Stalked In Conard County (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 41)

by Rachel Lee

  “I’ll miss you, too,” she admitted after a second or two of internal struggle. She was making herself vulnerable, something she had tried to avoid since childhood. Vulnerability was another thing that made her uneasy. So maybe her perceived toughness was merely a shell?

  “You in any kind of special nursing?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Registered nurse practitioner. I usually work in the ER. I can do a lot of things docs can do, but always under their supervision, which is fine. I have a lot of decision-making ability, but there are just certain areas where I have to step back and let a doctor take over.”

  He swallowed a sip of beer. “Long hours?”

  “Depends. We tend to work twelve-hour shifts three days a week and maybe more as needed.”

  “Twelve hours is a long time.”

  “It can be. Or it can flash by, depending.” She smiled, glad to be on familiar territory. “Either way, by the time I wind down after I get home, I’m exhausted.”

  “I bet, especially after a stint in the emergency room. I can’t imagine what you see.”

  “Most people can’t and most people shouldn’t. There are enough of us who take home nightmares.”

  She pushed her diet cola aside and went to get herself a beer. She’d never been one to drink much, nor did the idea of relying on it for relaxation usually appeal to her, but right now it did. Besides, she liked beer. She twisted the top off and drank right out of the bottle. “My back’s pretty sturdy,” she remarked, “but for some reason all this packing and boxing is giving me a lower back ache. I guess it’s different than lifting a patient.”

  “Maybe it’s your posture.” He studied his own bottle for a minute or so, then said, “That guy who disturbed you earlier? Have you been able to put your finger on what it was?”

  She snapped back to that moment, which she didn’t want to do. “Damn, Roger. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Sorry.” But he didn’t look sorry. He was genuinely seeking information, she decided.

  “Okay, I’m not really sure what grabbed my attention. Maybe his stride. Except, after a few steps, it changed. I remember thinking for some reason that he was built wrong. Nothing was really familiar about him. I know I haven’t been here in a few years, but I don’t think anyone I met in this town would give me that feeling. It was just an instant anyway. Some little trigger flipped.”

  He nodded. “Built wrong how?”

  “Obese.”

  Roger arched his brow. “He wasn’t that big.”

  She forgot her nerves. “Medical term. Twenty percent overweight.”

  “So your usual football-watching, beer-swilling, chip-eating, middle-aged guy.”

  She had to laugh. “Basically. But that’s not really fair. I was just making an observation about one man.”

  Then she glanced toward the windows over the sink. Night was falling fast now. “I need to close the curtains.”

  * * *

  Everything about her changed in that instant, Roger noticed. Her shoulders sagged a little and her face became tense.

  Damn that Peeping Tom. He rose. “I’ll help. You take care of those and I’ll run through the house.”

  She gave him an almost sad look. “This is awful. I’m sorry.”

  “No need,” he said firmly. He got it, at least as much as he could, and he didn’t blame her for growing uneasy. Not after what she had gone through as a child. She’d have to be made of stone not to react this way. He just hoped for her sake nothing more happened and that this experience would fade quickly for her.

  As he walked through the house, making sure every drape and curtain was closed, leaving not even a crack for someone to peer through, he considered how brave she was. Braver than she evidently realized.

  After having her past trauma raked up this way, she was making up her mind to stay anyway. That took a lot of courage when she could have easily gone back to Baltimore without excuse or explanation.

  But he needed to find out who this guy was. One thing he’d noticed long ago: people could be quickly identified by their walks. Few walked precisely the same, and he’d decided some time ago that a person’s gait was almost as individual as a fingerprint, if you paid attention. Not exactly as strong an identifier, but close.

  Haley had recognized something in the man’s stride, for just an instant. An instant wasn’t enough, especially when she said that it changed thereafter. But he still wondered. It had reminded her of someone, at least. Maybe her abductor.

  God! The likelihood that that man would be in this town was so low that a percentage would probably be full of zeroes on the front end.

  Yet the guy had triggered something in her, however briefly. She wasn’t even linking it to her abductor. In fact, she almost seemed to be trying to laugh off the whole thing.

  But he’d seen the change in her, the way she had stiffened and stared. It had struck her hard.

  The memory of her reaction was beginning to make Roger uneasy, too, although he was almost totally convinced that while something about the guy had struck her, it was only a similarity.

  Similarity could be enough, especially when she was already uptight.

  When he got back to the kitchen, he found her starting to put a lasagna in the oven.

  “Did you make that?” he asked. He didn’t remember it from her shopping cart. Although she might have purchased the ingredients and they hadn’t added up for him.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  At least that brought her cheer back. “Not even by the best will in the world can I sort and pack all the time. I made a big tray and froze part of it. Plenty for two here, though.”

  “It looks great.”

  “I hope so.” She closed the oven door and quickly washed her hands at the sink. In front of her, the curtains created a wall.

  “Everything’s buttoned up,” he told her. “I checked that all the windows are locked, too. Now, what can I do to help?”

  “In a little while we can make garlic bread if you want. I don’t usually because it adds carbs and fat to a meal that already has plenty but...well, I love garlic bread and I might want to be bad for once.”

  He laughed quietly. “A sinner, huh?”

  “For one night. But I also have the ingredients for a salad. I hope you like salad.”

  “That I do. I make them often. A little later, when the lasagna is almost ready, show me your ingredients and let me have at them.”

  She arched a brow. “Impressive in the kitchen, too.”

  “Are you making a list or something?” He’d asked teasingly, but he could have made a list of her attributes, too. Major things like trying to remain positive when she was swamped by a fear she couldn’t help, because trauma stamped itself in the brain like a branding iron. Little things, like her work ethic. She just kept pushing ahead on dealing with this house, even though she could walk away at any time and hire someone to clear the place for sale. She had quite a backbone, a beautiful smile, and sometimes her eyes even seemed to dance.

  What a delight she was, when the shadows left her eyes. He wished he could erase them permanently.

  The way she remained in the kitchen with him when he began to make the salad signaled that she didn’t want to be alone. Not at all. She wasn’t being clingy, but he could sense her hesitation. Too many glances at a curtained window. A heightened awareness of any sound. Today had evidently freshened all her feelings and they were sticking with her.

  After a really delicious dinner—she was a star with lasagna, and fresh garlic bread was something he never bothered with just for himself—he put the dishes in the dishwasher and then asked if she wanted coffee or something else.

  She surprised him. “There’s a bottle of red wine on the mud porch. I’d like some. You?”

  He wasn’t the world’s greatest wine drinker, but he d
idn’t want her to feel alone in any regard. Drinking coffee or beer would feel unsociable, at least to him.

  The wine was sitting on the counter and he brought it in. He didn’t have to ask where the corkscrew was. Unless she’d moved it for some reason, it was still in one of the drawers with odds and ends of other utensils. He removed the cork with surprising ease, considering he seldom performed the task, then pulled two of Flora’s six wineglasses out of another cupboard.

  He set the bottle down to let it breathe, as Flora had once told him it must... The thought trailed off and all of a sudden he was awash in memories of her. She’d been like a grandmother to him, too, in so many ways, and he missed the hell out of her.

  Roger even had brief flashes of memory from when he was maybe two or three. She’d always welcomed him when he’d wandered over, and always had a cookie for him. In some ways, she’d been a great stand-in for his own mother, who was busy with her other activities.

  “Flora,” he said.

  Haley looked up. She’d been studying her hands, laid out flat on the table in front of her. Her eyes looked a bit pinched again, and he suspected she felt another night closing in around her.

  “Flora?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Since I was a little kid, she was practically my grandmother, as well. Cookies, candy corn in the drawer—”

  Her question interrupted him. “Did you like the candy corn?”

  “When I was little. She only gave me four or five pieces.”

  “Me, too.” A faint smile curved her mouth. “But there was another thing I liked more. She had this big glass canister where she kept brown sugar, and she sometimes would pull out the little balls of it that stuck together and give me one.”

  He nodded. He remembered that, too. “It took me longer to get over the brown sugar than the candy corn. I hate that stuff now.”

  “And I can’t imagine eating that much sugar anymore.”

  He laughed. “Nope. Raw sugar in hand, I’d run out to play. And I probably ran it off. It was always a tank topper, and when I look back at it, I’m sure I thought those balls were bigger than they really were. My hands were smaller then.”

  She nodded. “Much.”

  A minute or two later, he poured wine into her glass until she waved her hand. He gave himself about half as much. Wine just wasn’t his thing. He raised his glass in toast and tasted it. Not bad, whatever it was.

  “I’ll need to go back to my place shortly,” he said, watching her reaction closely. The strain around her eyes deepened, but she made an effort to act as if everything was normal for her. He knew it wasn’t.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time with me today,” she answered. “You must have other things to do.”

  “Oh, yeah, but I’m in the middle of a bunch of things in the shop that need to wait. Glue needs to set, leather needs to stretch and harden on frames. Every now and then I need to take time off to let things catch up.” His fault this time. He usually sequenced the stages of his work more productively, but he was spending a lot of time worrying about Haley and wanting to be with her.

  He’d need to get a rein on that, but not right away. When she’d finished half her wine, she didn’t appear perceptibly more relaxed. He stood, his mind made up. “I’m going back to my place to shower and clean up. Then I’m coming back.”

  She craned her neck to look at him. “You are?”

  “Am I wrong or would you sleep better if you’re not alone in this house?”

  She bit her lip, and he could almost feel her struggle. She was trying not to give in.

  When he spoke again, he kept his voice low and kind. “It’s not wrong to need a friend sometimes.”

  She stopped biting her lip and nodded. “You’re right.”

  “So I’ll be back quickly, and maybe tonight you’ll actually sleep.”

  He wouldn’t, though. He intended to be on guard. As she rose to see him out, he impulsively reached for her, risking everything given her current state of mind. But he touched her gently, drawing her into a hug. “Remember that time we promised friends forever?”

  She relaxed into him and her head nodded against his shoulder.

  “Still true,” he said, then released her reluctantly. He didn’t want to give her new fears or to resurrect old ones. “Be back in a few.”

  “Thank you, Roger.”

  “No problem. None at all.”

  He’d certainly feel better being there and making sure she got a good sleep.

  As he hurried home, he wondered how he could find this guy who had scared her today. Bringing him to her, proving to her that he wasn’t the man in her nightmares, could help a whole lot.

  If, however, by some extraordinary chance he turned out to be that man, the cops could remove him from her life forever.

  Win-win.

  Or so he thought. He’d talk to Jake Madison tomorrow. Jake ought to know damn near everyone in town, given that he’d grown up in these parts and now policed the place. He might even have known this morning whom she was staring at.

  Yeah. That was it.

  * * *

  The minute Roger walked out, the house ceased to feel friendly. To Haley it suddenly felt huge, dark, threatening. A mausoleum.

  But it was none of those things. It was Grandma’s house, a place of warmth and love. Like the hug Roger had just given her. As he’d gently drawn her in, she’d wondered how she would react, given all her nerves and the flashbacks she’d been having.

  It had felt good. So good. As if his arms around her had relieved a tension deeper than she had known she was carrying.

  But now that tension was back and she hated herself for the weakness. For heaven’s sake, all that was in the distant past. She’d worked through it during years of therapy that must have cost her dad a small fortune. She was better.

  Wasn’t she?

  Aww, man, how could she have backpedaled so fast?

  A glance at the clock told her it was after ten. With the curtains closed so much, she’d begun to lose her moorings in time. Like when she worked several extra-long days in the ER. It could be a shock to emerge from the brightly lit clinical setting into the night, especially after she’d put in overtime on an emergency. The hours had slipped away, the darkness astonished her, or sometimes it was the early-morning light when the last she recalled she was supposed to leave at seven in the evening. The previous evening.

  She’d noticed since her arrival in Conard City that the sun sort of set early behind the western mountains. It was still daylight, but a different kind of light, and it would linger for hours before it really began to fade. She’d had the curtains open today because Roger had been with her, making her feel safe enough, but she had no idea what time she’d closed herself in again.

  She’d noticed the deadening of the light, the loss of shadows beyond the window, and her nerves had begun to twitch uneasily. Her stomach had said it was suppertime even though they’d eaten earlier, but she wasn’t at all sure that she’d adjusted yet to the time change from Baltimore.

  Regardless of her mixed up everything, there was no escaping that now the clock said it was bedtime and her body shrieked for her to stay awake.

  Because she was alone? It had begun to feel like it. It was one thing to be scared like this when she’d been little, but for goodness’ sake, she’d faced and fought horrible things in an ER. She’d seen the worst that could happen to a human body, and some of the worst that people could do to each other. She’d lost her fear, though not her loathing, of terrible things.

  Because she could act. She could help. Right now she felt helpless against the terrors that insisted on holding her hostage. Maybe it was helplessness that was fueling all of this.

  “Ridiculous,” she said to the empty house. She was overreacting to an occurrence that had happened to all too many women. A hateful but probably harmles
s pervert had looked in her window during the night. He’d left her feeling vulnerable.

  But other women dealt with it.

  Maybe she should meditate. But much as that might calm her down, Roger had said he would hurry back, and if he walked in while she was just beginning to relax—the way she felt, that might take some time—it would do her no good at all.

  She at last managed to stop pacing and sit on the overstuffed living room sofa while she waited, summoning memories of her childhood in this house in the hope they would replace the bad memories.

  She probably needed a break. The idea had started niggling at her mind since her arrival. The ER here couldn’t be as bad as the one she worked in back home, a trauma center that drew cases from all over the city. No, here she’d still see trauma, but not in the soul-crushing numbers of her current job.

  Maybe she needed some downtime, a rest from the constant barrage.

  Maybe she’d been hiding in the endless press of emergencies and now that she had time on her hands, even while she packed and sorted, she couldn’t hide anymore.

  That notion gave Haley a serious jolt. Hiding? In that horror? But she hadn’t had the opportunity to think about much else. Extra hours when there was a crisis of some kind, and breaks spent with other nurses whose shared experience bridged the nightmares.

  Because there were nightmares. Home alone, a scene from a shift would play through her head and she’d often dream about it. The ER had haunted her, but it had filled her, too, making her too busy to remember the distant past.

  Her memories of her work in Baltimore were still painfully fresh, hardly eased by the change of scenery. But now she had time, and Grandma’s house was unleashing a different set of memories. That peeper had set things in motion.