“Hmmm,” Amelia murmured in protest, rubbing his arm. “I’d rather nibble on your ear. Right now? It’s so peaceful. I don’t ever want to leave this spot.”
“I’m talking to Amelia Rushing the Realtor right now, not that hot woman I had in my bed this morning. Do you or do you not want to sell this property, young lady?”
Amelia shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t really care. Oh, Alec, isn’t it wonderful?”
“What?”
“Just being here together, doing nothing.”
Alec smiled broadly and teased, “Even if we are in Confrontation?”
“Yes,” Amelia admitted. “This town is growing on me.” Confrontation was beginning to take on a well-worn patina like the glow on her grandmother’s silver pattern.
“Do you want to take this conversation back into the bedroom?” Alec suggested with a twinkle in his eye.
“You’re sweet, Alec Brady,” she said, getting up from her chair and straddling him, “but I think we already had that conversation, last night and again this morning.”
“True, but I never get tired of talking to you.”
Alec pulled up Amelia’s sheer T-shirt and bra, and moistened each of her nipples with his tongue. “Or we can just talk out here.” He kissed her, unbuttoned her jeans, and moved his hand inside her panties. She moaned.
“Do you like that, Miss Rushing?”
“I love it when you talk like a lawyer,” Amelia said, responding to his caresses and placing her hand on his growing erection.
“I think Alec Junior wants to come out to play,” she teased.
“Alec Senior,” he protested, feigning offense.
She hugged him, breathed in his woodsy scent that had become so familiar, and smiled, overflowing with desire.
Without warning, thick storm clouds moved across the sun and the sky darkened. Rolling thunder rumbled through the mountains, threatening a thunderstorm.
Amelia’s body stiffened and she removed her hands from inside Alec’s pants, pushed Alec’s hands away, pulled up her jeans, and pulled down her T-shirt. Fat raindrops began to plop on the porch, dampening her mood, immobilizing her.
“Do you see that?” Amelia looked up. Her stomach tightened. She clenched her teeth.
“What,” Alec answered, lazily following her gaze.
“I don’t like the look of those clouds. I’m going inside before the sky opens up.”
“Amelia,” Alec cautioned calmly, “it’s hardly raining at all, and even if it pours, we’re under the overhang. The rain can’t touch you. And it can’t hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”
Breathing heavily, Amelia clutched at her neck. “I hear thunder, and that means lightning. And we’re surrounded by trees. My weather app didn’t predict this.”
“How many times have you known a weatherman to make an accurate prediction?”
“What if a tree fell on the house?”
“Are you afraid the house will fall in on the Wicked Witch of the East?”
Amelia stood and pursed her lips. “Are you calling me a witch?”
“If the ruby slippers fit…”
“You’re not taking this seriously. We need to go inside, right now. This is a bad omen.”
Alec raised his eyes to the sky again. The clouds had completely obliterated the sun and turned what had been a bright sunny morning into night. Alec shivered involuntarily.
“You might be right,” he said. “We’d better get inside. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this sky before.”
Suddenly, a tall figure stood at the steps up to the cabin entrance.
Alec looked up. “Uncle Bundy.”
“Hey, boy. How’ve you been?” Bunnell’s tone was easy, but Amelia detected an evil undertone that chilled her to the core.
Alec turned to Amelia and spoke in a voice that appeared calm but was more of a command. An intense voice she’d never heard Alec use.
“Go inside. Now.”
Amelia froze as she came face to face with the infamous Bunnell Brady. He was as tall and broad as a giant, with a disheveled beard and overgrown hair. His clothes looked like they had been through a war and needed to go through a wash. Were those specs of blood on his jacket? Had he just carved up his latest victim? A rifle was slung over his shoulder. He made quite a picture. A picture of evil. Of every child’s nightmare. The monster under the bed.
Amelia’s feet stuck to the ground like they were encased in concrete, and she couldn’t move her lips.
“This must be the pretty little lady I hear has laid claim to my nephew’s heart.” Amelia stared at the apparition. Bunnell’s voice remained benign, but she felt his evil slithering around her.
“I don’t bite,” Bunnell said, exhibiting a modicum of false charm. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Alec?”
“She’s not important,” Alec said. “Go on, get inside,” he instructed Amelia without mentioning her by name. When she didn’t respond, he started to sweep her inside.
“She a mute?” Uncle Bundy asked.
“She’s nobody.”
Amelia’s first instinct was to be hurt, but she knew Alec was only trying to protect her. If Bundy got wind of who she was, who she was related to, and how much she meant to him, there would be trouble.
Alec pushed her inside and closed the door after her. “Lock up.”
“Don’t worry. I ain’t planning to poach on your territory.”
“What are you doing with a gun?” Alec asked warily, sniffing his uncle’s breath. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Just gone huntin’,” Bunnell answered. “Shot me a bear. Got him in the truck. I had some of the boys help me haul him in.”
Alec expelled a breath and declared, “We need to talk.”
“Heard you was lookin’ for me, boy. What’s got your nose out of joint?”
“Sit down.”
Uncle Bundy grinned and placed his rifle against the door. He took a seat next to his nephew.
“This about your mama?” Bundy wanted to know.
“No, it’s about my daddy,” Alec announced.
Bundy’s eyes bulged. “Your daddy? Now where did that come from?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
Bundy scratched his head as if he were perplexed.
“I don’t rightly know what you’re talking about, son.”
“That’s just it. I’m not your son, am I?”
“Who told you that?”
“I know everything, so don’t bother denying it.”
Bundy grinned, baring his crooked teeth. “Exactly what is it you think you know that you’re so all-fired-up to tell me?”
“I know my father was Moss Hathaway, and I know that you killed him.”
Bundy tried to hide his surprise, but his nervous tick betrayed him. “Am I supposed to know who this Moss Hathaway fellow is?”
Alec speared his uncle with a steely gaze.
“You know exactly who he is. You killed him thirty years ago, right here in this cabin.”
Bundy chewed on his inner cheek.
“And who told you this?” His smile was fading, and his voice rose an octave.
“That’s not important.”
“Could it be your new girlfriend who’s snooping around, stirring up trouble?”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Marie Antoinette told me she’s one of them Florida people. I ain’t got no use for them Florida people. They’s trouble. Always have been.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“I ain’t saying I did nothing, but wouldn’t the statue of limitations run out on a crime that may or may not have taken place thirty years ago?”
“That’s statute of limitations.”
“That’s what I said.”
“If the crime is a felony, there is no limit. There is no statute of limitations for murder.”
Uncle Bundy pulled at his beard.
“I want to know where my father is buried
,” Alec demanded.
“I raised you, boy. I’m as close to a father as you’ll ever get. Why do you think he’s your father?”
“Are you denying you did it?”
“I ain’t confessin’ to anything.”
“How many murders have you committed?”
“Murders? That’s my business.”
“Well, I’m making it my business. If you don’t tell me where my father is buried, I’m going to the police and have you locked away.”
Bundy reached back and with an easy motion, picked up his shotgun.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” Bunnell warned.
“I’m not afraid of you. I’m not my mother.”
“I loved your mother,” Bundy objected. “She was the best thing that ever lived in this world.”
“If you call it love to murder the only man she ever cared for, in cold blood right before her eyes, then I don’t think you know the meaning of the word. Your little reign of terror is over, Bunnell.”
Thunder rumbled overhead, and the mountains disappeared in the darkness.
“Bad storm coming,” Uncle Bundy predicted, pointing the shotgun at Alec. “We’d better get in out of the rain.” He stepped toward the cabin.
Slivers of lightning descended and struck a nearby tree. A torrent of rain was unleashed from the clouds.
“Lightning’s close. I ain’t never seen it rain this hard in as long as I can remember.”
Alec imagined Amelia cowering inside the cabin, probably trembling under the covers in bed. There was no way he was going to allow Bundy into his house—well, Amelia’s grandmother’s house. She was terrified of rain, but deathly afraid of lightning. She should be more afraid of Uncle Bundy.
“Alec, let’s talk this over. Whatever you think happened, it happened more than thirty years ago. It has nothing to do with today. Or you and me. I raised you like you was my own son.”
“You left me to grow up without a father, and you broke my mother’s heart. And now you’re finally going to pay for your crimes.”
“What’s to stop me from shootin’ you like I shot that painter fellow?”
Alec exhaled. Finally, a confession.
“Why did you do it?” Alec asked evenly.
Now the words flowed from Bunnell’s mouth. “He was molesting your mother. I seen them in bed together. He was a married man and a fornicator, and your mother was an innocent virgin. And you shoulda seen them nasty pictures he painted of her in the nude. No court in the world would convict me. I was protecting my sister’s honor.”
“The way I heard it, they were in love and were going to run off and get married.”
“Necey was mine. No man was good enough for her. Especially not that artist.”
“So you decided to shoot a defenseless man between the eyes because you coveted your own sister. That’s sick and disgusting.”
Alec noticed the startled look on Bundy’s face.
“I know who that girl of yours is. She’s the granddaughter of that busybody Katherine Rushing. I know everything that goes on in this town. You think no one told me she was trying to sell our land? I warned that lady if she crossed me I’d kill her and everyone in her family. Now get out of here. I’m going to have a private talk with your girlfriend.”
Alec reached for the shotgun, and Bundy knocked him in the head with the butt of the rifle. Alec fell out of the chair but refused to be cowed. He rocketed up, rubbing the bump on his head.
“I am not gonna hurt her none. Just play with her enough to scare her.” Bundy started cackling.
“Like you did with my mother? If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”
“With what, your bare hands?”
Lightning cracked and struck another tree. The flash illuminated Bundy’s weathered face. The wind was rapidly picking up speed, and Alec had to hold on to the porch rail to keep from being swept away. At one point Bundy lost his balance and almost fell backwards.
“It’s up to you,” Bundy yelled, trying to make himself heard over the howling wind. “I can’t have you going to the police.”
“I’m not going to go to the police,” Alec shouted. “You are going to turn yourself in, take responsibility for what you’ve done.”
“No one is going to the police. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to have to take your girlfriend for insurance. If you don’t talk, nothing will happen to her. If you do, then you know what I’m capable of.” Bundy licked his lips. “I have not had me a woman in a long time. And from the looks of things, you got her all hot and ready for me. She’s a pretty little thing, nice and curvy, just like I like ’em. But I hear she’s uppity. Thinks she’s too good for our town. I aim to teach her a lesson. I’m looking forward to taming her. She’ll be learnt to mind when I get through with her. You’ll thank me for it later.”
Bundy turned and headed for the cabin. Alec prayed that Amelia had locked the front door and bolted herself into the bathroom or the bedroom. He also knew that Bundy had the strength to kick down any of the doors.
“Bundy,” he screamed, his voice hardly audible in the torrent of rain and what felt like hurricane-force winds. Alec reached for Bundy and grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Bundy turned and belted Alec with his fist, knocking him to the ground. Soaked to the bone, Alec crawled across the deck and hung onto Bundy’s leg to keep him from entering the cabin. He couldn’t let anything happen to Amelia. He would protect her with his life.
Thunderbolts of lightning landed all around them, zapping trees and sizzling an overhead power line. Zeus was on the rampage. Odds were one of them was going to get struck. For some reason, Amelia’s silly statistics about lightning strikes came to mind. They were playing Russian roulette with their lives out in this weather. Tempting fate.
Amelia was right. Sometimes nature was ferocious and should be feared. When he looked up, Bundy was backing out of the door.
“Drop your gun and put your hands up in the air where I can see them.” The voice sounded like Amelia’s, but she’d never be caught dead out in this storm.
“Amelia, what are you doing? Get back in the house and lock the door. There’s a dangerous storm raging.” Not to mention a raging maniac on our front porch.
Lightning flashed, and Amelia’s face was white as a ghost. He could almost hear her heart beating and see her body shaking. He could hear the fear in her voice, but she held the shotgun steady. His shotgun. The gun in the living room. The loaded shotgun. The shotgun that had killed his father.
“I said drop the shotgun.” Amelia’s voice was authoritative as she moved out of the cabin. Bundy took another step backwards.
The rain was drenching her, and lightning bolts were flying, but she remained focused like an Amazon warrior. She had never seen lightning strike so close.
Bundy issued a challenge. “I’ll bet you don’t know how to use that shotgun.”
“Do you want to take that chance?”
Bundy calculated his next move.
“You want to know where Moss Hathaway is buried? I’ll tell you if you put down the shotgun.”
“You first.”
Bundy held the gun high in the air with both hands, suspended over his head as if he were contemplating dropping it. She wasn’t falling for it. If she let her guard down, he would pull it down with one practiced move and use it. She wasn’t sure she had the nerve to fire her weapon.
Hail pelted all three of them, but Amelia managed to stay upright.
The next instant, lightning struck Bundy’s raised shotgun and his hair stood on end. He shook like he was being electrocuted, which he was. His brain short-circuited and his body danced like a marionette and then collapsed.
Amelia screamed and threw down Alec’s shotgun. The hand of God had surely struck Bunnell Brady down in a decisive cloud-to-ground strike that could have been packing anywhere from 100 million to one billion volts. And, true to form, the lightning strike had occurred at the beginning of the storm. Most lightning strikes occ
ur either at the beginning or the end of a storm, she knew.
Alec seemed to be in shock. Uncle Bundy was a monster, but he had been a surrogate father to Alec all his life.
Amelia went to Alec and tried to soothe him. “What an awful way to die. Did you know that twenty percent of all lightning victims die from the strike?” She doubted that reciting statistics would be of much comfort to Alec at this point, but quoting statistics served to bolster her strength.
“We’ll have to call the police,” Alec said. “Now we’ll never find my father. Bradys are legendary for carrying secrets to the grave. This secret died with Uncle Bundy.”
Alec put his arm around Amelia. “Are you okay? You’re shaking. Come on inside, and we’ll get you warm, find you a blanket, take off those wet clothes. What possessed you to come out in this lightning storm? You could have been killed. I could tell you were deathly afraid.”
“I was more afraid of losing you,” Amelia said and fell into Alec’s arms.
Chapter Nineteen
Amelia and Alec stood hand in hand over a freshly marked grave in the family cemetery minutes after the funeral service. A steady rain was keeping the temperature cool. Alec held an umbrella over Amelia’s head, but she didn’t seem to mind the rain anymore. In fact, she welcomed it.
The newly carved stone read Here Lies Moss Hathaway, Artist, Lover, Father. Aunt Barbara and Aunt Brenna stood back a polite distance.
In the weeks that had passed since Uncle Bundy’s grisly death, a lot of questions had been answered. Once he was no longer a threat, the police opened an investigation and found eight bodies buried in unmarked graves right in the family cemetery. The record rainstorm had unearthed three of them, skeletons of women, including Aunt Shelley—Marie Antoinette’s mother—and two other young women who had gone missing from surrounding towns. They solved a number of cold cases, bodies of people who had crossed Bundy over the years, for various reasons. But they didn’t find the body of Moss Hathaway because it was already buried in the grave next to Necey’s.
“He was a mean old coot, but he was still our brother,” announced Aunt Brenna to Alec when he called on her after Bundy’s untimely death. “He wasn’t right in the mind.”
Aunt Brenna and Aunt Barbara told Alec that, after a year of anger and pain and the cold treatment, their sister had finally agreed to forgive Bundy, but as a condition of her forgiveness he had to tell her where Moss was buried and, as a further condition, he must dig him up and bury him in a grave next to her plot, where he should rightly have lain. Bunnell would have done anything for Necey’s forgiveness. And, in the end, he did what she asked.
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