Her Mysterious Houseguest

by Jane Toombs

  He smiled at Rachel, saying, “Aino says you’re taking me fishing tomorrow.”

  She blinked. “I am?”

  “It’s your turn to be my substitute,” Aino told her. “Any news from town?”

  “I heard from Amy’s mother that our neighbor across the back forty died over at the hospital in Marquette.”

  “Jack Metsala gave up the ghost, hey? Mean old goat. Always figured I’d outlast him,” Aino said.

  “How’s Laurie doing?” Mikel asked.

  “I stopped by to see. Her mother took her to the doctor right away and he didn’t think there’d be a problem. Laurie was unhappy about the tetanus booster he gave her, though.”

  “So she got stuck with something more than porcupine quills,” Aino said. “I’d say it’d make her think the next time, but some never do learn.” He looked at Rachel. “Tomorrow, now, I want you to take Mikel to my special place and I expect you two to bring back trout for supper.”

  “Won’t I need a fishing license?” Mikel asked.

  Aino winked at Rachel. “Got an honest one here, have we, girl?”

  After his grandmother’s scolding, the word honest echoed unpleasantly in Mikel’s mind, so much so that he replied, “Just cautious.”

  Aino chuckled and told him where in town he could obtain a fishing license.

  At breakfast the next morning Mikel found himself back in the good graces of Grandma Sonia, now that she knew he and Rachel were going fishing together. She clearly believed the more he saw of Rachel, the more likely he was to become interested in her. If Sonia only knew he was already too damn interested for his own good. Or Rachel’s, either.

  Once he and Rachel loaded Aino’s truck with the fishing gear, Mikel drove, following her directions.

  “You really ought to be blindfolded,” she said, “so you’ll never give away the location.”

  “It’s my job to keep secrets. Aino’s fishing hole is safe with me.”

  “Do you like your job as a private investigator?”

  Mikel hesitated. Hedge, or tell her some of the truth? He opted for half and half. “I’m not one. I work for the government.”

  She stared at him. “The government sent you to search for Renee Reynaud?”

  “No. I’m on vacation.”

  “But…” She broke off, chewing on her lower lip, then suddenly cried, “Turn left here!”

  He was barely able to make the turn in time. “Almost missed that one,” he said.

  “Sorry. I’ll stick to navigating instead of talking. It gets kind of complicated these last few miles.”

  The final trek turned out to be down an old and overgrown logging road, undrivable after the first tenth of a mile. After she told him to hide Aino’s truck in a clump of brush, they climbed out, loaded themselves with the fishing paraphernalia and hiked the rest of the way in to the stream, then upstream to a spot where an old cedar hung precariously over the water.

  Mikel soon discovered the theory of fly-casting was not the same as the practice of it, but, as he persisted, he caught on and was elated when he caught his first fish.

  “Bravo!” Rachel cried. She, he noted, was already two ahead of him. When Rachel caught her limit, she lifted out the sandwiches and soft drinks from the cooler they’d toted in and packed her fish inside. Watching Mikel cast, she again noted his grace of movement. He never seemed to do anything awkwardly. She sighed. He was such a beautiful man.

  After a time, he, too, had all the fish allowed and into the cooler they went.

  Both dipped their hands into the stream to wash. “Drinkable?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Aino says in the old days you could take a chance on the streams, but it’s a risk now.” Spreading the blanket she’d brought, Rachel laid out the food.

  Sonia’s egg salad sandwiches were soon eaten. Mikel dropped his empty soft drink can into the trash bag they’d carried in and stretched out on the blanket, hands behind his head. Rachel finished her drink, disposed of the can and wondered if she dared lay back next to him. Deciding if they kept talking, it’d be safe enough, she did.

  Mikel turned to look at her. “Aino says you hate guns. I’m sorry I spooked you at the camp-out, but I didn’t realize mine would bother you so much.”

  After seeing how close his face was to hers, she gazed up at the overhead leaves rather than at him. “Does your job require you to carry a gun?” she asked.

  “Most of the time.”

  So it was no safe, secure government job. But then, how could a man with hunter’s eyes sit at a desk? Whatever it was he did, looking for Renee wasn’t a part of it. She wanted to ask, right out, who had asked him to search for Renee, but she didn’t dare. He might tell her what she feared to hear. What if…?

  She closed her eyes, blotting out the sunlight sifting through the leaves, but not her memory of the past. Like the nightmare it had been, it snaked into her mind, slithering past the blocks she tried to put up until she felt nothing else but terror.

  When she felt hands close around her upper arms she cried out and opened her eyes. The face she saw bending over her was not from the past. Eyes as green as the leaves overhead gazed into hers as Mikel’s voice asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She tried to say “Nothing,” but the word stuck in her throat, and when he gathered her into his arms she clung to him, fighting off the shards of fear that still cluttered her mind.

  “You’re shivering,” he said.

  “I—I’ll be all right,” she managed to say. She’d been fine for so many years now, the past successfully locked away. But Mikel’s coming had breached the barrier. If only she dared to tell him everything. Then he’d know, though. And so would the person looking for Renee.

  “What upset you?” he asked. “The fact I carry a gun as part of my job?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Want to talk about it? As Sonia used to say when I was a kid, ‘Bring your troubles into the sun to banish the darkness.’”

  No amount of sunshine could light her past.

  “You do realize,” he murmured after a few moments, “that if I hold you this way much longer, we’ll be involved in more than me comforting you.”

  Instead of pulling away, she raised her head from his chest to look at him, aware of what might happen, but wanting his kiss more than she worried about what it might lead to.

  Mikel, believing he saw his own need reflected in Rachel’s eyes, gathered her closer and brushed his lips gently over hers, giving her time to change her mind. When her hands came up to hold him to her, he deepened the kiss, savoring her taste, which enticed and aroused him. If she wanted what he did, what was the harm? And why was he agonizing over it, anyway? She was a woman, he was a man, both of them were free and unencumbered and he’d wanted to make love with her from the first.

  Now they would.

  He did his best to take his time, even though, as he gradually disposed of her clothes, the feel of her naked skin under his hands tested his resolve to go slow. He tasted her breasts, thrilling to her moans of pleasure. She was so lovely, to his mind as close to perfection as a woman could be. Her eager responses to his every caress drove him up and up. He was unzipping his jeans when, through the haze of passion surrounding him, he thought he heard a faint but desperate yelping.

  Pausing, he said hoarsely, “You hear something?”

  She opened her eyes and sighed, pushing away from him. “Something’s in pain.” Reaching for her clothes, she added, “We have to go help whatever it is.”

  Standing, she turned so her back was to him and began to dress.

  Since she was giving him no choice, as he put himself to rights he tried to determine from which direction the sound came. Now that he could concentrate, he thought it might be a dog. He hoped they wouldn’t have to put the poor animal out of its misery. He’d left his gun at the cottage, not wanting to risk spooking Rachel again, but even if he had it with him, he could hardly shoot it in front of her.

  After
checking the compass he’d bought in Ojibway yesterday, Mikel helped Rachel gather their fishing gear and other equipment, including the cooler. They set off in the direction they both agreed the yelping came from, pushing through brush until they came to trees tall enough to shade the ground and keep the underbrush to a minimum. Following the sound, they threaded between the trees as the yelping grew louder and louder.

  “Definitely a dog,” he said.

  She nodded. “A wolf or coyote wouldn’t do more than whimper, if that. Wild animals don’t call attention to themselves, even hurt.”

  They came around the bole of a large maple and Rachel pointed, crying, “There! See?”

  Mikel stared at the brown-and-white medium-size dog whose yelps diminished as it became aware of them. “Help’s on the way, pal,” he called.

  A few steps farther and he saw what was wrong. He muttered a curse. “A trap. His paw’s caught in a damn trap.”

  Dropping what he carried, he hurried to the dog, Rachel at his heels.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured to the animal as he brought out his all-purpose utility tool and knelt beside the animal, speaking soothingly. “Rotten people in the world, aren’t there, setting traps for the innocent? We’ll get you out of this, don’t worry.”

  Looking up at Rachel, he said, “I’m going to try to pry the jaw of the trap apart enough with this gadget so that you can pull his paw free. Ready?”

  She knelt beside him, fearlessly touching the injured paw while she, too, murmured softly to the dog. “Poor baby, you know we’re trying to help, don’t you?” Mikel jammed the small pry bar between the teeth of the trap next to the paw and exerted all his strength to try to open the jaws more, all the time hoping the tool wouldn’t snap. At the same time, Rachel pulled on the dog’s leg and let out a whoop of victory when the paw came free. Mikel managed to yank the pry bar out before the jaws snapped completely shut. He folded up the tool and stuck it in a pocket.

  “How bad is the paw?” he asked Rachel, who was examining it.

  “I don’t think she can walk.”

  “She?”

  “Yes, didn’t you notice?”

  He hadn’t. “Okay, I can carry her, but that sticks you with all our stuff.”

  “I can manage.”

  Taking a look at his compass, Mikel determined the direction back to the stream. “Once we reach the stream—” he began.

  Rachel cut in. “No need. I know this area pretty well. We can cut over to the old logging road from here by going that way.” She pointed. “It’ll be shorter.”

  Which it might have been, but the dog was no lightweight, and besides, he was lugging the trap, determined to bury it so deep no one would ever find it. Since Rachel was also being burdened by equipment, it took two rest stops to get to the logging road, then another before they reached the truck.

  “Where’s the nearest vet?” Mikel asked once they were underway in the truck.

  “None in town, none close. Our best bet is to take her home and treat the paw ourselves. I’ll call a vet and ask him what to do.”

  At the farm, Mikel lugged the dog onto the back porch where Aino was sitting on the swing.

  “Strange kind of fish you brought back,” Aino said, peering at the dog. “Looks familiar. Yeah, she’s old Metsala’s. Got her foot caught in a trap, hey? Rusty one, too. Happens sometimes, those trappers forget where they set ’em.”

  Rachel came out onto the porch from the house with a pan of water, soap and some cloths. “Sonia’s calling the vet,” she said. “In the meantime we’ll clean up the paw.”

  “She was Metsala’s,” Aino said. “Won’t have a home now. Nobody lives at his place. Probably why she wandered off.”

  “The poor thing,” Rachel murmured, washing the paw as gently as she could.

  “Guess we’ll have to keep her, seeing as how she was sent to us,” Aino said.

  Rachel looked up at him. “Don’t you dare name her Metsala!”

  “Wouldn’t do, being a she. I’ll call her Metsa, how’s that?”

  They treated the paw, according to the instructions Sonia had received from the vet. She finished by telling them, “He said since no broken bones came through the skin, you can wait and bring her in tomorrow.”

  “Her name’s Metsa,” Mikel informed his grandmother, “and she’s found a new home.”

  Sonia nodded. “That’s good. A farm should have a dog.”

  Mikel went off to bury the trap, Rachel going with him to show him where Aino wanted it to go. As he dug the hole, Mikel said, “I don’t regret our good deed, but Metsa sure didn’t pick the best time to start yelping.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  He glanced at her. “You don’t mean that.”

  “We have no future,” she said.

  “But we do have the present. Isn’t that enough?”

  She stared at him, her eyes troubled, and finally said, “I don’t know.”

  “It’s your decision.”

  “One I don’t want to make!” she cried, turning and hurrying away from him.

  He watched her go, wondering what would have happened if the dog hadn’t been caught in the damn trap, if they’d made love there by the stream. If they had, would he still have this yearning, this damn obsession for her?

  Mikel shook his head. Who knew? But he was more than willing to try to find out.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day Mikel and Rachel drove Metsa the forty miles to the vet’s office. After an X ray and an exam, he decided not to cast the paw. “Two of the bones have what we call a greenstick fracture and they’ll heal just as well by themselves since she’ll be favoring that leg for a while. Try to keep the paw clean until the cuts and abrasions scab over. Lucky she’s a young dog because they bounce back fast. Has she had her shots?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel admitted. “Her former owner is dead, so we can’t ask him. But my opinion is that she’s never had any.”

  She gave the vet Jack Metsala’s name, and after his receptionist checked the records, he said, “He didn’t bring the dog here, at any rate.”

  So Metsa got the first of her immunization shots then and there.

  On the way back, Mikel said, “The other night you said something about showing me the Porcupines.”

  She glanced at him, unsure if it was wise to venture off into the woods with him again since she didn’t seem to be very good at saying no to this particular man. On the other hand, this was tourist season so it wasn’t likely they’d be alone.

  “Maybe tomorrow, if Aino doesn’t have anything planned,” she said.

  Back at the farm, Mikel went to the cottage while Rachel followed Metsa as the dog limped up onto the back porch.

  “The vet asked if we wanted her spayed,” she told Aino, who sat on the swing. “He’s going on vacation, but he can do it before he leaves.”

  Aino eyed the dog, who’d curled up on the rug Sonia had found for her. “She’s no special breed, her pups would be hard to place. Might as well have him do it.”

  “I thought I’d show Mikel the Porkies tomorrow,” Rachel said, “if you don’t have anything planned. He asked about seeing them.”

  “I’m thinking about taking the boat out if we get a real calm day. Maybe tomorrow’ll be it, maybe not. Why don’t you and Mikel go this afternoon? It’s not that far. Be sure and show him the mine.”

  As Rachel nodded, she wondered if she was setting herself up. But she really didn’t care—and that was the problem. What she wanted was to make love with Mikel. And soon. Wrong or right.

  When she left the porch to go to the cottage, Metsa followed her. Mikel was just coming out and the dog limped as fast as she could toward him, while Rachel took her time.

  She came up on them, heard him scolding the dog and hid a smile.

  “Look, Lady Metsa,” he was saying, “you need to be resting that leg, not trailing after me. Furthermore, you belong on this farm. No use getting attached to me, I’m a no
-strings man, and that includes dogs. If you have any sense you’ll go haunt Aino and leave me alone.”

  No strings? But then Rachel knew that. Why should it make any difference? She didn’t want strings, either. What she did want was Mikel, dangerous or not. Not forever, that was impossible. Their interlude by the stream before Metsa started yelping was etched in her mind, stirring her emotions every time she thought about them lying together on the blanket. Not forever, no, but for the time he’d be here.

  “We could run up to the Porkies after lunch if you like,” she told him.

  He smiled. “Count me in.”

  Later, as they drove along the highway beside Lake Superior, catching glimpses of the water through the trees, Mikel said, “In a way this country reminds me of upstate New York. Our mountains are higher, though.”

  “The Porcupines are the second highest point between the Adirondacks and Pike’s Peak.”

  “Whoa. Impressive.”

  Hearing the amusement in his voice, she gave him a mock frown. “I suppose you have mines, too.”

  “You got it.”

  “But not copper mines, I’ll bet.”

  “I’ll grant you that. Do you mean to take me down into the depths of a copper mine?”

  “And abandon you there? Lucky for you, I can’t. They have the mine blocked off after only a few feet in.”

  Once they arrived at the parking area and walked to the top of the escarpment, Rachel waited for Mikel’s comment as they, with a few others, looked down at Lake of the Clouds nestled into the dense woods thousands of feet below.

  “I can see what Aino meant,” he said finally. “If you had to climb up all this way on foot for the view from here, it’d be all the more spectacular because you made an effort to get here.”

  “You’re saying we’re more likely to appreciate what we have to work to get?”