“Are you coming or not?”
“I…I…” Was he asking her to join him?
“Come on, if you don’t want to be alone.” He turned toward her and pointed at her shoes. “We won’t walk far. Your shoes aren’t made for hiking.”
“Hiking?” she sputtered.
“Yes, hiking.” He growled with apparent irritation. “I need some fresh air. I don’t like being cooped up for very long.”
“You don’t mind me going along?” Maybe she was invading his privacy.
“Yes, I do, but I don’t seem to have a choice,” he barked at her.
“Well, go on then,” she barked back. “I’ll be just fine by myself. I’ll just lock myself in my room.”
“A little paranoid, aren’t you?”
She turned her head, so he wouldn’t see the tears that welled in her eyes.
“Aw now, don’t do that.” Was that disgust in his tone?
“I’ll cry if I want to, you big bully.”
“Well, come on. I don’t want you crying by yourself.”
Without another word, she walked the short distance to where he stood. He waited for her to catch up with him before he started at a brisk pace.
What had she gotten herself into? She didn’t know whether she’d like walking in the woods or not. She was a city girl. He’d probably walk so fast she couldn’t keep up, then she’d probably get lost in the woods, they’d have to get search and rescue out looking for her, her face would be all over the news, and then she’d have to move again. She considered her last thought. Maybe moving wasn’t such a bad idea.
To her delight, he kept his pace even with hers, although he didn’t utter a single word on the walk. Anger radiated from him. Was he mad at her? Or the cop? Or both of them?
When he finally stopped, she gasped in surprise at the gorgeous cascading waterfall that bounced down the jagged side of the cliff wall. “Wow! That’s beautiful. And so close to the house.”
He grabbed her hand as they crossed a meandering stream. “You didn’t know the waterfall was here? It’s on your property.”
“It is?”
“You haven’t done much hiking, have you?”
Maybe the tease in his voice meant his anger was subsiding. He released her hand, and she wished he’d hold it again.
“No, I haven’t.”
She sat down on a nearby rock and absorbed the scenery around her. The air still held a bit of a chill. She pulled her sweater closer around her. Large boulders jutted out of the landscape. Plants of all varieties poked the first green shoots of spring up between the crevices. A bird perched on a nearby tree limb and warbled a merry tune. She inhaled a refreshing breath.
“I’ve done a lot of hiking around here. It’s peaceful in the morning before all the day-hikers hit the trails. It gives me time to think without some female barking orders at me.”
“I don’t bark,” she said without any irritation.
A break in the rocks and trees gave her a clear view across the valley toward the rolling hills in the distance. She estimated they had climbed about a couple hundred feet in altitude.
She glanced at him, and he smiled. Calm settled across his features. He was more relaxed than she had ever seen him. He sat on the rock next to her, and she had to scoot over so he could park his behind on the small surface beside her.
“You glad you came?”
“Yeah.” She was, even though her feet were already angry with her for hiking in tight shoes.
“There’s a place down Highway 7 that has a natural bridge. You think you’d like to go see it sometime?” Hope seemed to flicker in his eyes.
“Yeah, that sounds nice.” She’d make sure she wore shoes that were better for walking.
“Okay, then.” He turned his attention toward the far distance.
She studied his profile, wondering what thoughts cavorted through his convoluted mind. He was a strange man, hard to get to know. She still knew very little about him, except that he’d been in prison and he knew Rand.
Should she brave pushing him to reveal his past to her? What harm could a little nudge do? He wanted her to trust him. How could she get to that place if she didn’t know him? Who was Chase Brennan?
“I guess this is the opposite of being locked up, huh?”
“Exactly.” He smiled.
She grabbed her bottom lip with her teeth. His answer was unsatisfactory. She needed him to elaborate. Sadness overwhelmed her. What if he never revealed himself to her?
“What’s got you so sad all of a sudden?”
So he had noticed her change in mood. Could he read her that well? She couldn’t read him at all.
“I was just thinking about Rand. He’s in prison, and he’ll never get out. He must long for the wide, open spaces.”
“Yes, I imagine he does.” His answer held no sympathy for Rand.
Chase’s harsh attitude grated on her nerves. It wasn’t that she was sympathetic toward Rand on any level. She had merely offered an observation on how much Rand had screwed up his life. Why did Chase have to make everything an indictment of Rand’s character? She had the sudden urge to defend Rand...at least the Rand she used to know before he turned into a monster.
“You know, he wasn’t such a bad guy when I first met him. He changed when he started dealing drugs.”
“You don’t say.” Chase’s lack of sympathy had turned sarcastic.
“He learned how to manipulate. The power to intimidate people messed with him. He didn’t used to be that way. When I first met him, he—”
“There’s right and there’s wrong. Rand is wrong.”
“You remind me so much of him sometimes it hurts.”
Once the comment passed her lips, she couldn’t take it back. But it was true. Chase was a lighter version of Rand’s darkness. Strong willed as opposed to stubborn. Authoritative as opposed to opinionated. Determined as opposed to inflexible. Persuasive as opposed to manipulative. Reticent as opposed to deceptive.
He jumped to his feet. “How can you compare me to him?” He stood over her, a tower of anger. “I’m not him, Laurel. I could never be like him. Yesterday, you said you hated him. Today, you’re defending him. What kind of psychological hold does he have on you? Did he brainwash you? Did he abuse you and make you think you deserved it? I would never abuse a woman...no matter how aggravating she was.”
His bluster wouldn’t dissuade her from her goal to get him to reveal himself to her. “How did you meet Rand? In prison?”
He picked up a rock and rolled it over and over in his hands. What did he intend to do with it? After a few long moments, he tossed it across the nearby creek and headed up the trail.
She double stepped to keep up with him. “Chase, answer me. I think you owe me an explanation.”
He turned and glared at her. “No, ma’am. I don’t owe you anything.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m still hanging around.”
She placed a trembling hand on his forearm. He flinched beneath her touch.
“Please don’t leave. I’m sorry I offended you.”
“I’m nothing like him. Never, ever say that again.”
He threw her hand off and resumed his march up the trail. She waited until he had a good head start before she followed him.
Chapter Eleven
Chase was bellowing, and he was taking a long time in her shower. She figured she had a half hour before he finished. When he emerged from the steam, he would be looking for something to eat. Maybe. He might ignore her like he had been doing for the last hour.
What had possessed her to suggest he was anything like Rand? If the man had even one ounce of decency in him, of course he’d be insulted. The fact that he hadn’t gotten into his truck and left as soon as he finished the hike meant something. Perhaps his reason for helping Rand was complex. She couldn’t assume Chase was a man like Rand just because he had agreed to do a job for him. Over the last few days, she had learned she couldn’t assume anything about Chase.
As she passed through the kitchen, she grabbed the high beam flashlight he had left on the kitchen counter. He wasn’t usually so lax in his habits. She wondered if he’d left it there on purpose knowing what she planned to do while he was showering. Surely, the man wasn’t a mind reader.
She hurried across the backyard and stopped in front of the garage, examining the busted lock with fascination. It was still shiny and new, although Grayson had rendered it useless. Someone had placed it there recently. She hadn’t. Who had? She removed the broken lock and tossed it to the ground. The cold metal between her fingers brought back too many memories. After Rand’s first attack, she had padlocked the garage door. It was only when she dared remove the lock and go back inside that he’d made his move on her again.
She looked right, then left, and then glanced at the house before she walked through the garage door. The flashlight spilled a dim glow across the interior, not quite reaching all the way into the corners. She had just enough daylight left before night plunged the garage into total darkness. She doubted if there would be enough moonlight to filter through the cracks in the garage walls. She didn’t want to be out after nightfall. She absolutely could not.
She had wanted to come back alone ever since the cop searched the garage. A piece of furniture stored in the far corner that had a bright blue tarp dangling from the top, half on, half off, had caught her attention. Why had Celeste put such a priceless antique in the garage?
It wasn’t the pricelessness or the antiquity of the armoire that had drawn her attention though. The armoire—or one just like it—had been a central element in her dreams many times. No, in her nightmares. She opened the door and peeked inside. Three small drawers clustered at the bottom left just as she remembered from her dreams. She pulled the bottom drawer out and gasped in surprise.
She withdrew first one picture and then another—the same pictures that inhabited her dreamscape. It was as if they had dropped from her nightmares into her hands, but she knew she wasn’t dreaming. In shock, she watched as the pictures fell onto the floor of the garage. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, staring at nothing in particular.
Night had fallen before she bent to retrieve the photos from the dusty floor. The shaking began in her extremities. How long had she been in shock? Too stunned to move? Would she start screaming in terror soon? Her cries for help always shook her out of the nightmare.
The urgent need to escape pulsed in every fiber of her being. She turned to leave just before the garage door slammed shut. The loud bang caused her to jump. The only illumination in the room wavered from the flashlight. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like enough.
She willed her stubborn legs to move toward the door and the relative safety outside in the waning evening light, longing for the warmth of her kitchen and the sound of Chase’s off-key caterwauling. She couldn’t get to the garage door fast enough. To her dismay, it wouldn’t budge. In a frenzy, she pushed on the flimsy wood, losing control quickly. Panic seized her from the inside out.
Memories long buried rushed her—kicks, punches, and slaps—things that only happened in locked garages. She felt the pain as surely as if someone was beating her, even though she was alone. Her fears wouldn’t stop pummeling her overwrought psyche.
She crumpled to the floor, whimpering and covering her head with her hands. “Don’t hit me.”
Chase’s voice seemed to come from a far off place, low and indistinct. “Laurel.”
He reached for her, but his touch pushed her further into hysteria.
“Laurel, it’s me, Chase.”
She pushed his hands off, backing away from him in terror.
“Stop…hitting…me.” She gasped a ragged breath with each word.
“I’m not hitting you. Stop screaming.”
Her eyes finally focused, and her mind cleared. “Chase?”
He was kneeling beside her, a concerned look on his face.
“I…I…” She couldn’t get her words past her swollen throat. “Panic attack.”
He pulled her into an embrace. “What are you doing out here alone?”
“I wanted to…” She didn’t want to talk about the armoire, the pictures, or the dreams. “I needed to see for myself.” A cryptic comment, considering she hadn’t explained anything to him.
“Come on. Stand up.” He pulled her to her feet. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”
“I was just remembering…”
The alarm on his face almost made her forget the tension between them.
Sudden understanding erupted in his eyes. “Did something bad happen to you in a garage?”
She shook her head. Not because he was wrong, but because she couldn’t face his questioning gaze. The memories surfacing sent waves of shock through her. Rand wasn’t the first to lock her in a garage and beat the crap out of her. Who had done that to her? The trauma tried to emerge, but perhaps too many years of repressing the pain had driven the event deep into her subconscious. The almost recollection receded and dimmed.
Chase was still trying to comfort her. “It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
She was so relieved he didn’t push for answers and so grateful he was there to rescue her from her darkest fears. His arms felt safe and comforting. Without warning, the waterworks began, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She clung to him as if she was afraid he’d disappear if she released her grip on him.
After a while, she pushed him away.
“Um…thanks,” she mumbled.
She glanced toward the door and her means of escape…escape from her fears, escape from her past, escape from him.
“Um…I’m going back to the house.”
“Okay.” His eyes reflected his apprehension.
He would want an explanation. It seemed they both had a lot of explaining to do.
She headed toward the house, not bothering to glance back to see if he followed her. The heavy tread of his boots pounded on the wood deck of the porch behind her as she entered the house.
“I’ll check the locks before I turn in.”
His husky voice flustered her. She refused to face him and raced up the back stairs before he could ask her any more embarrassing questions about what had happened in the garage.
****
Four hours later and unable to sleep, Chase lay on his lumpy, smelly bed in the room behind the front stairs. He’d dragged the mattress out of the attic yesterday. A strong whiff of mold hinted that the roof had leaked onto the bedding. He studied the stain overhead. It matched the amorphous blotch on the ceiling in the parlor. He’d have to climb onto the roof and check for leaks.
There was still a lot of work to do. Perhaps Laurel’s dream of opening the place up for guests had been a bit ambitious. Opening in time for tourist season was an impossible goal. He hadn’t had the heart to voice his opinion, and he was a jerk for allowing her decision to work in his favor, but her poor judgment had given him an excuse to be on the property.
Perhaps she was right. Maybe he was no better than Rand. Chase had manipulated Laurel and deceived her. Two primary skills in Rand’s skill set. Rand did whatever it took to get what he wanted. Never backed down if he thought he was right. Neither would Chase.
But then...Rand wasn’t right. Ever.
Chase didn’t understand how his father could have spawned two sons so similar, yet so different. How the same character trait could be revealed so differently in two people. He had always tried to do the right thing. His intentions had always been good even if the execution of them had been bad. Sometimes he did the wrong thing for the right reasons. He’d pushed ethical, legal, and moral limits when the end seemed to justify the means. Maybe his conscience should bother him, but it didn’t.
When he had found Laurel in the garage, hysterical and on her knees, she was both scared and humiliated. The day Grayson came out and wanted to search the place she had hung back. Her face had drained of color when she approached the ga
rage. Laurel had a history with garages, no doubt. He wished she’d told him what had happened.
Was she crying in her room? Alone and scared?
He wanted to spend the night with her again, not because she needed his comfort but because he needed to be with her. He rolled onto his side and tried to get comfortable, but no matter how he positioned himself, he couldn’t relax. Aching need throbbed throughout his whole body. Being with her because he needed the physical relief seemed a bit selfish under the circumstances. She danced back and forth over an ill-defined, thin line of sanity. He refused to be the man who pushed her over the edge.
Laurel wasn’t a woman he could easily walk away from. Nor was she a woman he could easily stay with. He needed her trust, and he was determined to prove he deserved it. He had to find a way to make her understand the reason he gave for staying was honest if not entirely honorable.
Thuds and bumps floated through the ductwork from the upper floor where she was supposedly getting ready for bed. At least, he hoped that was what she was doing. Except for her movements and the occasional creak of footsteps on the wood flooring, the house was quiet. Not even the furnace disturbed the heavy air. Tension vibrated in the atmosphere as if something could happen any second.
Perhaps anticipating paranormal activity had him spooked. He didn’t believe in such nonsense, yet so many odd disturbances in the house couldn’t be explained without considering the supernatural. Like the shove in the middle of his back and Laurel’s strange feeling of being held in suspended animation.
He wasn’t going to sleep with so many thoughts tumbling around in his head, so he tossed the thin sheet off and rose from the bed, stretching out the kinks caused by the bumps and dips in the mattress. Trudging across the house, he headed for the kitchen to get a bottle of water. His parched throat begged for refreshment. His hand was on the swinging door. Something didn’t feel right. Chase got the distinct impression he’d interrupted something…or someone.
He pushed open the door and peered into the dark kitchen. Nothing appeared to be moving or even out of place. He shrugged the sensation off and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
Laurel Heights (Haunted Hearts Series Book 1) Page 11
