When he looked her way, he saw regret pushing shadows across her emerald eyes. It spliced open his heart.
“It doesn't matter what I want, Laurel Lee,” he explained in as even a voice as he could muster. “I've got to go back to Miami and see if my battery of lawyers can outfox his."
“I understand. It could drag on for years."
She was being gracious. He said, “It could."
The hurt in her eyes would remain burned in his memory.
She drew back her shoulders, basking with closed eyes in the July sun. The breeze picked up her hair and tossed it about her stoic solemnity and summer freckles. Her simple, yellow flannel shirt made his belly flip-flop. Rolled up at the elbows, exposing the fine hairs on her arms and muscles that healed animals and men, he thought her sexy as hell. Other men would be fools not to see the same thing. His stomach churned at the thought.
After a gusty sigh, she said, “What if we went back to the mansion, looked around one more time?"
He thought about making love to her there. He flinched at the ache sparring against his willpower. “There's nothing there."
“You're giving up."
She was testing him. He focused on the steam lazying up from his coffee. “I won't give up until Rojas rots in prison for good."
“But without Mike's proof, he can weasel out too soon for my taste.” She took the cup from his hands, setting it down before kissing him full on the lips. Testing him for sure. “Now refuse me one last look around the mansion."
He couldn't deny her. Besides, he needed to get up and move to hide his own embarrassing reaction to the kiss. How long would it take him to get over her? He disliked the way he could still fly full-tilt out of control around her. Hadn't he learned anything from her?
They spent the next few hours searching the grounds of the mansion and the basement again, but it yielded nothing.
They spent a couple of more days at it, starting out with coffee on the stoop each day, mesmerized by Spirit Lake, but sitting too far apart for a stolen kiss. Saying good-bye without saying the word was hell, Cole decided.
Then, to his relief, the case against Rojas tugged, demanding his attention away from Laurel.
The New York Times gave Buzz front page billing and asked him to do a series on Cole. Buzz wrote about it all. They'd found Lisa Shaw alive on Rojas's yacht, but Rojas was protesting that everything was master-minded by the murdered Broderick. Authorities quickly proved the Texas woman had died by asphixiation prior to being dumped in the lake, and the coffin with Broderick's fingerprints surfaced at an unoccupied cottage along the north shore of the lake.
But that was that. The story came to its own dead-end as a typical crime case, with no real connection between Rojas and Mike's death. No murder suspected. Rojas almost looked like a good guy for killing Laurel's kidnapper—his own employee.
That enraged Cole. Made him sick to his stomach. Mike would never have risked his life for this. But Cole hadn't found the proof to anything. Was there proof? Maybe he'd misread Mike's cryptic message about the skirt. No matter. The most important conclusion was that Rojas might be freed soon and could endanger his son, plus Mike's widow and son.
Cole wanted to leave.
He made arrangements for a flight out of Minneapolis in two days, that Friday. He remembered that things picked up for Laurel with the animals on Fridays, so he thought it the best choice for hasty good-byes. It also gave him time to return Gary's truck and shake a few hands. How odd to feel the tug of friendships in such a short time. Laurel's friends had been good to him, though, and he counted several already: Gary, Una, Wiley, Dr. Donna, even John Petski. When he got back to Miami, he'd make sure all his debts here were paid finally.
But thoughts about meeting up with Rojas in Miami bothered him. Hell, it scared him. He decided on one last look at the mansion on Friday afternoon before he left for the Twin Cities.
He borrowed the sheriff's boat, wending his way among the tourists on Spirit Lake. The breeze battered the fresh, white polo shirt that had mysteriously appeared in his backpack yesterday. Laurel would always “worry and tend,” as she explained once with derision, fearing it a weakness. He now knew it to be a powerful strength of hers.
After tying up, and climbing the steep embankment, he headed through the tall grass, spotting the raccoons Roxy and Roger looking back at him from under the mansion's front verandah. Were they spying on him for Laurel? Watching out for her? Absolutely. He believed it. And smiled.
Inside, he walked through every room, stepping over piles of old plaster and the kitchen's buckled linoleum, then around the hole in the floor of the foyer. He took the slow route to the basement—the stairs—his nostrils flaring at the dankness, his mind reliving perhaps the most important night of his life. Laurel's no-nonsense challenges—punctuated with a two-by-four board, no less—had started him on a journey to become a....
Father. He loved Tyler. Missed him horribly. And feared the look he might see in his son's eyes. So much to patch up. He wished osmosis had given him Laurel's doctoring skills ten-fold.
And as a father, he loved Jonathon, who was certainly waiting for him, too, but in a far different way than Tyler.
But the earthly, real question was, how much did he love Jonathon's mother? Why couldn't he commit? Were all his reasons only excuses? Why was there the fence between them? Because she wanted it? Maybe he had to admit that and move on.
Looking about the basement, he remembered the lightning that night, and the way its spark resurrected its energy in his core the moment he realized she lay next to him.
He couldn't cheat her heart again. Never again would he make her miserable. Go back to your son and patch things up, he chided himself, fist pounding against his thigh. Be a man—and a true father—for the first time in your life.
Move on.
His heartbeat racing, sweat sheathing his forehead, he left the basement, mounting the other set of stairs. Past the second floor. Up to the pirate ship.
The wind whistled through the round window at the far end, its glass broken out by Rojas's attempt to hide while aiming his rifle at Broderick. Rojas had boldly confessed to it all.
Instant anger ground inside Cole like jagged shards of the window pane. To erase the dark emotion, Cole listened to the wind, hoping for voices. What had Laurel said to do? Shut your eyes tight and you can see loved ones? He shut his eyes tight.
And went cold as stone.
He needed to head back to Miami. Fast.
* * * *
LAUREL WATCHED him through her viewing scope traipsing across the mansion's wide expanse of yard, now festooned with blue bachelor buttons, white queen anne's lace and other flowers in full summer bloom. She didn't like the emptiness that came with watching him move through the wild environment this one last time. It was as if her words of love held no effect on him. Didn't he see that he actually seemed to belong here? He had shoulders she'd relied on as strong as oak trees, a quirky humor as bubbly as the spring that fed the pond and lake, and his focused dedication to bring justice for his brother was as determined as the change in seasons around her cabin.
Yet, isn't that what she'd wanted all along? For him to leave? And hadn't she lectured enough times that he was no real father until he did the honorable thing and return to his son?
How dare she entertain selfish pangs at the thought of him leaving now. Cole was doing exactly what she'd demanded of him.
But she hated winning this way. To win meant someone had to lose. She felt both ends of that spear poking at each other inside her stomach. Already dread filled her at the prospect of living without his interruptions, his plans and plots. He never allowed her to be ordinary. Laurel Hastings tending to her animals in her quiet solitude by the lake. With him she had to make noisy conversation, even lead it and make her points solidly before he backed her into corners of confusion. With him, she had to embrace extradordinary things in life, dangerous things, like saving themselves from death—from death!
And he'd made her own up to frailties like selfishness, anger, and pity. And loneliness. Only he understood the quiet satisfaction—the murmur within the heart—of making love in their meadow. Being wild, in wild places.
But life played cruel tricks. She should be happy now, satisfied, complete at last. Instead, a yearning agitation remained. Bordering on the hum she felt whenever around him.
Backing away from the viewing scope she realized it also burned to think that his murderous boss—even from jail—would be keeping her and Cole apart. Without the evidence Mike squirreled away somewhere, Cole would be plagued for the rest of his days. Which meant Rojas was probably grinning even now in his temporary jail cell, knowing he'd ruined their lives and won in the end.
It all gnawed at her. So instead of mixing food for Owlsy, her hands began making a fried egg sandwich, and the action began to fill the hollow rooms in her heart.
Soon after, the aluminum boat's purring motor nudged her across the currents of the bay.
In minutes, she stood in the doorway to the pirate's ship.
He didn't know she was there.
He'd pulled the table over close to the window and sat in the rickety tubular kitchen chair. Sunlight silhouetted the broad shoulders and splashed a coppery sheen on the waves of dark hair feathering the collar of the new shirt she'd spirited into his pack. Her heartbeat sputtered. It needed his gentle fixing.
Clutching tighter to the plastic handle of the small luncheon cooler, she cleared her throat. “Brought you a sandwich."
He jerked his head around, his hands fingering the sextant.
She asked, “Figure it out yet?"
“Trying to."
“We have to figure it out before you leave. We just have to."
His attempt at a smile faded, but she nudged through the dark side of the room to emerge into the light next to him. He went back to fingering the sextant, and studying the old maps on the table with their dots between here and Washington, D.C.
She put the cooler on the table in front of him, just off the edge of the map. “You did what you could for Mike. Even if you don't find it, your boss is in jail for a little while."
“Son of a bitch'll be out in days.” After a grimace and a “sorry,” he went back to the map. “Fried egg?"
“With catsup on it."
“Thanks,” he said. “Those egg sandwiches healed me, you know.” The corners of his mouth lifted against the sun coming in the round frame from behind her.
“I know.” She shivered against the breeze.
It lifted the hair off his studious brow intermittently. Nudging the sextant across the map, he measured the dots, searching desperately for a clue.
She noticed his pack nearby, ready to go with the crayon box stuffed in the outside pocket. Ready to color on the flight back, she thought, to ward off his fear of flying.
Her heart lurched and she had to find air. At the window she was careful of small glass shards still stuck in the graying wood of the old frame. “It's too bad,” she muttered, “that he broke your pirate ship window."
“For Mike and me, it was like a magnifying glass on the world, bringing any adventure closer in our imaginations. Rojas deserves prison just for sullying that memory. The bastard."
Touching the grainy wood of the frame, she thought of the irony of Cole hating that the window was broken when he'd torn apart the rest of the mansion anyway.
“I'll miss the moonlight in the window,” she admitted, surprising herself. “It always felt like you were watching me.” She drew in the pungent air, then turned to him. “I used to hate that, but I've grown to appreciate your watching out for me."
His black gaze faded against the dry attic shadows. She was losing him. Forever. She could feel it in the prickling of her skin.
His gaze dipped away. “You don't need anyone watching out for you anymore. You're doing just fine."
She should have thanked him for the compliment. It only made her miserable. Why couldn't she just say a clean “good-bye” and leave? Hadn't she learned her lessons from him? To leave the past behind?
Turning back to the window, she plucked a shard off the sill. “I used to be like a china figurine on a shelf. I would allow myself to be dusted off once in a while, but ultimately I was left alone on a dark shelf because people were afraid of me."
“Afraid?” He came to her, smelling of fresh soap and new purpose, ready for his journey home. Taking the shard from her, he held it between his thumb and finger, playing with the afternoon sun as it glinted through the shard, fracturing it to several streamers on the walls around them.
He said, “Even fragile, broken things hold beauty."
“But once they're broken, there's no going back to the way they were before."
Tossing aside the shard, he held her steady with his penetrating gaze. “Even a china doll can be mended, like you mend your animals."
With fear swirling inside her heart, with her stomach churning with desperation, she questioned, “And what is the bandage, the medicine that might work for us? Yes, I understand that individually we can get on with things, but is there no hope for freeing what's in our hearts for each other? Is there no medicine for us? No bandage we can find that would bring us together again?"
With a thumb, he stroked her neck, imprinting himself, breaking her heart because she saw the answer turning his eyes to dull flint. “If there is medicine for getting rid of all the regret and blame we both feel,” he said, his voice soft as the sunbeam between them, “I don't know what it is."
* * * *
HER DESPERATION grew. Just like that he would leave? Forever? That didn't seem possible to her. Marco Rojas couldn't do this to her. To them.
They had finished their egg sandwiches in the pirate ship, and folded the map, and packed the sextant away next to the wooden box of crayons when Laurel thought she'd found the secret that would finally bring them together. She thought she'd found the medicine.
It happened at the window.
“You and your lake are famous now,” Cole said, peering out the round hole, his hair fluttering against the sun-drenched gusts of summer air.
“Infamous is more like it,” she said on a sigh, wedging in next to him, settling her shoulder next to his, listening to the quiet hum that was always part of them when they were close physically.
Like the ebb and flow of the lake's waves, the energy between them never stilled. It unfurled itself ... like the lake in front of them. A deep lake running deep with secrets. Secrets? She stared at the lake in disbelief, swallowing hard, unable to breathe.
“Cole, what did Mike's message say?” Spirit Lake dangled a tantalizing notion in front of her.
“We were supposed to look under Aunt Flora's skirts, which we never found."
With a breathlessness overtaking her, she leaned further out the window, far enough to throw her arms wide and scare Cole.
“What are you doing! Watch out!” he called, snatching at her.
When he hauled her in against his heaving chest, she fought to get to the window again. “See what it looks like? The lake spreads out from the house, like a fan, just like a lady's...?"
And when she turned to Cole beside her, his grin grew wild and he kissed her. It was an exuberant spank on her lips. “Just like a lady's skirt!"
Snatching up the sextant, he positioned it against the horizon again. “Mike put something in the lake somewhere. Of course. We spent our lives diving for treasure. Why not here!"
Laurel's heart leaped every whichway like a thrashing fish in her excitement. “But where? What do you see?"
He groaned. “Miles and miles of lake and a bunch of tourists. Boats everywhere."
“Where does the needle point?"
“To the shore."
“Which shore?"
“That nub of land down the way that nearly did me in when I was chasing after you and Broderick."
“The land that forms the cove?"
“The cove? Wait a minute,” he said,
sizing up the sextant again. “When I was racing after you and Broderick, the sheriff's boat caught its rotor on some twine—"
“Connected to a minnow cage?” Excitement erupted in her stomach. “Your brother had to have been the one who bought the minnow cage in May from my mother."
“The proof must be buried in the water. Come on, Laurel Lee!"
* * * *
AN HOUR LATER, a soaked Laurel followed a drenched Cole in a mad dash into Buzz Vandermeer's newspaper office. They waved their catch—a waterproof cylinder with computer disks inside. Laurel's heart pumped wildly. If this meant putting his boss away forever, would Cole be free to answer the questions in her heart? Did he love her enough to stay? Or at least, to stay on to try and work things out? The unsettled feelings gnawed at her bones.
He hollered at Buzz, “Put this in your Mac, quick."
The shocked editor complied, but he was even more shocked when the first words on the screen were: “Dearest Brother, glad you found me."
Laurel watched Cole go weak and slump into an office chair next to Buzz. She, too, shivered from the wording. “Found me,” as if Mike were still alive. Perhaps he was, through Cole. Like Jonathon and the link she'd discovered with his living brother, Tyler. She went weak-kneed, and found herself gripping Cole's shoulders from behind, absorbing the nervous hum rippling through the strong muscles.
“Can't that machine go faster?” he demanded of Buzz's MacIntosh computer.
Her heart ached for him. “Give Buzz time, Cole."
Buzz tapped keys to get further into the menus. “Where'd you find the disks?"
“Spirit Lake,” was all Cole could get out, his fingers tapping on the desk.
“In the cove, where the sand collects,” Laurel finished for him, “in a waterproof canister inside a minnow cage floating in Spirit Lake."
“Like that thing they found the Texas woman's body in?"
“Just get to the next screen,” Cole said, tapping his fingers.
Buzz crowed, “Hot diggity dog, lookee at this."
Laurel and Cole jammed their noses next to Buzz's. The screen flickered. Cole went wide-eyed. “We got him."
Spirit Lake Page 26
