The Deep Wood (Sunshine Walkingstick Book 2)

by Celia Roman

  Old Aunt Sadie’s weren’t much more down the road, so I swung by on my way to the Kildares’, back toward home. Sadie was waiting for me at the front door, her leathery face wrinkled into a frown.

  I climbed outta the IROC and waved at her. “Howdy, Aunt Sadie.”

  She thumped her straw broom against the stoop. “’Bout time you got here, missy.”

  “I got other folks to look after, too, ya know.”

  “I know, I know.” She heaved a grand sigh and flapped an arthritic hand at me. “Come on around back. My punkins is just et all to pieces, they is. And they was a good crop coming in, too. Don’t know what I’m gonna give my grand young’uns for Halloween now, I sure don’t.”

  I followed her around the side of the house, one ear tuned to her rambles about her young’uns and grand-young’uns on down to the newest family addition, a great-granddaughter born in Cali-for-nie-ay. Aunt Sadie’s family was large and widespread, like most around here, and included a fair number of goings-on as all families did.

  Whilst she chattered, I scouted out the violated pumpkins, nodding absent-mindedly as I turned a broken shell over in my hand. No teeth marks. I picked up another piece, turned it over, and paused. A single line was scraped deep into the skin, slicing through meat into the interior, though the piece remained intact around the cut.

  Odd. Gnomes didn’t use weapons what I knowed of, and whilst their nails was deliberately honed razor sharp, they were tiny, like their slender teeth. No bite marks remained, and that was a dead giveaway, but what else aside from gnomes or the occasional goblin would raid a pumpkin patch?

  I stood and brushed the dirt off my jeans, puzzling over the mini crime scene. Soon as she wound down, I said, “Don’t know what this is, but it don’t look like that gnome none a’tall.”

  Aunt Sadie hmphed. “Some detective you is, Sunshine.”

  I shrugged and smiled at her good-natured tease. “A body can’t know ever thing. You keep a sharp eye out, ya hear?”

  “Don’t I always?” she said, and I believed her. Weren’t no sharper eye, far as I knowed, and that was saying something.

  I dropped by the Kildares’ on the way home and scouted around, wandered down to the neighbors’ house and sussed them out. Seems Lady run off in the middle of the night about the same time Ol’ Blue got gone. Missing pet signs was about all I could do aside from searching the forest, and neither owner was that worried yet.

  Duty done for the moment, I went home and writ down reminders in my organizer to revisit the active cases the next day, then spent a happy afternoon dusting whilst one of Daddy’s records played in the background. When I had my fill of cleaning, I worked on the filing system I was setting up. A serious businesswoman, was I. Weren’t worried none about the tax man, but I figured having a regular log of what I done when might come in handy some day.

  Like when young Billy’s dog went missing. Keeping track of the dates in my head made no sense when I had better things to remember. ‘Sides which, a paper log’d help me spot patterns faster’n having to dig around in my noggin for the needed information.

  Long shadows stretched across the aqua-green swirled living room carpet about the time the last manila folder was filed into its proper place, in the filing cabinet tucked between my makeshift desk and the wall. I stood up and stretched good, fetched a sip of water outta the mason jar in the fridge, then brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face, avoiding my reflection and them odd colored eyes Teus give me, still coon crazy in spite of the upgrade.

  A jaw snapping yawn caught me unawares. I rubbed my eyes and slipped on a fresh t-shirt, and debated calling and canceling my appearance up the hill at Fame’s. I was almost too tired for company, but that little niggle of guilt reared its ugly head and I stiffened my spine. Family was family, and mine hadn’t been tended in a while.

  I tucked the 1911 into the back waistband of my jeans, fished a flashlight outta the closet, and headed out, only half paying attention to the darkened trail leading to Fame’s trailer. The night gradually fell silent around me, save for the wind rustling dried leaves, and a raw moon shone down through half-clothed tree limbs.

  Them painter’s eyes popped into my head, round and dark and not a’tall like the cat what wore ‘em. The hairs on the back of my neck sprung to attention and I stopped, more of a reflex than purposeful. I tested the air, sniffed, and peered around the darkened wood.

  Thick, dead undergrowth rustled to my right, yet nary a wind gusted through the trees.

  I yanked out the 1911, flicked the safety off, and aimed it and the flashlight toward the rustling in one practiced move. “Come on out real slow like, ya hear?”

  Leaves crunched under light footsteps, and a painter stepped onto the trail, its fur so black, it blended into the night surrounding it.

  I pointed the flashlight at the ground near its feet, away from its face. A light-blinded cat might lash out instead of scoping out what was in front of it, and I weren’t in the mood to patch up claw marks.

  Weren’t rightly in the mood to explain why I killed a scarce animal, neither. Maybe if me and Riley wasn’t dating, I woulda just shot the thing to be shed of it, but we was, so I had to be good.

  Dang his sexy hide.

  I motioned the flashlight toward the deep wood. “Go on now. Scat!”

  The painter stared at me, unblinking, and a low, rumbling growl issued from its throat.

  “I ain’t kidding,” I said, a little harder and a lot louder. “I’m hungry and tired, and I ain’t got time to pussyfoot around with no wild animal. Now get.”

  It yawned and flicked its tongue out, flashing sharp, white fangs. In a flash, it reared around and leapt into the forest, its exit far quieter than its entrance.

  I slowly lowered my gun and fixed my gaze to the spot where it’d disappeared. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it’d wanted me to know it was out there, stalking me through the dead leaves. But that couldn’t be right, could it? A painter following prey was deadly quiet, about the most dangerous predator there was.

  And this’un stepped out and warned me it was here.

  I shook my unease off and forced my feet to move steadily up the trail. No running, not with a painter in the deep wood. They liked the chase almost as much as they liked the kill.

  But I could near about feel the dadgum thing watching me as I walked. By the time I reached Fame’s, cold sweat’d popped out on my skin under my jacket and the gun’s grip dug into my palm where I held it too tight.

  Soon as I scrambled up the porch steps, stepped inside, and shut the door behind me, closing out the night, warmth flooded over me. Trey and Gentry was on the couch in front of the TV, their eyes glued to the game they was playing. Missy was at the stove, grinning up at Fame, like as not from some fool thing he said. I fingered the ruby and gold ring strung on a chain around my neck. Was hers once, that ring. She gifted it to me not long back, told me it was mine now. Wearing it was a pure comfort, like having Missy and her strange smell hug me the way she done.

  The tension drained outta me lickety split and I relaxed against the door as Trey looked up and grinned a greeting at me. Home and family. Weren’t nothing like ‘em.

  Supper was rowdier’n normal. Gentry’d almost got nabbed by a stray forest ranger during a sweep of a Mary Jane field set deep in National Forest, where only satellites usually wandered. Trey ragged him about it mercilessly, not in the least hampered by Fame’s occasional, grunted censure.

  During a brief lull, I caught my uncle’s eye and nodded toward the door. “You hear anything about chickens going missing?”

  He rested them wild blue eyes of his on me. “Not a word. Who’s been hit?”

  “Jazz and BobbiJean. Speaking of, I need a quart, if it’s ok. Retail price as it’s a gift.”

  “No charge,” he said gently, and Missy smiled, a secretive woman smile what warmed us all inside and out.

  “You’re going to the wedding?” she asked.

  “Wouldn
’t miss it.”

  I opened my eyes real wide hoping she wouldn’t mention the name of the man I was dating. Fame weren’t too keen on what was going on between me and Riley. Seeing as how him and Riley’s daddy was entangled in the next best thing to a blood feud, I didn’t rightly blame him.

  Missy fluttered dark eyelashes and her smile stretched wide. “Are you taking a date?”

  I grimaced. Dang her hide. Why’d she have to tease me like that?

  Trey snickered and waggled his eyebrows at me, and that firmed up my resolution. Time for a subject change.

  “Run into a painter on the way up,” I said.

  Fame’s gaze jerked away from his plate up to mine and his expression went glacial cold. “Tell me.”

  So I spilled the beans, how I thought it mighta warned me before it stepped outta the woods, and how it just stared at me after, then disappeared real quiet like without threatening me. As an afterthought, I described the painter me and David found two days ago out on Patterson Gap Road, though I left out the part about the human eyes. Who’d believe a thing like that anyhow? ‘Sides which, I just wanted the boys to be careful when they was out and about, not scared outta their gourds.

  Fame listened real patient like during my recitation, his hands loose on his fork and knife. When I was done, he pinned a serious gaze on me. “You run into another painter, you call me right then.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it. I been on my own a long time, and not once did Fame ever imply I couldn’t handle trouble on my own, not even when I went after the pooka what killed my boy. “Fame—”

  He stabbed the fork at me. “Call me, Sunny girl.”

  And that was the end of that discussion. Trey and Gentry glanced at each other, then Trey caught my eye and said, “You want, I can sleep on the couch for a while.”

  I gaped at him. “What on earth for?”

  “Me, too,” Gentry said, soft and sweet. “On the floor.”

  I glanced around the table from Missy’s furrowed brow to Fame’s stone hard expression to the slightly puzzled looks my cousins wore. “A lone painter ain’t no big deal. I can take care of it on my own without you two interfering, push comes to shove.”

  Gentry placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Dad says to call, you call, all right?”

  I nodded stiffly, too befuddled to protest more. Missy perked up and burst into a spate of harmless gossip. Somebody’s baby took her first step or some such, but my mind was fixed on Fame and the way he reacted to news of that painter.

  Chapter Four

  Uneasiness rested heavy on me for the rest of the evening, hard as I tried to dislodge it. I shrugged off Trey’s offer to walk me home, half annoyed he dared ask, half pleased he thought to look after me. The trail was dark. I had a flashlight and a handgun. Didn’t need no more’n that, did I?

  But that uneasiness clung to me all the way home under skeletal tree branches and a disappearing moon, and well into my dreams. Henry was there calling to me, his pallid skin shining like a pearl, his bloodied hands stretched toward me like dried up twigs.

  I need you, Mama. Where are you?

  I woke in a sweat with the sheets tangled around my legs in the bedroom’s chill, my chest heaving under ever breath and cold dread a sick knot in my gut. God a’mercy. That was the last time I let anybody scare me, ‘specially folks what knowed I could take care of my own dang self.

  I slumped back on the bed and stared at the dark water stain twisting along the ceiling above me. Teus shoulda been more thorough in his redecorating. He got the carpet and my eyes, but there he’d gone and missed that eyesore on the ceiling.

  The thought popped into my head amidst the ruins of the nightmare fogging my brain, startling laughter outta me, and the fear lingering in me faded. Have to tell him that next time I seen him. At least I’d have the pleasure of watching that know it all grin of his twist into a disgruntled frown.

  In the meantime, I had work to do. Riley was coming by after work for Wednesday supper, as he called it, and danged if I was gonna be in a bad mood when he arrived. I kicked the covers away and rolled off the bed, and spent the entire morning jiggling myself into peaceful calm.

  Long about one in the afternoon, right when I was considering grabbing a quick bite to tide me over ‘til suppertime, an engine interrupted my chores, growing louder ‘til it halted in my driveway and turned off. I marked my place in the accounting textbook I was reading (part of my late devised plan to act like a genuine businesswoman), pulled the Ruger LCP .380 I kept under my desk outta its holster, and headed toward the door.

  Unexpected company warranted caution, that’s all. Weren’t the remnants of a nightmare spurring me on.

  Feet bounded up the porch steps outside in a familiar patter, and I holstered the gun. Riley. What was he doing here so early in the day?

  He rapped lightly on the door, opened it, and stuck his head in, a half grin stretching his mouth. “Hey, baby. You eat yet?”

  I pushed myself away from my desk and stood. “Was about to. Why?”

  “Thought we could run into town together and grab a bite.”

  I shook my head, as pleased by him thinking of me as I was on seeing him. “You coulda called.”

  “And spoil the surprise?” He stepped all the way in and shut the door behind him, then stood there with his legs spread wide, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and a smug grin on his face. “Besides. We have some planning to do.”

  I arched an eyebrow, attempting a sophisticated I didn’t feel. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I just ran into Jazz.”

  “In the middle of the woods?”

  “At Lake Burton Café, smart ass.”

  “If you done eat, what’re you doing here?”

  His gaze went from playful to smoldering in three seconds flat, but that’s not where his words followed. “I was in the café grabbing some water. You interested in lunch or not?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “My turn to cook tonight.”

  “Mm-hmm. Come here.”

  His voice dropped down to a low rumble what shivered through me from head to toe, and caught along a few mighty interesting spots along the way. I shifted from one foot to t’other, a futile attempt to ease the sudden ache between my thighs. “What for?”

  “You know what for.”

  Boy, did I. Didn’t mean I was gonna give in easy. “You come over here.”

  He shook his head real slow, his stance rooted like a giant, ageless oak. “Sunshine.”

  “Oh, all right,” I huffed, but my limbs was a tad unsteady as I walked over and planted myself in front of him. “Here I am. Happy?”

  “Almost,” he murmured, and his hands dropped and caught me to him, and his mouth came down on mine, easy and gentle and sweet, and for a second, I forgot ever reason there was why I needed to resist Riley Treadwell’s hold on me as long as I could.

  He slid his mouth across mine in a practiced kiss, nipped my lower lip, then pressed soft kisses along my cheek toward my throat. “You taste good enough to eat.”

  My legs went weak, and danged if I didn’t sag against him. “If you’re that hungry, we best get some food in your gullet.”

  He huffed out a laugh against my skin. “In a minute. Rumor has it you bought a fancy dress for the wedding.”

  It took me a minute to shift gears. When my brain finally sorted itself from the mush aroused by Riley’s touch, I mustered up a tart reply. “I ain’t gonna find a matching tie for you.”

  “Not wearing a tie.” He shifted his hold on me and kissed my throat, smacking his mouth against my skin. “We’re going together.”

  “I figured we might.”

  “No arguments.”

  I drew back and eyed him through narrowed eyelids. “You telling me what to do now?”

  “Yup,” he said, serious like. “You and me, Sunny.”

  The soft words hung in the air between us, an unspoken promise full of bitter longing and memories best left forgotten, and the hope of
better things to come. “Riley,” I said, too rattled by the moment enveloping us to utter another word.

  “You and me,” he repeated, and eased away from me. “Ishy’s for lunch?”

  I let it go, more as I didn’t know what else to do than anything, but the conflicting emotions the brief conversation engendered clung to my skin like a burr for a long time after, worrying their way into the back of my mind while I done my best to ignore ‘em.

  Riley shied away from serious soon as we left, and stayed that way through the drive to Clayton, leading me into the playful banter I was used to, almost like he never said a word to the contrary.

  I played along, too unsettled by his mood shifts to do more. Riley was steady as a rock. Slow to anger, quick to laugh, and even quicker to avoid anything what might scare me off.

  Danged if I was gonna ask what’d got into him.

  We dropped by his apartment on the way to the restaurant. I paced up and down the sidewalk in front of the apartment complex whilst he packed a bag of casual clothes, to change out of his DNR uniform after work. Now, I liked his work outfit as much as the next woman, and who could blame me? The black polo stretched across his wide shoulders and highlighted his flat stomach, and the green twill slacks clung to his narrow hips and firm butt. But Riley in worn jeans and a t-shirt was something else. Comfortable, comforting, and tempting as sin on a Saturday night.

  Not that I was gonna tell him so.

  Lunch went smooth and easy, about like him. After, we headed straight back to my place so Riley could get back to work. He slowed his work truck, a forest green F-150, as he negotiated my driveway, and eased to a stop in the parking lot. “Who’s that?”

  I stared at the oddly familiar man sitting ramrod straight on the top step of my porch. He was old, maybe in his seventies, and wore his silver hair in braids under each ear. His blue and red plaid flannel shirt was buttoned to the collar. Its ends pooled untucked around his lap over the sharp creases of his jeans.