Eris wiped at the blood running down his face from his nose and his lip and noticed for the first time the number of people standing around and staring. The reporters were scribbling furiously. Go home,” he said loudly. “Give the police a chance to get in the cemetery.”
“You're lucky he didn't go for your gun,” someone said, and Eris exhaled a bubble of blood in response.
Slowly, the lingerers began to leave, and soon the police arrived and took over. As Eris walked back to his truck, he saw a reporter hurrying to catch him.
“Your name,” she huffed. “I need your name.”
Eris kept walking.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sherman Tanner was busy digging around Eris Renard's coleus plants when he saw the conservation officer come rolling down the road. Tanner straightened and immediately started to hurry off, but it was too late. The Indian had already seen him. Renard parked his truck beside the house and got out frowning.
“What are you doing?”
Tanner ignored the question. His eyes were glued to the blood on Eris's clothes and the swollen state of his lip and cheek.
“What in God's name happened to you?”
“Nothing,” said Eris. “Stay the hell out of my yard, Tanner.”
Tanner puffed up his chest. “I was just doing some thinning on your coleus. I didn't realize it would offend you so badly.”
“Next time, ask.”
Tanner snorted in indignation and carried his spade away from the man and his precious plants. If he was going to be that way, then just let him. Sherman Tanner didn't need anything from his yard. He was curious, was all.
Desperate to spread the news about Renard's condition, Tanner went into his house to tell his wife and give her the plants he had obtained, and then he hopped into his car and hurried down to the swimming beach, where he had seen the two pretty sisters from the log cabin go, flaunting their bare legs and flimsy swimsuit cover-ups.
He found the blonde on the sandbar with a fat paperback; the redhead was out walking around in the water.
Sherman pretended to be strolling along the beach when he approached Madeleine.
“Why, hello there, neighbor.”
“Hello, Mr. Tanner,” said Madeleine, clearly not pleased to see him.
“Enjoying the sun, I see.”
“Yes.”
“It's smart to wear a hat, with skin like yours.”
She said nothing, only looked at him.
“Just saw the strangest thing, up at the cabin,” he began. “I was taking some of the coleus plants Renard said I could have when I saw him come driving up. Now, its past lunch, and he doesn't usually come home around this time, but, anyway, the man was covered with blood. Both his shirt and pants were splattered with it, and his face looks a mess. Not that it's so attractive to begin with, but—”
Tanner stopped when she got up and put on her sandals, and he stared in surprise as she began to run up to the path.
“Madeleine?” her sister called from the water, but the blonde didn't stop.
Sherman was only too happy to approach the redhead and tell his juicy bit of news all over again. He loved being the first to tell people things.
Madeleine was breathing hard when she reached Eris's door. It was open and she walked right in, calling out as she moved through his house. He came from a room at the end of the hall and stared at her in her swimsuit.
She moved closer as her eyes adjusted. He was bare-chested and barefooted, wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue jeans.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and then she made a face as she spied his lip. “Ouch.”
Eris shook his head and went back into his bathroom.
Madeleine followed and saw him lift a washcloth to the cut to clean the dried blood away.
“Let me do that,” she offered.
“I can do it,” he said, his voice irritated.
“Oh, sit down.” She placed her hands on his back and eased him to the toilet, where she put the lid down and pushed him to sit on it. She glanced at his hardened brown nipples and took the washcloth from his hands to dab gently at the split and swollen lip.
“I doubt he was bigger than you,” she said, “but I still have to ask the outcome.”
Eris mumbled something she couldn't understand, and she took the washcloth away.
“Come again?”
“I said he's in jail right now.”
“Oh. Good. Do you have any kind of ointment? It'll be easier on the lip when it starts to heal.”
“There's some in the cabinet.”
“Okay. I'll get it in a minute.” She placed a hand under his chin and tilted his head up so she could get the last of the dried blood off his face. She found herself studying the scars on his skin and unconsciously smoothing them with a finger. When she glanced at his eyes she saw him look quickly away from her, as if he had been studying her while she studied him. She smiled and lightly tweaked him on the nose, only to see him grimace in pain.
“Oops, sorry.”
She opened the cabinet and found the ointment inside. Putting some on the tip of her finger, she placed herself in front of him again, standing between his open thighs. She saw his eyes light on her breasts a fraction of a second before moving up her chest to her neck. Madeleine grasped him by the chin once more and gently applied the ointment to the cut, smoothing it over the lip and accidentally getting some on his teeth. He was very still, she noticed. It was almost as if he had stopped breathing.
“Hurt?” she said.
“Nnnh.”
“Your cheek is going to bruise,” she said. “Not much you can do about it, unless you've got an herbal poultice handy. That might be one advantage to learning about your ancestors.”
He looked at her and said, “I want to.”
“Do you?” she said, pleasantly surprised. “When?”
“Whenever.”
“Meaning whenever you get around to it? I've checked, Eris, and I've found that most conservation officers are married with families. None of them are so devoted to the job that they keep the same hours as you do. They have their beepers if anyone needs them, and you have your beeper if anyone needs you.”
“You called the office?”
“I did. The man I spoke with told me it was impossible to be on call twenty-four hours a day every day. You should take some time for yourself this summer.”
“And provide diversion for a bored anthropologist?”
Madeleine searched his dark brown eyes and felt her spine stiffen.
“Just when I was starting to like you,” she muttered, and she stepped from between his legs and tossed the tube of ointment in the sink.
“That's the part that's bothering me,” Eris said before she could leave the room. “I think we'll both agree that a woman who looks like you usually has little to do with a man who looks like me.”
“Is that how you judge your self-worth?” Madeleine turned to ask, her voice sharp.
“It's nothing but a fact, Madeleine. I don't know what you're after, and I can't help thinking I'm slated to become some kind of summer project for you.”
Madeleine stood listening to him and in her annoyance she grew suddenly confused. She no longer knew her reasons for wanting to be around him or the impetus behind her actions, so how could he?
She met his gaze and said, “I have no explanation to offer, other than the fact that I think you're a good man, Eris.”
He stood and moved to look down at her. “Manuel told me you've had a bad time of it lately. I didn't ask what, and I don't want to know. All I ask is that you not fool yourself into believing I'm going to be your buddy, or that you'll be a little less lonely if you stroll down and chat with old Eris once in a while. I don't want to be part of your recovery.”
Madeleine looked into his earnest, swollen face and regretted the obvious discomfort she had caused him thus far. He thought she was using him, teasing him, playing with him, all to build up her own battered and bruised
ego.
Maybe she was.
And maybe she wasn't. Maybe somewhere in all the sniping and foot stomping she had genuinely begun to like the silent Eris Renard. She knew she did, otherwise she would never have run all the way here from the swimming beach to see if he needed help.
But there was no way to prove it to him. She had no choice but to back off and let him be, show him she wasn't vain and stupid and desperate to be wanted by someone.
“I have been lonely, yes,” she said slowly, “but it's been a long time since I've lived alone. I don't think I'm using you, but I don't really know. I haven't asked myself why I'm drawn to you. Maybe I should do that. And if you're right, if the reason has something to do with what drove me here, then I will apologize to you with all my heart.”
They stood just inches apart, Madeleine acutely aware of the scent of his warm, bare skin, and Eris looking at her face with an expression that made the breath catch in her throat.
Madeleine forced herself to turn away and walk out of his house.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was days before Eris saw her again. He did his best not to look, but his eyes went to the log cabin anyway, and to the garage, to see if he could see the truck inside. He couldn't tell if it was inside or not, and she never left the door of the cabin open anymore, so he had no way of knowing if she was home or if she had gone somewhere.
On Monday he reported to his superior about what had occurred at the funeral. He was surprised to learn Sheila Lyman had in fact pressed charges against her husband, and that Ronnie had fought with another inmate at the jail and had the holy shit beaten out of him. Eris's swollen mouth twitched when he heard the news.
Tensions at the lake intensified since the day Kayla Lyman's body was discovered. Everyone was on the lookout for a child-molesting killer, and parents frightened their children at night by telling them about the poor little dead girl found floating in the water.
Tuesday night Eris had another run-in with the twenty-something in the baseball cap and his two good-old-boy buddies. They were tearing through the park in a four-wheel-drive SUV and smashed into a trash receptacle overflowing with garbage. When Eris came upon them they were dazed and trying to pry the receptacle from the grill of the SUV. He asked to see the license of the driver, and found out the baseball cap's name was Bruce Beckworth. He was twenty-five and he lived in Fayville. His attitude toward Eris was belligerent, and Eris wrote him up for destroying park property.
Beckworth was smart enough not to foul-mouth Eris while in hearing distance, but he did flip him the bird once they were back in the SUV and speeding away again. Asshole. If there was anyone Eris wanted to beat the holy shit out of, it was Bruce Beckworth.
On Thursday night, Eris drove over to the dance. He wasn't actually on duty, but it couldn't hurt to check on things. He couldn't admit to himself that he went more to see if Madeleine was there than anything else. There were so many people crowded into the campground that he couldn't see from his truck, so he got out and walked around the perimeter, stepping over the wires and hookups used by the band playing in the center of the crowd. He saw Dale Russell talking to the snooty teenager from the pontoon boat, but there was no sign of Madeleine. He walked around again, unable to tell if he was more relieved or disturbed. He guessed he was relieved.
As he was leaving the dance he saw Bruce Beckworth and his cronies arrive. Eris was tempted to stay and monitor their activity, but he decided to let Dale Russell handle whatever problems arose.
He drove home, eyeing Madeleine's cabin as he passed by. There was a light on in the living room, but otherwise the place was dark. Eris put the truck in his garage and was entering the house when he saw a lone figure come walking up the path from the cove. At first he thought it was Sherman Tanner, but this person was smaller and more fluid in movement. It was Madeleine.
Eris walked across his yard and out to the road to meet her. He couldn't see her face very well, but he detected a nod. “Eris. How are you?”
“It's not safe to be out walking alone after dark,” he said to her. “It's not safe in the city, and it's not safe here.”
She took something out of a pocket to show to him. “I have my pepper spray, just wanted to get out of the house for a while.”
Eris watched her put the tiny canister back in her pocket. He wanted to tell her the spray wouldn't do much good. Instead he said, “Did you forget about the dance?”
“No. I don't really know anyone. I'd feel awkward. What about you?”
He shook his head.
“Right; well, I'll go on now. Thanks for the warning.”
She started away from him and Eris could only stand and watch her go. Suddenly she turned back and said, “I almost forgot. Have a happy birthday tomorrow.” He lifted both brows, and before he could ask, she added, “The night I was in your truck I looked through your wallet. I'm sorry. It was there, so was I. Have a good birthday, Eris.”
He stood there and nearly strangled with all the words that wanted to come out of his mouth, but nothing made it past his lips.
No one had wished him a happy birthday since he was twelve years old.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dale Russell watched the crowded dance and wished Renard hadn't left. He wouldn't admit it to anyone in a thousand years, but Dale felt better when the tall Renard was around. Things seemed easier to handle when he knew the other CO was there to back him up.
The day the little girl had been found in the water Dale ignored the radio call and later told everyone he was in the shitter when it came and hadn't heard. He heard, but he didn't want to go. Let Renard do it.
He didn't actually mind watching the dance, but it was bigger than last year, and the crowd was a little more unruly, mostly due to a jerk in a baseball cap trying to pick fights. Dale had to keep walking away from the women he was talking to and tell the man to either settle down and have a good time or get the hell out. While he was saying this he made sure he was touching the gun at his hip.
Dale hadn't expected public relations to make up such a large part of his job. He was good at it, certainly, but he had envisioned a more authoritative position, with less exposure to and contact with the lowlife lake element.
But then visibility was the name of the game when it came to dealing with boaters and jet skiers and everyone else who wanted to have a good time out on the water. One glimpse of Dale and they hid their beers and drove a little more cautiously. That was the part that felt good.
Still, Dale envied Renard his much wider area of responsibility. Renard put miles and miles on his truck every day, ranging over entire counties, while Dale was stuck at the reservoir, checking boat registrations and playing Mr. Friendly Park Ranger to whatever group wanted to come along for the show. It was his own fault, he supposed, for talking so long and so loudly about his aunt, the governor.
She had called him yesterday after hearing the business about the little Lyman girl. She wanted to know the ugly details, and what had been done. Dale gave himself a much larger role in the drama than he had actually played, but his aunt would never learn otherwise. He even claimed to have been there to help Renard subdue the wife-beating Lyman at the funeral, but he had asked the reporters to keep his name out of the paper. His aunt, the governor, praised Dale until he began to feel embarrassed for lying.
The embarrassment didn't last long. Dale had learned long ago his looks would carry him only so far. If he made it anywhere in life it would be through sheer improvisation.
He looked at his watch at eleven o'clock and realized suddenly that Madeleine Heron had not come to the dance. Not that Dale was starving for female company that night, but he had specifically mentioned the dance to her. It seemed her hard-to-get act was not an act at all.
Dale didn't date, and he had lied about being engaged. He talked to women all the time, loved their flirting and thrived on their attention, but there was no one he wanted.
The little Lyman girl was the first time he'd slipped up
in years.
He had driven up to the Haven that day for a can of Dr. Pepper and a candy bar when he saw her sitting outside. Suddenly he saw himself at fourteen again, luring a little girl away from her sandbox to come and look at the tadpoles in the ditch with him.
“Are you lost?” he had gently asked the blonde tot in front of the Haven.
She nodded.
“Want me to help you find your mommy?”
She nodded again.
“What's your name? Can you tell me?”
“Kayla.”
“Okay, Kayla. You come with me. We'll get in my truck and we'll go find your mommy.”
She came without argument, without fuss, following him into the seat of his truck.
That was when Dale realized no one had seen them. The Haven was deserted but for someone talking loudly on a phone in the back. His nostrils had opened and begun to quiver as he stared down at the little girl in the cab of his truck. The memory of the long-ago girl at the ditch toyed with him, caused the hair on his arms to raise as he remembered the sensations, the incredible paroxysm of pleasure he had experienced that day, not to be repeated since.
His hands had shaken as he reached over to smooth her silky blonde hair.
“We're going to have some fun first,” he told her in a voice wavering with a mixture of fear and anticipation. “Would you like to have fun?”
She shook her head no and told him she wanted to go to her mommy.
“It'll be really fun,” Dale promised as he started the truck's engine and drove away from the Haven.
No one will ever know, he repeated to himself.
He hadn't actually been caught at fourteen, but the little girl told on him when she recovered from her broken jaw, and Dale was sent to a boys' ranch before his aunt intervened and had him taken to a psychiatric hospital, where he stayed only six months before she intervened again and had him released. Not only was his aunt a savvy politician, she was an ace lawyer.
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