His knee throbbing, Max chastised himself for walking to Fitz’s cabin instead of taking his truck. At the very least, he should’ve brought his crutches, although following a dirt path through the woods using crutches was no easy task either. It was just damn hard getting used to the idea of limitations, even temporary ones, but if he didn’t start heeding his doctor’s advice—which up ’til now he’d followed sparingly—he feared this splint might become a permanent fixture. Acknowledging that, Max found a stump in an island of crusted spring snow and he sat, stretching his injured leg and feeling relief as the throbbing subsided.
After a few more minutes of rest, and with dusk descending, Max decided it best to head home. The distance back was shorter than the distance forward, and sacrificing his knee for Fitz was just plain dumb. Wishing he’d come to that conclusion before he’d left his house, he hefted himself off the stump, took two steps forward and stopped in his tracks. He waited, unmoving, training his eyes a hundred yards down the trail. Soon enough, his suspicions were confirmed as the black blotch ambled a dozen steps toward him.
Far from being alarmed, Max merely looked around for an intimidating tree branch should he need a defense. But the scenario wasn’t likely. Yogi was easygoing and, like most bears—even the dreaded grizzlies—avoided confrontations. With poor eyesight but a keen sense of smell, Yogi most likely hadn’t realized Max’s presence. Which explained why the bear continued in his direction.
“Yogi! Yogi!” Max shouted, waving his arms in an arc. “Go away, buddy!”
The bear stopped. He thrust his nose in the air and raised himself on his hind legs.
“It’s me, Yogi! Off y’ go!”
But the bear stayed in the air.
“Yogi!” Max shouted sternly. “Go!”
The bear’s front feet landed on the ground, but, typical of a bear who’d grown accustomed to people, he showed no intention of surrendering the path.
Max could continue his current course, relying on the assumption that Yogi would give way. But bears, however predictable, could be very unpredictable, especially in the spring when they were hungry after a long winter. Wild Man Lodge had been sharing these woods with Yogi for years and had never had a serious encounter, but that had been due as much to Max’s diligence in educating his staff and guests as it was to Yogi’s good nature.
Besides, thought Max as Yogi shredded a rotting log in search of grubs, even those with the kindest of dispositions had bad days, and that went for bears as well. Why risk being on the receiving end of those claws?
However, that meant going forward to the staff cabins. Rita could drive him home, bitching all the while that she was off the clock. And for the next week she’d peck and hover like a mother hen for not taking care of his knee. He’d rather tangle with Yogi, thank you very much.
That left him one option. The woods.
Still early in the season, the alders and willows had months before they matured and created an unfriendly thicket between the trunks of hundred-year-old spruce. The thorny devil’s club was still low to the ground and tame, while patches of snow kept winter alive. Tonight, with a little effort and a few snags, he could still get through and cross over to the greenhouses and the adjacent driveway. From there he could get home. It was longer than the direct route through Yogi, but better than putting up with insufferable Rita, his only other choice. But just for the hell of it, he gave Yogi another go . . .
A shout stopped Daisy as she walked past the greenhouses. She looked back from where she’d come, then forward to where she was going, seeing nothing and no one. She started walking. With each step of her right leg, the bells that wrapped around her ankle happily sang.
The shout came again. And another. She stopped to quiet the interference of her bells. She frowned at the woods on either side of the road, first to her left and then to her right. She waited. For several minutes, it seemed, then she gingerly took a step. Tinkle . . .
She stopped. Had someone called yogi? She looked to the woods behind the greenhouses from where she was almost positive the shouts had come.
She quickly crossed between the greenhouses to the edge of the woods.
Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle. And stopped. She jerked back at what she heard. Yogigo? What did yogigo mean? A call for help, perhaps? Or a warning? In Japanese, maybe?
Had guests arrived today? Were they lost trying to find the hot tub? Or maybe it was a new employee like herself who didn’t know the lay of the land—
There it was again! Only one voice. One stern voice. Maybe even a little angry. Yogigo!
Daisy knew some Japanese—mostly of the food variety—but also a few words of conversation that might be an advantage in this situation. But how many bears spoke Japanese?
Should she get help? Or first go to the source of the shouts? Was there time? What if this voice was attached to an injured body? What if, by the time Daisy had summoned Rita, the voice was still? She stared into the woods.
Somewhere in Daisy’s past, she’d read something about not staring too deeply into the woods for fear of what you might see. She suspected that was a metaphor, but with dusk descending and the trees taking on that Sleepy Hollow spookiness, Daisy saw a lot of merit in the literal interpretation.
“No way am I going in there,” she mumbled. She turned—tinkle-tinkle —intending to fetch Rita. The voice came again, sounding faint, tired, and hopeless.
“Hello? Anybody there?” she asked softly, not really wanting to know. She stepped into the woods. “Konnichiwa?” Another step and another as her bells softly tinkled.
Max found a branch to use as a staff, taking the weight off his knee. Mumbling a curse at Yogi, he slowly set off through the trees toward the greenhouses, wending his way around the more imposing thickets of brush.
Gathering courage, Daisy called out, “Hellooooo? Konnichi-waaaaa? Is anybody there?” Her eyes strained to see through the murky dusk that veiled all but a few feet in front of her. Her next step landed in a slush of snow, leaving a fuzzy impression of her sole. She took a few more steps, stumbled on exposed roots, but regained her balance with the help of a tree. That got her adrenaline surging. She took a calming breath.
“Anata no namae wa nandesuka? Eigo o hanasemasu ka?” Asking someone their name and if they spoke English probably wasn’t the best of search and rescue questions, but it was that or rattling off menu items, which really seemed dumb.
The trees closed in around her. Young devil’s club snatched her sweat pants. Her heart pounded as she tugged her leg free. “Kon-nichiwaaaaaa!”
Max stopped. Was that Japanese? Spoken by a woman? None of his Japanese regulars were due to arrive for weeks. They certainly wouldn’t be bringing wives or mistresses. So who in the world would be out in these woods speaking Japanese?
Max was just about to answer when—
“Hello? Anybody there? Eigo o hanasemasu ka? Helloooo?” Screw this, thought Daisy, after her repeated entreaties were met with silence. If there was a body in the woods, there was no way she could find him. Better she should get Rita and let her organize the search. She turned—the alders rustled—and she froze. Peeking over her shoulder, Daisy vigorously shook her right leg. Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle!
It was all Max could do not to laugh aloud. Bear bells! Of course, Daisy would have bear bells. As if a little tinkling was going to scare anything, let alone a bear. He was about to call her name, when a devilish thought stopped him.
Daisy listened to the silence, then gingerly took a step forward. Her bells barely registered, their sweet sound muted by the woods. She stepped with her left foot, paused, then her right, paused, then her left, as if she could sneak away from whatever was behind her. She was just starting to feel safe when she heard something coming through the brush, snapping branches.
Max no longer had his makeshift staff, but he would retrieve it as soon as Daisy fled the woods—any second now. He felt guilty for the fear she must be experiencing, but a li
ttle terror might be the push needed to send her packing. Besides, a cheechako shouldn’t be roaming these woods at night. What if she’d run into Yogi?
Bottom line, he was actually doing Daisy a favor. Next time she might think twice before waltzing around the woods unprepared. If, of course, there was a next time.
Daisy listened intently to her surroundings. Something didn’t make sense. First, there was something behind her, then something crashed in front. She reined in her instinct to flee, fearing she might run smack dab into that from which she was fleeing.
She’d read about bears in her Alaska Almanac and nowhere did it describe this kind of stalking behavior. On the other hand—Daisy’s heart quickened—Ted Bundy once used a fake leg cast to get a woman to help him to his car, where he then strangled her!
Were the calls for help a maniac’s ploy to lure her into the woods where he’d then—
“Daisy, get a grip.” She eyed the trees and took a tentative step forward. This was Otter Bite. What were the odds that a serial killer was in these woods? Then again, she’d heard how the isolation in these little villages could make a person go berserk. But cabin fever struck during the long, cold, dark, relentless winter, not during the spring. But maybe too much light could make a person go nutty just as easily. She thought about that pilot friend of Rita’s who had leered at her the day of her arrival. Men in Otter Bite outnumbered women fifteen to one. Good odds if a woman wanted to find a mate. But what had Rita said? The odds are good, but the goods are odd. Was one of those odd goods stalking her now?
But whoever, or whatever, was out there, she was not alone in these woods and Daisy knew that for damn sure.
Ignoring the throbbing in his knee, Max crept closer to Daisy. Crouched behind a spruce, he reached for an alder to rustle the leaves, but his hand found a thorny stem of devil’s club instead. “Dammit.”
Daisy didn’t need to be hit over the head with a fake leg cast! Hearing the curse, she bolted, but a few strides into her sprint a rotted log snared her foot and sent her sprawling into a young thicket of willows. Deaf to everything but the blood pumping in her ears, she scrambled to her feet just in time to confront a shadowy figure reaching for her. But Daisy would not be a victim. Not this time. Not ever again. Her hand shot toward her assailant and blasted cayenne-pepper bear repellant into his muzzy face!
To the sounds of tormented howls and snapping branches, Daisy scrambled to her feet and fled the woods, faltering when she heard the anguished call of her name.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Yes, ma’am.” Ferris Fitzsimonds nodded into the phone, his eyes on Daisy.
A living, breathing contradiction, Daisy gently tended to Max while her brow knotted irritably and her lips pinched angrily and her eyes burned with malice. Taking a moment, she finagled a twig from her curls, and with a roll of her green eyes, tossed it on the coffee table.
Max did his part, being as surly as an old mule. The few times he had tried to fend for himself, Daisy had barked at him to lie back down on the couch. After he’d knocked his good shin on the coffee table in blind stubbornness, he’d grudgingly done as he was told. But it didn’t stop him from complaining. Loudly and repeatedly. He moaned from the burning in his eyes, groaned at the ice pack on his throbbing knee, and swore at the cold, wet compress flooding his eyes and pillow.
Napoleon made the situation worse with his incessant squawks. “Tina is hot!”
“Can’t you get that bird to be quiet?” Fitz asked, his palm over the mouthpiece.
“A parrot fricassee would probably do the trick,” Daisy shot back.
“That’s not funny,” Max snapped, blindly addressing Daisy.
“Lie back down. I was only kidding.”
“See how you like it when I kid about turtle soup.”
Daisy puffed up. “Elizabeth is not annoying. Your bird is.”
“That’s because Elizabeth has no personality. She doesn’t do anything.”
“She does plenty . . .”
Fitz shook his head and moved away from the chaos. “I un’er-stand,” he assured the medic issuing instructions from her home in Seldovia. She was the closest thing to a doctor the coastal villages had; the nearest doctor was across Kachemak Bay in Homer—an hour by boat or fifteen minutes by plane. But the cayenne pepper wasn’t fatal and its blinding effects would be short-lived. Unless he had an allergic reaction, Max would be fine.
“Twenty-four hours. Yes, ma’am,” Fitz repeated into the phone. “Cold compress, no rubbing, and flush the eyes.” Fitz thanked the medic and hung up the phone. He looked at the squabbling pair, took a breath, and waded in.
“The doc said you’ve got to just wait until the effects wear off, which should be in a few hours, but you can’t be doing anything like flying for twenty-four hours—”
“Twenty-four hours!” Max cast off the wet towel and leaned forward. The ice pack slid off his knee and crunched onto the carpet.
Daisy winced at his swollen eyelids and painful squint. But she would not, under any circumstances—no way, no how—feel guilty about a situation Max created himself. “You’re not helping yourself by getting upset.” She reached for the ice pack.
Max squinted in her direction, his jaw granite. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think you’re entitled to an opinion. You’ve been itching to use that pepper spray from our first date!”
Daisy remembered their banter about serial killers and pepper spray and recoiled at Max’s accusation. “Yeah, that’s what happened.” She lobbed the ice pack into his abs, causing a flinch and a curse. “This was my grand plan.” Then she rose from the overstuffed chair she had earlier wrestled toward the couch. “You wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t been trying to scare me. So you can stew in your own rotten juices for all I care!”
Having the last word, she was jerking open the front door before Fitz could stop her. “You can’t leave,” he said in a low voice; he glanced at Max battling an uncooperative ice pack that kept sliding off his knee.
“Watch me,” Daisy said, ignoring the smell of liquor on the young pilot’s breath.
Fitz stepped outside into the cobalt haze with Daisy and softly pulled the front door to. Lights on either side of the door frosted the night with silver. “Someone has to take care of Max, and since we can’t find Rita . . .”
Rita was probably on a date, Daisy figured, but that didn’t mean she was backup. “You take care of Max since you’re so concerned.”
“Guys can’t take care of guys. Not like this.”
“Oh, please.”
But Fitz didn’t budge from that conviction.
“Max will be just fine without anyone hovering over him,” she insisted.
“But what if he isn’t? And under the circumstances . . .”
“This is not my fault!”
“Look, if I knew someone else to call, I would. But I just landed here. Do you know anyone else?”
She sighed. “We could both stay.”
Fitz hesitated, then, without enthusiasm, said, “Okay.”
“Never mind.” She made an exaggerated sweep for the door. None of this was Fitz’s fault. Why should he have a miserable night?
“You’re a good person, Daisy,” Fitz said with a shy but victorious smile.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved him off. “Get some sleep. I’ll take care of Attila.”
Fitz wasted no time in making his escape. “Watch for Yogi,” she called after him, although she wasn’t completely convinced such a bear existed. A backhanded wave and soon Fitz had blended into the heathered dusk. Mentally shoring herself up, Daisy stepped back into the house.
“Fitz?”
“Unfortunately not.” Latching the door behind her, she dragged herself toward her patient. Max peeked out from under the compress.
“Will you keep that towel over your eyes? Pleeeease?”
“I thought you left.”
“Someone has to stay with you.”
“I don’t see why�
��”
“Exactly. You don’t see.”
“Thanks to you.”
“You ought to be damn thankful you didn’t get shot!”
Lifting the towel from his eyes, Max squinted at Daisy. “You . . . have a gun?”
Daisy clicked off the table lamp—wondering why she hadn’t done that sooner—and sank into her voluptuous chair, relieved to be off her feet. The kitchen lights faded into the living room. “Sobering thought, isn’t it?” she said, without actually confirming. “You might think about that before you pull another Ted Bundy.”
In the subdued lighting with his blurred sight, Daisy looked all soft and fuzzy—in sharp contrast to the hard edge of her voice. Then her fear—and what he’d put her through—registered. “Ted Bundy?”
“I’m going to duct tape that towel across your eyes.”
“I wasn’t trying to scare you. Not . . . like that.”
It was, Daisy figured, the closest thing to an apology Max could muster. Not that it was good enough—not for what she’d gone through. Not for the terror that had coursed through her veins. Not for the life that had flashed before her eyes. But it was something. And Max was suffering for his sins. Really suffering.
“I think you’ll be more comfortable in bed.”
“I mean it,” he insisted. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just . . .”
“Being a jerk?”
For a moment, Max had the look of a puppy who’d been scolded. Daisy felt like the jerk wielding the newspaper.
Max laid the towel across his eyes as if trying to hide. “So how’d Fitz escape bedpan duty?”
“He’s got this thing about men taking care of men.”
A smile lifted Max’s lips. “Yeah.”
“You too?”
“You don’t know much about men, do you?”
Spooning Daisy Page 21