Spirit Lake

by Christine DeSmet

  Just as she was about to shoulder open the door, Roxy and Roger scurried back around her feet, fussing in agitation.

  “What's the matter—"

  A man's faint cursing drew her gaze to the overgrown gravel lane. She ducked down, her nerves prickling, on alert. She then peeked over the tops of the dried grass and brush pressing against the verandah's railing.

  In the meager light, the man limped along, a tall silhouette above the brush, with broad shoulders outlined in the moonlight. The breeze caught shaggy shoulder-length hair. He continued cursing at the brush slowing his progress, flailing at it with a knife that glinted haphazardly with his movements.

  Laurel crouched lower. She had to get out of here and call the sheriff.

  The man moaned, his guttural curses scratching the quiet before he disappeared from Laurel's view.

  She slipped inside the front door, figuring she'd go through the house, skirt around back and escape in her boat. Finding a deadbolt handle, she turned it to lock the door behind her, but its loud screech terrified her. Had he heard her?

  Kneeling, she peered through the slit between the windowsill and the plywood boarding up the window.

  Still yards away, the man limped into shorter grass and proceeded to pull up a pant's leg and poke with the knife at rags wound around shin and calf. He cursed again.

  When he stood straight again, moonlight etched deep lines on his face. He inspected the knife, a dagger really, probably with a college degree in sharpness.

  Stumbling backward, Laurel stepped on a loose floorboard, flailed out to grab anything, but felt the next board give way and send her lickety-split downward through the floor.

  * * * *

  COLE HALTED. Pain raged in his leg, but he swore he'd heard something odd beyond the blood pounding in his head. The damn nighthawks seemed to always cry out just as his head pain crescendoed.

  The flesh of his calf wanted to explode. Hopping on and off trains for a week had aggravated the wound miserably. To top it off, getting off the Central a few minutes ago had proven almost fatal. He'd leaped too soon past the trestle over the gorge and rolled all the way down to the creek. The icy water soaked through the rags wrapped around his bad leg, chilling him to the bone and adding more pounds of weight for him to drag. He'd struggled for what seemed hours to get back up that bank. Now his shoulder, which had been healing nicely, also burned with the sensation of hot needles shooting back and forth. Yeah, Mike, I admit it, buddy, hopping trains is dangerous. No wonder it's not covered by HMOs.

  Tired, he could barely focus his eyes. Was it the right place? He hadn't expected something quite this rundown. In the dark it appeared gray, devoid of life and personality, as Cole felt right now. Didn't it used to be yellow with white trim and green shutters? A couple of shutters clung to some second-story windows, waiting to fall like leaves in the next big wind. And where was that corner post on the verandah? The one ... he and a red-haired soulmate would run at, catch and twirl around before flinging themselves out into the lawn?

  His heart pounded a ragged beat.

  This was the place. Why Mike? Why make me come back here?

  He looked up, raking a hand through his long hair, detecting a burr or two he'd have to contend with later. But they didn't cause the flinch at the corner of his mouth, or the tug in his chest.

  The third-story window was intact. He smiled.

  When they were tikes, he and Mike called that room their pirate ship. A flash of blue light hit the window, then thunder rolled from off in the distance, and for an instant, he remembered a pair of fiery emerald eyes and a sea of red hair. They hadn't meant to roll her daddy's new Olds in the ditch, but she'd been laughing at the breeze coming in through the windows. Like him, she loved to go fast. With everything.

  He broke out in a cold sweat.

  Then an icy raindrop knifed the back of his neck, resurrecting the ache in his leg that proceeded to ripple across his weary hide. He groaned. Just what he needed—the dampness from cold rain and wind to keep him miserable down to his bone marrow. At least he'd have a roof over his head tonight. He'd suffered with less amenities in the past week, starting with perching his butt on the hip of a dancing bull and balancing there for a night that stretched forever.

  Retrieving his backpack from the grass, he tossed it at the front door, then tried to step up the front steps. To his frustration, the pain in his leg buggered him so much the right leg went limp, giving way under his weight. Without a railing he was reduced to crawling and dragging himself up the steps and across the splintery boards on his knees.

  Once at the door, he grabbed the doorknob and used it to help himself stand again. His throbbing leg wobbled, threatening to topple him. He had to do something about the leg, and soon, but he couldn't afford the time until he retrieved whatever was inside this house.

  He leaned his face close to the sign. Then scoffed. So the place was condemned. Surprising, and perfect.

  Cole had assumed the family sold the property long ago. Hadn't his great-aunt Flora Tilden gone to the quiet retirement home shortly after the trouble involving Cole? Out of embarrassment?

  The surprise of it aside, the condemnation was also perfect because nobody would be bothering him while he searched for Mike's evidence that would confirm his killer. Cole'd be in and out of here within hours, undetected and alive. He wanted the betrayer and murderer to become fishbait for what he'd done, for ripping out the hearts of Mike's lovely wife and kid left in the wake. And he'd gotten away with it. Cole Wescott intended to change that.

  The breeze switched, colder, gustier. His leg's calf muscle seized up, and to touch it felt like he was hammering spikes into the bone. He slammed a fist against the door, leaning his weary body into it, stretching the leg. Finally, the pain subsided enough to turn the front door's knob.

  But the wood wouldn't budge. His shoulders sagged. Not a single thing about this trip had gone right. Why start now, he groaned inwardly. Then he noticed the plywood on the nearby window looked loose. With his good arm, he ripped it off its rusted nails, but the effort of crawling over the sill just about made him want to cut his right leg off.

  A rolling thunderclap hurried the moonlight behind a curtain. With it pitch black, he edged toward the front door to get his bearings, but a board creaked underfoot.

  And a voice cracked, “Watch out—"

  He spun around.

  “—for the hole!"

  Too late. His trip across country just got worse.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  LAUREL WATCHED in horror when the body fell through the half-light of the hole in the floor above her. The man bounced on the same stack of boxes she'd hit, but he tumbled off cockeyed and his head hit the floor with a crack.

  She inched toward him, then thought better of getting too close. She remembered the knife. In the dark, the man lay like an inky, twisted pile of laundry. He smelled of oil and creek clay, and danger.

  Backing up, she pulled at the boards on the cellar steps until she found a loose one. Yanking it up, she held the two-by-four in front of her like a baseball bat before shuffling toward him.

  An occasional flicker of lightning made him look ... dead.

  Kneeling, she still held the board in one hand but laid a finger on his neck to check him. He moaned and she shrunk back, her heartbeat kicking in faster. She gripped the two-by-four with both hands, wiggling it in front of her.

  His eyelids flickered open. “What,” he said in a scratchy whisper, “the hell happened?"

  Laurel didn't like the way he squinted out from under hair and mud with one eye, its white orb almost disembodied in the darkness of the basement. The other eye remained closed.

  “What're you doing here? Who are you?"

  He growled, “I could ask the same of you."

  He attempted to roll away from her. Was he getting up? Panicking, she snapped, “Don't move."

  “A friendly B & B you run here."

  “Don't mess with
me. Now where's that knife?"

  He coughed, but she stood her ground, brandishing the two-by-four. Nerves jangled her stomach. Her eyes roved over his inky visage, searching for the knife. He'd landed with the bad leg askew and the good leg twisted back from the knee. He didn't seem inclined to answer her, if his low moan meant anything.

  Her doctoring instincts getting the better of her, she offered, “Throw away your knife and I'll help you with that leg."

  “Throw away my only weapon?” he muttered. “I sure as hell wouldn't do that with you standing over me with a piece of lumber. You going to stand all night like that?"

  Something about his wryness stirred her insides to attention. There was a familiarity. Had she encountered him before? Was he that wretched railroad hobo from last year with the bad teeth come back to beg again? She shivered. All the more reason to hang tight to her weapon. “What if I do?"

  He lay back, a hulking shadow, crooking an arm across his eyes before groaning again. She didn't know what to make of him, other than he was hurting and needed help. She stepped toward him.

  “Get away!” he barked.

  She snapped her weapon into place, but then a groan oozed out of him with more anguish attached to it than Laurel could take.

  She lowered her voice, as she always did when approaching a vicious animal with its paw caught in a trap. “What's wrong with your leg?"

  “Nothing an amputation couldn't cure."

  “Let me look at it."

  “In this light?"

  Lightning flickered a blue wash across them, reflecting in the centers of his eyes, like the moon would do on the round window high above them. She shivered at the strange familiarity.

  He tried to pull himself up but only managed to hit his head against the back wall. His cry of pain was so sharp it forced Laurel to ignore his warning look. Dropping the two-by-four with a clunk on the cement floor, she rushed to his twisted leg and unfolded it for him.

  “Ouch, damn you,” he growled, “I said get away."

  Wary of the still-hidden knife, she retreated to sit on a stairstep. She clung to her two-by-four again, watching.

  He lay with his eyes closed for what seemed like forever. She held back a dozen questions. Who was he? Where had he come from? How had he gotten so seriously hurt? Gooseflesh prickled across her skin. Maybe she didn't want to know anything.

  Between clenched teeth he finally said, “We can't get out, can we?"

  “I tried the cellar door already."

  “No knob."

  “How'd you know?"

  His sigh unnerved her more. “Because I happen to identify with old rusted things falling off right now, okay? My leg's next. Watch out when it rolls your way."

  She flinched at his grisliness, backing her seat up to the next wood step away from him, trying to think of a way out. The boxes were empty cardboard, too old and weakened by the dampness to let her stack them and climb back through the hole. The door above her wouldn't budge. There had to be a way.

  He grumbled, “At least you don't talk much."

  The scratchy assuredness of his voice caught her off-guard again. It pricked her memory, bothering her. Had this man perhaps asked her for the time sometime on the street? Had he been following her? Stalking? She clung to the two-by-four. “I'm known for my quiet bedside manner."

  “A doctor?"

  “Actually, I patch animals. I was out here looking for a wounded and trapped animal."

  “I ache, I can growl and I'm stuck in a basement. Do I qualify for your HMO?"

  She almost smiled. “If you were a raccoon, I might know how to treat you. I can get you to the hospital though."

  “No thanks,” he grunted.

  Laurel grunted right back. “It's a free service for people like you."

  “People like me?"

  “People in need. Down on their luck."

  “Yeah, that's me,” he sighed.

  The sophisticated timbre of his lowered voice niggled its familiarity at her again.

  Thunder rumbled, punishing the old house above their heads. Its wood creaked. A loose shutter rattled.

  “Damn storm,” he said. “But then I love being drenched and having that barometric pressure shoot pins up my leg."

  The sarcasm again.

  “I call storms heavenly bread-making. The sky's gathering up all that humidity like my mother gathers up the edges of bread dough, pounding and pounding at it until it gives up. We get a lot of ‘em this time of year. You got a headache?"

  “Thanks for reminding me. Almost forgot it with all your attempts at poetry making me hungry."

  “Are you always this rude?"

  “So shoot me. Everybody else has had a shot."

  For a long time then, darkness stretched on with the loaded minutes, with her watching him while a storm built above them outside. When lavender and blue hues flashed down the hole in the ceiling, she tried to get a better look at him. Fairly large man. Long legs. Filthy dirty. Smudged, bewhiskered face.

  She almost jumped when he whispered, “You going to heal me by staring at me?"

  He closed his eyes again, bedeviling her with his nonchalance. She clutched the board harder.

  She waited for him to rouse himself again, but he'd either fallen asleep or passed out from his pain. The latter worried her.

  At a hint of a snore, she shuffled over one footstep at a time, keeping the board in one hand just in case he came to and lunged at her with the knife, wherever it was. Wiping a hand against her pant's leg, she lowered her palm, waiting for a lightning flash. When it came, she found his forehead. He was burning up!

  Concerned, she ran her fingers over his nearest hand to check his body temperature. The back of his hand was broad, the knuckles roughened with scratches, as were the long and sinewy fingers. They were icy cold. She thought about picking up the hand and blowing her warm breath on the fingers, but then fear gripped her. He could wake up and grab her too easily.

  Then, when his breathing grew shallower, her ingrained need to help the injured—no matter how dangerous they might be—drove away the fear. She put down the two-by-four weapon, lifted his hands one by one, sandwiching them between her own to blow gently on them. He slept on, obviously exhausted, a slight snore punctuating the night between the thunder now and then.

  Outside, rain spattered the house. A chilly breeze dropped down from the gaping hole. June nights in northern Wisconsin could still dip to near-freezing temperatures. A quick shiver rippled through her. She'd seen enough sick animals die of hypothermia to know this man was in danger of the same thing. If he were a bird, she'd cradle him in her hands to warm him.

  She refused to be defeated. The boxes almost spoke to her, and she groped at them in the darkness, ripping them apart into flat sheets before piling them in a double layer over his feet and legs and chest. She sneezed at their mustiness, and when he didn't wake up, she eased a couple of box flaps under his head to cushion him.

  She fumbled for his jacket's zipper, to make sure he was zipped against the cold. When her hands slid underneath the fabric, its fine texture and that of the shirt underneath made her pause. This man couldn't be a hobo, could he? They didn't usually dress this well.

  She leaned close to him, taking another hard look at his face between flashes of the storm. With muddied whiskers, hair plastered on his forehead and more creek mud everywhere else, he looked ghoulish. Touching his hands again, their coldness gave her the creeps. She could not let this man die, whoever he might be.

  With quick resolve and knowledge of outdoor survival tactics, she stripped off her jacket, laid it over his chest and snuggled into the crook of his shoulder to share her heat. She drew the sheets of cardboard up over them again, then reached out to secure the two-by-four into one hand.

  His oily train smell begged her to sneeze. She held her nose until the urge passed. His bristly chin scratched her forehead.

  His heartbeat almost rousted her out. It pulsated strong in her ear, replete with
life pouring into her in an unsettling way she hadn't expected. She had forgotten what it was like to fall asleep next to a man's heartbeat. It soothed.

  And scared her. No way could she let herself fall asleep next to a drifter with a knife.

  But his hurt—the pain in that familiar voice—spoke to her across the quiet. She hated listening to the wail of pain, especially when it reminded her of the nightmares men had caused her in the past.

  She wasn't about to sleep. Fixing up his leg as best she could would speed him on his way in the morning. The more she thought about that, the more the idea took hold.

  As she eased out from under their shared jacket and cardboard, reality set in: She was about to “pat down” this man for his weapon.

  Then she recalled the deep timbre in the voice, the hint of cockiness in the words he chose. She squinted again at his long form splayed before her, his heartbeat still booming in her brain's memory. Her own heart swelled to match the beat, searching for the memory of the feel of nighttime with a man, when a woman eased alongside him in bed, and peace stole over with the breeze rustling the curtains of her cabin window.

  And that's how she'd been betrayed before. By falling for the neediness in a man. She sucked in her breath, held it, let her lungs burn her back to reality before she took a more even draught of air.

  The reality was, she reminded herself, that this was a giant of a man, a rude, strange man. Who has a knife.

  And you better well find it before morning.

  * * * *

  WHEN COLE jerked awake, fear blasted a cold wind through him. Disoriented, he thought at first his boss had tossed him in a dungeon. Where was he?

  Then he heard shallow breathing, felt lips fluttering ever so softly against his neck. He tensed. Ah, yes, now he remembered the woman with the lumber aimed at his head. So what the hell was she doing sleeping in the crook of his shoulder?

  Turning his head, he narrowed his eyelids at the woman. Dawn brought with it a meager shaft of light through the hole in the floor above them. When his gaze caught the soft tilt to the eyebrows and the lush lips, perspiration beaded his forehead.