After the Midnight Hour

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  He usually found Rachel in the kitchen when he returned to the house for dinner, and Maya was gone. He never bothered asking about the older woman’s whereabouts, either. To be honest, he was downright joyful when she wasn’t around the house even if she could cook like a dream and cleaned his house so thoroughly he doubted any sane dust bunny would dare come within a mile of the place. He swore Maya wanted him to believe she’d been put on this earth to make his life miserable in between those great meals.

  Jared knew his feelings about Rachel and Maya were at odds with his usual suspicious cop nature. In the past he would have immediately taken something with their fingerprints into the station and had them run through the database. Instead, he’d done nothing. He figured this odd lack of suspicion on his part was just one of the many changes he’d suddenly made in his life.

  Or maybe Rachel had cast a spell on him with her beautiful violet eyes, he thought jokingly.

  The biggest decision, of course, had been moving out of his tiny apartment into a house that needed a hell of a lot of work. And since he hadn’t won the lottery lately, he had no choice but to do the work himself.

  He walked over to the window and looked out. The full moon allowed him to easily see the wooden fence he’d labored long and hard to replace and strengthen, though it still tilted here and there. At least he didn’t have to worry about any animals getting out.

  Or people getting in.

  “Better not quit your day job, bub,” he muttered to himself.

  Rachel came up to stand beside him. He couldn’t read the expression on her face as she gazed out the window. If he didn’t know any better, he would swear she looked wistful.

  “Are you going to run cattle here?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Nope. The only thing running around here will be the dog and my Harley.”

  “That is probably a good thing. I know you worked on your fence to keep your Harley in, but I am afraid it would escape through it very easily.” Her voice was grave, but he could see the faintest of twinkles in her eyes as she looked up at him.

  Jared grinned at her dry humor. “It would be worse if there were cattle out there. It would only take one butt of their heads and they’d be down the road and on someone’s barbecue.” He looked around the room. Maya’s preoccupation with dirt had the wooden floors clean and shiny, with cobwebs gone from all the corners. The locked cabinet he’d purchased for his weapons was finally, he hoped, in place. His prized possession, a plasma screen television, was on one wall, with his stereo system set up nearby. He’d told Rachel she could make use of any of the equipment, but so far she had kept a discreet distance from it—the same way Maya had cursed his microwave oven. He didn’t understand what the woman said under her breath whenever she glanced at the oven and he wasn’t sure he wanted a literal translation. He had a pretty good feeling some of those words were directed at him.

  He turned toward Rachel, who still stood at the window. It was odd how what he’d thought was a wistful look seemed more like desolation.

  “What do you see out there?” he asked curiously. The moon was now hidden by clouds, leaving the grounds in shadow. He moved to stand behind her, close enough to smell the faint hint of jasmine that seemed to drift around her. Now, whenever he smelled it during the day, he thought of her.

  He was tempted to wrap his arms around her and pull her back against him, and he finally gave in to the temptation. At first she stiffened at his touch, but a tiny hitch in her breath alerted him that she wouldn’t reject his gesture. He kept the embrace light and nonthreatening, and after a moment, she relaxed.

  But Rachel continued to stare out the window as if something had caught her attention.

  “The day is sunny and warm. It seems so perfect, and you know it is because spring is finally here. You can see a sky so blue and beautiful you would think it was a painting, with those white fluffy clouds overhead,” she said softly. “You can feel a faint breeze on your face and you would swear you can smell the ocean, even though you know it’s far away. Because of all the rain we’ve had this winter the grass is thick and a rich green. Everywhere you look you can see grazing horses out in the paddocks, enjoying the beautiful day. Some of the men are out there training the colts. One old man is in the barn repairing tackle, and another works at the forge fashioning shoes for the horses. The metallic ring of his hammer against the anvil is just another sound of the ranch. Behind the house, you hear the chatter of the maids as they hang the washing, and the cook demanding that someone go out to the kitchen garden and pick her some beans for dinner.”

  As Jared listened to her words, he felt an odd prickling sensation along the back of his neck. He stared out the window, caught up in the spell of her words.

  “You make it sound real.”

  She stood as still as a statue for a moment, then seemed to shake off the magical moment.

  “Maybe it is the spirits of the land that paint the word pictures for me,” she said.

  “I don’t know if you’d find too many good spirits around here. Local historians say the man who originally owned this land was pretty much a cold-blooded bastard. Ole Caleb Bingham was the stuff of nightmares.” Jared saw her mirrored reflection in the window glass and thought she flinched. “Probably why over the years a lot of kids thought the house was haunted.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. “Did you think it was haunted?”

  He nodded. “I guess in a way I did. It’s easy enough for stories to start up, since no one’s sure exactly how Caleb died. Rumor has it his death wasn’t a pleasant one and that his ghost would come after any innocent who entered the house. That’s probably why I was always safe from him.” He chuckled.

  Rachel turned away and walked over to the couch. She ran her hands across the back.

  “Perhaps he did leave something behind to haunt the house.” Her head was bowed, as if she was fascinated with the couch’s khaki-colored fabric.

  “I didn’t see or hear anything the times I was here. I always thought the stories were told to keep us kids out of here,” he assured her. He was puzzled by her manner. “The trouble was, the stories only dared us to come out. There’s nothing like a haunted house to tempt kids.”

  She lifted her head and studied him. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you, Jared?”

  “Maya. The woman scares the hell out of me,” he said, in hopes of making Rachel smile. He was gratified to see it worked. But he also noticed that while her lips tipped upward in a smile, it wasn’t echoed in her eyes. He was tempted to ask her what scared her, but feared if he voiced the question she would withdraw from him.

  “Maya likes you.”

  “That’s not the way she acts.” He grinned, looking around the room. “I guess I’ll need some kind of rug next. Want to go into town and help me find a rug for this room?”

  Rachel again ducked her head. “This is your house. You must choose a rug you like.”

  What is she hiding from me?

  Jared buried his instinctive need to discover all the answers. He sensed he’d have to go slowly with her. Even then he wasn’t sure he’d learn everything he wanted to know.

  “You know what? We need a big bowl of popcorn.” He decided a change of subject was in order.

  Rachel’s face brightened. In the past couple of weeks, Jared had learned she was as big a popcorn addict as he was. He usually made up two bags of microwave popcorn, and between the two of them, with Harley’s help, not one kernel was left.

  “And a movie,” he decided.

  “Nothing frightening, such as the one you watched last night,” she said, following him into the kitchen. She wrinkled her nose. “It was also very slimy.”

  “I’ll have you know that movie is a classic,” he stated as he dug the box holding the packets of microwave popcorn out of a cabinet. “You don’t see quality horror movies like The Blob anymore.” He could see she wasn’t going to agree with him. He sighed heavily. “Okay, there’s a great movie called The Thi
ng from Outer Space. Another classic starring James Arness, later well known as Marshal Dillon of Dodge City.” He placed a bag in the microwave and pushed buttons.

  “When was he the marshal there?” she asked curiously. “I do not recall hearing the name before.”

  “I think the series was shown in the fifties and sixties, and it’s still alive and well on cable.” He found the large bowl he used for popcorn.

  Rachel nodded. She realized Jared was talking about a fictional Dodge City on the television, while she meant the real town. She’d learned that he enjoyed watching programs about the Old West, along with those odd films he liked to share with her. If she could have slept she knew she would have had nightmares about vampires and werewolves and monsters that defied what she felt was a limited imagination. She enjoyed the western programs, though so much of what she saw had nothing to do with the Old West she was familiar with.

  She found it easy to imagine Jared Stryker as a lawman living a hundred years ago, even if he was nothing like the sheriff in town when she’d been living here. At that time, the man sworn to uphold the law only upheld it for those who could afford to slip him extra funds. She knew Jared would have honored the law in regards to everyone.

  She wished he had existed in the world she’d lived in one hundred and twenty years ago. That he’d been the one to enforce the law instead of Sheriff Mills. She doubted Jared could have prevented her death back then, but perhaps something could have been done so that she might have had a chance at life.

  Not that she remembered all the details of the night of her death. Maya had explained long ago that the gods felt her suffering through it once was enough. They’d decreed she shouldn’t have to relive the pain she’d suffered during her life. She was grateful for that small measure of mercy. She wished she could also forget the time she’d spent with Caleb. She told herself that she shouldn’t expect that much compassion from beings that had the power over life and death. Even hers.

  “Rachel?”

  She jerked herself back to the present. “I am sorry. I must have been daydreaming.”

  Jared held up the large bowl filled with popcorn. Butter glistened on the fluffy white kernels. “I promise you the movie isn’t real scary.” He led the way back to the front of the house.

  “How can you enjoy such things?” She watched the movies with him more for the company and popcorn than the film. She tended to close her eyes through the frightening parts.

  “They’re relaxing for me. Some men drink when they’re off duty, others gamble or party. There’s even some who go hunting or fishing. I’m not interested in the former and sitting there with a fishing pole in my hand waiting for a fish to bite seems a lot like watching grass grow. So I watch old movies.” He inserted the DVD into the player and walked back to the couch, where Harley still dozed.

  Jared picked up the young dog and deposited him on the floor. Harley uttered a few puppy grumbles as he curled up in a tight ball and went back to sleep. Rachel smiled at the affection Jared showed the dog. He grumbled about Harley costing more money than he was worth, but Rachel saw the fondness he held for the pup, who was only too happy to follow him around during the day. She was surprised that the dog sensed her presence during the daylight hours. More than once Harley would sit in a room and stare at what others would call empty space, but was actually the tiny area she occupied.

  Rachel cherished her evenings with Jared. She had no idea what she would do in years to come. She knew the time would arrive when he would sense she wasn’t a normal human woman, and would ask her for the truth. She didn’t know what she would tell him, or if he would believe her.

  But for now, she would sit here and eat popcorn and watch…she wasn’t sure exactly what she was watching. After a while she knew that this action movie had to be the kind of film men enjoyed. Oh yes, she was very glad she didn’t have to worry about nightmares.

  Hours later Rachel stood at her bedroom window and looked out at the black expanse of land. Jared had gone to bed and thought she had done the same. Even when in human form, though, Rachel could no longer sleep. In the past weeks she hadn’t wanted that luxury. She wanted the hours she spent with Jared to last forever. She had forgotten what it was like to talk to another human being. And she had never been treated with such courtesy by a member of the opposite sex.

  She knew this time with him couldn’t last long. This was his land. His house. She shouldn’t even be here.

  Rachel had never had a place she could truly call her own. Growing up, she’d been told to be grateful for what little she’d been given, since she could have been placed in an orphanage, where she would have had nothing. Along with the gratitude, she was expected to reimburse the minister and his wife for her care from the time they took her in. When she first came to the ranch she’d thought it would be the place she could call her own, but instead she was treated as another piece of property that could be disposed of when she was no longer considered of use.

  She wondered what would happen now. Would the day come when she would no longer exist, even in this half-life? For decades she’d prayed for that to happen. But now she wanted more. She wanted the life she had been cheated out of. She wanted a chance to go outside again and feel the sun on her face. She wanted to breathe in the magical fragrance of fresh flowers. She wanted the chance to have a real home. Perhaps even have a family she could call her own.

  She tamped down the tight knot of sorrow that suddenly rose deep inside her. She knew it was best not to think about things she would never have, but being around Jared had her dreaming of them again.

  Her attention was diverted by the sight of the flickering lights high up in the hills, even though some looked as if they were much closer. There were many nights she’d stood here and seen them, but she never gave them a second thought. Now she felt a frisson of unease.

  Normally she found them comforting, evidence of other people in the world. The lights gave her hope and confirmed that she wasn’t alone.

  Now, however, she saw them as ominous. She felt as if they were watching the place. She hadn’t forgotten the men who’d dumped Jared in the house as if he were nothing more than a bundle of old rags. He had once told her that many of the homes in the surrounding mountains were vacation homes, used only a few times a year, while other, smaller places were used by people who couldn’t afford such luxury. She suspected those men lived up in the hills, and that she was looking at their lights. She was convinced they meant danger to Jared.

  Rachel recalled Caleb often accusing her of having an overactive imagination. More than once she had been told she saw things where they didn’t exist. He’d blamed her “female hysteria” on too much reading, and had destroyed her own small cache of books.

  This time she didn’t believe it was her imagination that made her feel uneasy. She looked up and saw dark, shadowy clouds cross the moon, and suppressed a shiver. A shiver that had no meaning for her, since she had no ability to feel any change in temperature. But right now, she suddenly felt as if a core of ice had settled deep inside of her and no fire could warm her.

  Jared’s furious gaze could have caused the damaged fence to burst into flames. He didn’t want to think how long it had taken him to replace the rotted rails and posts. All the new rails now lay scattered on the ground, many of them splintered as if someone had used them as makeshift baseball bats. Obscenities were spray-painted on the wood.

  “Bastards can’t even spell,” he muttered, kicking at a fallen post. “Maybe if you’d stayed in school instead of ditching class to raise hell, you’d at least have learned to spell the words right,” he shouted, as if his tormentors were nearby.

  His gut instinct told him the damage in front of him had nothing to do with a gang of kids having fun at his expense. He was convinced it had been inflicted with malice. He lifted his head when he heard a faint rumbling sound off in the distance.

  If there was one thing Jared Stryker was familiar with, it was the sound of a Harley-Dav
idson engine. He estimated it was two or three bikes. Maybe even four. And the bikes he heard weren’t heading for The Renegade. The rumbling sounded closer, in the hills. The riders were probably climbing the winding road that led to the hodgepodge of vacation homes intermingled with beat-up mobile homes parked on small pieces of property. Because of his old man’s penchant for violence, and his own need to keep a low profile to stay away from abuse, as a boy, Jared was quite familiar with the hills, and in particular, a battered old mobile home partially hidden behind a stand of trees so it wasn’t easy to find. That was likely where the Harleys were heading. And he was positive the riders of those motorcycles had been on his property sometime before dawn, turning his fence into firewood.

  Harley trotted over to Jared and sat back awkwardly on his haunches. The gangly puppy cocked his head to one side as he watched his human stomp around and mutter until he once more exploded with anger. Since he wasn’t the focus of the man’s temper, Harley settled for lifting a hind leg and lazily scratching a spot behind his ear before he dipped his head and investigated his tummy.

  “You better grow up to be a badass dog that can do some serious damage to trespassers,” Jared snarled, as he started tossing broken rails to one side.

  He dragged the ruined wood into a pile. Now it was fit for nothing more than a bonfire. As he worked, his gaze swept the area for visible signs of the trespassers, but he saw none. Whoever wrecked the fence had been pretty good at covering their tracks.