His heart seemed to jump right up in his mouth. He trod water, swiveling his head from left to right, then let out his breath when he saw her head bob up again almost at the edge of the island’s beach.
He saw her scrambling ashore and his heart lifted. They were going to make it. After everything that had happened, they were going to make it. They were going to be all right.
Seconds later he felt the firm sand beneath his feet. He touched bottom and grabbed hold of Harrie, who had begun to flounder. Together they climbed ashore and collapsed on the sand.
No one spoke for a moment or two as they all fought to regain their breath. Then Harrie said shakily, “Well, at least I don’t have to wash my face and hands now.”
It wasn’t really that funny. But for some reason Turner felt a chuckle rise in his throat. He couldn’t stop it. It bubbled up and he knew he would have to let it out. He held on for a second longer, then he heard Claire’s quiet giggle in the darkness. And then Harrie’s louder one.
He rolled onto his back and exploded with laughter, joined by his daughter and Claire, until all three were breathless again.
“I don’t know why I’m laughing, Claire said finally. I feel more like crying.”
“Reaction.” He sat up and took a good look around. “It’s good to let it out. You’ll feel better.”
“Much better.” She reached for Harrie and gave her a hug. “How about you, honey?”
“Much better,” Harrie agreed.
It hurt to see the two of them together and he switched his gaze back to the hills. “This could be a long wait,” he said, watching the inferno raging the length of the river. “Unless we’re spotted by a boat.”
“I’m hungry.” Harrie wrapped her arms around her body. “And wet. And thirsty.”
“It must have been a long time since you had anything to eat or drink,” Claire said, sounding worried again.
“A long time.” Harrie sighed. “Not since breakfast.”
“What made you run away?”
He tensed, waiting to hear the answer to Claire’s question. The question he’d wanted to ask ever since he’d found his daughter up on the Ridge.
“Gran’ma said some mean things about Daddy. I got mad, and I told her he was the best daddy in the world, and I told her all the neat things he did for me, and she got cross and told me to go to my room.”
He felt as if his heart were being squeezed in a vise. He couldn’t speak. He could only hold out his arms and wait for her damp little body to crawl into them.
“I didn’t go to my room,” she told him as she snuggled against his chest. “I got Melissa and I got the bus and came back to the Landing.”
She began to cry softly against his shoulder, and he hugged her tight. “You don’t have to tell us about it now, kitten. Later will do.”
She shook her head as a sob shuddered through her body. “I had to leave Melissa behind when the man came. I was in the cabin, and I saw him creeping up to the door. He had a big heavy can in his hand and he looked real mean. I was too frightened to go back to the bedroom to get Melissa...and I ran out the back door and hid in the trees.”
Turner rocked his body back and forth, holding his child tightly in his arms. He couldn’t feel sorry for what had happened to Ray Newberg’s killer. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“He burned the house down, Daddy,” Harrie said in a fresh bout of tears. “And Melissa...burned up...in there, too.”
“Oh, honey, I’ll get you another Melissa,” Claire said, a tear trickling down her face, “just as soon as we can get to a store. I promise.”
Harrie cried quietly for a moment or two, then shook her head. Smothering her sob, she said mournfully, “there’ll never be another Melissa. I loved her.”
Claire dashed a hand across her face. “All right, then we’ll buy a different bear. You can choose which one this time, okay?”
He could still feel the sobs quivering through Harrie’s body as he held her, but his eyes were on Claire’s face. How could she be so compassionate, so sensitive with the child, when underneath she was nothing but a gold digger, just like his dead wife? It didn’t make sense.
Nothing made sense. Why he still loved her, knowing how she felt about him. Why he still wanted her, although she had rejected his love and everything he stood for. Why he could look at her now and wish that she could have accepted him and what little he could offer her.
He felt Harrie’s body slacken in his arms and knew she was falling asleep. Gently he eased her onto the sand, her head on his lap. Then, leaning his back against the flat rock behind him, he said wearily, “You might as well make yourself comfortable. We’ll be here for the night, at least.”
He closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep. To put the churning thoughts out of his mind. He didn’t want to think. He was desperately tired and unutterably depressed. He had lost everything this dreadful day. His home, most of his personal possessions, everything he’d salvaged from his life with Stacey.
For all he knew he could have lost the business, too, by now. He would have to start over again from scratch. Tipping his chin onto his chest, he drifted into a fitful doze.
Claire sat and watched him for a long time, unable to go to sleep herself. Every now and again a fresh explosion from the woods distracted her, but for the most part she was content to watch father and daughter sleeping. The two people she loved most in the world.
She wanted to ask him what had happened back there in the woods. What had happened to the man who had come so close to killing all of them.
She wanted to go to sleep, to shut out the awful memories of everything they had been through. But most of all, she wanted Turner to know the truth.
They had come close to death many times over the past few hours. Those moments alone on the beach, when she’d thought he was dead, had brought everything into sharp focus for her. She hadn’t been fair to him. Or to herself.
She had been so mortified by the thought of revealing her flaw to him she had let him believe something bad about her that simply wasn’t true. And that was worse.
He deserved to know the truth. She wanted him to know. It wouldn’t be easy seeing the pity in his eyes when she told him, but she couldn’t go on letting him believe she thought so little of him that she could coldly walk away for the sake of money. As soon as he awoke, she told herself, she would tell him.
* * *
Claire had no idea how long she’d been asleep. All she knew was that she’d been woken up by a hoarse shout. When she opened her eyes, a bright light swept back and forth across the island, catching Turner in its beam. He stood at the water’s edge, waving his arms, and after a moment she realized he was calling out to a boat.
She couldn’t see the occupants, but it didn’t matter. They were safe. Harrie sat by herself, rubbing her eyes and shivering with cold. Claire could feel the chill of the river herself, and she moved over to Harrie and put an arm around her.
“It’s going to be all right now, honey,” she said, and hugged the trembling body.
Across the river the fire still burned, but had lost the worst of its fury and had moved on. The massive pines and firs that had once graced the banks of the river now stood blackened and stunted, except for a single tree here and there that had miraculously escaped the inferno with nothing more than scorched branches.
The sky above them had lost the angry glow, softened by the dawn that crept over the forest. A new day, Claire thought with an ache in her heart. And another beautiful part of the world destroyed forever.
“Where are we going to live?” Harrie said, her teeth chattering.
“I guess you’ll have to go back to your gran’ma’s house for a little while.”
“What about Daddy?”
Claire paused for a moment, struck by the loss these two people had suffered. “I guess he could stay in the Bait Shop until they can rebuild the cabin.”
“But all the trees are gone. And all the animals and the birds and.
..”
She started to cry again, and Claire pulled her closer, unable to bear that quiet, hopeless sound. “Then you’ll find another part of the woods to build your cabin. Don’t worry, honey, your daddy will know what to do.”
She looked up as Turner approached them. “River police,” he told her as he crouched by Harrie’s side. “They’ll escort us downriver into Portland. I’ll have to make my report at the police station, but they’ll take Harrie back to the Bridgemonts and you home.”
She nodded. “What about you?”
“I’ll come back to the Landing afterward. I guess they saved the shops, but the whole area is pretty much devastated. Guess we won’t be doing much business out there for a long time.”
“So what will you do?”
He shrugged. “Pick up the pieces and move on, I guess.”
“I don’t want to leave the Landing,” Harrie said, still sounding tearful.
Turner pulled her against him and gave her a hug. “Neither do I, kitten, but I don’t think you’d want to live there the way it is now. Maybe one day, when it’s had a chance to grow back, we can come back.”
Claire felt immeasurably sad knowing how long it would be before the blackened woods would resemble what they once were, if ever. Behind Turner, she saw a dark shape wading ashore. “The police are here,” she said, and got to her feet, brushing down her jeans in a futile attempt to look presentable.
The ache in her heart intensified. She hadn’t had the chance to tell Turner the truth about her rejection of him. Maybe now she never would. He would probably go on thinking the worst of her, and it would be no more than she deserved.
She should have trusted him to understand. She should have been willing to share all of herself, the bad as well as the good. And now it was too late. He would never know how very much she loved him.
On the way back to Portland, Turner gave the police a brief rundown of everything that had happened, from the moment he’d first seen the cabin burning. He repeated Harrie’s account of how the man with the gun had set fire to the cabin.
Claire listened as he described their descent down the hill, shivering at the memory despite the warm blanket the young policeman had handed to her.
Then Turner reached the part where they had faced the gunman in the burning forest. “He got distracted by some sparks hitting his neck,” Turner said in the same matter-of-fact voice he would use to discuss the latest stock-market report. “That’s when I jumped him. We both went down on the ground, and my daughter and Claire ran for the river.”
“Then what happened?” the policeman asked as Turner paused.
When he spoke again, Turner’s voice had sharpened. “He got off one shot, then I managed to grab the gun. I got to my feet, aiming the gun at his head. He got up, too, then we heard a roar to the left of us. When we looked, there was a pine tree coming at us. We both ran like hell.”
The silence after his words was more coldly chilling than anything he’d said so far.
“And?” the policeman prompted.
“I made it. He didn’t.” Turner cleared his throat. “He tripped. When I looked back...the tree was on top of him. I knew there was nothing I could do for him. I just kept going.”
Claire closed her eyes, trying to shut out the vision. It was hard to feel compassion for someone who had committed cold-blooded murder, but that was a horrible way to die.
The policeman who had been taking notes, closed his notebook. “We’ll need you to come down to the station to file the report, and we’ll need a statement from your daughter, too, eventually, but that can wait for a day or so.”
“I appreciate that,” Turner murmured.
They docked soon after that, just above Portland, where two squad cars were waiting for them. Claire was surprised to see her own car sitting next to them. Apparently the deputy had driven it back to Portland when he’d heard they’d been found.
Although it had lost its strength of a week ago, the sun had risen high enough to warm Claire’s body. Over the West Hills she could see the clouds banking, moving in from the Coast Ranges. With luck they would have rain before too long, which would help the fire fighters in their formidable task.
She watched Harrie give her father a tearful farewell, then received one herself. Hugging the small body to her, Claire murmured, “I’ll come and see you soon, okay?”
Harrie nodded, too full to speak, then climbed into the back of the police car with the friendly policewoman. She seemed incredibly lonely when she peered out of the window to wave as they drove off.
Claire looked at Turner, who stood watching his daughter being driven away, a heartbreaking expression on his face. “She’ll be all right,” she said in an attempt to offer him some comfort.
“Will she? How am I going to fight for her now with everything gone?” He turned and looked at her then, and his bitterness chilled her. “But that’s not your problem anymore, is it?”
She took a step toward him, hand outstretched. “Turner—”
“Mr. Mitchell? If you wouldn’t mind coming with me, we need to get these reports filed.” The policeman gave Claire an apologetic smile. She dropped her hand, her heart breaking as she watched Turner climb into the police car.
She didn’t wait to watch them drive away. Instead she unlocked her car and slid into the driver’s seat, her mind firmly concentrating on a hot shower and a soft bed. She would deal with the rest of it later.
* * *
Two days later Claire received a call from Mrs. Bridgemont. Much to her surprise, it was an invitation for dinner that night. For one wild moment Claire wondered if Turner would be there, but then Mrs. Bridgemont said quietly, as if trying not to be overheard, “Roger is out of town, so it will be just you and I, and Harrie, of course. It will give us a chance to talk later.”
Wondering what the woman could possibly want to talk about with her, Claire dressed carefully for the occasion in a pale-lemon dress and gold sandals. When she arrived, Harrie awaited her at the front door, jumping up and down in excitement.
Claire hardly recognized the child. Gone were the grubby shorts and T-shirt she’d worn the last time she’d seen her. Now Harrie had on a print dress in blue and green, with a white lace collar and cuffs on the short sleeves. Her white socks had white lace edging and her white sandals had large silver buckles on them. Her hair had been cut and now bounced in shiny curls around her spotless face.
“My!” Claire said, standing back to admire this vision of perfection. “You really look like a princess today.”
Harrie scowled for a second and tugged at her collar. “I hate it. It scratches. But Gran’ma makes me wear it.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Claire said, handing her a gaily wrapped package, “but I saw her in the store, and she looked so lonely I thought you might like to take care of her.”
She waited, holding her breath, while Harrie inspected Melissa’s twin. The child was quiet so long she added anxiously, “I know I said you could choose, and if you don’t want this one we can exchange it.”
Then Harrie looked up, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “I love her. I really do. Thank you.”
Claire swallowed past the lump in her throat. “You’re welcome, honey.”
Harrie grinned, and tucking the bear under her arm, she grasped Claire’s hand and tugged her through the door. “Gran’ma’s waiting on the deck,” she said as they hurried down the long passageway. “She’s got drinks and some stuff to eat out there.”
Emerging onto the deck, Claire saw Mrs. Bridgemont reclining on a chaise lounge. Close by stood a glass-topped table, on which sat a glass container full of colorless liquid, and some shallow glasses. A tray of hors d’oeuvres, with everything from egg rolls to smoked salmon and caviar piled on it, took up the rest of the table.
Mrs. Bridgemont put down the book she was reading and greeted Claire with a smile. “Go and ask Rosie for some lemonade,” she told Harrie, who obediently trotted off to the kitchen.
/> “Such a difference in the child, don’t you think?” Mrs. Bridgemont murmured, before Harrie was barely out of sight.
Claire thought she seemed rather subdued around her grandmother, but refrained from commenting on it. “She certainly looks better dressed than when I last saw her,” she said in an attempt at humor.
To her surprise a look of real pain crossed the older woman’s face. “I can’t imagine what that poor child must have gone through. Which is what I want to talk to you about.”
She glanced over her shoulder to where Harrie had disappeared. “It will have to be later, of course, after she’s gone to bed. I’m letting her watch television in bed this evening as a special treat. That way we can be sure she’ll go to bed early.”
All through the quite excellent dinner that followed, Claire burned with curiosity. It became more apparent as the evening wore on that Harrie had a healthy respect for her grandmother. She hardly spoke at the table, and when she did, she glanced constantly across at Mrs. Bridgemont for approval.
By the time the meal was over, Claire felt quite anxious about the child, wondering if perhaps she was not well. This was a Harrie she’d never seen.
She felt relieved when Mrs. Bridgemont announced it was time for Harrie to watch the movie she’d promised.
“I’m going to watch it in bed,” Harrie said, her blue eyes fixed solemnly on Claire’s face. “Will you come and watch some of it with me?”
“Now, I told you, dear,” Mrs. Bridgemont said, before Claire could answer, “that Claire and I have some important matters to discuss. You run off now like a good girl, and if it’s not too late I’ll let Claire come in and say good-night before she leaves.”
Bristling at the thought of the woman “allowing” her to do anything, Claire gave Harrie a conspiratorial wink. “I’ll see you later, honey. That’s a promise.”
Losing her crestfallen expression, Harrie grinned back and skipped off to bed.
“Now,” Mrs. Bridgemont said, settling herself into an armchair with a cup of tea, “I am concerned about Harrie, and I have come to some decisions concerning her future. I have talked this over with Roger, and we agree this is the best way to handle matters.”
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