Stalked In Conard County (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 41)

by Rachel Lee

  He was glad to see her expression lightening. Then, making a clear effort, she said, “So, eighty percent of horses can wear the same saddles?”

  “In theory.”

  “Then why a customized saddle?”

  “For comfort. For decoration and flash. Basically, for show. Most of the time fit doesn’t cause problems if you have a good saddle blanket. But, like I told you, I feel different. It’s like buying shoes. Most people can walk in and buy off the rack. They may get blisters, or may get pinched a little while they break them in, but it’s not enough of a problem to pay for custom shoes. That’s expensive. Same with a saddle. My feeling is that a saddle will last a horse’s entire lifetime. Why stint and take the chance of an uncomfortable horse?”

  “I can see that. But later, do you just have to hang that saddle up?”

  “When the horse dies, you mean? Nope. Send it back to me and I can make a bunch of adjustments to fit a different horse. No saddle made of decent materials needs to wind up on the junk heap.”

  She put her chin in her hand. “I’m getting more and more interested.”

  “Then come over to the shop when you can fit it in. I’ve got saddles in every stage of development.”

  “I’d like that. But first this house.”

  He leaned forward, feeling suddenly intent. “Have you decided?”

  “Whether I’m going home or staying? I don’t know yet. Part of me just wants to run. Another part of me wants to stand my ground. Am I going to give in to a Peeping Tom?” She waved her arm. “But I already have, haven’t I? All the windows covered and locked. I’m giving ground. I don’t like that.”

  Then she hopped up. “It’s time. I hope you’re hungry.”

  * * *

  Her grandmother’s goulash was one of Haley’s favorite comfort foods, although she so seldom made it because it was one of those dishes that just didn’t work well in small quantities. She saved it for times when she was having a bunch of friends over to demolish it.

  So what had possessed her to make it today? Because her grandmother’s freezer was big enough for leftovers? As she ladled it into two big bowls, however, she understood something.

  She carried the bowls to the table and, before she got the flatware and napkins, announced, “I guess I’m going to stay here.”

  He looked up and she thought she saw a spark of pleasure in his green eyes. “Did you just decide that?”

  “I think I decided it without realizing it before I made the goulash. That’s an awful lot for one person.” Turning, she retrieved the rest of the table settings and a couple of fresh beers. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will. I already sounded out the community hospital and they have an opening, but I think I told you I looked into that when I arrived. Before...all this stuff. I was up in the air then. I guess I’m not now.”

  “What happened?”

  Her smile was crooked. “Darned if I know. Howdy, neighbor.”

  * * *

  After dinner, Roger helped Haley clean up and then suggested they take advantage of the porch swing out front.

  It was one of the charming features that Haley had loved on her visits here as a child. When she wasn’t playing with Roger or running around or skipping rope, she had been able to sit for what seemed like hours, at least at her young age, swinging back and forth. In the evenings, Grandma had often joined her with tall glasses of homemade lemonade and a small dish of walnuts to munch on. Even on the hottest of summer days, the porch enjoyed the cool touch of the breeze in those early-evening hours. They’d sit and swing, and exchange pleasantries with neighbors out strolling. Grandma had seemed to know everyone.

  Haley had a yearning for that feeling; she had never found it anywhere else. Maybe that was part of the reason she wanted to stay: maybe she could find that sense of home she’d experienced at Grandma’s side.

  Roger used his foot to push them gently. The chains creaked a bit, as did the swing itself. Pleasant, familiar sounds.

  “I used to sit here with Grandma,” she told him. “A lot of evenings. You?”

  “Once in a while, when I had time. The front porch swing seems to have become a relic of the past. Replaced by television, I guess.”

  “Or missing because newer houses don’t have much in the way of a front porch.”

  He gave a brief laugh. “Point taken. I’m glad I didn’t make my career in building wooden front porch swings. Mostly what you see now are those freestanding ones with metal poles and plastic seats. No more painting, sanding or creaking. At least, not like this.” He lifted a hand and waved to a couple walking on the other side of the street. When they waved back, Haley responded in kind.

  “Grandma used to know everyone,” Haley remarked. “A lot of times people would stop to talk. I always liked that.”

  “Soon they’ll be stopping to chat with you, just the way they did with Flora.”

  Almost as if in answer to his words, an older woman, with short, graying hair, who was walking a harlequin Great Dane, appeared around the corner and approached.

  “Hey, Rog,” she called. Then, as she drew closer, her bright eyes lit on Haley. “You must be Flora’s granddaughter, Haley, right? Believe it or not, I remember you visiting way back when. Don’t let me count the years. My heart wouldn’t survive the shock. By the way, my companion is called Bailey. He might be big, but he’s a lamb.”

  The Great Dane proved it. As his owner sat on the top porch step, he stretched out to the end of his leash and sniffed around Haley’s and Roger’s feet.

  “I’m Edith Jasper,” the woman said, looking at her from eyes as blue as a slice of Heaven. “Since Rog isn’t going to introduce me. I’m sure you don’t remember me at all.”

  “Oops,” said Roger. “I’m so used to everyone knowing everyone that common courtesies can skip my mind.”

  “You’re a man,” Edith said as if that explained it all.

  Roger leaned forward. “Why don’t you sit on the swing, Edie?”

  “Because this is my porch step. Where I sat when I was chatting with Flora. It ought to have my name on it.”

  Haley was glad Roger didn’t leave her side. It wasn’t as if there was anything threatening about either Edith or her dog, but she liked having Roger nearby. Maybe that was a problem?

  “So,” Edie asked bluntly, “are you selling the house or staying?”

  Haley opened her mouth to answer then hesitated. “I’m dithering. I make up my mind then unmake it,” she said after a few beats. “Most of me wants to stay. I loved the time I spent here with my grandmother.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be pushy or anything, but a lot of us miss Flora and we’d be delighted to welcome you. Not that you’re Flora.” She paused. “That came out wrong, didn’t it?”

  Haley had to laugh. She was beginning to like this woman a whole lot and it wasn’t taking long. “I understood what you meant. I’m not that touchy, I hope.”

  Edith nodded approvingly. “You sound a little like her, too. She’d have said that. So you’re dithering?”

  “Yeah,” said Roger. “Just before we ate dinner, she sounded like she’d decided to stay.”

  Haley looked at him, feeling her cheeks heat a little. “I did, didn’t I? Well, maybe my mind’s made up and I’m just not ready to believe it.”

  Both Roger and Edith laughed. “Been there,” said Edith. “You should have listened to me trying to make up my mind whether to get Bailey here. I’m lucky someone else didn’t adopt him while I was flipping back and forth.”

  “And now?” Haley asked, charmed.

  “I wouldn’t part with this dog for anything. I was just worried about how big he was going to get, whether I’d be able to walk through my own house without tripping, how I was going to pay for dog chow. Well, it all worked out, didn’t it, big boy?”

  The dog climbed d
own the steps and sat on the sidewalk. Even then his head was higher than Edith’s.

  “He is big,” Haley agreed.

  Edith reached out and scratched Bailey’s neck. “My advice? Get a cat.”

  A peal of laughter escaped Haley. How could she even think about leaving this place? This was the kind of thing she’d been weighing in her mind against returning to her small apartment in a busy city. Evenings on the front porch. Oh, yeah.

  “I was wondering...” Haley asked, “Did my grandmother tell you any of the history of the things she saved here? She tried to share it, but I was just a kid, and interested like a kid.”

  “Well, she did talk about some of it. You want me to help?” Edith raised her brows questioningly.

  “Any information I can get would be greatly appreciated.”

  “My pleasure. Of course, you may have to put up with some of my memories in the process. Flora and I would talk about the past a lot. Happens when you get older, so look out.”

  “I’ll be grateful for all the stories.” Haley hesitated, hoping she wouldn’t sound as if she were criticizing her parents. “I don’t know a whole lot about my family’s past. Dad probably knows more about Flora, but he’s half a world away. And Mom had no family, so her memories were limited to various distant relatives I never met. She didn’t have many happy memories of her childhood.”

  “That’s sad,” Edith remarked. “I met your mom just once. She only came out here for one visit and, considering that for a while she was living in Gillette with your dad, I wondered about it.”

  Haley nodded. “Mom hated Gillette, or at least life around roughnecks. It got worse when Dad moved his operation to the Bakken oil fields and, finally, she divorced him. Anyway, I think she extended her dislike to this entire state.” She’d also wondered if her mom’s problems had arisen partly from her abduction. No way to know now, since her mother had passed two years before of an aneurysm.

  Edith nodded. “Not the place or the life for a lot of people. It’s a shame, though. It’s pretty around Gillette.”

  “I think I could get to love it here.” Deep inside, she was feeling the shift continuing toward a strengthening desire to remain here.

  Roger spoke. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Edith laughed then stirred as Bailey made a small sound in his throat, almost a whine. “Time to continue the walk. Big dog, long walks. Good for both of us. You ought to join us sometime.”

  Edith rose and, with a wave, returned to walking Bailey.

  “Darn,” Haley said. “His head reaches her shoulder!”

  “Get a cat,” Roger said, causing her to laugh anew. “Maybe a Maine coon. Thirty pounds of loving fur ball.”

  “Is that all?” She just shook her head. Then a thought struck her. “Roger? I’m wondering if things between my parents weren’t good. I mean... Was it just the oil fields that drove her to leave? Why wouldn’t she come visit her mother-in-law?”

  He shrugged. “I hear mothers-in-law aren’t always popular.”

  “Yeah. Funny how things I haven’t thought about much are starting to come to me now. As if being here in Flora’s house is reminding me of puzzles in my past. Was it really the oil field that my mother hated or that being around them and roughnecks always reminded her of my abduction?”

  He turned on the swing, causing it to creak a protest, until he was leaning in the corner between back and arm and able to look almost straight at her. “I’m getting a crick in my neck and this seems too important for me to be staring at the street while you talk.”

  “Want to go inside? Or I could just change topics.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Talk all you want. I’m definitely not bored, and we’re getting to know each other better. So you think your mom could have been wrecked by your abduction? That wouldn’t be astonishing.”

  “I guess not.” But the pieces of her life were shifting, coming together in a different picture. Memory was an unreliable thing, as well she knew from her studies, so any picture she had or made could be a fantasy. But she looked at the puzzle and found impressions changing. “I just said my mother had a terrible childhood.”

  “You did. How so?”

  “She was orphaned. Distant relatives took her in, sending her from one place to another when they decided they’d had enough. I’m not sure she wouldn’t have been better off in foster care. Anyway, some treated her like a servant, some like unwanted trash and one of them was actually kind. I met her just once. Mom didn’t have very many happy stories to tell about growing up, so that was pretty much a mystery to me. She just didn’t say much about it.”

  “That sounds rough.”

  She didn’t mind that he leaned toward her and took her hand, holding it gently. She wasn’t inclined to much physical affection, not a hugger by nature, but she liked his kind touch. “I’m sure it was.”

  “It would hardly be surprising if that continued to affect her into adulthood.”

  “Likely, I suppose. But I was just wondering... I mean, after I...was recovered from the kidnapper, she took off for Michigan immediately. I heard her tell Dad she wanted me away from all those rough people. She didn’t trust them.”

  “But they have no idea who kidnapped you?”

  “None. I was so young, I couldn’t even give a description. Plus, he wore a ski mask almost all the time. That didn’t help. Mostly I remember that mask to this day.” Something in her chest was tightening. She hadn’t talked about this in a long, long time. Far from freeing her, it seemed to be tightening its grip, those memories. “Anyway, she had a cousin in Michigan and we stayed there for almost a year, I guess. Then Dad moved his operation to the Bakken oil fields.”

  He waited then asked, “Because of you, do you think?”

  “Maybe. How much do you think they were telling me at that age? But it’s possible, since she had such a distaste for Gillette after that, that he thought she might be more comfortable at Bakken. She rejoined him and, about a year later, took off for good.”

  “And you?”

  “She left me with him.”

  “Hmm.”

  She watched his face darken a little and wished she could read his mind. “What are you thinking, Roger?”

  The simple question suddenly seemed potentially treacherous. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she was worried about what he might say. Why? God, all her reactions were messed up. She was out of her element, out of the world she had built for herself where she worked herself to near exhaustion and spent free time with people from her job. A very tight club.

  Now she was in a place where few of her familiar things supported her. Even memories of Flora couldn’t ease her path into a different life. And that voyeur hadn’t helped one bit.

  “I’m just thinking that maybe your mom, given her upbringing, didn’t feel she could be a good mother. Your kidnapping might have made that worse. Do you feel she abandoned you when she left?”

  “Good question. You don’t need to help me sort this out, Roger.” She smiled to take any possible sting from the words that came next. “You’re not my therapist.”

  Evidently, he didn’t take it wrong, because he squeezed her hand. “Didn’t think I was. Just asking because I give a damn. I also have two good ears and the ability to keep my mouth shut. But let me add a caveat. I know horses better than people.”

  His expression turned crooked in a way that might have been wry, and it caused the corners of her mouth to lift higher. “You think so?”

  “I’m pretty sure. Lots of horse sense and slightly less people sense. Anyway, I was just wondering how all that made you feel. I can’t imagine and it would be stupid to assume I know what you think about anything. So, see? You have to tell me.”

  Now she had to laugh. Dang, he was making her feel good in the midst of this trip down memory lane, a trip filled with pitfalls and old
sorrows and fears. “You’re a good friend, Roger McLeod. I’m so very glad I’m getting to know you again. And maybe now I could beat you at Scrabble.”

  That made him laugh, too, and they decided to go inside to play a game. Haley remembered exactly the shelf on which Flora had kept her collection of board games, a collection gathered over a lifetime. Some of them were probably antiques, but all were in impeccable condition.

  As they spread the letter tiles on the table and compared them to the list on the side of the board, Haley said, “Have you ever known anyone who could keep this game so long and never lose a tile?”

  “Not me. I had to order a whole set of replacements years ago.”

  This was good. This was okay. Everything felt right again.

  Everything, that was, except wondering about the real reason her mother had left her behind.

  Chapter 4

  Since that first night after the creep had showed up at her window, Haley had insisted she was fine being alone at night.

  Roger had no earthly reason to argue with her, but he was still uneasy. He called the sheriff’s department in the morning to ask if there’d been any other reports of voyeurs looking in windows, but there had been none.

  Maybe it was mere curiosity about a house that had been empty for a few months before Haley had returned. A one-off. Except, Roger couldn’t quite believe that. He was normally pretty laid-back, but he just couldn’t get there with this incident.

  For reasons he couldn’t even explain to himself, he was concerned about Haley. She’d come out here with every intention of selling Flora’s house and going back to her job in Baltimore. But that had already been changing the first time he’d dropped in. Now she was bouncing back and forth like a rubber ball. Leave, stay. Stay, leave.

  He wondered how much of that was ghosts from her past. She didn’t strike him as an indecisive woman. Of course, how long had he known her? Childhood didn’t count.

  He visited his shop, as he did every morning, to check out the progress of leather curing, then decided there was nothing that couldn’t hold for a few hours or even a few days.