But her heart ached in spite of all her logical, rational protestations. She was beginning to trust him. Even … need him. After three short days.
There was the danger. She didn’t want to need him. Her problems with Gary were none of his concern. The sooner she could dump her emotional baggage, the sooner she could help David move on to wherever it was he was supposed to go.
A wave of dizziness caught her unaware, and she closed her eyes. Thank God she had the day off; maybe she could get some sleep. Even Gary’s intrusion couldn’t eliminate that necessity. This time she’d be sure to lock the windows, and when she was rested she could think about the next step.
She got up to check the doors and windows, then went into the living room and collapsed on the sofa. There was someone else she had to think of—Megan, whom she was determined not to neglect in the midst of everything else.
Later today she’d visit again, check on the girl. Maybe she’d have better luck breaking through that tough shell. And Megan didn’t have to know anything about Gary or Jesse’s problems with him; Gary couldn’t neglect his affairs and stay in Manzanita much longer. Especially if his search of Jesse’s cabin had convinced him she had nothing on him.
Jesse’s concentration dissolved as she drifted into sleep. Later she’d worry about it. Later …
She woke to find the sun angled for afternoon. Her first thoughts were not of Gary, but David; he hadn’t come, and she wasn’t about to call him as if she were incapable of handling the situation on her own.
She set water boiling in the kitchen and made tea and oatmeal to quiet the rumbling in her stomach. Such ordinary activities made her feel oddly detached from this morning’s unnerving discovery. It helped to focus on Megan as well, and she found herself anticipating a second meeting with the girl.
After breakfast—or, more accurately, a late lunch—she dressed and crossed the field to Al’s house. She hadn’t even had the chance to relate last night’s and this morning’s incidents to Al. He deserved to be told after his efforts to help her.
But he, like David, had advised her not to get more involved with Gary. There was no point in bringing either of them any deeper into this than they already were.
She walked to the front of the house and knocked on the door. Mrs. Plummer answered after a long delay, her eyes heavy with recent sleep, her gray curls kinked and flattened.
“Jesse?”
“Hello, Mrs. Plummer. Is Megan here?”
Mrs. Plummer’s puckered mouth turned down. “She’s either in her bedroom or the study. All she does all day is read and work on that computer. She never talks to me.”
Her tone was that of a disgruntled adult who had suffered through more than one battle of wills with a recalcitrant child. She stepped back and let Jesse in. The house was cool and dark. The living room television buzzed with some inane game show.
Mrs. Plummer patted her hair. “I’ve been resting. Let me go look for Megan and tell her you’re here.”
Jesse would have preferred to go herself, but she waited at the end of the hall and worked on calming her nerves. Why did she feel that so much rode on getting through to Megan, making Megan trust her? It was more than empathy for Megan’s plight and remembering how being orphaned and unwanted felt to a sensitive child.
There seemed to be layers upon layers in everything that was happening to Jesse, too complex to unravel. If only—
Mrs. Plummer reappeared, her gaze darting about the room. “She’s not in her bedroom or the study,” she said. “I don’t understand it. I’ve looked places she doesn’t normally go into. I can’t find her.”
A purely irrational thrill of alarm punched Jesse in the stomach. “Could she be outside, playing in the yard?”
“She never goes outside. Mr. Aguilar said she was to go no farther than your cabin in the back. She hasn’t shown any interest—”
“I just came that way. Megan wasn’t there.”
Mrs. Plummer clasped her hands over her ample belly. “Oh, she’s such a difficult child. I can see her staring at me, always watching—and I had to rest. Well, she can’t be far, can she?”
Of course not. “Why don’t you look around the house again, and I’ll check outside.”
Seemingly grateful for direction, Mrs. Plummer nodded and waddled off. Jesse went for the front door. A rapid but methodical search of the front yard, the nearest lane, and the back acreage, including the patch of woods, turned up no sign of Megan.
Jesse paused to look up at the hills rising behind her cabin. Could Megan have taken the narrow trail up there? Or perhaps she’d simply gone into town. It wasn’t much of a walk.
“I can take care of myself,” Megan had insisted. She had something to prove. Had she finally felt driven to show just how well she could do that? How little she needed the guidance and protection of indifferent adults?
In all likelihood Megan was wandering down Main, poking into the tourist boutiques. Jesse strode back to Al’s house to consult with a nervous Mrs. Plummer.
“I think she took some food and bottled water with her, and a little backpack she has,” the older woman offered. “Where can she have got to?”
“How long do you think she’s been gone?”
Mrs. Plummer blushed under her pale crepe skin. “I don’t know. I hadn’t talked to her since just before breakfast.”
Hours, then. It was nearly four o’clock. “It’s okay,” Jesse said. “No one could have predicted that Megan would suddenly decide to—” Run away? It was premature to assume that. “Why don’t you call Al and let him know—but don’t make him worry. There’s no sense in panic. I’m driving into town to look for her. I’m sure we’ll have her back in no time. She might even be at the library already.”
But Jesse doubted that. No closeness had developed between Al and his niece.
Jesse jogged to her cabin, gathered up some extra water, healthy snacks, and a few supplies from her search and rescue work. She started her truck and drove down the lane to Main Street.
Only the usual low-key activity marked the boutiques and stores, burger joints and garages along the strip. Jesse stopped to talk to several town residents she knew, asking about Megan. None had seen the girl; most were surprised that Al’s niece was in town at all.
Jesse visited the tiny police office and briefly mentioned her search to the officer on duty, who promised to keep his ear to the ground. Jesse considered and discarded the idea of mentioning the morning break-in—that could come at another time.
She drove up the main drag a few more times, a little too slowly for some of the hot-rodders in town, and then parked to walk the strip of boutiques for a closer look. Further questioning turned up no reports of a little girl on her own.
Of one thing Jesse was certain: Megan was far too wary and savvy to walk off with or accept a ride from a stranger. Wherever she’d gone, she’d surely done it solo. Both a relief and a danger.
If she wasn’t in town, she might have gone hiking—up the hills that rose into steep, challenging mountains. No inexperienced adult went up there alone, much less a child. If Megan knew these hills as well as Jesse at the same age, she’d have had less cause to worry. But Megan was a city girl who longed to prove herself independent. There was no predicting what she might attempt.
And it was getting later by the minute.
Jesse returned to Al’s house, checked in with Mrs. Plummer—who was muttering and fanning her flushed face—and then used the phone to call Kim at Blue Rock. Kim was due back from a kayak lesson, and Jesse left a message for the other woman to call as soon as possible. Kim could mobilize search and rescue very quickly if need be.
Jesse prayed there’d be no need. She left the truck in her driveway, put together a more elaborate backpack of supplies, and started on foot up the hill behind her cabin. Here the trail, which she herself had made, was distinct and at an easy switchback grade. A good choice for a child, if she knew how to avoid rattlers and ticks.
Megan coul
dn’t have made it very high up, inexperienced as she was. The day was warm, and she wasn’t used to hiking. Surely she’d have stopped somewhere cool to rest. As long as she stayed in one place, Jesse could find her.
But Megan wasn’t on the hill. Jesse took mental stock of every other easily accessible trail leading out of town and debated the next to try, pausing to call Kim again. Kim promised volunteers within the hour, and in the next few minutes she’d be arriving in the rescue truck with all the major equipment and supplies. But Jesse knew she couldn’t wait.
There was someone else who might help, who had abilities no ordinary person possessed. She wasn’t breaking her resolve not to rely on him. She called him only for Megan’s sake.
“David,” she whispered. “Come to me. I need you.”
He was sitting among the hills above town when he heard her. The boulder on which he perched gave him a broad view of the town and its denizens, shiny roofs like varicolored stones set along a black paved river winding among the mountains. Brighter flashes of light bounced off the hoods of the horseless carriages—cars—favored by the modern traveler.
Jesse was down there. She wanted him. The urge to go to her was powerful; only a night and most of a day had passed by human reckoning, but it felt like an eternity since he’d left her at the party.
He wanted to go, but he did not. In her call was a certain urgency, but he sensed it was not for herself. It didn’t pertain to her safety, or the business with Gary Emerson. He would have known if she faced any danger. He’d made his decision last night to keep a greater distance, and somewhere the line must be drawn.
Soon David would have a handle on his weakness, and then he’d be able to pursue his goals with all the studied calculation he’d intended.…
A patter of falling rocks to his left alerted him from his thoughts. Someone was coming along the narrow, well-used trail that ran along the side of the hill, up from town and to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river twenty yards distant.
That someone moved clumsily but with little weight behind the uneven footfalls. Small, perhaps, and no wilderness expert, this unintended visitor. David stayed where he was and waited, secure in his invisibility.
But he didn’t expect to see the sweaty, dusty, and plainly exhausted child who trudged around the bend and into his view.
A child. A little girl, in fact, though her short-cropped hair and spectacles and baggy clothes made the identification less than immediate. She was clutching a transparent, empty bottle in one hand, and perspiration plastered her bangs to her forehead.
David rose quickly and began to walk toward her. He had no idea what a young child might be doing alone and well away from town, but she looked in need of assistance.…
He stopped himself with a cynical inner laugh. How in bloody hell was he to assist her? She wouldn’t even know he was there. He might be able to make her feel his presence, as he’d done with Gary—if such a technique would work on a total stranger unbound to him by the laws of Karma and fate. But he’d be more likely to frighten her beyond recovery.
The girl wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and sank into a crouch where she was, in the full sun, squeezing the empty bottle. After a moment she sighed and shrugged off her pathetic scrap of a pack and jammed the bottle under the top flap.
David flexed his hands, aware of his helplessness. Helpless to control his unwanted feelings for Jesse, helpless to put an end to Avery’s threat once and for all, helpless to aid this child. He swore under his breath.
And the girl looked up—up, and straight at him. She pulled off her spectacles and set them on the ground, her movements unsteady. Then she squinted and rubbed her eyes before returning the spectacles to a precarious balance on her small snub nose.
“Who are you?” she asked.
David was stunned into temporary silence. Good Lord. There was no mistaking the direction of her gaze.
The girl could see him. And hear him, evidently. He remembered his foul curse and wondered how well the child understood it. He could only hope for her ignorance.
After his legs would move again, he crouched to her level at a reasonable distance, hands dangling over his knees.
“Good afternoon,” he said.
Her posture was hunched and defensive, but she didn’t run or ward him away. “Why are you dressed so funny?”
How was he to answer? Why should this child be able to see him as only Jesse could? He hadn’t made himself solid or assumed deliberate visibility. Even when he’d threatened Gary most assiduously, the man hadn’t been granted sight of him. David couldn’t simply will that dubious privilege.
And he hadn’t willed it now. But the girl regarded him with a frown behind the smudged glass of her spectacles. He had to find some response, take care not to alarm her.
“Please forgive my attire,” he said with a slight smile. “I am only recently come to this region, and …” He shrugged.
“Is it some kind of costume?” she asked. Her voice was thready and breathless but held a note of challenge nonetheless. “You’re from England, aren’t you?”
She was quick. “Indeed,” he said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. David Ventris, at your service.”
She didn’t volunteer her name in exchange, but continued to stare at him as little runnels of perspiration trickled from the wet bangs at her forehead. She studied his sword and then examined his boots. “Aren’t you hot?”
The child was obviously suffering from the heat herself, but David noticed such conditions only if he concentrated on them; one boon of ghosthood was that he could pick and choose the sensitivity of his assumed body. The warmth of this day was nothing to the heat of the Peninsula in summer, where David had seen his share of men collapse under their burdens, bound up in their uniforms like mummies in shrouds.
But this girl was no trained soldier. The first thing he must do was get her out of the sun. He reined in his impulse to offer his hand.
“It is warm,” he agreed. “Will you join me in the shade of those trees? It should be a considerably more congenial place for conversation.”
She glanced aside, never quite letting him out of her field of vision. “What are you doing up here?” she said.
Why should I trust you? rang behind the question. There was no mistaking the girl’s wariness, and David sensed it had little to do with his odd appearance. Did she feel there was a wrongness about him? If she knew what he was, surely she wouldn’t be so calm.
And why did he get the distinct impression that he should know something about the girl, something he was missing?
“I might ask the same of you,” he said. “I’ve seen no one else here in hours. Aren’t you a bit young to be walking so far from town?”
She planted her hands on the ground to steady herself and pushed awkwardly to her feet. “I’m not a child.”
The statement sounded well rehearsed and a bit too vehement. “I see,” he said. “So you’ve come up here by yourself, I gather?”
“I’m not afraid,” she said. Another too-pointed declaration. “I’m about to go home.”
“And where is home?”
She made a vague gesture toward the town below. But she stood where she was, making no move to resume her walk, and licked her lips. “Do you have any water?”
David felt for his canteen before he remembered that it hadn’t been deemed a necessary accoutrement for his material presence on Earth. “None at present,” he said. “But I do think a rest out of the sun would be beneficial for both of us.”
The look in the girl’s eye threatened an all-too-familiar rebellion. Young or not, she didn’t like being given suggestions that smacked of orders. David had little experience with children. A firm hand was what the girl required, but if he were to move too decisively—
Suddenly he realized why he recognized her defiant mien. It was like looking at a miniature version of Jesse. Oh, not in feature or coloring, but in the stubborn cast of her jaw and that touch of
vulnerability she struggled so fiercely to hide.
Was that the source of his impression that he ought to know her? A simple enough explanation. But it didn’t satisfy him, and he was compelled by an even greater urgency to protect her. As he’d wanted, needed, to protect Jesse.
The irony of it was that he’d come here to distance himself, physically and symbolically, from unwanted emotions. From the origin of them. From Jesse. But reminders of her were everywhere, inescapable.
Chains. Always the chains.
“There’s a river nearby,” he told the girl, deliberately hardening his tone. “Give me your bottle.”
She blinked at him as if startled by his unexpected gravity. But the change of approach worked; she fumbled in her backpack and withdrew the bottle without further argument. He took it from her hand. “Go sit under those trees and I’ll bring you water.”
He waited to make sure she obeyed. A little of the starch had gone out of her spine; sheer fatigue, perhaps. Or she recognized the voice of command. She endeavored to keep her dignity as she marched for the stand of pines and plopped down in the shade.
God. She was so small, so … fragile. David nearly squeezed the soft bottle flat in his fist before he shook off his maudlin sentiment. He moved out of the girl’s sight and half scrambled, half floated down a sheer cliff to a narrow bank alongside the water.
The river here was deep and foaming with turbulence, forced into a narrow gorge between high stony walls and punctuated with large boulders. It was a bit of a trick to keep his hand solid enough to grip the bottle and yet maintain enough ethereality to float above the surging water. He managed to fill the bottle halfway and returned to the top of the cliff, aware of the drain his efforts had made on his limited reserves of energy. He was better now at mastering his use of that energy, but limbo never released its hold on him. Even after a long “rest” in nothingness, he still felt the aftereffects of last night’s confrontation with Avery.
The girl was where he’d left her, head drooping over her drawn-up knees. She pushed at her spectacles with a delicate finger and looked blankly at the bottle he offered.
Body and Soul Page 15
