Montoya's Heart

by Bonnie Gardner

  The impending storm kept Maggie from reflecting much on her brief exchange with Rance Montoya earlier in the day, but then the thought of Buddy brought it all back. It wasn’t so much what her teenage son said as what he did. Or didn’t do. Buddy hadn’t exactly volunteered to help with supper, but he hadn’t argued about it, either. Perhaps he was just too worn out from his day’s work, or maybe Rance’s words had hit home. Whatever the cause, Maggie appreciated the change. Even Jennifer seemed to notice the difference.

  They sat down to eat a quick dinner of sliced, cold ham and salads just as the first wave of the storm reached them. Wet drops of rain began to pelt the windows. Maggie held her breath as the lights flickered. They stayed lit, but she jumped up to locate a flashlight, matches and candles, just in case. She had always enjoyed a good thunderstorm, but Jennifer had never liked them. And it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

  Jennifer reached for a serving of potato salad just as the lights winked again. This time they flickered and went out

  “Mom.” Jennifer’s voice was panicky. A flicker of lightning showed the child’s hand still poised in midair, holding the scoop of potato salad.

  “It’s okay, Jen.” Maggie switched on the flashlight and propped it on the table. She struck a match and lit the two candles she’d arranged in the center of the table.

  “See, Jen. Dinner by candlelight.” Was that really Buddy’s voice? Yesterday he would have teased Jennifer about being afraid of the dark.

  What had Rance said to her son? He must have done something she hadn’t thought of. Whatever it was, Maggie liked it.

  It was early enough that it still should be light outside, but the storm had made it as dark as midnight. The thick clouds and driving rain made it impossible to see outside, and the sound of thunder and rain lashing against the aluminum siding of the double-wide made conversation impossible. They finished the meal quickly and without speaking.

  Normally the kids disappeared immediately after a meal, each attending to his or her own agenda. But tonight neither of them moved, both of them more than willing to remain in their little island of light and their mother’s protection.

  The storm dissipated as quickly as it had built. In less than an hour, the sky had begun to clear, rinsed free of the heat and humidity. It showed off with a rainbow and then the glorious beauty of the setting sun.

  As soon as it was safe, Maggie and the kids piled outside to appreciate the grand finale. Maggie toweled off the wooden glider swing that sat in the shade of the mimosa tree in the yard. She and Jennifer took a seat there and swung gently as Mother Nature did her best to impress them.

  Buddy lounged on the front stoop, less impressed by the colorful show. He scanned the grounds and the trees and the road. “Mom, Rance is going somewhere.”

  Maggie looked down the road to the narrow lane that led to Hightower’s Haven. The red pickup was turning out onto the road and heading their way. She couldn’t help wondering where he was going at this time of day.

  She didn’t wonder long. The little red pickup truck, glistening with raindrops, turned into her lane. Maggie rose to greet him, suddenly all too aware of the dampness soaking into her skirt from sitting on the saturated wooden swing.

  “Hi. How’d you weather the storm?” Maggie called as Rance swung his strong, lean body out of the truck. He’d changed clothes and was wearing an appropriately buttoned shirt, she noticed with relief. Or was it regret?

  “You stole my line. That’s what I came to see you about.” He crossed the yard and took a spot on the stoop next to Buddy.

  “We’re snug as bugs. How about you?” Maggie asked. “I’d have thought your old house would be full of leaks and drips.”

  “Only from the bathroom window I forgot to close.” Rance laughed. “That house was built to last, and all the previous owners tried to keep it watertight. The roof is nearly new.” He looked down toward the spot where the tower to Hightower’s Haven showed among the trees.

  “I guess folks always made sure they had a solid roof to live under before old Luther’s ghost ran them off.” Maggie was unprepared for the look of... what?...that came over Rance’s face. What she meant to be a joke had apparently struck Rance deeply. “I’m sorry, I suppose that was tacky of me.” Then she remembered what Tess had mentioned the other day in the library. Could there be another ghost at play in Hightower’s Haven?

  Rance said nothing in response to Maggie’s apology. He just dug in his pockets and came up with a match. Maggie watched as he stuck it in his mouth and gnawed on the end, then rolled the wooden stick from one corner of his mouth to the other. Finally he removed the match and sighed.

  “I think my...Mr. Hightower has had a bum rap for all these years,” Rance said as he broke the stick in two and pushed himself upright. “I haven’t seen any sign of him at all.” He tossed the pieces of stick into the wet grass.

  The momentary slip of the tongue almost passed Maggie by unnoticed. But she had caught his hesitation. Suddenly the curiosity she’d claimed not to have was up and running. The stricken look on Rance’s face had to come from deeper than just a reference to his resident ghost.

  “You know, I certainly felt nothing unusual about the house when we were over there the other day.” Not like the time she’d tried to camp there and been frightened away, she thought but didn’t say. “In fact, I felt quite welcome.”

  Rance grinned. “You sure it wasn’t my wonderful hospitality?”

  “It could have been.”

  Rance started for his truck.

  Buddy asked the question that Maggie had wanted to voice. “Do you have to go?”

  “Yeah. I just came over to see how you were.”

  “Thanks. We’re fine,” Maggie murmured as she watched him cross the tiny yard and climb into his truck. “Don’t be a stranger,” she called as he switched on the engine.

  And she vowed that he wouldn’t be, if she had to pester him herself. He’d done more with Buddy in one day than she’d been able to in two years. Rance seemed to care about her. Them.

  But he was obviously hiding a secret. And now that it was plain to her, Maggie Callahan was determined to find out what it was.

  The truck’s headlights caught something in their high beams. Curious, Rance slowed the truck to a crawl and inched down past the entrance to Hightower’s Haven. He was nearing the narrow, low bridge that spanned Beaver Creek.

  Was it his imagination, or did the water seem to be unusually high? The little stream usually meandered lazily through his property and passed under the bridge. Then it wandered just as sluggishly through Joe Popwell’s place. Maybe it was normal for the creek to run high after such a heavy downpour. Rance had only been around for a little over a week, hardly enough time to get to know the normal fluctuations of the stream.

  He stopped the truck and climbed out, leaving the lights on. He followed the headlights’ beams down to the bridge and took a careful look. The bridge seemed sound enough, and there was no evidence that the water had undermined the structure. But the water level was definitely higher than Rance had seen it before.

  He took another long look, then returned to the truck. Everything seemed all right for now, but first thing in the morning he would go out and check again just to be sure.

  The sun was awfully bright for this time of morning, Maggie thought as she rubbed her eyes and blinked herself awake. She looked at the clock. No wonder it was so bright. She’d overslept!

  Its red digital display blinking, the bedside alarm clock reminded her of what she’d forgotten to do the night before. The power had still not returned when Maggie went to bed, and she’d forgotten to set the windup backup alarm. She groped for her watch on the bedside table. Eight o’clock. And she had to be at the library by nine.

  “That’s one of the joys of country living I had conveniently forgotten,” Maggie muttered as she flung herself out of bed. Grabbing her robe, she headed for the bathroom and her wake-up shower. She banged on the kids’ doors as sh
e passed.

  Ten minutes later, she emerged from a cloud of steam, refreshed and awake. Dripping from her shower, Maggie peered through the clouded mirror, but she couldn’t see well enough to put on her makeup.

  “I wonder if I’d scare too many people if I went in without my face on, just this once?” Maggie muttered, squeezing toothpaste onto her brush. She brushed her teeth without being able to see her reflection in the mirror. Too bad she couldn’t do her makeup by the Braille method as well.

  Hoping she would have time to do her face when the mirror cleared, Maggie tugged her robe over her damp body. Still tying the sash, she headed back for her bedroom.

  The kids’ doors were still closed, and Maggie sighed. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered as she banged on their doors again. Two sleepy voices answered, assuring Maggie that they were awake. Relieved, she headed for her room to dress.

  Just as she reached her bedroom door, she heard a loud banging at the front of the house. She turned back down the hall.

  “Kids, are you making that noise?”

  Buddy stumbled out of his room, rubbing his eyes. “Not me.”

  The sound came again. Someone was at the front door. Maggie hurried to answer it.

  It wasn’t usual for people to come calling this early, even in rural Mattison. Taking the side of caution, Maggie peered through the drawn drapes to see who was there.

  Rance Montoya, dressed in running shorts, his bare chest glistening with sweat, stood outside. Maggie wanted to take her time examining his rock-hard, tanned body, but she let the curtain fall back into place.

  “Damn. And here I am with no face, no clothes, and no time.” Maggie tugged her robe tightly around her and reached for the doorknob.

  Chapter 5

  How long could it take to get from one end of the tiny house to the other? Rance fretted impatiently as he waited, still breathing hard from his record-breaking dash up the hill from the bridge. A movement of the curtains at the window showed him that someone was up.

  The sight of Maggie in a damp cotton robe nearly made Rance forget what he’d come for, and shot his almost-normal-again pulse rate back into the danger zone. The clingy fabric left very little of Maggie to his well-tuned imagination. And he liked what he saw.

  “I’m sorry to get you up this early, but I need to use your phone. Mine’s not in yet.”

  Maggie pointed him in the direction of the phone on the wall.

  “The creek’s overflowed. The bridge is under water.” Rance snatched the phone off its cradle, then realized he didn’t know who to call. He turned to Maggie and tried to ignore the inviting view as he explained. “I’m sure I should notify somebody about this, but who?” Rance stared, mesmerized as a tiny trickle of water made its way from Maggie’s damp russet curls, down her cheek, to the corner of her mouth. She caught it with the tip of her tongue and nearly drove him wild.

  Maggie took the phone from him, brushing his heated fingers with her cool ones. “I don’t know, either, but surely Daddy will.” She punched in a number.

  Rance took the opportunity to look around the tiny home. Anything to keep from looking at Maggie in her delicious state of undress. In spite of its small proportions, Maggie had arranged the room well, making the best of the cramped space. It was obvious that he wasn’t looking at standard-issue trailer furnishings. He wondered why she would leave a much wealthier lifestyle to come way out here.

  Maggie put down the phone. “Daddy says he’ll call the county road commissioner. They’ll have to check out the bridge. In the meantime, he says that he’ll have to see if he can find out where the stream is blocked. I imagine a tree or some other debris from the storm has fallen and dammed the creek. If the bridge is flooded, the obstruction must be on our side of the road. Will you be able to give him a hand?”

  “Yeah. No problem. I guess I should have told somebody last night. I saw that the water was high, but I figured it was normal after a storm.”

  As much as Rance enjoyed looking at Maggie in her almost-undressed state, he wished she would put her clothes on. It was too much for his heart to take so early in the morning. And the tightening he was feeling in his groin was going to be damned hard to hide in these nylon running trunks.

  “Go on and finish dressing. I’ll go home and change into work clothes. Tell your dad I’ll be back to help,” he told her as he reluctantly turned to leave.

  An expression that could only have been described as dismay came over Maggie’s face, and Rance hoped it meant she was sorry he was going. “Oh, no,” she wailed. “If the bridge is out, I’ll have to drive to Pittsville by way of Mattison. And I’m already late.”

  So much for that idea, Rance thought as he heard the reason for Maggie’s distress. She turned abruptly and headed for the back of the house. Rance chuckled as he watched her well-shaped backside disappear down the hall.

  The obstruction that had dammed the creek was easy enough to find. Rance, Joe Popwell and Buddy just followed the edge of the ever-widening stream until they found the dam. It was barely a half mile away from the point where the road crossed the creek.

  Rance stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the small logjam. It was amazing to him that a few logs and branches could stop a creek so quickly. He reached for a match and discovered he’d forgotten them. Taking a sprig of grass, he turned to look at the dry side of the dam, where Buddy was picking his way across the muddy stream bed, using rocks and stones that had not felt the touch of air in a long time. The rocks and mud floor of Beaver Creek showed through clearly, where once water had been.

  Before doing anything about the logjam, Joe Popwell surprised Rance by saying, “I heard there’s supposed to be a deep pool down yonder somewheres that’s probably a good fishin’ spot. I never looked before, ’cause I just couldn’t get down to it, with the trees and all. Reckon I’ll just stroll on down and take me a look.”

  The older man set off down the stream, picking his way over slippery rocks. He was surprisingly agile for a man of his age, and moved fast. Rance watched him as he went and realized that Maggie must have gotten her Irish coloring from her father. His hair was that muddy kind of gray that redheads always faded to, and his rough, work-worn hands were covered with freckles. Rance laughed. Tess must look like her mother.

  Joe was almost out of sight when Rance heard an excited yell. A list of possible reasons for Joe to shout ran through Rance’s head, most of them bad. He sprinted, slipping in the mud and the puddled water in his haste. Buddy brought up the rear. When Rance arrived at the spot where Joe was standing, he saw the reason for Joe’s excitement.

  The man was staring into a deep pool, clearly visible now that the creek level was lowered. “What do you make of that?” Popwell asked, and pointed to a large, rusty form barely visible in the murky water, still cloudy from the storm.

  Rance stared at the hulk, and chills ran down his spine, in spite of the July humidity. The submerged object was a car.

  “How you reckon it got there?” Joe asked.

  Buddy looked in and provided his opinion. “It’s a car, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, an old Chevrolet, I’d say.” How he knew that, he didn’t know, but he was positive of the make, if not the model. Another chill raced through him. Rance surveyed the close growth of forest around them. “But how the hell did it get through here?”

  Judging from the tangled underbrush that surrounded them and the rounded styling of the car’s roof, Rance figured the car had been there for a very long time. The length of time was of less concern to him than the reason. It would have taken a lot of work to get a car to the pool through the woods and the trees that far from the road. Nobody would do it just for fun.

  Was foul play involved? There was no way that car could have gotten into that water by accident. It had to have been put there intentionally. Another set of chills overtook him. Could there be a body in there?

  Joe Popwell had apparently been thinking along similar lines. “I druther j
ust pull out a few of them logs back yonder and get the water running again, but I think we ought to call in the sheriff. He’ll want to take a look while the water’s down.”

  “I think you’re right.” Rance stared down into the murky water, at the barely visible hulk. He didn’t know why he was so certain, but he had a terrible feeling he knew whose car that was.

  ROSIE H. Why had that image popped into his mind? Rance shook his head. He would just have a little while longer to wait.

  The car tags would prove it beyond all doubt.

  But he hoped he was wrong.

  The news that her father had found a car submerged in a pool in the creek found its way to Maggie in the library by the usual small-town grapevine. By the time she took her lunch break, it was all over Pittsville. By the time she got home, it was almost all over.

  Maggie pulled her minivan into her lane at about four o’clock, having driven the long way, via Mattison, just in case. By the time she’d changed into jeans and walking boots and smeared on sunscreen and mosquito repellent, the sheriff’s department was almost finished. The diver had concluded his underwater search and was preparing to hook a towline to the car.

  Maggie edged into the crowd of onlookers who had found their way to the site by way of the newly cleared track through the pines. For a small town, there were an awful lot of gawkers hanging around.

  She looked for her family among the jam of people. Her dad was easy enough to find; he was leaning against a tree, operating on a piece of wood with his pocketknife. A moment later, she spotted her daughter. Why wasn’t she at Mom’s? That question was answered a second later, when Maggie caught sight of Daisy Popwell’s silver cap of hair.

  Buddy was standing to one side looking important and smug. Then Maggie realized why. Her son was being interviewed, or so it appeared, by Harper Clodfelter, the reporter for the Pittsville. Partner. Maggie chuckled. That would certainly give Buddy’s adolescent ego a boost. If the story made it into print with his name in it.