On Deadly Ground

by Lauren Nichols

  “No, we don’t need to talk. I understand why you said no.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” he returned honestly. “I’m sorry. I was lousy company tonight.”

  “It’s okay. You had a long day.”

  Yes, he had, but that wasn’t why he’d been distant. And it wasn’t okay. “Look,” he said quietly, “on Thursday, a wildlife biologist, wildlife vet and I are taking a bunch of sixth graders out in the field, hopefully to collar and tag a couple of elk calves. I think I told you about the four-year mortality study the game commission’s doing.”

  “Yes, you mentioned it.”

  “Would you like to join us? I know you have a lot to do before your opening, but if you can get away for a couple of hours, I think you’d enjoy it.”

  The relief in her voice was nearly palpable, and once again, he felt like a jerk for making her worry.

  “I’d like that. What time and where should I meet you?”

  The sun was still trying to burn off the morning fog Thursday as Rachel stood with biologist Tom Keene and veterinarian Chaz Haskell, watching Jake line up fifteen smiling, excited sixth graders at the top of a grassy field. Alex Liston and another teacher took their places at the opposite end of the long horizontal line.

  “Okay,” Jake instructed. “We’re all going to walk slowly, quietly and carefully down through the high grass—all the way to the road. While their mothers are away, newborns lie flat on the ground in ‘hider position’ so they don’t reveal their presence to a potential predator. Sometimes they don’t even blink an eye. If you spot one, say, ‘Calf on the ground.’ Then we’ll all circle the calf to discourage it from running, and Dr. Haskell, Mr. Keene and I will take over. Any questions?”

  A ponytailed girl raised her hand. “Can we touch the calves?”

  “Sorry, but no. We don’t want to traumatize them any more than we have to.”

  “We can take pictures, though, right?” a freckle-faced kid in a baseball cap asked.

  “Sure, that’s what you’re here for. To learn and have fun. But wait until I give the word.”

  To Rachel’s delight, it didn’t take long for the first calf to be located—all splayed out and stone-still against the ground. They walked toward it. Suddenly, it scrambled to its feet—tried to run. At a quick sprint, Jake restrained it, then eased it back on the ground. He gave the word, and a dozen cameras came out of pockets and fanny packs.

  He was a cutie, Rachel decided, liking the gentle way Jake and his crew covered its eyes, then laid the spotted, copper-colored calf on a net and hooked the net to a suspension scale to be weighed. Jake lifted the calf off the ground. Amazingly, the little guy remained relatively calm.

  “Forty-two pounds,” Haskell said.

  “Pretty big baby, isn’t it?” Jake said to the elated kids. “And he’s only a few days old.”

  He sent Rachel a private smile, and she smiled back. Like wild horses out west, the massive elk and their offspring were natural treasures, and brought a vital majesty to the county forests … just as the tall man sharing this moment with her brought something vital to Rachel.

  Jake turned the calf over to the vet and biologist, then moved to Rachel’s side. He addressed the teachers and kids again while Haskell and Keene examined the calf, and fitted him with an ear tag and a yellow radio collar. “Every collar transmits a different signal to the game commission’s telemetry equipment. Now we’ll be able to pinpoint his location and check him periodically—make sure he’s healthy and doing well. Questions?”

  A hand went up. “He’s going to get big. Won’t he choke if the collar gets too tight?”

  Jake smiled. “He’ll be fine. The collar’s expandable. The stitching will break away as he grows.”

  After the kids had snapped a few more photos and named their calf, Rachel smiled along with the others as “Jimmy” ran up the hill where his nervous mother stood watching.

  Jake spoke quietly to Rachel. “Glad you came?” He wore his tan uniform today.

  “Very,” she replied, glad to be talking again without that clenching uneasiness. She hadn’t realized how important his friendship was to her until he’d left the night before last and she’d felt an acute sense of loss. It had still taken her a half hour to gather enough courage to call him. “I have to say that Jimmy was a lot cuter before he was fitted with the ear tag and collar, though.”

  “True. Unfortunately, that’s the way it has to be.” He nodded toward the kids and professionals who were gearing up to walk the next field. “Ready to try again?”

  “Absolutely,” Rachel replied with a smile. And she wasn’t referring to spotting newborn calves.

  Late that afternoon, after Haskell, Keene and the teachers and students had gone, Rachel watched Jake toss the suspension scale into the back of his truck, then return to where she stood beside her red Explorer. She liked the way he moved. Unhurried, yet with purpose. A light breeze tempered the afternoon heat and tossed his dark brown hair.

  “Three calves,” he said. “Not bad for this early in the birthing season. Nice of the weatherman to give us a good day. We should thank him.”

  “Wrong. The weatherman didn’t supply the blue skies and sunshine.” She pointed skyward. “He did.”

  For a second, Jake seemed at a loss for words. Then he grinned and tapped her sunburned nose. “Planning to thank Him for your sunburn, too? You’re going to look like Rudolph after the sun sets.”

  “I thank Him for everything.” She paused. “But I get the feeling you don’t.”

  Jake leaned a hip against the red SUV’s front fender. “I’m just not … churchy.”

  “Were you ever?”

  He thought about that. “Yeah, I guess so. I was raised a Christian. My dad’s an agnostic, but my mom made sure Carrie, Greg and I attended services. Things changed for me after my sister was killed, though.”

  “You blamed God.”

  “You bet. I couldn’t believe He’d allow something like that to happen to her. Then, when I was through being mad … I guess I just stopped caring. Faith wasn’t high on my priority list then anyway. I was sixteen and into friends, girls and every sport you can name.” He shrugged. “After that, the distractions of daily living pretty much pushed religion to the background. People get busy, Rachel.”

  She didn’t understand that. She’d never be too busy for God. She needed the peace that came with being a woman of faith. “No problem,” she returned smiling. “He’ll be there for you the next time you need Him.” She hesitated for a moment, then her nosy self asked the question. “So … the next time you planned to be in a church was on your wedding day?”

  He raised a dark eyebrow, but he still replied, “That was the plan.”

  “Can I ask why it didn’t work out?”

  He smiled. “You can ask, but it’s not something I feel comfortable talking about with you, so you won’t be getting an answer. Let’s just say that I’m now one of those confirmed bachelors you’ve heard about.”

  The smart thing to do was to back off. But after the hurt—or anger—she’d heard in his voice a few days ago, she knew he was still coming to terms with whatever had happened. “Would you feel better discussing it with someone else?”

  Jake straightened from the car and met her eyes, though not in an adversarial way. “Why do you think I need to talk to anyone?”

  “So you can move on and be happy.”

  “I have moved on. I am happy. But you know what would make me even happier?”

  She waited expectantly. “What?”

  “Helping you paint the bathhouses a little later. This field trip cost you a whole day’s work, and I’m feeling guilty about it. I need to make it up to you.”

  Rachel sighed. Once again, he was tabling the discussion. And that’s his prerogative, a small voice reminded her. “This trip didn’t cost me anything. I had fun, and I loved being up close and personal with the elk calves. As for the bathhouses … thanks for offering, but I
finished them yesterday.”

  “I see. Then you’re totally ready to open Memorial Day weekend.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I wish.” There was still an enormous amount of work to do.

  “That’s what I thought. I saw a case of cedar stain near a stack of cartons when I was in your store the other day. I assume the stain’s for the picnic tables at the campsites.”

  “It is. The tables get a fresh coat every season. It’s time consuming, but it’s a lot cheaper than replacing them.”

  “Then I’ll see you after I write my report and take care of a couple of things. Okay?”

  With all the work ahead of her, and her summer help not showing up for two weeks, it would be lunacy to refuse. But since Tuesday night, she’d felt as though she were walking an emotional tightrope. Worse, she didn’t know if the tension was her own doing or his. She glanced at her wristwatch: twelve-forty. “You’re sure you don’t have work of your own to do?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then I accept.” She opened her car door. “I have to run a few errands in town and pick up some things for the store. But I should be back by four.”

  “Great. I’ll see you then.”

  Rachel watched him walk to the green truck with the PA Game Commission logo on the side, unable to look away from his broad shoulders and loose, confident gait. Then she slipped inside her Explorer, started the engine and drove off, wishing she could see inside his head. Wishing he’d tell her what he was thinking and feeling. Jake Campbell was the most guarded man she’d ever known.

  He was also the most intriguing.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” Rachel said an hour later as she followed Jenna Harper outside to the B & B’s wide wraparound porch. She’d missed her sounding board and best friend. “Did you have fun?”

  “I did,” Jenna replied with a smile. “It was great to spend time with my mom, but she’s a busy bee, and any more than a week with me would’ve had her climbing the walls. She’s used to being out and about.”

  “Which you can’t do.”

  Jenna sent her an uneasy look. “Not in Michigan.”

  Not here in Charity either. Most people had something in their past they wish they could change—baggage they couldn’t unload. But her beautiful friend’s was as bad as it got without costing a life.

  Jenna set a tray holding frosted glasses of lemonade and a small basket of tiny orange muffins on the glass-topped white-wicker table, then crossed to the porch’s edge to lower a sun-shading white vinyl blind. “But even if I’d felt comfortable running to the malls or whatever with my mom, I had to get back.” She joined Rachel on the wicker sofa. “With tourist season on the way, it’s going to get busy around here. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.”

  “Around here” was Jenna’s Blackberry Hill Bed and Breakfast, a lovely pink-and-white Victorian inn with loads of white gingerbread surrounded by rhododendrons and azaleas that were just beginning to bloom. Although she, Jenna and Margo McBride Blackburn had been best friends all through high school, they’d lost touch after Jenna and her mother moved to Michigan. Jenna had returned to Charity a little over two years ago to buy and manage her great-aunt Molly Jennings’s B & B, but it wasn’t by choice. She didn’t talk about the jealous ex-suitor who’d stabbed her. But Jenna believed he was still out there somewhere, eluding the police and waiting for an opportunity to finish what he’d started. Jenna was running.

  “I imagine reservations are pouring into the campground, too. Are you ready?”

  Rachel took a sip of lemonade. “I’m getting there. I have vendors to call, supplies to shelve and some staining to do—and the game room could use a coat of paint. But I’ll get it done.” She frowned. “Doesn’t look like my putt-putt course will open anytime soon, though.”

  Jenna nodded. “So I’ve heard. I stopped at the hardware store when I got back yesterday, and Ben mentioned Tim Decker’s troubles. He seemed to think I had the inside track because we’re friends. Do the police have any leads?”

  “Not according to Tim. I saw him a few minutes ago. He said the bearings are shot in his machine—whatever that means. But his second dozer should be free in a week, so he hopes to get back to my project then.”

  Jenna offered the muffins to Rachel, but she thanked her and declined. She took another sip of her lemonade, then felt a silly flutter in her stomach as she began hesitantly. “You remember my neighbor Jake Campbell, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Nice guy.” Jenna’s blue eyes danced beneath her side-swept dark blond bangs as she amended her description. “Nice, tall, good-looking, muscular guy. Or am I thinking of someone else?”

  Feeling her cheeks warm, Rachel said, “No, I think we’re talking about the same man.”

  “Okay. What about him? Is something going on?”

  “I don’t know,” she returned quietly. “Maybe. It’s just so hard to get past …”

  Jenna nodded her understanding. “David.”

  Rachel felt her throat tighten. “I still miss him, Jen. I can’t imagine ever not missing him.”

  “I know. The two of you were good together. But now there’s Jake.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you feel guilty.”

  Rachel nodded. “I like him. He makes me feel good just being around him. He’s fun and he’s smart … and caring about him feels so wrong and so right at the same time.”

  Jenna squeezed Rachel’s hand and she squeezed back, relieved to finally be talking about her feelings for him.

  “Can I say something without making you cry?” Jenna asked.

  “Probably not,” Rachel returned, laughing a little and already seeing her friend through watery eyes. “But go ahead.”

  Jenna spoke softly. “Anyone who knew you and David could see the love you had for each other. But, honey, he can’t come back to you. That’s not the way life works.” Jenna sent her a sad smile as tears spilled over Rachel’s cheeks. “A love that big isn’t selfish. David adored you. He’d want you to be happy, wouldn’t he?” Drawing a trembling breath, Rachel nodded. But knowing that and acting on that knowledge were two very different things.

  Later, wrapped in the variegated blue afghan her grandmother had crocheted, Rachel sat on her deck, curled in a redwood lounge chair, staring through a break in the trees above her driveway. Overhead in the inky blackness, a plane on a night flight blinked red and green, momentarily distracting her from God’s magnificent light show. She’d doused all the lights in her home except for the forty-watt bulb glowing in her over-the-range microwave, and the stars seemed to shimmer and gleam in stereo. It was a perfect night for soul searching … a perfect night to consider questions that had caromed around in her mind since her visit with Jenna.

  “What do I do about this, God?’ she murmured. “I loved David with all my heart. You know that. But Jenna’s right. He wouldn’t want me to give up a chance at happiness. That’s the kind of man he was, and it’s what I would have wanted for him if our lives—our deaths—had been reversed.” She watched the plane disappear behind the trees—searched for God in the stars. “As for Jake … You saw him tonight, staining my picnic tables, then leaving and bringing back pizza. But I don’t know if he’s being a good neighbor, if he’s still in protective mode, or something else. And is this the right time for ‘something else'?”

  Fireflies flitted in the air, their tiny beacons flashing in the darkness—but throwing no light at all on her conflicted thoughts. She shifted on the lounger, pulled her bare feet up under the afghan. “His broken engagement soured him on marriage, so he’s not looking for anything permanent. I get that.” But what happened if she began to care about Jake too deeply? Even though her own lack of decisiveness still had her emotionally shackled, she wasn’t sure how she felt about a surface relationship with him. What if she would always be someone he could enjoy chicken and ice cream with, believing she’d never want or expect anything more?

  A loud bang and crash came from
under her deck. Jumping up, Rachel waved a hand to turn on her motion lights and rushed down the steps in time to see—as she expected—two bristly lumps hurry away from her trash cans. Raccoons. You’d think they’d realize that when the trash cans were outside, they were empty. The best defense against marauding animals was to keep refuse inside until the morning that it was collected—which had happened today. But she’d failed to return the cans to her mud room.

  So much for a night of soul searching.

  Moving inside, then descending her basement steps, she unlocked the ground-level door, lugged the trash cans back inside and locked up again. Maybe all that noise was her cue to get some sleep. Jake wasn’t the only one who’d had a long, tiring day. She was slowly finding out that emotional stress could be just as draining.

  A few hours later, she was thoroughly annoyed to realize she was coming awake again and tried to fight it. She burrowed deeper into her pillow, tried to concentrate on the dream she’d left behind. It was a good one. She and Jenna were crocheting baby booties, but she didn’t know who they were for. She drew a breath—coughed. Coughed again. She would go back to sleep. She couldn’t keep—

  Rachel bolted upright in bed, alarm bells clanging in her head. She flew to her bedroom window and saw flames licking upward over the siding.

  Dear God! Her house was on fire!

  FIVE

  Terrified, Rachel ran to her nightstand, grabbed her cordless handset and raced for the living room. Suddenly, her smoke and heat detectors began to beep and scream. She punched in 9-1-1—jerked the phone to her ear. No dial tone! Her panic escalated. Rushing to her kitchen phone, she yanked the receiver off the hook and released another frightened breath. Still no dial tone!

  Her thoughts ran wild. Save what you can! No! Get out, get out! Then: the camp store has a phone! The smoke was faint, and the fire was at the rear corner of the house. She had time. Rachel was through the patio door in seconds and bolting down the steps. She hit the driveway’s limestone chips at a run. Behind her, motion lights clicked on.