Chapter 17
The Cellar
H er heart leaping with thrilling desire, Hallie kissed Trace back ardently, clinging to him as though for dear life, hoping he would never let her go.
For weeks, she had attempted to fight her deepening physical attraction and her ever-growing emotional attachment to him. But now she could no longer suppress her overwhelming feelings, swept away by the tide of rapture and longing he roused in her.
Her hands crept up to tangle in his glossy black hair, even as his own fingers entwined with her long blond tresses to draw her even nearer. His tongue traced the outline of her mouth before plunging between her tremulous lips, kissing her deeply, feverishly, as though he had longed for this moment forever and now meant to savor it fully.
Her body quickening with passion and swift arousal, Hallie pressed herself against him, touching and stroking him everywhere she could reach, as he did her, his mouth taking hers again and again, his tongue tasting and twisting urgently around hers.
Boldly, Trace ravaged her lips, an exhilarating experience that left Hallie dizzy and made her knees tremble, so she thought she would have fallen had he not held her so tightly and upright, crushing her to him. Although she was a woman grown and wise in the ways of the world, in his arms she felt as weak as child and so pliant that she felt as though all her bones were dissolving inside her as she eagerly molded her body to his.
Beneath her hands Trace felt incredibly strong and powerful, making Hallie aware of her own delicateness and fragility in comparison as he slowly led her away from the steel trap, to a soft, mossy place along the banks of Wolf Creek, where he pulled her down and stripped away her clothing before casting off his own. Naked, then, they lay together, bodies entwined, flesh against flesh, seeking and finding closeness and desire.
Time turned—and kept on turning. But Hallie was scarcely cognizant of its passing as she reveled in Trace’s embrace. Beneath the canopy of the woods that seemed like a forest primeval, the sweet green moss felt cold and damp beneath her skin, but she was hardly conscious of that, locked in the warmth of his corded arms. She relished the feel of him, his darkly tanned body sleek and taut with muscle, and filmed with a fine sheen of sweat that tasted of salt upon her tongue.
He intoxicated her. She was like fire and ice, burning and melting beneath him as his tongue suckled her swollen breasts, pebbling her nipples and sending waves of electric sensation radiating from them in all directions. The secret heart of her ached for fulfillment, and at long last, he entered her, driving hard and deep into her core.
As Trace penetrated her, Hallie gasped, then cried out, clinging to him fiercely as the two of them became one, pressed breast to breast, thigh to thigh, parting and then meeting again and again in an age-old mating ritual known to every man and woman since the beginning of time. His hands were beneath her hips, lifting her to accept each powerful thrust, until she felt the world spin away into the seemingly mysterious, magical mists that had crept from the creek to enwrap the two of them in their own private cocoon.
As Hallie’s own climax shook her, Trace reached his own, his hands tightening on her almost painfully, heightening the intensity of their pleasure. He groaned, then inhaled sharply, jerking violently against her before, finally, he lay still, his heart thrumming furiously against her own.
Quietly they lay together in the afterglow until, eventually, they recognized that the hour was growing late. They dressed and stood then, Trace holding Hallie against his broad chest, caressing her hair gently.
“We’ve got to call the sheriff and file a report about that steel trap, Hallie,” he insisted softly. “I love you—and I don’t intend to lose you to whatever maniac is committing these crazy acts.”
“Oh, Trace, I love you, too!” Smiling tremulously, she looked up at him tenderly, her heart in her eyes. “And I don’t want to lose you, either, nor to fall prey myself to whoever is doing these awful things. If it hadn’t been for the wolf—”
Abruptly breaking off, she glanced around wildly for a moment, immensely disappointed but somehow unsurprised when she discovered the animal was still nowhere to be found.
“He’s not returned. But it was he who warned me about the trap,” she explained. “If not for that, I would doubtless have stepped right into it! He is real…the wolf, I mean. I know that now—and perhaps he really is my special animal totem, as you’ve claimed. For it was clear he intended me no harm, when he might have attacked me savagely, but rather wanted only to protect me. I don’t know how nor why he’s come into my life, but I’m very grateful he has.”
“So am I. Come on, Hallie. Let me take you back to the house. I want to be sure you get there safely, that there are no more traps set along the route home.” Briefly Trace paused. Then he continued.
“What a terrible way to end the afternoon in your meadow.” His blue eyes were filled with love and concern as he gazed down at her. “Aunt Gwen told me earlier where you’d gone. She said your grandmother had told her that was always your special place as child.”
“Yes…yes, it was,” Hallie confirmed, taking secret delight in how he kept one arm wrapped companionably around her waist as they walked toward the old farmhouse together.
Once there, it was Trace himself who phoned Sheriff O’Mackey to report what had occurred, while Aunt Gwen, instinctively recognizing something was wrong and demanding to be told what had happened, clucked and fussed over Hallie, settling her in the swing on the verandah and pouring her a glass of lemonade.
“I’d just now finished making it.” The elderly lady chattered on brightly, as though trying to take Hallie’s thoughts off the terrible steel trap.
But nothing could do that, of course.
Even now, in her mind, she could still see its great, powerful jaws springing up at her, and inwardly, she shuddered. Her fear was mitigated only by the knowledge that Trace loved and desired her, that they had consummated their relationship—that were it not for the dreadful trap, he might never have been emboldened to speak or she to answer.
Still, she was old and wise enough to realize people often said things in the heat of a moment that they did not mean, and she hoped she had not made a mistake in giving herself to Trace or baring the secrets of her heart to him.
But much to Hallie’s happiness, in the days that passed, he made it plain he did not intend their relationship to be nothing more than a summer fling, that he wanted her forever and always, and intended to marry her if she would have him.
“Oh, Trace, of course I will,” she responded when he asked her.
“Are you sure, Hallie? I mean, I know you’ve already had one unhappy marriage….”
“Yes, I know. But this time, things are different. This time, I’m sure. You’re the man for me, Trace Coltrane, now and for all time. I neither want nor need any other.”
He kissed her deeply then, and in her heart she could sense Gram’s delight and approval, and she felt somehow that even Great-Aunt Agatha was pleased.
“Oh, my God,” Hallie breathed after a long while. “I forgot to tell the bees!”
Flinging back his dark head, Trace laughed.
“Come,” he said. “We’ll tell them together.”
Hand in hand, they walked to where the white wooden hives were lined up neatly in a row behind the old farmhouse, and they spoke to the bees about their plan to be married, and also of their hopes and dreams for Meadowsweet.
After that, they returned to work on the flower beds clustered thickly around the base of the house.
All summer long, Hallie had put off tackling these, insisting that because they were purely ornamental, so served no useful purpose beyond delighting the beholder’s eye, they should be set on the back burner for the present, not take precedence over things that were clearly of far more importance. But following the incident with the trap, Trace had said that since the flower beds were so wildly overgrown, they now constituted a hazard, because they provided a haven for the setting of further
traps—or, worse, for someone to hide in, bent on doing Hallie some harm.
“I’m not going to be fool enough to give somebody prime cover for lurking around the house, Hallie,” he had stated firmly. “All that evergreen shrubbery, especially, is just jam up against the windows on the side of the house, and that unbelievable tangle of English ivy has got so thick that we’d be damned lucky to see any trap hidden in there.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” she had agreed.
So, earlier that morning, armed with hoes and rakes, they had set about to rectify the situation. Even Aunt Gwen had pitched in with a pair of pruning shears, mercilessly cutting back lilac and rosebushes and deadheading flowers.
Now, as Hallie yanked brutally at the tough, pervasive strands of ivy that gripped the ground and clung to the sides of the house, she thought perhaps she ought to have undertaken this particular task earlier, before it had grown even worse. The ivy’s suckers had punched myriad tiny holes into the wood siding that covered the farmhouse and done damage, as well, to its brick foundation.
Tossing the tendrils aside, she bent to make a closer inspection of this last, her heart abruptly beginning to pound hard in her breast at what she saw.
“Trace! Aunt Gwen! Come here! Quick! What does that look like to you?”
“It looks—” Trace spoke, after rising from his own examination “—as though at some point in time, your grandmother had the cellar windows bricked in.”
“No! I didn’t know this old farmhouse had a cellar!” Aunt Gwen exclaimed, an astonished and perplexed frown knitting her brow. “Hennie never said a single word to me about that. And why would she have had its windows all bricked up to conceal it that way?”
Suddenly Hallie knew—without warning, a fearsome, long-suppressed memory rushing to engulf her, snatching away her breath and leaving her trembling with horror.
“I know. I remember!” she cried, utterly stricken, her lovely countenance ashen.
Turning on her heel, she raced inside the house, down the main hall to the bright, cheerful kitchen that had so strangely haunted and bothered her ever since her arrival at Meadowsweet. Like a madwoman she started grabbing the crockery from the shelves of the huge old Welsh dresser that stood against one wall.
“Help me!” she pleaded with Trace and Aunt Gwen as they appeared in the doorway, their faces evidencing their puzzlement and concern. “Please. Help me!”
Together, then, they rid the shelves of the crockery. Then Hallie started to tug wildly at one side of the massive piece of furniture.
“Let me do it, Hallie,” Trace commanded gently. “I know you’re a strong woman, but still, it’s far too heavy for you.”
While he hauled the heavy dresser away from the wall, Hallie ran to fetch a hammer from the toolbox in the pantry. When she returned to the kitchen, Trace had got the big piece of furniture moved out of the way, and with a mighty whack, she smashed the hammer into the plasterboard, sending chunks of gypsum flying.
“Hallie! Hallie, child, what are you doing?” Aunt Gwen asked, eyeing her askance.
“The cellar door used to be right here! That’s what was missing from the kitchen. I never could figure it out until now.”
“Yes, but dear, surely, there’s no need for this—this frenzied destruction. Or even to open the cellar up at all right now. It’s not as though we need it. I’m sure it was originally meant only for storing roots or coal—”
“I need it, Aunt Gwen! I need to see it! It’s where Mom died…on the cellar steps—not on those in the main hall, the way Gram always said,” Hallie got out excitedly, between determined bursts of hammering the plasterboard.
“I remember now! I was inside that day! Mom and I were playing hide-and-seek, and I’d come inside to the kitchen and climbed into the cabinet under the old copper sink. I was small enough then to fit inside. But it was dark in the cupboard, so I’d left the door open just a crack, so I wouldn’t be scared and so I could see if Mom were getting close to finding me, besides.
“But when she finally appeared in the kitchen, she had somebody with her. They were arguing and—and, oh, God, Mom didn’t accidentally fall down the cellar steps. She was pushed!”
Chapter 18
Rowan’s Murder
H earing Hallie’s tearful accusation, Trace, who had momentarily been standing there in just as much confusion as Aunt Gwen, was abruptly galvanized into action. With his bare hands he grabbed exposed edges of the plasterboard and jerked it violently from the wooden studs, throwing the huge pieces into a pile in one corner.
In short order, he and Hallie had got the wall torn down.
The door to the cellar had been removed before the resulting hole had been plastered over. So there was nothing besides the studs themselves to block Hallie’s view of the steep narrow flight of stairs that disappeared into the dank darkness beyond.
Fetching the flashlight from the pantry, Trace switched it on, shining its bright beam down the steps to reveal the cellar’s old brick walls, damp and coated with a pale green film.
“It’s just as well you exposed all this,” he told Hallie grimly. “Because it will need cleaning up and waterproofing. You want to go down there, I take it?”
“Yes, I do.” She nodded, swallowing hard. “Please don’t try to stop me.”
“I promise you, I had no such intention.”
Maneuvering his way through the studs, he climbed partway down the steps, then extended his hand to her.
“Oh, Hallie, I know how extremely important this is to you, dear. But please be careful,” Aunt Gwen entreated.
“Don’t worry. I will be, Aunt Gwen. Besides, Trace won’t let me fall.”
“No, I won’t,” he insisted quietly. “Take your time. These stairs are treacherous. It is no wonder they proved fatal to your mother.”
Carefully Hallie slipped between the studs to descend the steps to the cellar below. She and Trace went down slowly, fully aware the long-unused wooden staircase was rickety—and that it possessed no hand rail, besides. Only ever just a thin strip of pine to begin with, the original hand rail had shattered when Rowan had fallen to her death so long ago.
Hallie remembered the terrible cracking sound the wood had made when it had broken, the noise mingling horribly with her mother’s long, anguished wail of shock and horror.
And, then, the silence.
That had been the worst thing of all to the child who had crouched, utterly terrified, in the cabinet beneath the old copper sink, her heart beating so fiercely that she had felt it would burst from her breast. She had scarcely even dared to breathe, for fear her mother’s killer would hear her and murder her, too.
She had still been hiding there, huddled up in a pathetic small ball, when Gram had returned home and discovered her and her mother’s body.
In between the sobs that had racked her entire tiny being, Hallie had stammered out her tale of terror to her grandmother. But in the end, despite all her grandmother’s quiet questions, Hallie had been unable to say with whom it was Rowan had quarreled.
“I don’t know, Gram! I don’t know! I didn’t see! Really, I didn’t!”
“All right. All right, child. There, you mustn’t think about it anymore. You mustn’t think about it ever again!”
Despite her own deep shock and grief over the brutal murder of her daughter, Gram had fought fiercely to protect the granddaughter she had loved and cherished so much.
“You must speak of what happened to no one, Hallie,” her grandmother had told her gravely. “For if whoever killed Rowan ever learns you witnessed the murder, your own life will be in mortal danger, as well. Do you understand?”
That was why Gram had sent her away immediately after her mother’s death, of course, Hallie understood now. So she would be safe.
So no one would ever question Hallie, Gram had falsely informed the sheriff she had returned home to find Rowan dead at the foot of the stairs. Hallie had been off chasing butterflies in her favorite meadow al
l afternoon and so knew nothing, Gram had lied, and after a brief inquiry, Rowan’s fall had been written off as a terrible, tragic accident.
Afterward, Gram had sealed up the cellar and redone the kitchen, and when people had inquired about her daughter, she had said briefly that Rowan had fallen down the stairs. Gradually over the years, people had forgotten about the cellar and eventually come to think it was the staircase in the main hall that had led to Rowan’s untimely death. That was how Hallie had got so confused about it.
Who had murdered her mother? she wondered anxiously now. For the answer to that was the one thing she could still not recall, no matter how hard she tried.
As she stared down at the brick floor where her mother had lain, she could see a dark patch of discoloration, and she knew it was her mother’s blood, born of the deep wound Rowan had suffered when her head had struck the stairs.
Hallie shuddered uncontrollably at the thought, and comfortingly, Trace drew her close, kissing the top of her head gently.
He shone the flashlight into the far dark reaches of the cellar, but there was nothing but emptiness and a few forgotten chunks of coal to be seen. If there had once been anything here that would have told her who killed her mother, it was long gone.
“I want to go back upstairs now,” Hallie said, clinging to Trace, hot tears stinging her eyes. “We’ll need to call Sheriff O’Mackey. I’ve got to tell him what I saw that day. Gram wanted justice for Mom. I know that now. That’s one of the reasons why she left me the farm. After so many years of deliberately helping me to suppress my memories of that terrible afternoon, she hoped that if I came back, I would finally remember what happened…who it was who murdered my mother.”
“Do you know now?” Trace queried, his dark visage sober and filled with love and concern for her.
“No.” Hallie shook her head. “I told Gram the truth that day. I never actually saw who it was Mom argued with, who pushed her down the cellar stairs.”
From the Mists of Wolf Creek Page 15