A crime?” She took a step back. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Then why are you here? On this tour?”

  Her mouthed opened, fingers twisting her braid. “I’m interested in birds. Just like the rest of the grou
p.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We’ve been walking for a half hour now and I haven’t seen you take a single picture, or use your binoculars once, not even when the two falcons stopped to give us the eye. It’s as if you’re oblivious to the birds, like you came here for another reason altogether.” He tried to catch her eye, but she looked away. “Why are you here?”

  “For the birds,” she said, edging away toward the group, which was now several yards ahead. “That’s all. Do you interrogate all the participants like this?”

  He did not push any more. Was his growing paranoia making him see things that weren’t there? She was merely a birder like the rest of them. But edgy and uninterested? Asking questions about Peter and Ruby?

  Other possibilities surfaced in his mind. A reporter looking for a story? A curious local, nosey for details? Or something else? He realized Ruby had drawn close and pressed her hand to his bicep. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. Time to split up?”

  She nodded. “If you can drive Mrs. Brownley up to the top of the trail in the Jeep, we’ll have a look at the eagles.” She leaned closer and whispered in his ear, the graze of her lips like velvet against his cheek. “Let’s avoid the lake. The police still have the cliff taped off.”

  He cleared his throat, trying to jostle away the sparks. “Okay. Meet you at the trailhead.”

  Mrs. Brownley took his offered arm, and he helped her into the passenger seat of the Jeep. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman with the braid watching him. Or perhaps she was taking in the white-tailed kites observing them from the branches high over his head.

  “Let’s go, Mr. Stokes,” Mrs. Brownley said, fastening her sunhat firmly under her chin and straightening the small pack clipped around her waist. “I want to see if you’re as good a driver as you are a botanist.”

  He laughed. “No promises.”

  She grinned, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth. “I remember when you and your brother used to race your bikes down Sentinel Hill and with no helmets in sight. I hope you’ve learned some restraint since then.”

  He started up the car. “So you’ve been here a long time.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “We won’t discuss how long.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m sorry I don’t remember meeting you.”

  “No surprise,” she said, holding on as he took the slope. “I was just the bank manager. Not a place a young kiddo would frequent. Besides, I wasn’t an old lady then.”

  “Ma’am, you don’t seem like an old lady now either.”

  “Gallantly said, Mr. Stokes. I will accept your lavish flattery.”

  He smiled. “So you’ve been here since...” He stopped, realizing he might be going out on a potentially offensive limb again.

  She chimed in. “Fifty-three years now. I’m like the unofficial historian of this town. I’m older than some of the buildings and most of the residents.”

  “You must have seen a lot of change, both good and bad.”

  She frowned. “The worst thing that ever happened was when little Alice disappeared. Josephine Walker used to be a happy soul, energetic and the first to participate in any church doings or bake sale fund-raisers. I remember once she baked one hundred cupcakes with little marshmallow flowers on them to raffle off to raise money for a new steeple. Now she won’t even set foot into the church.” She sighed. “Tragic, what losing a child can do to someone.”

  “You knew Lester Walker, too?”

  “Oh, sure. Didn’t care for him much, a hot head and he could be a bully, but say what you will, he loved his little girl. There was no mistake about that. I never could understand, though, why he would up and leave Josephine, after what she’d been through, losing a child and then to lose her husband. Inexcusable.”

  Except that he hadn’t run away. He’d been lying dead in a cave not three miles from the Walker cabin. It pained him to think that now Lester would be irrevocably lost to her, too. At least before, she could hold out hope that Lester would return. As they pulled away from the rest of the group, he caught her eye. “Mrs. Brownley, do you happen to know the woman with the braid?”

  Mrs. Brownley squinted through the thick lenses of her glasses. She peered through the binoculars. “Slim girl there? No, I don’t know her.”

  Maybe she’d driven in from a nearby town. He focused his attention on keeping the Jeep to the smoothest parts of the steep path.

  “But I saw her this morning at the library. I volunteer there twice a week. She didn’t check anything out, but she asked my help in finding the reference section.”

  He tried not to sound too eager or too nosey. “Did she mention to you what she was looking for?”

  “It was clear she didn’t want anyone hovering, so I left her to her own devices in the periodicals section.”

  “Periodicals?” He forced a smile. “I didn’t think anyone read old magazines anymore.”

  “Not magazines, newspapers. She was looking through old newspapers, really old, some from twenty years ago.” Mrs. Brownley stiffened, pointing to a bald eagle, cleaving through the sky.

  Cooper did not hear her. Newspapers dating back twenty years. Now why would someone be interested in that?

  * * *

  Ruby passed around a clipboard at the conclusion of the tour, soliciting comments and inviting participants to sign up for the Hudson Raptor Sanctuary newsletter.

  Cooper reparked the Jeep and joined her. He seemed to be scanning the group for someone. “The lady with the braid. Where is she?” he whispered.

  “She said she wasn’t feeling well, and she left before we started up for the trailhead. Why?”

  The worried creases etched into his forehead startled her, but she was busy saying goodbye and answering questions for the departing guests. When she finished, he was rifling through the pages on the clipboard. “Do you have the original registration list?”

  “On the bottom. Most people registered through the website, but we take all comers whether they’re registered or not, as long as they pay the twenty dollars. Which person are you looking for?”

  “The lady with the braid.”

  “She said her name was Jane, I think.”

  “Here it is. You hand wrote it so she must have shown up without registering. Jane Brown.” His eyes narrowed. “I wonder if that’s her real name.”

  She stood so close he was forced to focus on her. “All right. Out with it. What’s your interest in Jane Brown?”

  “She was asking questions about Alice and you.”

  “I think the whole town’s abuzz with questions.”

  “She’s not a local, from what Mrs. Brownley says, and she was looking up info in twenty-year-old newspapers at the library.”

  Ruby’s stomach tingled, just a bit. “Reporter?”

  “It’s possible.” He blinked as if coming back to the surface after a deep dive. “It’s also possible that I’m becoming paranoid. I’m starting to wonder about myself.”

  “What else are you worrying about?”

  He shrugged. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

  She took the clipboard from his hands. “It’s not nothing.” Weighing her words, she paused. Keep it safe and not mention what was on her mind? It was a comfortable strategy and she’d used it often before. Maintain a distance, don’t speak of those deeper things that fluttered inside like fledgling birds. But with Cooper she found herself yearning to open herself fully, to let him see and feel and share all her thoughts and emotions and everything that made Ruby who she was. Deep breath, exhaling in a slow, deliberate gust. “I... I’ve been thinking that Peter was very certain our attacker was not Lester Walker.”

  Slowly, in painful increments, his eyes swiveled to meet hers. They were
not filled with the anger she had dreaded, only a wide river of fear coursing through their depths. “You’re going to ask him about it, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “I’m sure it’s not anything to worry about, but I do anyway. No amount of prayer seems to sponge that feeling away. It’s a burden I wrestle with every day.”

  He looked so downtrodden, she embraced him then, pressing her cheek to his, desiring to ease the pain of the past. “You love him. That’s enough.”

  He clutched at her, pressing his face into her neck, arms tight around her waist. “Ruby, my brother didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve got to believe that.”

  She was not sure whether he was trying to convince himself, or her. The only thing that mattered was comforting him, taking some of the anguish on her own shoulders. “Do you want me to come with you when you talk to him?”

  “I should do it myself, it’s my family shame we’re dealing with and I should want you as far away as possible.”

  Her breath caught.

  “But I find myself wanting you with me every moment, even when the moments are bad.”

  His eyes held hers, his grip around her waist gentling, and he leaned down toward her. “Ruby, there is something indescribably beautiful about you that I can’t get enough of.”

  A cascade of longing, fear and sweetness coalesced in her belly. She wanted to say something flip, a clever witticism to break the wonderful, terrible intensity she felt inside. Then his mouth covered hers and his kiss touched her deep inside, in the lonely darkness where no light could find its way. She felt transported to another place where love was stronger than loss.

  “I have to find out the truth,” he whispered. “And I want you with me.”

  Though her knees wobbled from the aftermath of the kiss, she followed him as he took her hand and walked toward his truck. Breathing hard and trying to unmuddle the mess of tangled emotions inside, she almost plowed into him from behind when he stopped suddenly.

  “What’s that?”

  She followed his gaze to a scrap of paper tacked to the small announcement board where they posted pictures of the new hatchlings and informational flyers for people to take.