Unearthed

by Ann B. Morris

  She fumbled with the key and turned to look at him only after the lock clicked. “You don’t have to see me inside. I’m fine. Really.”

  “I’d rather check everything before I leave. I didn’t think you’d be alone. No one is around for miles.”

  She let out a shaky laugh. “If your intention was to frighten me, I think it’s working.” She opened the door and stepped inside.

  He followed. “I thought your whole crew was staying here.”

  “They’ll be here only during the day, until this weekend. Most have part-time jobs that’ll be finished by then.”

  Beck found hiding his excitement difficult at the prospect of having her to himself for the next few nights. Enough time to make up for his gaffe at the restaurant. Nosing around in other people’s business—especially into a woman’s past—was a no-no for him. He’d make sure it didn’t happen again. Anything more he found out about Alexandra Kingsley would come voluntarily.

  He gave the cabin a quick once-over. The combination kitchen and living room they had entered was sparsely, but comfortably furnished. He guessed the cabin was used by hunters and fishermen for week-end getaways, probably a little political payback for favors granted to the university.

  From where he stood, behind the living room-kitchen combo, he could see straight down the center hall that ran the depth of the cabin. He saw bathroom fixtures through the open door at the end of the hall. And he counted four rooms, bedrooms he guessed, two on either side of the hall. He walked to the first door, opened it, and stepped inside.

  The window on the far side of the room was closed from the inside and probably on the outside as well from what he had observed earlier as they approached the cabin. The slide latch on the inside of the window was in place, but he went over and gave it a shake just to be sure.

  “I checked all the windows before I left,” Alex said from the doorway.

  He didn’t say anything, just checked the rest of the bedrooms. The last room on the right was undoubtedly the one she’d chosen for her own. The room boasted a double bed, instead of two singles like the other rooms. Probably the bedroom for whoever was highest on the pecking order of whichever group claimed occupancy at the time. Two pieces of luggage were open on the floor near the closet. Another piece of luggage lay open on the bed, its contents of various articles of feminine attire neatly folded.

  Beck drew in a deep breath. The light, flowery fragrance Alex wore filled the air. He crossed the small space to the bathroom, also marked by her scent. He noted the bath towel thrown across the side of the ancient claw-footed tub, the face cloth neatly folded on the rim of the equally ancient washbowl, and the white terry cloth robe on a hook behind the door. All vivid reminders she’d been there—been there naked.

  He retreated quickly to the living room. No sense letting his testosterone go on overload and maybe force him to do something stupid, like try another kiss. “Looks like everything’s battened down good and tight.”

  “I told you so. But thanks anyway for double-checking. Thanks for a wonderful dinner.”

  She was dismissing him, and he wasn’t ready to leave. He wanted to stay right here, all night, hold her close, and keep her safe. Safe from what or who he wasn’t sure. But she already held open the door.

  “It’s not yet ten o’clock. I could stay awhile.” He was so close now he could smell the odor of outdoor pine mixing with her already familiar scent. He toed the door shut. He thought he heard her gasp softly, but he was so off-balance from being this close, he couldn’t be certain. All he noticed was she backed herself against the wall. Perfect. Now, she couldn’t get away so easily.

  He lifted her chin with his knuckles so he could look into her eyes. They were bright, but dry. “I’m sorry I dredged up painful memories,” he told her. She blinked quickly a few times, and he cursed silently. Why couldn’t he keep his damn mouth shut?

  She ran her tongue over her lower lip, drew it back into her mouth and pressed her lips firmly together. After a few seconds, she told him, “It’s okay. It’s just me, I….”

  Pain knotted his chest as he watched her pull her brows together. Was she afraid of crying again? She didn’t appear to be the kind of woman who resorted to tears very often, and probably never to make headway with a man. He didn’t quite know what to make of her. Most of all, he didn’t know what to make of himself or of how she affected him.

  Before he could analyze either of their emotions, those misty eyes and quivering lips got to him, and unable to stop himself, he covered her mouth completely with his. She offered no resistance, and when he pressed her closer to the wall, her body went limp, and her lips relaxed under his. His hands found her buttocks, cupped and lifted them so she would have no doubt of his desire.

  She moved against him like silk against stone, rippling her softness over the rough, hard ridge of his placket. He was the one close to whimpering now. The soft murmurs turned to deep guttural moans. His or hers? Probably both, because they devoured each other’s mouths, lips, tongues, as if swallowing each other whole.

  Suddenly, Alex pushed against him. “Please don’t. I can’t….”

  Her appeal spiraled through him clear down to his gut. He took a few seconds to react to the unexpected plea while Alex loosened his grip on her bottom. But she didn’t move, just stood there with a look of disbelief on her face. Beck flattened both palms against the wall above her head, loosely pinned her once more with his body, and again caught her unsuspecting mouth with his.

  Alex’s hair had fallen forward in disarray and tickled his nose, its sweetness nearly turning his insides to mush. A few seconds passed before he caught his breath and gathered his senses.

  He selected his words carefully. “I want you, and I think you want me. Let me stay the night.” He was blunt. He was honest.

  “No.” She pushed him once more as strongly as she had when he’d kissed her in her home. She was crying, softly.

  He had no choice but to let her go.

  Again, she yanked open the door. “It’s probably time for you to leave.”

  Beck kicked the door shut so hard the gun case on the wall rattled. “I’m not ready to leave. Not until you tell me what kind of game you’re playing.” The anger in his voice surprised even him.

  Her head snapped back. “Game? You think I’m playing a game? How dare you insult me that way.”

  He didn’t think raising his anger another notch was possible, but she had. “How? Let me count the ways,” he sneered. “You kiss me as hungrily as I kiss you, you rub your hot body up against mine, and turn my hard-on into stone, you steal my breath with your desire, and you ask me how?” He laughed, reached for her again, and drew her up hard against his body.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t resist as he lowered his mouth to hers, but once again, she burst into sobs. Her reaction unnerved him. Unlike the soft cries of minutes ago, these were hard, wracking sobs. Damn. Bypassing the kiss, he cradled her head against his chest, and held her until she cried herself silent. Then he gave her a little room away from him before he demanded, “Okay. Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  In the middle of a low, shuddering sob, Alex laughed. “That’s more the you I’m used to. You do like that four-letter word.”

  “You like me better when I talk like that? If so, I can oblige you with such talk anytime you want, baby.”

  Alex turned away. “That’s not what I meant, but it’s late, and I’m too upset to continue this conversation.” She looked at the door and then back at him. “Thanks again for a wonderful meal.”

  “You’ll be missing a good thing if you let me go tonight.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to live with my decision, won’t I?”

  Smart-ass b—. He couldn’t finish the thought, which infuriated him as much as her rejection. He’d show her, though. “Plenty of women are ready to enjoy my company and have some fun.” He stomped to the door and yanked it open, but he couldn’t resist one last dig before he left. “I
’d like to say ‘see you around,’ except I don’t plan on coming back.”

  When he slammed the door behind him, the gun case shook even harder than before.

  ****

  Alex didn’t give in to the tears until she no longer heard the roar of Beck’s engine. After she cried herself dry, she stumbled down the hall to the bedroom. Wearily, she put on her pajamas then crawled under the handmade quilt. Now that she’d stopped crying, she was acutely aware of the deep silence surrounding her.

  Then she heard a sound. Something, or someone, was on the porch.

  She sat upright, pulled the quilt up to her neck, held her breath, and strained to listen. The noise came again. A scratching sound. Right outside her window. She scrambled from under the quilt, tiptoed to the bedroom door, and slowly opened it. The door creaked. She held her breath.

  The scratching started again, fainter this time. Then, silence.

  Beck. He must have come back to apologize. Or check the shutters on the windows outside. Then he left without another word.

  Or maybe the person wasn’t Beck. She hadn’t heard an engine. He could have parked a distance away and walked back, so she wouldn’t hear him.

  But if that were true, couldn’t someone else have done the same thing? But who? And why? Few people even knew she was here.

  An animal could have made the noise. The woods were full of animals. One had probably come to scour for food. That possibility explained the scratching sound.

  Alex trembled, and her heart raced, but her thoughts were a little clearer now. Moving cautiously in the dark, she crossed the bedroom, feeling her way tentatively with her toes until she touched the suitcases on the floor. She knelt and opened the closest suitcase. When her fingers curled around the cold, hard steel nestled between the soft layers of clothing she let out a long, quiet sigh of relief.

  An owl hooted.

  She jumped and waited to see what was next. Nothing sinister or threatening followed. She gripped the gun and made her way in the darkness to the corner of the living room where she remembered seeing a rocking chair. She found the chair, dragged it slowly and silently to the end of the hall, and positioned it outside the bathroom door. Then she tiptoed back to the bedroom, grabbed the quilt off the bed, and went back to the chair. She would sit there, awake, all night.

  In the morning, when the first light of dawn filtered underneath the front door, Alex came suddenly awake. Sometime during the early morning hours, despite her resolution to remain on guard, she had fallen asleep, her fingers curled around the handle of the gun in her lap.

  A sense of relief washed over her as the welcoming safety of the cabin surrounded her. She stood, groaned at the stiffness in her joints, flexed them slowly, and went into the kitchen. After she put on the kettle, she opened the door and took a deep breath of the fresh, early morning air.

  Something on the ground in front of the bottom step caught her eye. Cautiously, she took a step onto the porch to get a better look. Her breath stalled in her lungs. In the middle of a patch of soft mud, still damp from yesterday evening’s drizzle and this morning’s dew, was a smeared footprint.

  She forced herself to look closer. The trapped air rushed out of her lungs. She hadn’t blown the events of the night before out of proportion. Someone, probably a man by the size of the footprint, had indeed paid her a visit.

  Chapter Six

  Eudora Becker, affectionately known to Beck as GrammaU, considered again the wisdom of calling her grandson this early in the morning.

  She checked the large print calendar on the wall next to the refrigerator. Today was Thursday, and since Becker was a working man, she figured he must be awake by now. She picked up the cordless phone, one of Becker’s many unexpected gifts, and laboriously pressed the seven digits of his phone number. Even such a small task caused her knuckles to throb painfully and taxed the increasingly waning strength in her fingers.

  While she waited for the ringing of the phone to rouse her grandson, she prepared herself for the grumbling and cursing she’d hear before she got to the reason for her call. Then she’d have to warn him, as usual, not to tell his daddy she’d called, as he’d likely be hopping mad when Becker turned up in the middle of the week without warning.

  She was concerned that her son-in-law and her grandson might never mend their fences. To her mind, a boy and his pa should be close no matter how much fault each found with the other. And they both had faults aplenty.

  Poor Becker had three strikes against him by the time he turned ten. A mama who didn’t give a darn about her kids or her man, a pa who drank too much even before his wife walked out on him, and the burden of his baby sister after his mama left. Not that he’d ever complained. But the task had been a tribulation nonetheless.

  By the time Becker was fourteen, he was wild as a boar and just as impossible to tame—already staying out late, chasing pretty young girls, and finding a fight wherever he could. From what she could tell, he wasn’t doing much better today. Except now he was a successful businessman who made enough money that sowing a few wild oats didn’t hurt him none.

  Her musings ended when her predictions proved true and Becker answered the phone with, “Dammit, GrammaU, this had better be important for six o’effing clock in the morning.”

  She smiled because he’d caught himself and cleaned up his mouth for her as he always did. God bless him, he was such a good boy deep down. The pity was he’d never found a woman willing to dig deep enough to find his goodness. Likely though, he’d never given himself a chance to find a woman good enough to want to try. “Don’t be talkin’ to me that way, boy. You need to git over to your pa’s as soon as you can and haul him to the doctor. I’d do it myself if I could.” Oh, if she only could be of more use. But she could barely take care of herself these days. If it weren’t for Becker seeing after her the way he did, she might not even be doing this well a’tall.

  Wild and ornery as he was sometimes, she was certain he loved her, and God knows she worshipped the ground he walked on. He was a little like his mama, had some of her bad points, but a heckuva lot more good points than she ever had.

  A heavy sadness settled in her bosom. Even a bad child could hurt your heart. She couldn’t help wondering every now and then how her baby was. If she was even still alive. How many years had it been since she’d heard from her? She couldn’t remember.

  “GrammaU, are you there? I asked about Daddy. What’s he sick from now?”

  She cleared her thoughts of the past and let Becker know what his pa’d been ailing with, other than a rotted stomach from rot-gut whiskey. “Last mornin’ when he phoned, he sounded like he could have the pneumonia with that bad cough o’ his. He needs medicine, and his house must be just about fallin’ down around him by now.”

  Lord knows that was the truth. Since the day her baby left him, her son-in-law hadn’t put a hand to his house, or his kids, or anything else in his life except the bottle. Eudora’s chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. Maybe if she’d been younger when Elda was born, or if her old man—God rest his soul—hadn’t of been killed by that train….

  “I’ll stop by to see him on my way to work, GrammaU. I’ll be by to see you, too, in a couple of days. Do you need anything before then? Have you been all right?”

  She told him not to worry about her, she was as fine as an eighty-five-year-old woman with a bad heart, diabetes, and crippling arthritis had a right to be. After Eudora hung up, she reached for the old black photo album with the torn and yellowed pages. For the next few hours, she lived in the past again when times were happy, and she had no idea of the grief she would one day bear.

  ****

  Beck pushed himself up on an elbow, waiting out the spinning of the room, lost the battle, and fell back on the bed. He took a deep breath, hauled himself up again, got some balance, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  Shit. His head felt like a block of concrete someone dumped in a basket and set adrift in a raging river. His stomach
didn’t feel any too calm, either. He sat for a few minutes until he was sure his legs could support him. Then he stumbled to the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator. The cool porcelain felt good on his parched skin. He hung on the door for another few minutes before he walked unsteadily to the counter where his coffee pot still held a half pot of yesterday’s brew.

  Lucky for him, clean cups were in the dishwasher. He took out the largest cup, filled it with the stale coffee, and on legs not much steadier than when he’d first gotten out of bed, went over to the microwave. Thirty seconds should do it. When the timer bell sounded, he thought his head would blow off.

  He managed two swallows of the bitter liquid before it rolled back up from his stomach. He lunged for the sink. When his head cleared enough for him to notice his physical condition, he saw he was stark naked. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember coming home, much less stripping every piece of clothing from his body. He turned on the cold-water faucet, stuck his head under the spray, and held it there until some of the fuzziness cleared from his brain.

  Gradually, the events of the night before returned. He remembered driving along the highway and stopping for a drink. Then what? Again he stuck his head under the faucet. He couldn’t remember being this wiped out in a long time. Driving home so stinking drunk he couldn’t remember coming home at all wasn’t something he ever did.

  He pushed himself away from the sink. His thoughts were a little clearer. No, he hadn’t gotten piss-ass drunk in the bar. He’d intended to have a couple of drinks, call Cheryl…and? He’d given up on the idea as soon as he was certain the last thing he wanted was a roll in bed with Cheryl Hicks or any other woman, except….

  Except?

  Damn her to hell.

  He turned, almost fell, and found what he was looking for on the table. The bottle he’d brought home. He’d gotten drunk right here, all by himself. He’d taken his southern comfort last night from a bottle right at his own kitchen table. With one giant step, he made it to the table and knocked the bottle across the room. The bottle hit the wall, and glass scattered across the floor.