Montoya's Heart

by Bonnie Gardner

  Rance lay still, weak and sated, his limbs heavy and languid from his exertions. How right it felt to hold this woman in his arms after making love.

  Maggie lay snuggled against his chest, her head nestled against his shoulder. He gently massaged the yielding flesh of her hip pressed to his and listened to her soft, rhythmic breathing. Was she asleep, or simply sated, as he was? Her warm breath caressed him, sending comforting and cooling chills through him, threatening to reignite fires not yet extinguished, only banked and waiting for more fuel.

  He squeezed her to him, sighing with satisfaction at the gentle murmur of pleasure that came in response. He would happily lie this way forever.

  Then it was gone.

  The lights came on suddenly and filled the night with the stark light of day. The silence that had been broken only by the sounds of lovemaking was now filled with raucous canned music from the radio in the other room.

  Maggie’s eyes flew open, and she pushed him away and pulled out of his arms. She turned quickly.

  Damn! Any other time, Rance would have welcomed the restoration of the light and sounds that made modern life easier. But tonight he cursed it. He muttered another oath and reached to pull her back to him, but she wriggled away.

  “I have to go home,” Maggie whispered, her voice wobbly, her tone desperate. She smoothed her tousled hair with trembling fingers and avoided his eyes. Then she gathered up her scattered clothing and, with her back to him, dressed. Fully clothed, she rose, aimed one panicked, pleading look at him, and scurried away.

  The moment shattered by the rude intrusion of the modern world, Rance could do nothing but follow Maggie’s example. He dressed.

  And then he watched her leave.

  The clock made the only sound in Maggie’s little bedroom, and it ticked in the quiet like a time bomb. She covered her ears, but she could still hear it. It had seemed like a good idea to wind the old clock, just in case the electricity went again. But why? Tomorrow was Sunday; she would surely wake up long before it was time to go to church.

  She stuck the clock in the drawer of the nightstand, but it seemed to echo in the enclosed wooden box. Finally, she stuffed it into the other pillow and shoved it to the floor.

  Then there was blessed silence.

  Though it was late and she’d had a hectic day at work, Maggie couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t used to being alone at night. She was accustomed enough to sleeping alone. Even when Chet was alive, he’d had to go away for weeks and months at a time as part of his military duties. But she’d always had the children. Just being able to sense their presence had been comforting, in its own way.

  She’d never been the panicky type, and she wasn’t afraid. But she could count the times she’d been alone at night on one hand. It was different. And strange. And she didn’t think she would ever get used to it.

  The night and the house were quiet. Too quiet. The storm had cooled the hot summer air so that not even the droning hum of the air conditioner interrupted the silence. The only sound Maggie heard was the erratic beating of her heart.

  Why did Rance Montoya affect her so? She was a grown woman. She’d been married, borne children, and buried a husband. Why had she been so drawn to him that she all but threw herself into his bed? She should have been immune to those adolescent feelings that made her heart pound and kept her from sleep. She’d had her turn at life and love. Why couldn’t she accept her widowhood and grow old gracefully?

  Because she wasn’t old! She was thirty-six, still young. She didn’t relish the thought of spending the rest of her life alone in a little house, with the children gone, and no man to share it with. Whom was she fooling? Even after two years, the lonely nights still got to her.

  And having Rance stir up all those feelings and desires that were better forgotten had only made it worse.

  Maggie tossed and turned and tangled in the bedcovers. The rustling of the sheets provided welcome relief from the quiet, but when she lay still, the silence returned. Then the only sound she could hear was the beating of her heart.

  Why was she kidding herself? She wasn’t lying awake because the house was too quiet or the kids weren’t there. It was Rance and the memory of making love with him that caused her heart to pound and her mind to work feverishly. Why hadn’t the lights come on sooner?

  Maggie rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head. All she accomplished was to make the quiet of the night even quieter and the arguments inside her brain even louder.

  Suddenly Maggie had an irrational urge to hear crickets and birds and the rustle of the breeze through the old mimosa tree that shaded the mobile home. The last time she listened to night sounds, she had been lying half-asleep beside Rance in his bedroom after he was injured. On his bed, she realized distractedly. That wasn’t exactly the type of thought she was trying to encourage. And no matter what she did to the contrary, she couldn’t keep her mind from straying in his direction.

  He had been injured and in pain then, but it had been the first time he kissed her. He’d been drunk with painkillers, but he’d promised to make her his someday. She’d thought it was only fevered ramblings then, but tonight he had acted on that promise.

  But she had stopped him. Prevented him from holding her all through the night. Denied him, when her body was aching to join again with his. If only the lights had stayed off.

  She suddenly realized that she was up and out of bed. Maggie reached for her light cotton wrapper and put it on, groping with her feet for her slippers as she tugged the sleeves over her arms. She slid into the slippers and crept down the hall, careful not to wake... whom? She reminded herself that she was completely alone.

  The night air was cool, and a gentle breeze blew in from the west. The sky was still overcast, and heat lightning flashed in the distance, coloring the bottoms of the thick clouds with a fluorescent glow. The storm, if it was a storm, was too far off for the sound of thunder to send its voice her way.

  Maggie brushed the moisture off the glider swing in the yard and sank onto the damp seat, grateful for the welcoming squeak it gave her. She settled back and swung gently, listening to the symphony of night sounds.

  Abruptly, the evening chorus stopped, and it was eerily quiet. Something had made the night creatures stop and listen. Maggie stopped, too, cocking her head to hear.

  There it was. A muffled, distant, pounding beat, drifting in on the lazy breeze. It was as steady and insistent as her heartbeat, and Maggie’s heart sped up as she realized where the sound was coming from.

  It came from Hightower’s Haven!

  She tried to ignore the persistent drumbeat. The night creatures had already deemed it harmless and resumed their chorus, but she couldn’t ignore the sound. Now that she had noticed it, it seemed relentless in its rhythm. It wasn’t a natural sound she was hearing, and Maggie could think of no logical explanation.

  I’m here.

  The voice was stronger than he’d ever heard it. Calling to him. Begging him to come.

  Rance stood in front of the bare cinder-block wall, heedless of the damp chill in the musty basement. In spite of the pervasive cold, his body dripped with sweat, and he breathed heavily as he rested his arms by leaning against the cool wall.

  I’m here.

  It called again. Rance didn’t know how he heard it, or even if he heard it. Of one thing he was certain. Whoever—whatever—was calling was behind that wall. He reached for the heavy maul that he used for splitting wood. He’d leaned it against his leg while he rested. Now he winced as his not-quite-healed ribs protested the motion of picking it up again.

  He clenched his teeth and bit against the pain as he wrenched the heavy maul up from the floor. He swung, grimacing as the maul found its mark with a dull thud that reverberated through him. The pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this wall and what it hid.

  He swung again, automatically, as if driven by remote control. Chunks of cement flew free, striking him. In his fervor, he ceased to feel the pain. He
was powerless to stop long enough to examine what he’d done; he just swung. Again. And again. Matching the rhythm of his pounding heart.

  With Rance’s next swing, the heavy hammer exposed a small hole. He’d finally broken through. He paused, gasping for breath.

  Yes. Here!

  Panting, Rance wrenched the mallet free and swung again. A shower of broken cement and cinder blocks rained down on him as a crude mouth opened in the wall. It was only a tiny opening. Too small to enter. Too small to see.

  Yes!

  Rance drew back and swung again. Now the mouth yawned and gaped wider. He swung again and again.

  A clattering noise behind him broke Rance’s concentration, and the maul missed its mark. The mallet swung wide and thudded dully against the wall.

  “Rance!”

  He tried to swing again, but the unexpected voice had upsef his rhythm, and thrown him off balance. He staggered as the weight of the maul pulled him around.

  Maggie stood halfway down the stairs, fear and concern etched on her pale face. Her eyes were wide. He vaguely noticed that she was dressed for bed.

  “What are you doing?” Maggie stepped warily down the remaining steps and picked her way through a field of cement chips and rubble. She stopped just short of where Rance stood.

  Don’t stop now.

  “The wall. She’s calling me. Don’t you hear it?” Rance gasped brokenly as he swung blindly around to face the now broken expanse of wall.

  “Hear what? I don’t hear anything. What do you hear?” Maggie touched Rance’s arm lightly, calming him.

  He turned slowly around to face Maggie’s frightened, questioning eyes. God! Was he going crazy? What was he doing down here in the middle of the night, pounding on a wall like a fool?

  I’m here. Don’t forget me.

  If she hadn’t had any doubts about what she was doing running over here in the middle of the night, Maggie sure had them now. What was she thinking, coming to a haunted house at midnight with lightning flashing in the distance? In a B movie that would be funny—exciting, even. But this wasn’t a movie; this was very real.

  Rance looked like a madman, an untamed gleam in his dark eyes, gasping in front of the crumbling, mysterious wall. Had Rance Montoya gone completely off the deep end? He wore only his jeans, his feet were bare, and his magnificent body was drenched with sweat. Trickles of crimson traced patterns down his chest. He’d been nicked by the flying chips, and his blood, mixed with sweat, made him look fierce and wild.

  Rance cocked his head, his eyes moving in the direction of the hole. “Don’t you hear it? She’s calling me.” He turned to swing again.

  “Who’s calling you, Rance? Who? I don’t hear anything.” Then she realized what he had just said. He had said she. He’d heard a feminine voice calling, too!

  “I don’t know. At least, I don’t think I know. I just have to get through this wall. Now.” He spun around and wrenched the heavy wood maul up and off the floor.

  Maggie stepped back out of the way. She should have been alarmed. She should have turned and run. But she stood rooted to the spot. She didn’t know why, but she knew she had to stay. To help. Though at that moment she felt helpless.

  What could she do? Nothing. Nothing but be there for Rance.

  She realized as she watched Rance beat against the crumbling wall that the eerie feeling she’d had when she was down here the two times before was missing. Gone. Yet she sensed something. Not the terrifying desperation she’d felt before. It was almost... relief.

  Rance pulled back and made yet another assault against the wall. Maggie could tell that this blow was different. The hammer had found its mark, sure and true.

  With that blow, the wall came tumbling down.

  Sobbing for breath, Rance sank to his knees amid the rubble. Dust flew everywhere, clouding the room with smoky particles. Rance waved his arms to clear the dusty air away from him. He coughed as too much filthy air found its way to his lungs. There was nothing else he could do until it settled.

  I’m here.

  The voice was different now. If it was a voice. Triumphant ? Relieved? As if a long wait were over.

  “I’ve found her,” Rance whispered as Maggie’s cool hand settled on his shoulders. He looked up into her luminous turquoise eyes.

  “Who have you found?” Maggie knelt beside him and circled him with her arms.

  Rance turned into her embrace and buried his face in her soft shoulder. He realized with detached interest as he nuzzled into the bend of her neck that Maggie wore only a nightgown and a thin robe.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered into the soft, coppery curls. “Why did you come?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Maggie answered huskily. “And it was too quiet in the house. I went outside and...I heard something... you.” Maggie’s cool fingers caressed the back of his neck and played with his hair, sending cooling shivers down his spine. “Next thing I knew,” she murmured, “I was here.”

  Rance pulled away. “I couldn’t sleep, either,” he said, his voice rough and ragged from his exertions. How could he tell her he’d responded to a voice calling him from...where? “Something made me come down here and tear down the wall. It was almost as if I were being manipulated.”

  Rance struggled to his feet and worked his way through the dusty rubble to the gaping hole. He stared long and hard into the cavelike opening. He had no idea what he was looking for, what he expected to see, yet he did. And as much as he could under the circumstances, he hoped he was wrong.

  He waited for the dust to settle so that he could see. But he didn’t need sight to know what was hidden there. His heart beat faster as he realized with sudden certainty who he would find.

  Chapter 13

  “I know she’s in there,” he said huskily as he stared into the opening.

  Maggie stepped up behind him. “Who?” she repeated.

  “My mother.”

  She should have been more surprised, Maggie realized as what Rance had told her sank in. But she wasn’t.

  It all made sense now. Finally, the clues were falling together. From the female “ghost” that haunted Hightower’s Haven, to the car in the pool, to the ashtray that Rance had given his mother the day she disappeared from his life forever. Even the mysterious wall in the cellar made sense now. The secret lay almost exactly beneath Rance’s bed, hidden in the house for all that time.

  Though it had been natural for people to make the assumption, it wasn’t Luther’s ghost that people had been sensing in this house for the past thirty years, but Rose’s. Luther had always been safely tucked away in the family plot in Mattison, but nobody knew where Rose was. Nobody knew she was dead. At least not for sure!

  Well, somebody did. The person who had put her here and left her waiting to be discovered all this time.

  As the dust settled, Rance continued staring into the hole in the wall. After several long moments, he grabbed a flashlight, ducked his head and stepped inside.

  Maybe if she was thinking clearly after a good night’s sleep, she wouldn’t have followed Rance as he stepped, flashlight in hand, through the opening in the wall. But she did, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Rance didn’t stop to get his bearings. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. Was he following the same unheard voice that Maggie had recognized in the still of the night? He aimed his flashlight to the left, as if he knew exactly where he would find what he was looking for.

  The flashlight beam skimmed over a mound in the dusty earthen floor behind the wall. Rance swung the flashlight back and fixed the beam on the mound. A shiver of excitement that had nothing to do with fear heightened Maggie’s senses.

  There it was. The grave that neither of them was really surprised to find.

  It looked like a fresh grave on Boot Hill, as depicted in any old western movie. Dry red dirt was piled high to accommodate the added bulk of whatever lay below. The only things missing were the empty boots and crossed
sticks forming a crude marker.

  “Hold this,” Rance said tersely as he handed her the flashlight.

  She did. It didn’t even occur to Maggie to protest being left holding a flashlight in a dark basement that contained a grave. Rance stepped out of the cavernous room through the hole in the wall and back into the artificial light of the cellar, leaving Maggie alone in a dark tomb filled with creepy crawlers and at least one grave. And the only defense she had was a flashlight!

  In spite of all that, curiosity got the better of her. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she began to play the weak beam around the shadowy cellar. The floor was hard-packed dirt, dry, and smooth except for the mound. The exterior walls were earth up to the level of the ground. Rough beams rose from the floor to support the ceiling and part of the cinder-block wall.

  No wonder Rance had had so much trouble tearing it down, Maggie realized. The first place he chose to break through had been strengthened by a wooden support beam. When Maggie distracted him, he’d missed his aim and struck a much weaker spot. The wall had fallen within minutes.

  Rance returned with a portable kerosene lantern and a shovel. He handed the shovel to Maggie and silently lit the lantern with a match from his pocket. He adjusted the wick, and this room that hadn’t seen the light of day in thirty years filled with light. Maggie blinked in the sudden brightness and watched as Rance set the lamp beside the mound. Why did she feel so calm? Maggie handed the shovel to Rance, and he started to clear the heaped dirt away.

  Rance worked easily with the loose dirt. It had not been touched in years. Without rain and sun and the tramping feet of man to tamp it down, it was probably as loose as the day it had been mounded. Perhaps looser, for the soil was bone-dry, and barely resisted as the shovel dug into it.