by Rachel Lee
But it was not to be. He had to work, and so did she. Real life had returned. She tried hard not to think about the parts of it that would upset her and focus instead on the fact that she liked the archival work Emma had given her. She’d have fun today, just a different kind of fun.
It struck her then that she was enjoying herself for the first time since the attack, and doing so without any hindrance. If that guy were just behind bars again, she was certain she’d be able to throw her arms wide and embrace all of life with joy.
She just hoped that wasn’t only because of Jake, because he sure hadn’t promised anything. Not really. A few references to the future, but casual ones that could be meaningless.
Tucked away inside her, the memory of his rejection all those years ago remained. She couldn’t believe that it would be different now, even after what they had shared.
Maybe that was for the best, she thought. Could she really trust that she wasn’t just feeling dependency? Enjoying the escape he offered? What if the blossoming, deep feelings she was experiencing turned out to be illusory?
At this point she couldn’t tell.
What’s more, she decided not to worry about it. She had enough to deal with now that the cover of the storm had passed. That creep could be moving closer again. And nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed her mind about whether he would pursue her. He was sick. Of that she was sure, and sick people who felt compulsions were rarely rational when it came to their compulsions.
Her view of him was shifting as she thought more about him and about what Jake had theorized, but none of it suggested that the creep was just going to head for the border and never be seen again.
Something about him going after his own wife was like a red flag in her head. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but it seemed to bear out her feeling that he wouldn’t give up on her. Maybe because the attack on his wife indicated that he no longer cared whether anyone knew what he did.
He had, after all, been found out. She had survived and had been able to help identify him. She had made it out of those woods when he was absolutely convinced it would be years before anyone came across her scattered bones.
So he had nothing to hide anymore. Only scores to settle. And she figured she still loomed large on his score sheet.
The weight of those feelings settled over her as she and Jake drove toward town on what should have been an absolutely gorgeous early winter day. The feeling of dread weighed on her even though he held her hand nearly the whole way.
It weighed on her even more when they reached the library.
“I have to go in to the office,” he said. “I can take you with me or leave you here with Miss Emma. Your choice. But if I leave you here, I’m going to make sure one of my men is outside.”
“I can’t be following you everywhere like a lost lamb,” she said, even though it was hard. At some point she had to face up to this. She couldn’t remain a prisoner of her fears or be dependent on Jake every single moment of the day.
“You can,” he said firmly. “These circumstances are unusual. I promised I’d staple myself to your side and I meant it.”
It took every bit of her courage and determination to shake her head. She didn’t want to be away from Jake at all, for plenty of reasons that had nothing to do with safety. But she reminded herself, too, of her determination to take back at least some of her life. Letting the nightmare take charge wouldn’t change a thing, but would leave her living only half a life.
“I’ll be fine. I’m sure your officer can guard me as well as you.”
“Hey,” he said, sounding as if he were trying to joke. “I’m the best!” But the tension at the edges of his eyes gave lie to the humor.
“I know you are.” She meant it.
He half smiled and leaned over to kiss her. “I’ll watch while you get inside. Then I’m not budging until one of my men gets here, okay?”
“Okay.”
Opening the car door was hard, but she did it, squaring her shoulders and marching up the recently shoveled path and salt-scattered steps. When the door closed behind her, the library’s familiar silence and scents closed around her.
Safety was here. It had been here her entire life. She just hoped nothing wrecked it.
* * *
Jake made sure Ben Clews fully understood the importance of keeping an eye on Nora. Ben got it.
“I heard. We’re all watching, remember, Chief?”
“I remember. I just don’t want anyone to get careless or distracted. I’ll be back as soon as I can to take over.”
Then he headed for the office and hunted up Gage. “Anything?”
Gage shook his head. “It’s like the guy vanished.”
“Easy enough to do.”
“Don’t I know it. It’s a big country. We don’t usually find them until they slip up or slow down for too long somewhere. Damn needles in haystacks.”
“Anything more from Fred Loftis?”
“Should I be worried? The guy seems to have settled back for the time being. Of course, the weather hasn’t encouraged any hijinks from any direction.”
“I hope things don’t start emerging from the woodwork today.” He paused. “Or maybe I do. This waiting is killing Nora, and I’m ready to wrap my hands around any handy throat.”
“I know that feeling,” Gage said. “I know it well. Unfortunately...” He shook his head.
Jake got it. He just wished he knew how much more of this agonizing wait Nora was going to have to endure. What if the guy did head for the hills and never came? How long would this go on for her? Would she ever be able to move past it?
That concern settled in his chest like lead. She needed some kind of resolution, and while the thought that Langdon might get near her again chilled his very blood, especially after the scars he had seen on her, he knew that this had to be settled somehow so she could move on. Five years down the road, he didn’t want her to still be looking over her shoulder, wondering.
But all they had to go on was Nora’s conviction that Langdon couldn’t let it go. He both feared and hoped she was right. Talk about the horns of a dilemma, he thought as he went to his office to scan messages and scheduling. Then he marked himself off for the next two days, hoping nothing would happen to change it, and went back to the library in his private vehicle.
He hated stakeouts, but that was basically what he was going to be doing until whenever.
It had been a month now. If Langdon was coming at all, he must be getting closer by now. More and more convinced that everyone would believe he’d skipped the country. That they’d be growing more and more inattentive.
Well, Jake wasn’t going to let down his guard. Not for a good, long time to come.
* * *
Nora had vanished into a diary written by one of the county’s earliest pioneer women. Growing pain and approaching madness seemed to be oozing from the pages as the lonely woman wrote about the wind. The ceaseless wind. Nora’s heart began to gallop.
It is almost all I hear, the woman wrote. The children and the wind, and the wind has the worst voice of all. It sounds like a call from beyond the grave. It blows endlessly, dust settles over everything and I do not care anymore. When I step outside, it is even worse.
The wind has a voice, and it cries in loneliness and pain. It calls to me until I put my hands over my ears. If only it would calm for a few days, if only it didn’t pound me every time I step out, grabbing at my hair and clothing. It nearly whipped my skirt into the fire as I was making soap....
It is alive, this wind, and it is the voice of a demon.
“Nora?”
Startled, she jumped and looked up. Emma was standing in the doorway. The librarian evinced immediate concern.
“Is something wrong?”
“No...no. It’s just this diary. This woman writes with such pain.”
“Enough for today,” Emma said. “Even if you don’t need to quit, and I think you do, Jake has been sitting outside p
atiently all this time. I think he needs lunch, so why don’t you go make sure he gets it? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The argument about Jake needing lunch was all that could pull Nora away from this woman’s story. She put the fragile diary aside, determined to continue with it the next day even though she suspected that might not be wise.
The demon wind. Nora could almost hear it. Had heard it that cold, terrifying night. It had tried to snatch the life from her as she had crawled weakly over twigs and rocks, cold, so cold. She felt that woman’s suffering reaching out to her across the centuries.
The day had clouded over while she’d been buried in the past. The wind was gone, though, at least here in town, and after reading that diary, she was especially grateful. It had carried her to uncomfortable places, to a different kind of suffering, but suffering nonetheless. She wished she could reach back over time and offer that poor woman some solace.
“Lunch?” Jake asked as they pulled away from the library.
“Absolutely,” she agreed, although she didn’t feel very hungry right now. But Emma was right. Jake had been sitting out here patiently watching over her, and he certainly needed something to eat by now. A glance at her watch told her it was already past one.
“Is Maude’s okay?”
“Is there another place?” She tried to sound light.
“Home,” he said quietly.
“No, that’s a long drive. You need some food. Maude’s is fine.” She’d even have agreed to the truck stop, although she wasn’t sure she’d feel as comfortable there with so many strangers pulling in and out. At least at Maude’s she’d recognize most of the faces, even if they weren’t as familiar as they’d once been.
Maude’s, however, was all but empty. A couple of older men had a table where they were drinking coffee and talking about football. Jake guided her to a corner booth, and then the fun began.
“Still too thin,” Maude said, looking her over. “Gotta fatten you up some.”
“I can’t eat a whole lot at one time,” Nora said.
“Well, I ain’t getting you no salad. Eat what you can.”
Nora mentally threw up her hands. If she’d wanted to choose for herself, she should have chosen the truck stop.
Jake picked up on her reaction. “We don’t have to eat here,” he said quietly as Maude stomped off to get coffee and God-knew-what to feed her.
“It’s okay. Like she said, I’ll eat what I can.”
He waited quietly until they were both served, he with a steak sandwich and a heap of fries, she with a grilled chicken breast, a fresh roll and some broccoli. So Maude did make healthy food when pressed. She needed to remember that.
“So what’s going on?” Jake asked quietly. “You came out of the library looking disturbed.”
“I was reading a diary.” Talking more about it left her feeling uneasy. She had enough hang-ups these days to qualify for some heavy-duty therapy. Did she want to convince Jake she was totally nuts?
“A diary? About what?”
“One of the first women to settle here. She was awfully lonely and the wind bothered her, too.” Then she just said it straight out. “She said the wind was a demon.”
“I can see why you were disturbed. Do you feel that way, too?”
She felt a flash of anger, maybe because he had come so close to the truth. “I’m not a lunatic!”
“I didn’t say any such thing. I know the wind bothers you. I get why it bothers you. Reading that diary couldn’t have been easy, and I couldn’t blame you if the wind seemed demonic. You told me about crawling out of those woods.”
At last she met his gaze and saw nothing critical there. No, not in the least. He looked concerned, but in a kind way.
She almost asked him if he were ever unkind, but caught herself in time. Given what lay in their past, that would be an ugly question, even if born of simple forgetfulness. “It’s fanciful,” she said finally. “I guess I identified with her too much.”
“So you’re okay? Honestly, Nora, that’s the only thing I’m concerned about right now. You. If that diary is upsetting...”
She shook her head. “It is. It was. But that woman deserves for someone to read her story even after all these years.”
“I guess so. I won’t argue with you.”
“Wow,” she said.
“Wow?”
“You have no idea how much of my life I’ve spent arguing.”
“Until you left here, I presume?”
“Mostly, yes.” The smile returned to her heart, however briefly, and she offered it to him. “Thank you for that.”
“For what? You seem adult to me, capable of deciding things yourself.”
Right then, that meant a lot to her, mostly because she wasn’t exactly sure herself. Oh, she was old enough, but the events of the past few months had left her feeling like a child again in some ways—control of so much had been removed from her hands.
“I haven’t been feeling very grown-up lately,” she admitted.
A spark heated his eyes. “Oh, trust me,” he said in a low voice, “you’re definitely grown-up.”
And there it was again, the fire in her blood and in her loins, a fire he stoked so quickly and easily. All of a sudden she couldn’t wait to get back to his ranch and forget everything in his arms again. Everything.
Rosa would be there, unfortunately, but eventually evening would come and she could once again reside in Jake’s arms, once again feel his body moving inside hers.
Once again feel like a whole woman. Truly whole.
He must have seen something in her face because he suddenly lifted his hand. “Maude? We’ve got to go. Can I get some carryout boxes?”
* * *
Langdon was making great time. The compulsion sat in the driver’s seat now, and while some part of him realized he was taking a risk in driving so fast, he couldn’t prevent himself. He could almost smell his quarry in the open spaces ahead, in the mountains that began to loom over the surrounding plain.
He would get there tonight. Tonight. He could hardly wait now. But he wasn’t a completely stupid man and he knew he had to deal with some things.
Small towns didn’t talk to strangers without good reason. So he was going to have to explain why he needed to know the whereabouts of Nora Loftis.
He had a couple of knives. He preferred knives. Guns were too quick and offered little amusement. But a knife...that could amuse him for hours, inflicting pain the whole time.
He had bigger plans this time. Bigger hungers. He wanted the woman’s pain as much as he wanted to hear her beg, as much as he wanted to see her die. He’d long since forgotten why he’d become obsessed with her. It didn’t matter.
She had to be dealt with before he could move on to the next one.
And there were going to be a lot of them. Nora would be his true practice, his chance to learn the parameters of what he could do to make it all last as long as possible. His lesson in making sure he left no breathing evidence behind when he was done.
The past few weeks had been an advantage in one way: he’d had plenty of time to think about new ways to torture, to draw it out. He had developed some great ideas.
He made one stop at a big-box store in Casper. As he had hoped, they carried plenty of hunting and fishing supplies of the kind he wanted: mainly knives of a few kinds, but also some pretty big fishhooks that gave him some new ideas. And in the toy department, he even found a badge that looked real enough at a glance. He’d put in a cheap leather wallet to make it look more official, and wouldn’t let anyone look hard at it.
But it would probably get him the information he wanted. His mind was already spinning the story, rehearsing it. All he needed was for one rube to fall for it. In a town full of hayseeds, that shouldn’t be too hard as long as he was careful.
Knives tucked under the seat, he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened.
He’d get there tonight. At most, Nora Loftis had one more day, de
pending on how difficult it turned out to be to grab her.
Not too difficult, he assured himself. It had been easy the first time. She’d be more on guard now, but she was still a weakling. She wouldn’t be able to fight him for long, and he would enjoy every bit of fight she put up.
Because that would make teaching her a lesson that much sweeter.
Grinning into the graying day, he pressed harder on the accelerator.
* * *
Al had things well in hand, although the weatherman was predicting some more light snow. Nora was glad to change into jeans and help however she could. It felt so good to be outdoors and the wind didn’t feel at all threatening today. In fact, it was nearly silent, tossing her hair a bit but offering no other problems.
She spent a couple of hours in the corral working the horses, who seemed quite content to run in circles and work off energy. Her own spirits rose with the horses’ and banished the last of the disturbing sorrow the diary had given her.
It wasn’t the same now as back then, she thought. Maybe when there was a blizzard, but even so, people weren’t cut off like that anymore. Maybe the diarist had more problems than the distance from her neighbors. Maybe she didn’t have a supportive husband, a man who was also a companion. That could make life out here very hard indeed.
She wondered if she would find out as she read more tomorrow. She had never dreamed that an ordinary diary could grip her as much as a great novel.
But maybe it wasn’t the diary, but the way she identified with the woman. Cut off, alone with the wind.
Maybe that’s all it was.
“Hey, lady,” she heard Jake call.
She turned from Daisy, who was nudging her for pets. “Yes?”
“You’ve been out here too long. I don’t know about you, but I think we could both use a hot drink. Come on inside.”
She turned to pat Daisy’s neck one last time and trotted toward the fence. She was running again. Very cool, she thought, and grinned. Only then did she realize how cold her cheeks had become.
She felt so good just then, in a way she hadn’t felt in forever. Just happy to be alive. Yes, the lovemaking with Jake had helped start the cascade, but the beautiful day was adding to it, enhancing a wonderful sense of life. She needed more of this.
