Grave Risk

by Hannah Alexander

  Junior Short was a below-average student in most subjects, but he was a popular football player, brawny and unafraid of any opponent. His IQ was, interesting enough, quite above average. There was no reason for his low grades. He just never tried.

  Jed Marshall had had the highest grades, and he especially excelled in math and science classes. He, too, seemed interested in politics, and was class president their senior year in high school. Sad that now, he had attained no higher status than that of Hideaway’s city clerk.

  She upturned the envelope, and a small button clattered out onto the coffee table. It was the color and shape of a bluebird.

  What on earth could this be?

  Jill checked her clock and found she just had time to get to the clinic if she left now.

  She’d have to continue this search later. She picked up the button and slipped it into her pocket. For some reason, it intrigued her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fawn turned off Highway 76 onto Y toward Hideaway, tired of being quiet while Blaze sat in the passenger seat, doing his homework. She wanted to talk. He’d been preoccupied on his cell phone throughout the whole forty-five-minute drive to school this morning, talking to a worried farmer with a colicky newborn calf.

  Okay, so Karah Lee always pointed out that for Fawn it was a thirty-five-minute drive. But they’d been running late this morning, thanks to a sick piglet at the ranch.

  Blaze was a man in demand, and word had spread about his special ability with animals. Some of the other students at College of the Ozarks were calling him Dr. Dolittle, because one day during a break at school, he’d been sitting on a bench overlooking Lake Taneycomo, and a squirrel had jumped right up on his lap.

  Of course, as soon as the poor animal realized it was sitting on a human lap, it went flying off, tail twitching in every direction at once. It nearly hurtled off the cliff into the water before it came to its senses and scrambled up a nearby tree, its outraged chatter echoing across the lake.

  Fawn and Blaze shared rides to school when their classes and work shifts coincided, like today. He’d long ago learned to keep his mouth shut about her driving, unlike Karah Lee.

  “Aren’t you done with that assignment yet?” she asked, slowing to take a curve.

  “Just about. It’d be easier if the ride was smoother, you know.”

  She grimaced. Okay, so he didn’t always keep his mouth shut. “Did you know Jill called the sheriff to her house yesterday?”

  Blaze looked up from his sheet of paper at last, his espresso-dark eyes suddenly filled with alarm. “Why?”

  “She thinks somebody was in the house while she was at the funeral.”

  “Poor Jill. She’s been so shook about Edith.”

  “And about…men,” Fawn said.

  “How do you know that?”

  Fawn shrugged, picking up speed as she reached one of the few straightaways on this road. “A woman knows these things. You men just don’t always get it.”

  She could feel, rather than see, the grin spread across his face. He loved to argue. “We men know some things. Who was the one that brought Dane and Cheyenne together?”

  “Dane and Cheyenne brought themselves together. Don’t flatter yourself that you had anything to do with it.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She glanced sideways at him. His thick, dark brows were drawn together in a feigned glare. “Yeah.”

  “A lot you know,” he said. “I had everything to do with it.”

  “The way I heard the story from Bertie, you nearly ruined the relationship before it began,” Fawn said.

  “I wasn’t the one who sprayed Dane in the face with Mace. Cheyenne did that her own self. And they aren’t the only ones the great Dr. Blaze brought together. Who else could have convinced Taylor and Karah Lee even to speak to each other?”

  Fawn slowed the car to keep the tires from squealing around a curve. “Well. I’ll have to admit you helped me with that one.”

  He laughed out loud. “Helped! I’m telling you, all the primping and haircuts and dresses in the world wouldn’t’ve done any good if I hadn’t dragged Taylor to her side at Cheyenne and Dane’s wedding.” He returned his attention to his school work.

  “Okay, so that one was a team effort,” Fawn said, unwilling to allow silence to settle in the car again. “You could help me make sure that relationship keeps going in the right direction.”

  He looked up again, obviously intrigued. “How’s that? Are they fighting?”

  “No, but they’re going to need all the help they can get after the wedding vows are said. You know how bullheaded they can both be. Help me convince Bertie that I’d be a great help to her at the bed and breakfast.”

  Blaze frowned. “You’re already working part-time for her. And what does your working for Bertie have to do with Taylor and Karah Lee?”

  “I’m looking to earn myself a partnership and help Bertie shoulder the load of that place. In return, I’ll ask for room and board.”

  “What! Fawn Morrison, you’ve done lost your mind.”

  She should have known he’d argue about that, too. “What’s so hard to believe about that? I could help run things now,” she said. “Learn everything I’d need to know about the business, then when Bertie decides she doesn’t want to fight it anymore, I could maybe take it over for her, buy it from her as I get the money.”

  “You don’t have time for that. How’re you going to finish college and work the place at the same time?”

  “I don’t have to take as many hours a semester. I can do this. I know I can.” She glanced over to find him glaring at her.

  “You’re willing to stay in school for six years or more, and expect Bertie to work that much longer, just so you can take over her business?”

  Stung, Fawn returned the glare. “You act like you think I’m trying to get a free ride from Bertie.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. Besides, no way Karah Lee’s going to let you do that.”

  “Karah Lee shouldn’t have to support me for years while I piddle away my time in classrooms, learning stuff I don’t even need to know.”

  For a few seconds, they exchanged glare for glare, until Blaze returned his attention to the road. “Watch where you’re going!”

  She swerved to miss an oncoming car and returned to her own lane.

  For a few seconds there was silence in the car, then Blaze said softly, “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He leaned toward her. “You don’t think you deserve the time and money Karah Lee’s spending on your support.”

  “I got used to supporting myself, I guess.”

  “Not the right way, you didn’t.”

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel so she wouldn’t reach across and smack him.

  “You never had much chance to be a teenager, except for this past year,” he said. “Why don’t you give yourself more time to do that?”

  “Like I told Bertie, Karah Lee and Taylor aren’t going to want me hanging around after they get married. Newlyweds need time alone. I’m a big girl, and I don’t need a mommy to wipe my nose and pay my way.”

  “How do you think that’s going to make Karah Lee feel, after all the time she’s spent loving you and supporting you?” Blaze asked. “It’ll be like you’re spitting in her face.”

  “She knows I wouldn’t do that.”

  “And you should know she wouldn’t want you to throw away all the time and effort she’s put into getting you into school.”

  “But it’s a work study. She doesn’t have to pay my tuition. And I’m good at these kinds of things, Blaze. I’m planning a wedding, aren’t I? All by myself. And I’m doing a good job, even after they decided to change the date.”

  “They decided to change the date because they knew you weren’t going to have it ready in time for the original plan.”

  Fawn gasped and glared at him.

  He stomped his
own imaginary brake, eyes widening at the road. “Look out!”

  She recovered from the blow of his revelation in time to slam on the brakes and squeal around the tight curve in the road. “You’re lying to me!”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  She couldn’t believe how much that hurt. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut. For the whole year she’d been here, she’d felt like a useless kid who’d messed up her whole life and had to have strangers rescue her. With the wedding, she’d felt as if she was finally giving something back to the one who had supported and helped her the most. And now? Had she ruined Karah Lee’s plans?

  “Cheyenne just convinced Karah Lee and Taylor to have the wedding at the festival, the way Cheyenne and Dane did last year,” she told Blaze.

  “I’m not saying it was a bad idea, but I heard Karah Lee telling Cheyenne she was going to have to postpone the wedding because she didn’t want you stressed out over everything. You know she wants you to be able to concentrate in college. Don’t go disappointing her. And don’t get Bertie’s hopes up.”

  “I’ve already talked to Bertie about it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  Fawn pressed the accelerator down a fraction of an inch.

  “Slow this car down or I’m not ridin’ with you again,” Blaze said. “Bertie thinks you’re crazy, too, right?”

  Fawn glowered at the road. “Blaze Farmer, you’re a jerk. She does not think I’m crazy, she thinks I’m too young. But I’m not. I could stay right here and earn my room and board. I don’t want to end up like Sheena, living with her mother and father for what looks like might be the rest of her life. I mean, there comes a time when a woman needs to be independent, stand on her own feet and stop letting others coddle her.”

  “Yeah, a woman, not a kid.”

  She felt the heat rise up her neck and spread across her face. “You think I’m a kid.”

  He groaned. “Fawn, you’re barely eighteen. Girls your age shouldn’t have to take on the whole world to make a living. Don’t rush into a decision that could affect your life and Bertie’s, too.”

  “You are such a jerk. You’re hardly older than me.”

  “If I’m a jerk, at least I’m an honest jerk, and I’m too good a friend to let you rush into something you can’t handle.”

  “You don’t know what I can handle.” Jerk.

  “You think Sheena needs to move out?”

  Sure, change the subject when it got too hard. “I’m saying I wouldn’t want her life. And I sure wouldn’t want her parents.” And right now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep Blaze for a friend.

  Fawn covered the final three miles to Hideaway in irritable silence.

  On Thursday evening after work, Jill sat on one of the two wooden chairs on the deck of Karah Lee’s cabin on the grounds of the Lakeside Bed and Breakfast. Droplets from her wet hair drenched the shoulders of her scrub top, a comforting coolness that gave her a break from the lingering heat of the day.

  A company of ducks paddled across the lake to the opposite shore, chattering amongst themselves as if they knew something she didn’t. The stretch of Table Rock Lake that surrounded Hideaway peninsula on three sides had been a meandering river until the dam had been built. This peninsula had once been a hilly ridge.

  The glass door slid open, and Fawn Morrison stepped onto the wooden deck, carrying a wire basket of beauty supplies, a plastic cape and a pair of beautician’s scissors. Her usual smile was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she looked downright broody, her cheeks a little too pink, her pale-blond eyebrows lowered in a near glare.

  “Looks like you brought out the whole arsenal.” And those weapons in the hands of an irritable young woman tended to make Jill nervous. “I only agreed to a simple haircut.”

  “I’ll take what I can get,” Fawn muttered.

  “And you’re sure you know how to cut my hair? Mine is different from Karah Lee’s. The texture and curl and—”

  “Trust me.” Gone was the normal, teasing lilt that typified Fawn’s speech. “I’ve done Bertie’s hair and Edith’s, and one time I even trimmed Sheena’s.”

  “But my hair is more difficult to—”

  “And I taught Karah Lee how to do her makeup and pluck her eyebrows and—”

  “Don’t want to go there.”

  Fawn dropped her things with a clunk onto the round, glass-topped table beside Jill’s chair. “Fine. I guess you feel the same way everyone else in this town feels about me. I’m just an incompetent kid who can’t do anything right.”

  “Whoa. Hold it.” Jill pulled the other chair out and indicated that Fawn should sit down beside her. “Did somebody else suddenly inhabit Fawn Morrison’s body? Where’d this attitude come from?” She had never seen this kind of behavior in the fourteen or so months Fawn had lived in Hideaway.

  Fawn slumped down, arms crossed over her chest, obviously unhappy. “Did Karah Lee tell you I messed up her wedding date because I couldn’t get it planned in time?”

  Uh-oh. Nerves were stretching thin as the wedding date drew nearer. “Is that what you heard?”

  Fawn’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t stall on me. I asked you what she said.”

  And then she burst into tears.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rex stepped out of the clinic into warm sunshine, and nearly collided with Cecil Martin, who looked wide-eyed and worried. The elderly man quickstepped along the sidewalk, gray hair—what there was of it—flying in the breeze, as he cast an occasional glance over his shoulder.

  “Everything okay, Cecil?” Rex called out to the already retreating figure.

  The old man glanced back at him without slowing down. “Yep, got to keep a move on, get back to the store, you know. Can’t keep the customers waiting.”

  “How long will you be open tonight?” Rex called after him.

  “At least until seven,” Cecil called back. “Maybe later, depending on when I find time to do more stocking.” He gave a wave over his shoulder.

  Austin Barlow sauntered along in Cecil’s wake, cowboy hat perched at an angle on his head to best thwart the still-bright sun, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. For some reason, at least three people had seen fit to point Austin out to Rex this week, and explain that Austin and Jill had once been an “item.”

  Austin nodded at Rex, then glanced toward Cecil with the expression of a serious fisherman who had let a big one get away. He shrugged, slowed his steps. “Say, aren’t you that fella who came to turn our clinic into a hospital?”

  “That’s right.” Obviously, people had also been as eager to point Rex out to Austin.

  Austin stopped and held his hand out to Rex. “Barlow’s the name. Austin Barlow.”

  “Rex Fairfield.” Rex shook. The man had an overfirm grip, as if he had spent a lot of years attempting to establish his boundaries, and had never quite overcome the need to intimidate.

  “I hear there’s a title attached to that name. You’re a doctor, right?”

  “You can call me Rex.”

  “You planning to establish hours of your own once you get settled?”

  “Hadn’t considered it.”

  Austin tilted his hat back a little, as if to get a better look at Rex—or maybe to give Rex a better look at him. “I heard you’ve had some experience with Hideaway in the past.”

  “I’ve visited here before, many years ago.”

  “That’s what I heard. Visited quite a few times, from the sound of it.” His lips tilted in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “That’s right.”

  Austin held his gaze longer than was necessary. Rex had never been fond of playing the macho games of domination, but he could hold his own. Austin looked away first.

  The clinic door opened, and Cheyenne stepped out. “Well, there you are, Austin Barlow. I saw you at the funeral yesterday, but didn’t get a chance to speak with you.”

  Austin removed his hat and nodded to her, suddenly all warmth and welcome.
“You’re looking better than ever, Cheyenne.”

  Was that a blush Rex saw on the man’s face? And did he hear a sudden strain of shyness in Austin’s voice?

  “I’d like to come by and talk with you and Dane sometime when you have a few minutes to spare,” Austin said.

  “Just give us a call.” Cheyenne studied him for a brief moment. “Austin, are you…is everything okay with you?”

  The man looked away, then back, and his smile suddenly seemed forced. “Right as rain today. No need to worry about me.” He excused himself, nodded to them both again, and headed toward the general store.

  It seemed his prey had not eluded him permanently—if, indeed, he was pursuing Cecil Martin.

  “Austin’s sick,” Cheyenne said.

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “No, he would never do that. He’s one of the biggest chauvinists I’ve ever known. Even though he was very friendly to me when I first came to Hideaway, I don’t think he ever took me seriously as a physician until he thought I was going to leave. I can’t see him ever willingly admitting to a weakness to a female physician.”

  “How can you tell he’s sick?”

  “He’s lost at least forty pounds,” she said. “And you can’t possibly have missed those circles beneath his eyes.”

  “From what I’ve heard, he’s had a difficult couple of years. That could cause weight loss and baggy eyes.”

  She watched until Austin disappeared through the front door of the general store. “He’s trying to convince people around here that he’s a changed man. I’m beginning to think he’s actually telling the truth.” She shook her head and turned to walk across the street in the direction of the municipal boat dock, where her boat awaited to take her across the lake to the ranch.

  Rex walked with her. “Because you think he’s sick?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something disturbing him. He’s anxious about something.”

  “Could it be bad news about his son?”

  “I hope not.” Her steps slowed when she reached the other side of the street. “I’d just like to know what it is.”