Broken Bonds

by Karen Harper

  “So, you have no one special in your life, besides your family?” Matt asked, salting his salad, as if that were a nonchalant question. “You asked if I have kids. Why are you especially dedicated to children who are hurting, little ones living on the edge?”

  “Ha. I knew you’d be the first one to bring up the kids we’re not supposed to be talking about. You have a soft heart for them, too. I can tell by your helping out the McKitrick family. It’s not only because Woody was your employee and friend, is it?”

  “Touché. I owed him for teaching me a lot about the area, about the people outside the realm of Lake Azure. In a way, maybe you can take up where he left off.”

  “The mountain folk themselves are the teachers. But to answer your question, no—no special man in my life. I had a college romance that I thought would lead to a future, but he had stars in his eyes for a big corporate career in the East—he’s in New York City—and that just wasn’t me. Okay, I know that look. Yes, you’re thinking, there are lots of poor, needy kids in New York, but I prefer, as you put it, living on the edge. Well, the edge of civilization, not the kind of edge you almost went over.”

  “Now we’ve both broken the taboo conversation rules.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her as if in a challenge. “But, if you’re reading my mind now, I’m in trouble.” His smile widened to a boyish grin as he finally looked away and speared a slice of tomato.

  Char picked up her wineglass and took a slow sip to calm herself. She didn’t even know this man two days ago, and now... But this dinner would surely be it. Just like her college love, she and Matt were so different. Different economic levels, different goals, their futures poles apart.

  They both ate chicken cordon bleu and pommes frites. Ah—so these were what were called French fries in America.

  Meanwhile, Matt explained that Royce had been almost like a father to him since his dad had died young. The Lake Azure community kept him busy full-time. He wasn’t in on the Environmental Expansion Company.

  “You might know,” she said, deciding to ignore another one of Matt’s conversation caveats for the evening, “they put the words environmental and expansion in the company name. Don’t they realize that—despite the good things the money can do for this area—fracking can also hurt the environment? What about all these new roads and the noise? And I’ve read it can pollute groundwater. Oops—sorry. Too heavy a topic.”

  “No, that’s all right. There are pros and cons, but if the U.S. can become less dependent on foreign oil, it’s a good thing, right? And I do like a woman with her own opinions, honestly. If you were right down the line with things I like or say, I’d think you were just out to please me and had no backbone.”

  “Good!” she said as their server returned, and they both ordered chocolate crepes for dessert.

  * * *

  It was a frosty night with silver pinpoints of stars stuck on a black velvet dome of sky when Matt drove Char out of town. A bright curve of moon smiled down at them. He took her on a short tour of Lake Azure, pointing out his house and telling her he’d have her to dinner at the lodge soon. All the houses backed up to wooded hills and had treed lots as if the forest embraced them.

  “By the way,” he told her, “almost all the wood for these buildings came from Grant Mason’s lumberyard, so you can tell your sister Kate this place helped pay for her wedding.”

  The tennis courts, volleyball area, shuffleboard and archery range weren’t lighted, but old-fashioned streetlights threw pools of gold along the curved streets. It seemed to her a very romantic place—in the old sense of that word—with several skaters on the lake and people bundled up, roasting marshmallows or hot dogs over a fire on the beach.

  “If we just had snow it would look like a Currier and Ives card,” she told him.

  “We do have sleigh rides next month. I’ll take you on one.”

  So, she thought, with another frisson of excitement, he intended that they would go on, be friends at least. The way he looked at her and some of the things he said made her believe—and hope—he meant this was the beginning of more. No, that would never work. Not only were they from different worlds, but almost different universes. Without realizing it, she heaved a deep sigh.

  “What?” he asked as he drove out toward the highway past the stone sign announcing Lake Azure Community.

  “It just seems a sort of haven, that’s all. I hope those who live there appreciate it, especially when they drive in past the derelict farmhouses and old town.”

  “Some know how blessed they are, some don’t and won’t.”

  “How about Royce Flemming?”

  “He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Char. He worked his way up, just like my father.”

  “At least your father didn’t mean to leave you.”

  “Like your dad did? I got the idea you and your sisters had made up with him.”

  “We have, but it doesn’t quite heal the initial pain of desertion. I was close to my mom, too, and cancer took her.”

  “We have a lot more to get to know about each other, to share.”

  As he turned up the curved road toward her cabin, the headlights of the big car slashed through bushes and tree limbs. “By the way,” he said, “since I take it you liked the look and feel of Lake Azure, there’s a place that needs a house sitter this winter—folks who head to Florida, just in case you change your mind about—”

  “You said you wouldn’t try to talk me out of staying in the cabin up here. I decided to do it and I will. A woman with her own opinions, right?”

  “Right,” he said, but he hit the steering wheel with his fist, lightly, just once.

  He pulled into the cabin’s narrow drive, and they sat there a moment. He switched off his headlights, then turned them on again. She had the feeling he’d say more, maybe try to talk her out of staying here again. But he got out, leaving his headlights on so they could see. She’d left a light on inside the kitchen, but it did little to pierce the hovering blackness here. This place had a different feel from the vast openness of Navajo land at night. Closer, tighter with the hills, even though her location overlooked the open valley far below.

  Just to make the point again that she was her own woman, she was tempted to open her car door before he came around, but she let him do it. He took her hand as they headed for the cabin, which now looked so small.

  They stood in the beams from the headlights, while she fumbled with the unfamiliar key and new lock. Reluctant to go in, to end this night, she opened the wooden door a crack. It had a glass window that came partway down, lending them wan light from inside, though it was no match for the headlights.

  “What’s that old but true line?” she asked as he stood close, blocking the wind for her. “I’ve had a wonderful time—and I mean it.”

  “Me, too,” he said, and lifted a warm hand to tip her chin up. “I want you to understand that tonight was not really payback for what you did. I wanted to do it—for myself, too, as if nothing bad had ever thrown us together in the first place.”

  Char started to nod as he dipped his head to kiss her. Soft at first, almost friendly, then serious for sure. She felt like a naive teen on her first date, unsteady, curious, needy.

  They broke the kiss and stepped apart, still staring at each other, lit by the headlights. She moved her hand to shove the door open and he took a step back to turn away. Without warning, an arrow slammed into the door and stuck there, quivering between them.

  7

  Matt grabbed her—almost tackled her—and rolled them off the low concrete single step into the wet leaves. He pulled her around the corner of the cabin, where they huddled, kneeling with her pressed between him and the outside wall.

  “I—I can’t believe that,” she whispered. “We could have—could have been hit.”

  “And I’m th
e common denominator. Either someone’s been following me, looking for another chance at me, or someone’s staked out your place, knowing we’re together.”

  They were whispering in each other’s ears. “The headlights made us the perfect target,” she said. “If we hadn’t stepped apart...the arrow came head high, not chest level.”

  “Either way it could have killed one or both of us.”

  She was not only scared but furious. Someone had ruined her new place, ruined this beautiful night.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to get to the car, turn it around so the headlights shine into the trees where the arrow must have come from. It’s sticking in the wood at an upward angle—like it was shot from the sky. Probably just arced up, then hit.”

  “Should we call Gabe?”

  “Not unless we spot someone. My bet is we’ll find no one out there. And it’s late. Let’s give him a break and call him in the morning. Tonight you can go down to stay in one of the guest rooms at the lodge where—”

  “It’s my first night here! I’m not running, even if some stupid hunter or even worse wants to scare me off.”

  “Char, just for the night!”

  “I’m not going to leave. I’m going to get that arrow for evidence, tape up the hole and lock my doors.”

  “Then I’m staying, too.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll sleep on the couch, just in case.”

  “And if it’s you the shooter’s after? That could have been the second attempt on your life.”

  “You just hunker down here, and I’ll be right back.”

  He ran low to his car, got in and turned it around, switching on his brights so the headlights probed the trees on the other side of her driveway. She peered around the corner of her cabin. Nothing except shifting shadows of the tree trunks, one against the other. Then glowing eyes, like a cat’s—oh, two deer—peered out at them before bounding off. Could some local hunter have been stalking game at night, shot, and the arrow missed and zinged into her door, a freak accident a hunter didn’t want to own up to? Elinor Hanson said her husband sometimes hunted with bow and arrow, so others must, too. Lake Azure had an archery range.

  Matt finally turned off his headlights and got out of his car. He locked it behind him with a touch of the key. The lights blinked once before the car went dark.

  “Did you see the deer?” she asked.

  “You mean someone was aiming at those deer and hit your door? If you make me leave, I will, but I think I should stay the night to make sure nothing else happens.”

  And so, Matt Rowan spent the night of their first date in her cabin. Actually, she was glad to have him on the couch between her and the pierced front door. Except having him so close all night not only comforted her but made her toss and turn in half-waking dreams not of fear but of longing.

  * * *

  At seven in the morning, Char heard Matt talking on the phone about things happening down in Lake Azure, not about their problems. She got dressed, popped into the bathroom, then found him in the living room, pacing and talking on his cell. He tilted it away from his mouth, but kept listening as he whispered to her. “Call Gabe, maybe take the arrow down to him. It’s still bagged on the kitchen table. I was online looking at arrows for what must have been a recurve bow. Yeah, Jen,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be right in. Order me some breakfast from the dining room to be brought to my office, okay?”

  “A recurve bow?” she asked when he punched Off.

  “A crossbow with a real punch, but luckily it arched upward and caught the door on the downward trajectory—that’s what I’m suspecting, anyway. But the arrow we took out of the door doesn’t look like ones online. I read that you can unscrew the metal tips and reuse them. I wonder if the shooter makes his own shafts and fletching. Mention that to Gabe when you show him the arrow.”

  She walked closer. If he’d used the bathroom, she hadn’t heard him in there. His clothes were wrinkled but he looked awake and alert. The only way she’d know he’d been here all night was his beard stubble—black, like his hair but flecked with silver.

  “So,” he said as she plugged in the coffeepot that sat on the wooden counter. “Are we still on to visit the McKitrick family later today?”

  “You’re willing to go back up on Pinecrest after what happened there—and here?”

  He came into the kitchenette, turned her toward him and took her shoulders in a light grip. “I refuse to let someone spook me. As stubborn as you are—”

  “Strong-minded.”

  “Right. You ought to understand that I’m not going to turn tail and run. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Me, too. We’ll go in my truck.”

  “And I’ll bring a gun, just in case.”

  “You have a gun?”

  “And a rifle. Which I never touch, but I’ve got a license for both weapons. I prefer shooting below par on the golf course. How about three o’clock? And we’ll be careful we’re not followed.”

  “I’ll pick you up at the lodge?”

  “Good. And you know, despite what’s happened, it feels right to be with you.”

  “Me, too—the same.”

  He bent to kiss her cheek. His beard stubble brushed her skin. “Pinecrest Mountain, here we come again. And watch yourself until then.”

  “Matt, that archery range down near the tennis courts—does anyone shoot recurve crossbows there?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. Strictly Robin Hood, Boy Scout stuff, but I’ll ask Ginger, our instructor. You are heading out right after me, aren’t you?”

  “As soon as I get my shot of battery acid here,” she said, indicating the coffee. “Can I pour you a cup?”

  “Sure. To go, please. I have a meeting at eight. You’ve got my cell number, so call me today if anything seems strange.”

  He took the coffee she poured into her own travel cup and headed out.

  If anything seems strange, he’d said. Oh, yeah, a lot seemed strange. How strong her feelings were for him. Deep concern that someone might be out to kill him—or now, her. And a little bit of mistrust for two thoughts she’d had last night but was trying to ignore. First, that the weird arrow attack gave weight to advice from Matt and her family that she shouldn’t stay in the cabin, but surely that could not be a setup or warning from any of them. Worse, that before Matt turned his brights on last night, he’d blinked his headlights as if it were a signal to someone out in the darkness of the trees.

  * * *

  “You weren’t home last night at all, were you?” Royce asked, popping his head into Matt’s office door, then stepping in. Matt had a suite of offices on the first floor of the lodge, and Royce always stayed upstairs in the guest suite while his assistant, Orlando, took one of the smaller rooms.

  “I turned off my phone for a while,” Matt told him, looking up from his laptop. Next to it was the tray with the remnants of his hastily eaten breakfast.

  “It upset me, considering what happened to you. I was worried. So I had Orlando go over and knock on your door—no dice—no Matt.”

  “I was with a friend.”

  “Really? Let me guess. A lady friend?” he asked with a wink.

  Matt decided not to play that game. Char and his feelings for her were strictly his business, at least for now. After all, Royce had tried to suggest she had set him up to hit him up. “Royce, how can I help you?”

  “You’re touchy, but then it is early morning, and you don’t look like you’ve slept. I wanted you to know I have a suggestion for you about a local guy—been a small-time farmer—who would be a good groundskeeper to take Woody’s place.”

  “Woody was head groundskeeper, so he’d need to be good.”

  “I’ll bet he is. Joe Fencer. The family is selling their land to
EEC out on Valley View Road across from the big drill spot, that old religious cult land. Brad said Joe’s wife told him on the q.t. she was afraid that he needed something to do and was real conflicted about giving up his family’s land. You’re the man around here, so how about it?”

  Matt hesitated. He’d been looking for someone local who had farm or gardening experience. He decided not to tell Royce he’d seen Brad hosting the Fencers last night when he was with Char. Still hovering at the door, Royce stared at him hard.

  “I’ll interview him tomorrow, if you want to give me his number.”

  “Great. Good. Like to tap into local talent, right? I’m learning the wisdom of that myself. See you later for your board dinner meeting, then.”

  Royce had barely stepped out when Orlando knocked once on the door frame and stepped into the office. Matt put the phone down before he made his next call. He was starting to think his “open door” policy was a mistake today.

  “Listen,” Orlando told him. “I never got to tell you I’m glad you’re unharmed after that freak accident up on the mountain.” His dark eyebrows seemed to meet over his aquiline nose as if he were always frowning.

  “Thanks. Wish I could say it was an accident, but I don’t think so.”

  “Did you get a good look at the driver? I’m sure the local sheriff’s on it, but can I do any sniffing around while I’m out and about for Royce? I’m thinking it could be a local redneck who hates the fracking but hit you instead of Royce since I’m guarding him.”

  “I only saw the guy’s eyes at a distance—through two windshields and my own panic. You’d better leave things to the police. But thanks for being concerned, Orlando.”

  “Well, sure I am. I know how much you mean to the boss, like the son he never had, he said. He keeps me pretty tight to him, but let me know if I can help—that’s all,” he said, and went out.

  Matt felt good Orlando had made the effort and the offer. Matt knew he thought Royce spent too much time here in the boondocks, as he’d overheard him call Cold Creek—that is, until everyone on Royce’s payroll except Matt, who had opted out, starting profiting from the local fracking boom. Matt wondered if Royce had offered Orlando a big piece of that action. But since Matt himself had turned that down, he decided not to ask.