He seemed to look through him for a moment, then the grin was back. “Nah. I guess if you want to prolong the work and the widow’s willing to pay, hey, can’t complain about that, can I?”
Paul clenched his fists; he liked Hank, but he really did not like the man’s not-too-subtle insinuations. “There really is work to be done, Hank.”
“Sure, sure.” He waved it away. “Well, look, I’m going to get me some grub. See you around.”
Paul saw Kayla making her way back to him, just as a guitar, violin and banjo combo begun to play and several couples were gathering on the green to dance. The evening was turning chilly, and she’d put on the sweater she’d earlier worn around her shoulders. Tied around her neck was a colorful, hand-painted scarf.
As she reached him she held out her arms to him. “Shall we?”
“Leave?”
“No, silly. Dance.”
“You’re serious.”
“Something wrong with dancing?”
“We didn’t do much of that in the pen,” he deadpanned. “I’m kind of out of practice.”
“It’s like driving—it comes back to you.” Smiling sweetly, she put her left arm on his shoulder, held out her right and moved into him. “May I have this one, sir?”
And then she was in his arms and they were dancing in the moonlight to an old, sad ballad. At first he felt awkward, not only because he’d developed two left feet, but because of the stares they were receiving from onlookers.
Kayla didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the attention, for which he admitted a grudging admiration. What the hell? he thought. She’s okay with it? So am I.
He made himself relax, pulling her closer so that their bodies touched shoulders to knees. Right away, he felt a familiar spark of electricity humming throughout his body and collecting between his legs. One instant erection, at your service and poking you in the stomach.
“Sorry,” he murmured in her ear.
“For what?”
“Damnedest thing. I can’t seem to touch you without wanting you.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” she murmured back, her lips against his ear. “I feel the same.”
“But…I worry that I’m too much for you.”
She removed her head from his shoulder and gazed at him through eyes turned nearly opaque in the moonlight. Her face was soft and oh-so-sweet. “It’s not very polite of you to brag about your endowments,” she offered with a wicked grin.
His mouth twitched, but then he grew serious again. “You know that’s not what I mean. It’s that I have so much time to make up for.”
She paused for a moment, then whispered, “Oh, Paul. So do I.”
Their gazes remained locked for a moment longer, then Paul expelled a breath. “You truly are the most amazing woman,” he said gruffly, then pulled her to him again.
They danced till the end of that selection and through another, this one an old Cole Porter tune. And all the while, the heat between them grew stronger and more insistent. “How soon can we get out of here?” he murmured in her ear.
“How about right now?”
Arm in arm, they walked over to her car, got in and drove back to the house.
Once there, he had her stay in the car until he’d made a thorough search of the premises. Finally, he returned and helped her out of her seat. “Everything seems to be fine.”
She smiled up at him, then the smile turned into a huge yawn, one she covered up with her hand. “Sorry. That kind of snuck up on me.”
“You’re tired. You’ve hardly slept.”
“I’ll live. So what’s next?” she asked, a mischievous light in her eyes. “Or better yet, your place or mine?” Again, the need to yawn took over, after which she scrubbed at her face, digging her knuckles into her eyelids and rubbing them. “Oh, Paul. I’m really sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. We need to get you into bed, so you can sleep, rest up for the next time I ravish your body.” He put his arm around her shoulders, began walking her toward the house, but she stopped.
“I always have tea before I go to bed—it’s a tradition. Why don’t you go sit out on the porch? I’ll make some, bring it out.”
“Better yet,” Paul answered, “you’re tired, so I’ll make it. If you don’t mind me nuking it instead of waiting for the water to boil.”
Her answer was a small, sleepy smile. “I’ll make an exception, just this once.”
Kayla lowered herself onto one of the Adirondack chairs, grateful to be sitting down and mildly disappointed that her sleep-deprived body was making its needs known so blatantly. Still, it wouldn’t be bad to just hang out with Paul, for once, to sit and gaze out at the night together. Lou had been right; she knew so little about him. They could talk. She could learn his likes and dislikes.
Her heart filled to overflowing as she thought about him. Whatever Lou suspected, she was wrong. Paul was a good man. Kayla knew it in her gut, knew that she could trust him. Trust was essential to a relationship.
Relationship.
She repeated the word to herself. Was that what they had? Oddly enough, she wished Walter were there, right at that moment. She would have liked his assessment of Paul’s character, would have appreciated his input on why she’d become involved with a man who was so not her usual type, who was not a “safe” kind of person. Walter had known her well and had always had a lot of wisdom for her when she was mulling over life’s choices.
Walter. Dear Walter. For nearly a year, she’d grieved for him, but now he was receding into memory. The sharp pain of his absence simply wasn’t there anymore. And somehow, she knew he’d be happy for her.
Paul returned with a tray loaded with two steaming mugs, spoons and the sugar jar. Also a plateful of cookies, the ones she’d kept back from the fund-raiser. He set the tray down on the table between them.
“I’m glad we’re talking,” Kayla told him. “I know nothing about you, you know.”
Paul had steeled himself to make his “confession,” and had spent the time in the kitchen rehearsing it. At this moment, however, he was ashamed to admit that he was grateful for the reprieve of Kayla’s curiosity. “Oh? What do you want to know?”
“Where you were born. Your family. Details.”
He grabbed a cookie off the plate and bit into it. The chocolate melted in his mouth. “These are great.”
“So you’ve been telling me all day. Talk to me.”
He shrugged. “Sure. I’m a native of Albany. My dad is a retired firefighter. A real good guy. He raised me and my two kid brothers pretty much alone. Mac is the youngest, he’s moved away, is married, has two kids. Jimmy is back at home, after a pretty messy divorce. He’s a cop, too, works on white-collar crime. I have a stepmother now, Rachel. We get along great.”
“You’re a close family.”
“Yes.”
“I never had that. I hope to have it someday.”
Her smile was wistful, and he realized, not for the first time, how very lucky he’d been in his upbringing. His childhood had been filled with good food and toys, with love and stability, while hers, from what he knew, had been lacking in all of that and more.
He needed to tell her the truth, owed it to both of them to come clean. More than anything, he didn’t want to interrupt the nice, intimate mood here on the porch, the black night spread out before them. But it was time.
He drew in a deep breath, expelled it. “Kayla, I have to tell you something, something pretty important,” he began.
Cra-a-a-ack.
The sound came from somewhere nearby, a kind of high-pitched grinding noise. In an instant, Paul was out of his chair and had turned on the porch light. There was nothing and no one around. He turned to Kayla, who was gripping the edges of her chair. “Sit still.”
Cra-a-a-ack.
This time he was able to identify it as coming from beneath them. Was it his imagination or had the porch, almost imperceptibly, shifted?
“Did you feel that
?” he asked.
“Feel what?”
He held out his hand. “Come on.”
She grabbed it, got up. “Where to?”
“Anywhere but the porch. It feels unstable.”
Together they moved quickly across the wooden slats, down the stairs and onto solid ground. “Flashlight?”
“In the kitchen.”
He pulled her along the side of the house, into the kitchen, and got a long powerful flashlight from a drawer. Then, still keeping hold of Kayla’s hand, he returned to the rear of the house, stopping several yards short of the porch.
“Stay here,” he told her, releasing her hand.
Cautiously, he moved to the edge of the porch, got down on his stomach and aimed the beam underneath the slats and at the supports that were dug into the mountainside.
Back and forth he shone the light, quickly, then more slowly. Nothing moved, the powerful beam didn’t pick up any crouching animals, anything out of the way at all. The wood-and-concrete supports seemed solid enough, but he couldn’t really tell, and he knew it was useless to investigate at night.
Frustrated, he rose to his feet and, brushing the dirt off his shirt, walked back to where Kayla stood, hugging herself. “I can’t see anything, but there must be a crack or something in one of the supports.”
“Walter always kept up the foundation,” she told him through chattering teeth. “He said that with part of the house built into the hillside, we’d be fools not to respect the mountain.”
“Yeah, well, I respect the hell out of the mountain and something’s wrong.”
Was this one more item on the list of ways to terrify Kayla? Or did this particular incident have a natural explanation, such as: old houses have old structural parts that need constant monitoring and repair.
“Should we call someone?” she asked him.
“On Sunday night? We won’t be able to get anyone up here until tomorrow. But I would feel a lot safer if we left the property. The porch may not be safe, which means the whole damned house could come crashing down.”
“No, it won’t. I’m trying to tell you. It’s set firmly in concrete. Walter explained it to me. Even if something happens to the porch supports, the house itself is totally safe.”
Walter, Walter, Walter.
He nearly said it out loud. He was sick to death of hearing the old guy’s name, not to mention how Kayla’s late husband seemed to know everything in the world there was to know. Sure, he was being irrational, knew it and didn’t care. The fact was, Paul was more than mildly jealous of Walter Thorne’s importance in Kayla’s life, before Paul met her…and to some extent, still.
His momentary preoccupation with a dead man was interrupted by the sight of Kayla yawning again. “Paul? If we can’t do anything about a creaking porch tonight, I need to find a bed before I pass out.”
“You’re not staying in the house.”
“I told you, Walter said—”
“I know what Walter said,” he snapped, way too harshly, then forced himself to dial it back. “Please, Kayla, I don’t feel okay about you, about anyone, staying in the house.”
Through eyes already half lidded with sleep, she stared at him. “Are you thinking this is another attack?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
She rubbed her hands over her face, then emitted a loud sigh. “God, when will it end?” Her hands dropped to her sides. “You know what? I’m too tired to be scared. I’m going to the grandpa cabin. It’s on solid ground, the windows close and the doors lock. I’m sleeping there. Care to join me?”
“Tell me again why we can’t get out of here, say, go to Susanville? Just for one night?”
Despite her exhaustion, her face took on a determined cast. “Because I’m not leaving. It’s illogical, I know. This may not make sense to you, but this…invasion of my house is reminding me of the rape. I’m feeling violated, and I won’t let that happen, not again. If someone is trying to drive me away, it’s not working. They picked the wrong victim. It’s pissing me off.”
He shook his head slowly at her vehemence. “I don’t know whether to applaud you or shake you.” He clenched his fists at his side. “God, you’re stubborn.”
Her chin jutted out. “I pick my fights, that’s all. And it’s gotten me through my life so far.”
“And may end it.”
“Then so be it.”
They glared at each other for a moment longer. Then, as though the last few interchanges had totally depleted her energy, Kayla’s shoulders sagged and she yawned again. “I can’t fight with you anymore, Paul. I’m going to the cabin to sleep. You can come or not.”
Muttering under his breath, Paul followed her to the small, wood-framed building, which was set far back from the mountainside, nestled neatly among tall fir trees.
It was too much. One thing piling on top of another. Too damn much. She should be hiring bodyguards, he thought darkly, for all the good he was doing her.
He shook his head, cursed again. All he’d wanted to do was clear his name; instead he seemed to have landed right smack in the middle of some stupid vendetta. Against a woman who had become way too important to him. And at the moment, he was no closer to understanding or solving the mystery of what was behind this than at any time before.
He needed facts, and he was dependent on others to get them for him. Tomorrow. He’d call Brian again, get that info on where Jay’s call had come from. The state cops would run fingerprints on the UPS package, find out its origins, who mailed it, although Paul was sure it would be an alias.
Who the hell was doing this? He was totally at a loss for theories, aside from the ones he’d already come up with—angry relatives. Sure, he could hunt down Steven and shake a confession out of him—if there was one to be made. And when he found Jay, which he would, he could find out if he had played any part in this.
But there was something that didn’t gel about Steven and Jay as suspects. And Melinda was too crazy, too scattered to have planned this campaign of terror.
There was something there, in the recesses of his brain, but it was eluding him. Dammit, he used to be a good cop. No, a terrific cop.
Past tense.
Kayla was already at the door when he caught up to her, her hand on the knob. “Wait,” he said. “For God’s sake, let me look around first.”
He left her leaning her head against the door frame, turned on the lights and searched. He opened closet doors, inspected windows, checked the bath, looked under the bed.
“No snakes?” Kayla said from the doorway. “No rodents?”
“Dust bunnies is about it.”
“I can live with them.” She stumbled over to the bed and collapsed on it, sprawling on top of the spread.
“Let me put on fresh sheets first,” Paul said, going to the linen cabinet and pulling out a set.
“Too late,” she mumbled, and with that, she was asleep.
He put a clean case on one of the pillows, gently lifted her head and set the pillow under it. Then he removed her boots and covered her with blankets. When he was done, he pulled a rocking chair up to the side of the bed and sat in it, prepared to guard her all night.
He was surprised when she raised her eyelids just enough to make eye contact with him and said, sleep slurring her words, “What did you want to tell me?”
“What?”
“Before, on the porch. Something important, you said.”
“Oh.” He’d nearly forgotten. “It’ll wait.”
“Okay.” One more smile and then she was asleep again.
He dozed fitfully for a while, then gave up on trying to sleep at all. He had to keep Kayla safe. He stayed awake the rest of the night, listening for intruders, for sounds of anything that might give him a clue as to what the hell was going on.
Chapter 11
Kayla awoke to birdsong, and a chill in the air that made her snuggle more deeply into her blankets. At first, she wasn’t quite sure where she was. The last thing
she remembered was sipping tea on the porch with Paul. There was something more, she knew in the deep recesses of her unconsciousness, but then—poof!—it was gone. Later, she decided drowsily, and closed her eyes again.
Some time later she opened them once more, this time to the sound of men talking outside. She gazed around her; she was in the grandpa cabin. That’s right. Paul had insisted. When she threw back the covers, she found she was still wearing her clothes from the night before. Wrinkled, of course, but they were all she had.
When she wandered outside, the sun hurt her eyes, so she shaded them with her hand and gazed around her. She found Hank and Paul climbing up the steep hillside just beyond the porch, Hank saying, “Nah, it’s just some rotting wood. Happens up here like that sometimes. We can shore it up with some temporary plywood today, and then I’ll call the company that everyone uses when it comes to their foundations. Nothing to worry about.” When they were on level ground again, he saw Kayla, nodded. “Morning, Miz Thorne.”
“Good morning. Or is it afternoon?” She stretched and yawned, then made a face. “Oops. Sorry. I slept so deeply.” She turned her attention to Paul, smiling at him. “What’s up?” she asked him.
He seemed preoccupied, shaking his head slowly, frowning. “Hank’s the expert, but I don’t know. There are some marks in the wood supports of the house. Looks to me like they could have been made by a hatchet or something with a sharp blade.”
“Nah,” Hank said. “Wood cracks that way sometimes, that’s all.”
Kayla was still focused on Paul. “You think they were made on purpose?”
“Well, it could be.”
“But why?” Hank asked.
Paul looked at the other man. “There have been some strange things going on here, Hank.”
“Like what?”
He briefly summarized the incidents—the noises, the attack on Bailey, the snake. “It’s like Kayla’s under attack, and I’m worried.”
“Oh, wow,” Hank replied, rubbing his unshaven jawline. Troubled, he shook his head. “I didn’t know.” He turned to Kayla. “Gee, Paul could be right, Miz Thorne. Maybe what’s happening under the porch was done on purpose.”
Whispers in the Night Page 18
