Against the Wind

by Gwynne Forster

  * * *

  He reached for the phone as she closed the door. “Turner Baker, please.” He had to know whether Turner had seen or heard any more of that man who was after Leslie.

  Cal stopped in front of the Haynes house and parked, but Leslie didn’t open the door. “What’s the problem, Leslie?”

  She wasn’t certain, so she didn’t answer. Apparently following her gaze, he looked into the rearview mirror.

  “You see something?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Then let’s get out, unless…Why are you looking in that reflector?” He turned around and looked at the rear window. “Is anybody following us?”

  She didn’t know how much Jordan had told him. “I don’t know. A car tailed us on Highway 695, but I didn’t see it after we exited into 140. I just don’t know.”

  “What did it look like?”

  She told him, and he got out, surveyed the area, and opened her door. “I don’t see any such car, but we have to consider that he could have parked around the corner. I assume he knows where we’re headed.”

  “He knows.”

  He reached in the car and got the cell phone. “Go on in. I’ll stay out here for a while.”

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  He hooked the phone to his belt. “Eventually. Am I looking for short or tall?”

  “Medium,” she said and realized she’d told Cal more than she had admitted to Jordan. “Where’s tall, dark and handsome?” Minnie asked her when she opened the front door.

  Leslie hugged and kissed the woman who’d mothered her. “Back at the Estates. He’s busy.”

  Minnie raised an eyebrow, a gesture Leslie knew meant disbelief. “He’s busy, eh? And birds fly north in the winter. Who drove that Town Car that’s out there?”

  “Cal. He’s—”

  “I know who Cal is. Go tell him I said bring himself on in here.”

  Leslie cleared her throat and immediately regretted it. Minnie usually became skeptical when she cleared her throat before she started talking. “He’s uh…Mom, I think Faron followed us along 695. I had to tell Cal, and he’s making certain that dreadful man isn’t out there somewhere.”

  Minnie sat down. “You told them about Faron Walker?”

  “He’s been snooping around the Estates, so I had to tell Jordan something, though I didn’t mention Faron’s name. You know he swore that if I did, he’d kill me.”

  Minnie sat forward. “I know he threatened to do something to you if he found out you’d breathed his name to the authorities or told anyone who would, but this is too much. Maybe you should tell Jordan, honey, because Faron Walker cases this house three or four times a week, to my knowledge.” She rushed to answer the doorbell.

  “What color’s that car?” Cal asked Leslie when he walked into the living room.

  It didn’t take a keen observer to know that Minnie held her breath as though fearing what her ears would hear, but Leslie had no choice except to answer truthfully. “A weather-beaten brown, and it has four doors.”

  Minnie let out a long sigh as Cal nodded. “Yeah. He circled the block a couple of times, but he didn’t see me. I expect he recognized the car, though. No point in worrying, Minnie. We’ll keep him away from Leslie.”

  Minnie clasped her hands together. “Lord, I sure hope so, ‘cause he means no good. That is an evil man.”

  Cal pointed to the bags of pecans and apples that rested near the door, and inclined his head toward Minnie. “Jordan sent you those. Leslie, I’d like to get back to the Estates before dark. Never know what that fellow’s carrying.” At Minnie’s gasp, he added, “That buggy of his won’t make half the speed of the Lincoln Town Car, but you never can tell; he may test me.”

  When Cal turned onto 695, he opened the subject, as she’d known he eventually would. “How much of this does Jordan know?”

  She folded her hands in her lap so that he wouldn’t see them trembling. “He knows some, but less than you do.”

  “Why can’t you tell him everything?”

  She shrugged. As much as she liked Cal and appreciated his mature thinking, she didn’t believe he’d understand. Neither the lawyers nor the judge had been sympathetic to her. Her own lawyer had merely done what Mom and Pop Haynes had paid him to do, but he hadn’t believed that she wasn’t in some way culpable. And if she identified Faron to Jordan, he’d go after him, and she didn’t want to be responsible for what might happen. Besides, Faron had sworn that if she accused him again, he’d get her.

  “I’ve tried to tell him, but it’s too painful. I just can’t go over all that. Jordan does know that I’m innocent of any wrongdoing.”

  He checked the rearview mirror and, as though satisfied with what he saw, put on the cruise control, flicked on the radio and headed for the Estates. “That’s good enough for me, and I hope it satisfies Jordan.”

  * * *

  At that moment, Jordan was questioning Cal’s brother, Turner, as to where and when he’d last seen their mystery man.

  Turner didn’t think the man a threat. “If he planned to hurt her, Jordan, he’d have caught up with her by now.”

  Jordan weighed the wisdom of telling Turner that the man had almost done that, decided he needed all the help he could get and confided the minimum. “She’s staying in my house from now on, because some guy tried to break in on her night before last.”

  A sharp whistle flew to him through the wires. “If it was me, I’d ask her right out who he is and where he lives. But I’ve got a hunch there’re two guys in this scenario: the one you described to me and the one I met. Get her to talk, man.”

  “When she trusts me sufficiently, I won’t have to ask her. She’s been through a lot, Turner. I appreciate any clues you come across.”

  “All right, pal. I’d keep her close to the Estates if I were you.”

  “Bet on it.” He hung up. Nothing new there. He put on his black leather jacket, grabbed his hat from its hook over his desk and headed for the barn.

  “What is it, Rocket?” The man opened the back door just as Jordan stepped out on the porch.

  “I found these in the barn,” he said, pointing to three baby raccoons, “and I wanted Miss Leslie to have one. When we worked on the peaches, she said she’d never had a pet. Could you give her these and let her take her pick? I’ll come back tomorrow for the other two.”

  Jordan gazed at the creatures, then back at Rocket, a mentally challenged young man, the soul of kindness, but capable of trying his patience as no one else could. “Thanks, Rocket. I’ll give them to her as soon as she gets back here.”

  Rocket embellished his thanks with the smiles of a simple, guileless person. “There’s a baby bottle and some milk in this bag.” He handed Jordan a bag that bore a supermarket logo. “If she needs anything else for the little pup, you just let me know.”

  He thanked Rocket again, took the animals back in the kitchen and set the basket on the table. Nobody had ever tamed a raccoon, and by the time one got to be six weeks old, he could destroy every piece of furniture in the house. And few animals were more vicious. He still hadn’t decided what to do with them when Cal and Leslie returned.

  “It’s against the law in this state to keep those things,” Cal said.

  Jordan saw Leslie’s expression of longing, and couldn’t help wondering if he’d have to lobby the state legislature to get the law changed. “They’re cute now,” he told her, “but in a few weeks, they’ll scratch and bite, and they carry rabies and pests.”

  “But couldn’t we keep them till we find their mother?”

  He shook his head. “If their mother were alive, they wouldn’t be here.” A sensation of icy prickles squeezed his heart when her face seemed to sag in obvious disappointment. “Look. If you’ll let me take these…uh…back where they came from, I’ll get you a puppy.”

  Her eyes glittered so brightly that he could have been looking at a star-filled sky. “You’d do that? I’d love to have a puppy, but I—I d
on’t think this is the time.”

  The door closed softly, and he didn’t have to turn his head to know that Cal had left in order to allow them privacy. “When would be the time?” He stepped closer to her. “When, Leslie?”

  She backed away a few paces. “Don’t you remember my telling you that I’m going back to school? I’ll hardly be able to feed and care for myself.”

  Keep a lid on it, buddy, he silently admonished himself. “And don’t you remember my telling you that you don’t have to leave the Estates to complete your education?”

  “Jordan, please don’t make it difficult for me to say this. I have to leave here and finish school.”

  “You can stay here and—” What was the point in arguing about it? He changed tactics. “It’s time I closed up my boat for the winter. How about going over to St. Michael’s with me Sunday?”

  The look on her face was proof that he’d chosen the wrong time to suggest that she accompany him out on the Chesapeake Bay. He quickly added, “I’d planned to mention it to you, but you left with Cal before I got the chance. How was your visit with Minnie?”

  “Wonderful, but we didn’t stay long. Somebody followed us.”

  He grabbed both of her arms, caught himself and took his hands off her. “Did Cal see the man?”

  “I’m not certain. If he did, I’m sure he’ll tell you.”

  He watched her run up the stairs, away from him, her beautiful hips young, lush, and tantalizing. He stopped his fist just before it crashed into the golf-leaf framed mirror that had belonged to his mother long before his birth. Appalled that his frustration had nearly shattered his self-control, he headed for the barn, intent upon giving Casey Jones the ride of his life.

  Ossie sat on a high stool in the corner of the tack room, mending a western saddle while he whistled a Mozartian tune, his hands moving in a rhythm counter to the sounds that passed through his lips. Jordan watched his employee and friend, marveling as he always did at the difference between the Ossie before his eyes and the one who, almost four years earlier, had yanked his arm as he’d walked a Baltimore street and wanted to know if he had a sharp razor. He’d asked the disheveled man what he planned to do with it and had been told that that depended on how much nerve he could muster. Impressed with the man’s speech and the unmistakable dignity that his rock-bottom misery failed to hide, Jordan had offered the man a new life, and he’d grabbed at it. When he’d decided to build lodging for his workers, Ossie had revealed his background as an accomplished architect, had designed the structure and refused compensation.

  Jordan walked over to Ossie and sat on a bench nearby. “Whose saddle is that?”

  “Cal’s. If he’s as hard on his horse as he is on his saddles, it’s a wonder you don’t have a horse cemetery back there somewhere.”

  Ossie couldn’t know he’d said the one thing that could make him laugh right then. “Cal rides fine, once he gets on the horse, but it’s getting up there that busts up his saddle. I don’t let him near Casey Jones, because Casey wouldn’t stand for it.

  Ossie pulled out a screw and found a more solid home for it. He dropped the pliers on the floor, rubbed his chin and looked Jordan in the eye. “I’m not talking out of turn, because I told Leslie I’d mention this to you. Thursday night, I found a fellow loitering around the gate, and he offered me fifty dollars to tell him which room in your house Leslie slept in.”

  Jordan jumped to his feet. “What did he look like?”

  “Like I told Leslie, he was a scruffy-looking white guy down on his luck. Had to be about five feet nine and…I’d say…a hundred seventy pounds. I’ve met all kinds of men, and I’m convinced that one wasn’t Romeo chasing Juliet. He’s up to no good.”

  Jordan pounded his left fist into his right palm, walked to the other end of the tack room and back again. “He or some other guy almost got to her that night. I moved her over to the house because the guy’s getting too bold for my comfort. He followed Leslie and Cal to Westminster this afternoon. I have to take solace in the fact that he’s losing patience and getting reckless—a sure sign that he’ll walk right into a trap.”

  “He’s got gall, all right.”

  Jordan turned to leave, because his frustration had abated, and he no longer needed to test his horse.

  “Jordan.”

  He stopped and walked back to Ossie.

  “Thanks, man, for knowing I didn’t want that guy’s fifty bucks and that I ran him away.”

  Jordan stared at Ossie, frowning as he did so. “You take a bribe? That’s the last thing that would have occurred to me.”

  His steps didn’t quicken with surplus energy as they had when he’d left the house. Leslie knew a man had offered Ossie a bribe for information that would enable him to find her, but she hadn’t mentioned it to him. Why the hell did she insist on protecting an attempted rapist—if, indeed, he was her pursuer—one bent on hurting, maybe even killing her? He stopped, because the squirrel who stood in the walkway eating a pecan refused to move. He had to laugh. None of the squirrels feared him and most would eat from his hand or even crawl up his pants leg if he stood still long enough. A lot of pecans remained on the trees, and he’d have to remind Cal to have the men gather them before the first frost. Julia liked to bake with nuts right off the tree, so he left some there, but he didn’t want to risk losing several barrels of them.

  He opened the kitchen door seconds before Julia broke out of a steaming embrace with Cal, whose hands seemed to have covered every part of his wife’s body in the second before Julia realized he’d walked in on them. He ducked out of the kitchen as quickly as he could and headed up the stairs. Leslie’s voice filled the space around him with song, as she let it flow, happy as you please, unaware of the hurt that had started to seep into him the way water inserts itself into a sponge. He listened to the end. He’d had no idea that she possessed a beautiful voice. In seven months, she hadn’t sung in his presence. For the first time, he was tempted to go into her room and have it out with her, but he couldn’t. He needed, valued her trust.

  He went into his bedroom, closed the door and walked over to the window. Would he ever know the completeness with a woman that Cal and Julia had found with each other, ever have a love like that? He’d just begun to realize how much he longed for it. To be loved for yourself alone, not because your uncle had willed you some property or because you’d gotten promoted on your job. Not because you could keep a woman in Paris perfume, Italian shoes and silk teddies. But to know that you were always wanted, always loved, always needed for yourself alone by that one woman who was your whole life. His mouth watered with hunger for it. He knew that he could have it with Leslie, if only she would open up to him and let him love her, really love her. He wanted to give her so much—the security that she had never known, the love and caring that would bind her to him. She would stand shoulder to shoulder with him in any endeavor, through adversity as well as good fortune. He’d bet his life on it. And if she ever slew her demons, what a lover she would be!

  Get off that subject, he admonished himself and went into Clifford’s room to check on the boy’s Internet viewing habits. He’d discovered that his nephew obeyed him, but he checked on him nonetheless and found him looking at lighthouses on the coast of Maine. “Come down to the den in a few minutes and get your music lesson. Did you practice?”

  Clifford scrambled up from his position on the floor. “I sure did. I know everything you taught me. I even learned some jazz licks.”

  Jordan raised both eyebrows. “I want you to unlearn them as fast as you figured them out. Music is learned in steps, building knowledge on knowledge. You don’t start on the roof of the house before you’ve built the sides.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You still planning to go to St. Michael’s tomorrow?” Leslie asked him, as he left Clifford’s room.

  He nodded. “The forecast is great. Just put on something warm. Okay?” She smiled her agreement, and he relaxed. Maybe they’d settle a few th
ings.

  * * *

  Leslie stood alone at the ship’s bow, unwilling to take her gaze from the water that seemed to rock and roll past them, though she knew it was only a sensation, that the boat didn’t stand still but sped through the water. She opened herself to the pure bliss of being in Jordan’s care and to the drama into which nature enticed her. A sense of calm pervaded her whole being as the chilly wind whipped past her, the churning waters charmed her and the sun shone on her, telling her that she belonged to nature, existed as a part of it, unabused by life’s artillery. She had to share it with him.

  “Jordan,” she called, “Jordan.” But the wind whisked away her words. She turned to go into the cabin and saw him standing at the door, watching her. Her bottom lip dropped at the sight of him in a red woolen crew neck sweater and tight black jeans, with a smile on his face and the wind frolicking in his hair.

  As if to cement the imprint, he grinned. “Wonderful, isn’t it? I want to join you out here in this awesome peace and beauty, but I have to run this thing.”

  “Then I’ll stay in there with you.”

  He reached for her hand as she neared him. “I ought to be unselfish and say you should stay out here and enjoy the elements, but I…” His words trailed off, and he seemed content to let his eyes speak for him. She didn’t care. She’d never felt so totally alive in her life, and she knew her eyes communed with his. She grasped his hand and walked inside with him. He seemed relieved, and she searched her mind for reasons as to why he should have been anxious, but found none.

  He placed her hand on the wheel. “Want to take the helm for a while?”

  She grasped it eagerly, “I’d love it. Since I’m in fairyland, I might as well live another fantasy.”

  He moved to stand behind her and let his hands slide down her arms. “What other fantasies are you living right now?”

  With abandon, she spread her arms wide and voiced the rapture that buoyed her spirits. “I’m queen of all I see, and I’m reveling in it.”