‘‘A few. Back to your story, though. Are you planning to get photographic evidence?’’
Annie nodded. ‘‘Tonight. The sooner the better, considering what Jenkins has in mind.’’
‘‘Assuming you manage to get a picture of her, what will you do with it?’’
‘‘You think the creature’s a female?’’ Annie had trouble containing her excitement. ‘‘Did you see babies?’’
‘‘No, no. Nothing like that.’’ Dorcas closed her eyes and muttered something under her breath.
‘‘What aren’t you telling me?’’
Dorcas opened her eyes. ‘‘There’s a great deal I’m not telling you.’’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘‘Sabrina trusts you, and that’s a good start, but when it comes to this lake creature, I’m not only concerned about what Donald Jenkins will do.’’
‘‘There’s another threat?’’ Annie should have known that word would get out. This was Big Knob, after all. ‘‘Who is it?’’
‘‘You. Your story in the Trib.’’
Annie immediately went on the defensive. ‘‘It’s not as if I work for a tabloid. I’ll handle the story responsibly.’’
‘‘I’m sure you’ll try, but—’’
‘‘I’ll do more than try. Once I have a picture, I’ll contact the scientific community before I make anything public. There will be security to protect the creature.’’
‘‘I want to believe that’s possible, but I can’t imagine how you could control people’s reactions. I realize what the story can do for your career, and I don’t blame you for wanting to take advantage of that, but—’’
‘‘Dorcas, if we don’t do something before Donald Jenkins shows up on Sunday with his gun, the creature could end up dead.’’
‘‘Jenkins has complicated this, I have to admit.’’
Ambrose came into the room with a tray and set it on the polished black coffee table. ‘‘We won’t allow Jenkins to kill it.’’
‘‘How can you stop him?’’ Annie glanced up. ‘‘You can’t patrol the lake all the time, and even if you could, there’s no law saying he can’t hunt a creature nobody else believes in.’’
‘‘The first step is for you to take a picture,’’ Dorcas said. ‘‘I agree with that part.’’
Ambrose looked at her. ‘‘You really think that’s a good idea?’’
‘‘I do, especially now with Jenkins as a threat. The best time is around dusk, by the way.’’
‘‘There’s a problem with that,’’ Annie said. ‘‘Tonight I’ve agreed to have dinner with Jeremy’s parents.’’
Dorcas’s eyebrows rose. ‘‘Really? I thought you had no intention of getting seriously involved with Jeremy?’’
‘‘I don’t. This dinner is just . . . a courtesy.’’
‘‘Considering the importance of getting your picture, why go?’’
As Annie thought about why she’d accepted the invitation, she realized how mercenary she’d sound if she explained about Lucy Dunstan’s offer to set up the interview with Clem Loudermilk. By accepting Lucy’s terms, Annie had reacted like the kind of person who would do anything to get the story, which was exactly what Dorcas was afraid of. She wasn’t that kind of person . . . was she?
‘‘I’ll cancel the dinner date,’’ she said.
‘‘Which will put Jeremy in an awkward position, no doubt,’’ Dorcas said.
‘‘Yes, and I hate that.’’ Annie thought quickly. ‘‘But all his mother really wants is a chance to talk to me and see if there’s any chance I’m interested in hooking up with her son. If I invite her to lunch today and explain myself, that might solve everything.’’
Dorcas beamed her approval. ‘‘Good thinking. Then you’ll have a chance to take your picture this evening. Once you have that, let’s talk again.’’
‘‘Have you tried to take a picture?’’ Annie asked.
Dorcas shook her head.
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘I’m horrible with cameras. Every one I’ve ever tried to use self-destructs.’’
Annie frowned in surprise. ‘‘That’s strange. Cameras are so easy to use these days. It’s really hard to break one.’’
‘‘Not if you’re a wi—woman like Dorcas,’’ Ambrose said.
There it was, Annie thought, proof of her suspicions. Ambrose had been about to call his wife a witch, and Annie knew he’d meant it as a compliment. A hard-nosed reporter would push the issue and find out whether these two were Wiccan.
She could see the headline now—FOR BIG KNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, HEAD SOUTH. She could imagine the headline, but she couldn’t picture her byline under it. Writing a story like that would be a betrayal of these two, and she couldn’t do it.
Ambrose cleared his throat. ‘‘Who wants tea?’’
‘‘I do.’’ Dorcas looked over at Annie. ‘‘Get your tape recorder out. Let’s get this interview started.’’
An hour later Annie left, and Ambrose turned to Dorcas. ‘‘She’s way too observant.’’
‘‘You have to expect her to be observant. She’s a reporter.’’ Dorcas thought the interview had gone rather well. Annie might suspect all sorts of things, but her story would be about a couple who decided to leave the rat race and find happiness in a small midwestern town.
‘‘Don’t you think you’re playing with fire, encouraging her to go out to the lake and get a picture? What if she actually succeeds?’’
‘‘Oh, she’ll succeed. I’ll ask Dee-Dee to pose for her.’’
‘‘Ye gods and little fishes! She’ll run straight to the Tribune with it, which means the world will be at our door with scientists, divers, tourists, even more hunters, which will endanger Dee-Dee and eventually George. Big Knob will be ruined and so will we.’’
Dorcas patted his arm. ‘‘Have faith. None of that is going to happen. Annie has more empathy than that.’’
‘‘How can you be so sure? She’s pretty ambitious.’’
‘‘Sabrina likes Annie. When it comes to judging a person’s character, I’ll put my money on that cat.’’
Annie’s plan for satisfying Lucy’s curiosity worked perfectly, which meant that late afternoon found her climbing into Jeremy’s Suzuki Samurai for a trip to the lake instead of having dinner with his parents. In order to increase her chances of getting a picture of the creature, she’d asked Jeremy if they could get an earlier start. He’d seemed happy to do that, and she suspected he was envisioning more time for sex. But she’d decided that they wouldn’t have any sex, let alone more of it.
‘‘You sure handled my mother,’’ he said as they drove away.
‘‘She called you?’’
He looked sheepish. ‘‘Uh, I called her. She wouldn’t tell me much. I just wanted to know . . .’’
‘‘Your mom’s terrific. We had a wonderful lunch and a good talk.’’
‘‘So she said.’’ He tapped the steering wheel nervously. ‘‘I suppose you talked about me.’’
‘‘Naturally.’’
‘‘Did she bring the naked baby pictures? She wouldn’t admit it, but I know she brought the naked baby pictures.’’
‘‘You weren’t completely naked. You had on six-shooters. ’’
He groaned. ‘‘I’m going to kill her. Better yet, I’m going to go over there tomorrow and steal the photo albums so she can never do that to me again.’’
‘‘She loves you, Jeremy. She wants you to find a nice woman and settle down. There’s nothing wrong with that.’’ Annie had to admit Lucy had mounted a good campaign. By the time their lunch conversation had ended, Annie had known for certain that Jeremy was a good catch.
The pictures had demonstrated what a cute baby he’d been, too, which meant he’d create cute babies of his own. Annie wasn’t interested in a husband, but if she had been, Lucy would have sucked her right in.
As it was, she felt guilty for treating this great catch like a boy toy. He deserved someone ready for a march down the aisle and
a couple of visits to the maternity ward. Annie was wasting his time with a sexual dalliance that would go nowhere.
Jeremy was ready for Ms. Right, not Ms. Commitment-phobic. Without being the least bit obnoxious, his mother had made that clear. She was looking out for her son’s welfare, and Annie didn’t blame her a bit.
‘‘She could be more subtle about her hopes for me,’’ Jeremy said.
‘‘In a town like Big Knob, there’s no point in being subtle.’’
He sighed. ‘‘Guess not.’’
‘‘Listen, Jeremy, after talking to your mom, I’ve concluded that it’s incredibly selfish of me to continue to have sex with you when I have no intention of taking the relationship further. I don’t know how you imagined tonight would go, but I—’’
‘‘I selfishly hoped we’d have sex.’’
She ignored a delicious zing of sensation. ‘‘No, I’m the selfish one, for taking up time that you could better spend with someone more worthwhile.’’
He shifted gears and took her hand. ‘‘I’m not going to ask if you like having sex with me, because I know you do. I’m going to assume you’d like to have some more of it tonight.’’
‘‘That’s not the issue. This isn’t about me.’’
‘‘Then let’s make it about me. Do you see another woman waiting in the wings, hoping you’ll turn me over to her? If you don’t have sex with me tonight, I’ll have no sex whatsoever, unless it’s solo, which we both know isn’t a tenth as good as what we can accomplish together.’’
Talking like this was getting her panties wet, which was the exact opposite of her intention on this trip. ‘‘If we don’t have sex, then you can start forgetting about what it’s like having it with me and start imagining having it with someone else.’’
He laughed and squeezed her hand. ‘‘That’s so illogical I don’t even know where to start. I can’t imagine how denying ourselves tonight is going to do either of us any good whatsoever. You’ll have to find some other way to convince me.’’
She was out of ideas and ready to pull over and get naked right here and now. She squirmed in the seat. ‘‘Maybe we should drop the subject for now.’’
‘‘Too hot for you?’’ His glance was teasing.
‘‘Let’s talk about the creature in the lake, instead. I’m absolutely serious about getting a picture of it. That’s another good reason for not having sex. I don’t want to be distracted.’’
‘‘I know. But we’re out here much earlier, so I think we’ll have time to have sex first and do our monster watching later.’’
Her whole body tightened at the thought of having sex the minute they landed. ‘‘Please talk about something else.’’
‘‘Right. The creature. My opinion hasn’t changed, Annie. I still think it’s some fake that a few kids built to scare whoever came out here this spring.’’
‘‘Dorcas and Ambrose don’t think it’s kids.’’ She looked straight ahead and slowly began to get control over her runaway libido.
Jeremy parked the Suzuki in the small lot next to the beach and glanced at her. ‘‘And what do they think it is?’’
‘‘I don’t know.’’ She gazed out at the lake, as if she could will something to rise above the surface. ‘‘They’re being a little bit secretive, but they definitely indicated that they think it’s alive and something worth protecting.’’
Jeremy snorted. ‘‘Then they’re nuttier than I thought. It’s gotta be kids.’’
‘‘Then those kids need to be careful. Now they have Donald Jenkins to worry about.’’
‘‘How come? What’s up with him?’’
She quickly filled him in on Bruce’s conversation with Jenkins. ‘‘So whether it’s kids or some rare creature who shouldn’t be harmed, we have a problem.’’
‘‘No, we don’t. Tomorrow I’m talking to Jenkins. That idiot is not going to start impersonating Rooster Cogburn, not if I have anything to say about it.’’
Annie pictured hothead Donald with his hunting rifle and mild-mannered Jeremy with his flash drive. It didn’t seem like a fair contest. ‘‘How can you stop him?’’
‘‘Easy. His entire operation at the dairy is computerized, thanks to me, and I’m the only one he trusts to work on his system. He definitely won’t want to piss me off.’’
‘‘I see.’’ Annie’s recently tamed libido stirred to life again. Maybe the flash drive was mightier than the rifle, after all. She found Jeremy’s take-charge attitude sexy.
‘‘And now that we have the Jenkins problem settled, let’s head for our private beach to drink some wine and watch for monsters.’’
So he had brought the wine. She should have known he would. The old Jeremy would have been more tentative, and she could have easily talked him out of having sex tonight. The new Jeremy knew what he wanted and how to get it. She might simply have to resign herself to wasting a little more of his time.
Chapter 18
Jeremy watched Annie paddle across the lake with sure strokes. She was a natural at this. He, on the other hand, was clumsier than hell today, which probably had something to do with the erection straining at his jeans.
Watching a woman paddle a kayak wasn’t supposed to be a sexual turn-on, but with Annie, there was no predicting what would get a rise out of him. Most anything, apparently.
‘‘You’re doing great!’’ he called out for no particular reason other than to let off a little steam and make at least a verbal connection with her.
‘‘Thanks. The exercise feels good.’’
He could imagine another exercise that would feel even better, but he wouldn’t throw that suggestion across the lake where anyone might hear him. He still wondered if there were kids lurking in the woods waiting for the right moment to activate their underwater toy.
They’d need the light to fade a lot more before they tried anything. Too much brightness and the gears and pulleys would show. The setting sun reflected off the water and made it impossible to see below the surface. He tried a few times, and then gave it up as hopeless.
‘‘The other thing I’ve been doing for exercise,’’ Annie said, continuing the conversation, ‘‘is pitching.’’
‘‘Don’t tell me you talked the bride into risking her nails to catch for you.’’ Jeremy wouldn’t mind volunteering for the job. They could both get a little hot and sweaty and take a shower together.
‘‘No chance,’’ Annie said with a laugh. ‘‘But the old net’s still up in the backyard. Mom never got around to taking it down, and I found a canvas bag full of softballs in the basement. I’d forgotten how much I loved pitching.’’
‘‘You were great at it. The best Big Knob varsity ever had.’’
Despite the intervening years, he could easily conjure up an image of Annie standing on the mound, her blond hair pulled into a ponytail high on her head. Annie had campaigned for regular baseball pants instead of the shorts and knee socks girl softball players often wore. She’d won that battle, and the knees of her white pants were usually smudged with dirt from sliding into base.
He used to sit, mesmerized, as she wound up and delivered a fastball underhand with such speed that he could hear it pop in the glove. Very few could hit Annie’s fastball.
‘‘You went to the games?’’
He told himself not to be insulted that she hadn’t noticed. ‘‘Hey, softball games were a great chance to hang out with girls, so I—’’ In the middle of that big, fat excuse, he stopped himself. ‘‘No, that’s not right. I showed up at the games because I grabbed every chance I could to be near you.’’
She didn’t respond right away, just kept dipping her paddle in the water. ‘‘That’s very flattering,’’ she said at last. ‘‘But knowing how long you’ve felt that way really gives me second thoughts about us.’’
So much for honesty. Time for a little bullshit. ‘‘That was then,’’ he said. ‘‘I was just a lovesick kid with no social life. I’ve moved beyond that.’’ Now I’m a lov
esick adult with no social life.
‘‘You have changed, Jeremy.’’ She paddled steadily toward the crescent beach that still held the rocked-in fire circle they’d built Tuesday night. ‘‘I suppose I have, too. It’s almost as if you found the self-confidence I lost.’’
As Jeremy struggled to frame a response to that, his anger toward Zach resurfaced. No one had the right to sabotage someone in order to build himself up. Annie had definitely lost some of her assurance, and Jeremy blamed Zach for that. The guy had plenty to answer for.
‘‘See, that’s why I feel guilty,’’ Annie said. ‘‘You make me feel better about myself, so I keep finding reasons to be with you when the kind thing would be to leave you alone.’’
‘‘That wouldn’t be kind. It would be torture.’’ He was close enough to shore that he could pick out the indentations in the sand where they’d had sex.
‘‘Torture sounds a little extreme.’’
‘‘No, it’s an understatement, especially now that we’ve . . .’’ He wasn’t going to finish that sentence, not when he wondered who else might be out here.
He’d thought about that when he’d prepared for tonight’s picnic, and he’d come more prepared than he’d been last time.
‘‘At least we got across the lake without falling in.’’ With one more stroke, Annie propelled the front of her kayak onto the sand.
‘‘Falling in had its advantages.’’ Jeremy beached his kayak next to hers.
She glanced over at him. ‘‘If we hadn’t . . .’’
‘‘But we did. And the rest, as they say, is history.’’ The lust he felt when he looked at her made him shake. Somehow he managed to get out of his kayak and pull both hers and his up on the sand without making a fool of himself.
The maneuver meant his feet got wet and hers didn’t, which was the idea. The cold water should have helped cool his jets, but all he had to do was watch her take off the kayaking skirt and he imagined her taking off the rest of her clothes, too.
‘‘Our firewood’s still here.’’ She picked up one of the branches they hadn’t burned on Tuesday night. ‘‘Should we start a fire?’’
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