by Jodi Thomas
He thought of opening the window and yelling for her to get inside. The fall would kill her if she slipped. As he watched her, he realized she was in no danger. She’d done exactly this on rooftops before. The beautiful, strong young woman was in her element.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to tell her about himself; he wanted to know about her. Most women tell you everything about themselves by the time the main course arrives at dinner, but not this one. Rick sensed she didn’t believe in sharing. She couldn’t be out of her twenties, but he suspected that she’d spent her life alone.
As he watched, she stood and lowered herself back into the window of her bedroom with the ease of one who’d done so dozens of times. A moment later, her light blinked out and he heard a door close. A few moments later, the shower came on.
Rick moved out of the room and headed back down to his room.
Chapter 15
AS HE PLAYED TO A SATURDAY NIGHT CROWD, BEAU YATES found himself watching people more than usual. If his mystery blond girl showed up once at Buffalo’s, she might again. Over the week since he’d seen her, she’d become more dream than memory.
About midnight, it began to rain. The tapping on the tin roof made the music take on a blend of old western songs, so he played some of the tunes he’d listened to at his grandfather’s place in the summers. The old man would play one record after another letting the music spread out off his front porch and move through the trees. He lived along the breaks where flat land turned rocky. He’d said once that he built his house at the end of the world and when Beau was little he believed his father’s father.
Beau loved his summers with his grandfather best when it rained and he could hear the music splashing against the water as rain poured in sheets off the roof. The old man lived alone, but he claimed he never felt alone when he listened to his records because they held all the good memories of his life. Once in a while he’d say his wife used to rock babies to this one or he’d heard that song when he came home from the war and all the protests were going on.
With his father and stepmother doing mission trips in the summer, Beau learned to breathe in music until it stayed in his lungs all winter long. The last summer, the old man gave him his guitar. Beau played the Gibson so much that his father threatened to break it. After that, he only played when his father was gone. His stepmom never said she liked his music, but she never complained to his dad.
Tonight, he played for his grandpa, hoping he could hear it all the way from heaven. Border would play bass on the songs he knew, but he didn’t seem to mind when Beau played alone. For Border, this was the life. For Beau, it was just the beginning.
During the break, Border’s big brother came in and told them he was moving in with his girlfriend and they could have the duplex. The place was owned by Martha Q Patterson, their grandmother’s boss, and no one thought she’d mind as long as the rent was paid.
Beau and Border couldn’t wait to get home and redecorate their new place. For the first time in over a year, Beau would have a bedroom to sleep in and not just a blanket on a broken-down couch. Big had said he was leaving the furniture but taking the rest of his stuff.
“We can drive over to Bailey to the all-night Walmart and get us sheets. You don’t have any and mine are so ripped up I feel like a mummy when I wake up after rolling around in them,” Border said as they packed up after closing time.
“Any of the towels yours?” Beau asked.
“No. I’m guessing Big will take all three so we might want to buy us some. And soap. I’m tired of washing with them little bars we steal every time we stay at the crummy motels.”
“And food. Real food like fruit and frozen dinners. Your brother won’t be coming by dropping off cereal and chips for us. You think he left the bowls and silverware?”
“Don’t know. We better pick up plastic of everything. That way we won’t have to wash up.” Border hooted. “Hell, Beau, we sound like we’re getting married.”
Within an hour, they’d filled two grocery carts. Sheets, mattress pads, new blankets, towels, food, paper goods, cola, milk, and toilet paper. On the way through the clothing racks, they both picked out black T-shirts to wear when they played.
When the total went over two hundred dollars, Border claimed he’d never be able to afford to get married. Beau didn’t care. For the first time since he’d walked out of his father’s house, he felt like he was on his own.
On the way back to Harmony, they talked about some of the things they could do to decorate. Harley would give them old beer crates. If they could rig up something that looked like a table, they could use the crates as chairs and have somewhere to eat besides the couch or the porch.
“Since we’re fixing the place up,” Border said soberly, “we might want to think about fixing the lock. We’re almost to the level that we could have something worth stealing.”
Beau agreed. He’d already been putting away money for a good computer. If he had that, he could take a few classes online, maybe even go into Clifton Creek and take one on finance. One of these days he would be making big money and he didn’t plan on handing it over to anyone to manage.
Sometimes he thought he must be a fool for dreaming so big, but then other times he knew he’d be a fool if he didn’t. When he made money, big money, he already had plans of what he wanted to do with it.
That night, in the room that had been Border’s big brother’s, Beau organized his things. He didn’t have much, not even enough to fill the four-drawer chest, but it felt good to have a place. The bed was good, or at least it had been. Now it sloped in the middle, but Beau didn’t mind.
As they did every Saturday night, he and Border split their wages for playing in half. Border was saving for a tattoo and a new kickstand for his bike, but Beau was just saving. Since they’d started, he managed to put over a thousand dollars inside the lining of his shaving kit.
He flipped to the back of the spiral book where he wrote his songs and started a list of things he needed to do. Open a bank account. Buy new boots. Learn to cook something. He didn’t much care what. It would just be nice, now that he had his own place, to be able to say he could cook. Ronny, next door, was a good cook. Maybe he’d ask her to show him how to make French toast.
As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered where the girl with the blond ponytail was tonight and if she was thinking of him. She knew where he worked. She would have to find him there if she wanted to see him again because he’d never be able to find her.
Next time maybe he’d ask her name before they drove off in her old restored Mustang. Maybe he’d kiss her a few times as they crossed through the night. Maybe he’d even bring her back here to his place at dawn and make her French toast.
Chapter 16
SUNDAY
A STORM BLEW THROUGH TEXAS EARLY SUNDAY MORNING as if it had avalanched down from the North Pole and met with no resistance. The howling wind woke Rick Matheson before dawn, and by first light he was standing in front of the bay windows off the second-floor sitting room, watching winter turn the world white.
By noon, everything in town stopped moving. Churches and cafés closed their doors. Beyond the old cottonwoods and elms that ran behind the bed-and-breakfast, the whole town looked asleep. The stoplights were blinking, muted by falling snow, and the old clock tower had a hat of white. Rick had a feeling it was going to be a hot chocolate and fireplace-blazing kind of day. Which was fine with him. He’d had all the excitement he wanted for a while.
The only movement on the streets were four-wheel drives taking hospital and emergency staff to work. The snowplow would be wasting time between snow still falling and snow blowing. Somehow the stillness of it all made Rick feel safe for the first time since he’d taken the fall.
Alex and Hank both texted that they were working if he needed them, but the feeling seemed to be that not even a killer would venture out in this weather.
Rick stood watching a cloudy horizon and listening to the big house creak with the s
torm as the old heater in the basement clicked on and off. The one guest at Winter’s Inn must have decided to sleep in because he hadn’t heard movement from the floor above him all morning.
Rick missed Trace Adams at breakfast. She’d made it to the kitchen before him, talked Mrs. Biggs into a tray, and was gone when he walked in for his first cup of coffee. The only noise he’d heard inside the house all morning was Mrs. Biggs baking. She claimed not even the weather would keep her grandsons away for supper. Her oldest grandson was off on Sundays, unless he was needed as a volunteer at the fire department. Her youngest usually slept until dinnertime since he played in a band on Saturday night.
As the snow piled up outside, Rick tried to forget that directly one floor above him was a very sexy stranger, probably dressed in black. He had no doubt that if she wore a nightgown, it would be midnight black just like her hair.
After a huge breakfast, he’d gone back to bed for a while, tried watching TV and reading, but still couldn’t get her out of his mind. There was something about her that drew him. He’d never met a woman who didn’t smile at him.
By midmorning, when she still hadn’t shown up, he wandered back downstairs and decided it was time to pull the bandages off his back and take a real shower. He’d tried a few baths after wrapping up in plastic wrap to keep the wound dry, he’d washed his hair in the sink every morning, but he didn’t feel clean. Since he could remember, he’d been a shower man, and baths just didn’t cut it.
Carefully, he tugged the bandage off his back and looked at his wound in the bathroom mirror. One side of his body was bruised from shoulder to hip. The cut, where jagged concrete had ripped into his shoulder, was puffy but healing. If he could wash off some of the dried blood and bandage adhesive, it wouldn’t look nearly as menacing.
Rick turned the water as hot as he could stand it and stepped in the shower Martha Q must have thought would be funny to decorate like a circus tent. Lowering his head, he braced his hands on either side of the shower head and let the water run over his back.
It felt so good to be clean. Still moving slowly, he soaped up, then just stood in the steady stream wondering how long he had before the hot water would run out in the entire place.
A thump at the door brought him back from paradise.
He stood very still listening.
The thump came again. Harder.
Rick glanced around for a weapon. Nothing.
The door gave with the third thump and Rick reached for a towel.
The fat cat wiggled around the door, looking bothered that the air was all steamed up. Walking across the room, the cat sat just outside the shower as if waiting for him to step out.
It took a minute for Rick’s heart to stop pounding. He turned the water off, wrapped the towel around his waist, and stepped onto the bath mat.
The cat jumped in for his turn, licking the water from the shower floor.
Rick laughed. “Water in your bowl in the kitchen not good enough for you?”
The tabby paid him no mind.
He grabbed another towel and scrubbed his head, then dropped it over his shoulders and reached for his shaving gear.
A softer thump hit the door. “Leaving already?” he said, without looking at the cat. “I thought you’d stay in here a while and keep me company.”
“I haven’t been in,” a woman’s voice answered. “And I’ve no wish to keep you company.”
Rick looked up into green eyes watching him from the opening. To his surprise, she was smiling. He reached down to ensure the towel around his waist was secure, then added, “I thought you were the cat.”
She just stared at him as if he were dumber than lint. Her gaze moved down his body to his feet where the cat had decided to share the small bath mat.
“You always shower with Martha Q’s cat?”
“Always,” he said, trying to act like he barely noticed her watching him shave. She was wearing a white T-shirt today that fit like a second skin. The black jacket over her shoulders looked like it might have belonged to a biker in the fifties. He wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a Hell’s Angels patch on the back.
“You need medical attention,” she finally said in a low voice.
“I’m fine. I just took a fall last week.” To his shock, she shoved the door open and walked in.
Without comment, she tugged the towel across his shoulders and held a red spot up for his inspection. Blood.
“I’m bleeding?” he said in surprise, and she gave him that now familiar you’re-an-idiot look again.
“Turn around so I can see. It looks like one of the stitches didn’t hold.” Her cool hand was already moving over his shoulder. “Didn’t your doctor tell you to be careful? This wound should still have antiseptic on it and a bandage to keep it clean.”
“It did until I got in the shower.”
“It needs care,” she pushed. “You should have it seen to immediately.”
“Of course. It’s no problem. I’ll just go get the doc to stitch it back.”
“How you planning to get to the hospital? You have no car and I can’t take you on my bike.”
She was right. The few people who were out in this storm were helping in emergencies. No one would want to come over so he could go get one stitch fixed. Mrs. Biggs didn’t own a car and it was too far to walk.
He met her green-eyed stare and they came to the same conclusion.
“Sit down,” she ordered reluctantly. “I’ll tape it together.”
He did as he was told and she collected all she’d need from the medicine kit the hospital had sent home with him.
“You’ve done this before,” he said more as a statement than a question.
“A few times.” When he seemed to be waiting for more of an answer, she added, “You know, Girl Scouts.”
Rick didn’t believe her. She somehow wasn’t the Girl Scout type, but he didn’t know her well enough to ask for more information.
The bathroom seemed to be getting smaller and he could think of nothing else to say to Trace Adams. If he moved, or complained, she’d probably cuss him out. She did have a gentle touch, though.
Finally, she patted his shoulder. “That should hold until you can see a doc.” She moved to the door. “You got a nice body, Matheson. It’s a shame to see it so bruised. You’re lucky you didn’t break half your bones in that fall.”
“Yeah.” He set his jaw. “Real lucky.”
She closed the door and was gone. When he dressed, he decided to go looking for her. He hadn’t even said thanks for her help. And, after all, since they were trapped in a house together, they might as well talk.
He found her in his favorite room, the upstairs sitting room. Bookshelves lined the interior and a huge bay window framed out the rest. Great old reading chairs were turned so that whoever sat in them could see both the window and the fireplace. From the size of the blaze, she must have just added logs to the fire.
She was sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs near the windows. A watery sun was trying to make an appearance since he’d been here earlier. The few rays that slipped through the clouds turned the snow to diamonds in places.
Trace Adams was going through an old album with little interest except to pass time. She glanced up at him as if he were no more than a passing stranger.
“Yours?” He pointed to the picture album.
“No. I found it on the bookshelf. You think these are Martha Q’s relatives?” She turned one page toward him. The tintype looked like a group of poor relations from the Gone With the Wind era.
He shrugged. “I doubt it. From the way she moved around from marriage to marriage, I wouldn’t think of her as a collector of much. More likely it came with the house when she bought it.”
Trace flipped a page to another picture of young people sitting on a bluff beside a dirt road. Across the bottom, someone had printed, Moving west.
Trace looked up at him. “It’s strange. Someone must have collected these pictures fo
r years, for generations. There are soldiers in Civil War uniforms in here. Then, somewhere in the fifties, it just stopped. It’s like someone stuffed the album on a shelf and forgot about it. Like the past no longer mattered.”
Rick sat in the chair across from her. “Maybe the last of the family died. I heard this house passed from owner to owner for several years before Martha Q bought it.”
“Or maybe the descendants don’t know about this book. Maybe it was just put on the shelf with the other books and no one remembered to take it when they sold the old house.”
“Maybe.” He grinned. “You like a mystery, Miss Adams?”
She closed the book. “I guess. I like pieces to fit together.”
“Want me to tell you mine? How I got hurt? Why I’m here?”
She relaxed back in the chair. “Normally I’d say no, but since there’s nothing else to do and I seem trapped with a guy who shares his showers with a cat, sure, go ahead, tell me.”
Mrs. Biggs brought in a tray of coffee and banana nut bread. They both thanked her. Half the bread vanished before Rick stood and began his story. Because Trace was at least mildly interested, he included every detail he could remember. He also made note that her questions were worded as if she came from a law enforcement background, or, he considered, she had a criminal mind-set.
As he talked, he paced in front of the windows as if presenting evidence to the jury.
She was asking questions when he saw her face change suddenly into shock.
Before he could understand what was happening, Trace lunged at him, knocking him backward into the chair he’d been sitting in earlier.
Just as his wounded shoulder slammed into the chair, he heard the shattering of glass and a ball the size of a cannon hit the bookshelf, sending books raining down on them.