On Her Trail

by Marcelle Dubé

  Fay wiped at the tears on her cheeks. Why were they doing this?

  And suddenly she knew which night this was. In spite of the heat of the sun, she felt cold. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. It was the night she and Sawyer were supposed to run away together. The night he never came for her.

  Oblivious to her presence, Sawyer shifted. “No games, man, and you know it. Fay loves me, not you.”

  James closed the gap between them in one stride and grabbed the younger man’s leather jacket.

  “I want you out of that cabin and off my land by tomorrow morning. Is that clear, man?”

  “I’ll go, James, but she’s coming with me.” Sawyer shoved hard against James’s chest.

  The wet leather slipped out of James’s fingers and Fay clamped a hand over her mouth. Her heart beat wildly.

  Surprised by his abrupt freedom, Sawyer lurched back. “Jesus!” He flailed his arms, suddenly aware of the danger.

  “Watch out!” cried James. He grabbed for Sawyer, but the other man stepped back again, fighting to regain his balance. His booted heel landed on a rock wet with rain and moss, and it slid from beneath his foot.

  “Oh God,” whispered Fay.

  “Sawyer!” James’s hand closed over empty air, and he watched in horror as the dark shape that was Sawyer fell silently off the cliff.

  The vision faded as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the sun to shine on Fay’s devastation. Sawyer hadn’t abandoned her. He had wanted her, had come for her, and James had stopped him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sky was achingly blue, so blue it brought tears to Laura’s eyes. She followed the cliff trail, walking fast to outdistance the little voice telling her she was an ass.

  The river tumbled below and she lost herself in its rhythm. At least that hadn’t changed while she was gone. After a few minutes, the sound of hammering broke through the river’s song and she stopped. She was on Mack’s land.

  She should go back, apologize to Fay and try to understand this stranger who was her mother.

  Instead, she kept going. The hammering got louder, echoing against the far cliff wall. She angled through the trees toward the sound until a clearing revealed the construction site, about forty feet away. The hammering stopped, and she stepped behind a tree to watch. If Mack had company, she wanted to be able to slip away without being seen.

  His house was maybe thirty feet by twenty-five. On the wall facing her, at basement level, three large window openings were covered with clear plastic. On the main floor, two bare-bones walls met in a corner, with cross braces providing precarious support. Piles of lumber were stacked next to a table saw at the closest end of the building.

  Through the wall studs she saw Mack perched on a sawhorse, drinking something from a steaming thermos. In spite of the chill he was naked from the waist up and his back glistened with sweat. He was alone.

  Laura studied the contours of his muscled back, swallowed hard and turned away. She leaned against the big poplar and considered her options. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough to spend the day wandering about outside. That left going back home and facing her mother, or joining Mack.

  The memory of that naked, glistening back intruded on her thoughts.

  “Laura? Is that you?”

  Laura stood very still. How had he known she was there?

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from the tree and turned to face the house. Mack was standing between two wall studs at the edge of the floor, looking straight at her. He had donned a T-shirt.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Not really, she thought. She felt like a fool. What was she doing lurking in the woods, spying on a strange man? Good grief.

  “I’m fine,” she said, staring up at him.

  “Let me show you around the house,” said Mack. “It’s not much yet, but it’s getting there.”

  Laura emerged from the woods and walked to where he waited for her. With a smile he indicated the planks bridging the gap to the house. She gingerly crossed the makeshift bridge and followed him through the framed doorway. She tried not to notice how the muscles played beneath his blue T-shirt or how well he filled his jeans. From the two brief glimpses she’d had, she knew his back and chest were smooth. What would it be like to stroke that smooth skin with her hands? Would tiny hairs prickle?

  Snap out of it, she told herself grimly. Think of something else.

  “How did you know I was out here?”

  Mack looked back at her, as if debating whether or not to answer. The sun caught glints of gold in his thick brown hair. Finally he turned to face her.

  “Your mother called. She was going to town and said you might be coming this way. She asked would I let you know she’d be back by supper. Would I keep an eye on you.”

  His tone invited explanation, but Laura couldn’t speak. She was mortified that her mother would ask Mack to keep watch on her, as if she were a little kid who had run away from home to the neighbor’s. Pat, pat.

  How the hell did Fay know where she had gone? And what right did she have to involve this man in her affairs?

  The right of a mother, apparently.

  Laura glanced over her shoulder at the beckoning woods, wishing she had never come back home.

  Some of what she was feeling must have shown on her face.

  “Hey—Laura…” He took her hand in his, as if to prevent her escape. Warmth engulfed her cold fingers and she looked down at her hand in surprise. The feel of his callused fingers against her skin sent a shiver up her arm. His hand travelled to her shoulder and she looked up into his face, searching.

  “Laura…”

  For a moment, the anticipation of his kiss vibrated in the air around her. Then he released her and stepped back.

  “Don’t be mad at your mom,” he said. “It’s her job to worry.” A slow smile spread over his face and she caught her breath. “If you have nothing better to do today,” he added, “why don’t you stick around and help me build walls? I’ll feed you.” His tone suggested that food would be ample payment for a day of hard labor.

  Laura didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved he hadn’t kissed her.

  “Well…if you promise to feed me…” She grinned at him and felt her spirits lift for the first time that day. This was definitely better than an empty house and mysterious phone calls.

  First, he led her back down the planks and around the house to where the slope of the land allowed for ground level entry. A heavy metal door opened onto a large basement bisected by a support wall. One half of the room was living quarters, with a long counter down part of one wall. A kitchen sink was set in the middle of the counter. Next to the counter was a gleaming black refrigerator. A microwave and hotplate sat on the counter next to a pile of stacked dishes. The dining room consisted of a round patio table with four plastic white chairs. A thick foam pad topped by a sleeping bag lay on the floor at the far end of the room.

  Following her gaze, Mack grinned.

  “My real furniture is in storage. No sense risking the good stuff in a construction zone.”

  In the opposite corner, glimpsed through the studs of the support wall, sat a heavy duty woodstove. Tools and equipment filled the other end of the room.

  Hardly luxurious, but it probably beat camping out in a wall tent.

  Outside, Mack set Laura to measuring and cutting studs on the table saw while he worked on framing the wall. He kept an eye on her, but she knew enough to keep her fingers away from the blade. After a while she grew warm and removed her sweatshirt. She caught Mack looking at her a few times and grew even warmer.

  She found herself hyperaware of his movements, of the way the breeze lifted strands of his hair and how the shadows of the studs played on his back as he hammered nails in.

  Pay attention, she told herself firmly, focusing on the table saw. Still, she noticed when he reached into a cooler and brought out two water bottles. She shut off the table saw before acce
pting one from him.

  “You expect to be done before the snow flies?” she asked. Her ears rang from the sudden silence caused by the absence of the saw.

  He shrugged, drawing her eyes to his muscled shoulders. It took an effort to drag her gaze back up.

  “I’ve got these two outer walls to put up before the roof trusses get here day after tomorrow. Then I can get going on the roof. After that, it’ll go fast.”

  Laura glanced around the clearing. Lots of yellow in the poplars and rust in the fireweed. Mornings were already crusty with frost.

  “Well, good luck,” she said doubtfully. And then, because she was nosy, she added, “Nice of your boss to give you all this time off.”

  He smiled. “Subtlety is not your strong suit, Laura.” She grinned unrepentantly and he continued. “I have a surveying company in town. I pop in every other day, but mostly my office manager is keeping things going.”

  He took a last swallow of water and tossed the empty into a plastic bag in the corner before getting back to hammering. Laura took a moment longer to finish her water and then went back to work.

  Before she knew it, it was time for lunch.

  They sat on sawhorses, eating meat sandwiches and drinking cold beer, while Mack explained the next step. He had marked on the frame where the studs were to go, at sixteen-inch intervals. Laura would hold the stud in place while he hammered. Once they were all in, they would haul the wall up, hammer in the base and the braces, and start in on the last wall.

  “Sounds pretty easy,” commented Laura around a mouthful of food. She had already polished off one thick sandwich and was working her way through a second one.

  “Remember we have to frame in the windows and doors, too.”

  This was a far cry from working out in the gym. It reminded her of fall days spent in the bush with her parents, cutting their winter’s supply of wood. Hard work, but satisfying.

  It took three hours to finish the wall, its doorway and two windows. By the time they stood back to admire it, the sun cast long shadows and the surrounding trees had taken on the dreamy quality of late afternoon in the North. Laura groaned with effort as she and Mack pried crowbars under the wall to lift it. They managed to get their fingers under the heavy wall and hoist it up a few feet.

  “Okay,” grunted Mack. “I’ll hold it up—get a couple of sawhorses to support it.”

  Laura let go of her end and ran for the sawhorses. She placed one at her end of the wall and the other at Mack’s. With a sigh of relief he lowered the wall to the sawhorses, then walked over to pile of tools in the corner, startling a squirrel, which ran off chittering. He rummaged around and returned with a length of nylon rope.

  “I’ll go down on the ground and haul,” he told Laura, tying the rope at the top of the wall. “You push and keep it steady once it’s up. Can you do that?”

  Laura eyed the wall dubiously. She was strong, but the wall was heavy. “We won’t know until we try.”

  “Now that’s reassuring,” teased Mack. He placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “Just give me enough warning to get out of the way before you drop it on me.”

  Intensely aware of his hand, Laura could only nod.

  With one end of the rope in hand, Mack jumped to the ground. “Ready?” he called.

  “Okay.”

  The rope grew taut and she lifted the wall off the sawhorses. It was surprisingly easy until the wall was almost perpendicular to the floor.

  “Slow down!” called Laura. “It’ll flip over onto you!”

  Immediately the rope grew slack and she took the weight of the wall on her outstretched arms. She braced her feet and leaned into the weight, wondering if there was any way she could avoid serious injury.

  “Got it, Laura?” called Mack. “Hang on, I’ll be right there.”

  And he was. Within seconds, he was at one end of the wall, helping support it. They inched the wall into place with a sledgehammer and he nailed it to the floor, then nailed two cross braces to steady it.

  “There,” he said, stepping back with satisfaction.

  “There,” she agreed, standing next to him. It really was a thing of beauty.

  “Now then.” Mack turned to her. “Are you going to tell me why you’re hiding from your husband?”

  The question took Laura completely by surprise. She looked at him, confused. “My what?”

  “The fellow you had me lie to on the phone last night,” he reminded her. “Isn’t he your husband?”

  Laura blushed. She felt the heat on her cheeks and shook her head. “No. I’m not married.”

  “Boyfriend?” His blue eyes seemed very dark suddenly.

  “No,” she whispered, her eyes riveted on his.

  “Any romantic attachments at all?” He stepped closer.

  She seemed to have lost her voice. All she could do was shake her head.

  A fierce light came into his eyes.

  “Me neither,” he said. Placing both callused hands on her cheeks, he bent toward her mouth. At the last moment, just as she was closing her eyes, he paused and looked at her. Satisfied that she was willing, he kissed her.

  He smelled of sweat, and sun, and fresh air, and his mouth was firm and hot. He explored her lips with his, kissing the corners of her mouth and the swell of her bottom lip. Just as she felt she would melt with wanting him, he released her.

  “Thank you,” he said gravely. “I’ve been wanting to do that since yesterday.”

  Laura struggled to regain her mental balance. She cleared her throat. “You’re welcome,” she finally replied. “Glad I could oblige.”

  His eyes danced with laughter. He took her hand and led her to a sawhorse. Once she was seated, he cleared the other sawhorse of tools, dragged it close to hers and sat down.

  “If it’s not a husband you’re hiding from, who is it? What was it about that phone call that had you so scared?”

  Laura looked at him and sighed. Fay had firmly changed the topic last night, and Mack had gone along. Apparently today he was going to insist. She wanted to confide in him. She was sure she could trust him, but lust might be coloring her judgment.

  Still, what harm could there be? The magazine was out today—that was obviously the reason Fay had gone into town. With the story out in the public, it wouldn’t matter who knew where Laura was.

  And if the story wasn’t there?

  With regret she decided she couldn’t risk it until she knew for sure. It was bad enough she had involved her mother. She didn’t have the right to risk his life, too.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said. She wanted to soften the words, to give him some reassurance that her decision wasn’t a reflection on him, but she was wise enough to know more words wouldn’t help.

  He studied her face for a moment and finally nodded, accepting her decision. “You’ll eventually be free to tell me?”

  She nodded, relieved.

  “Fine. I guess I’ll wait.”

  “Mack…” She paused, not quite knowing how to ask. “It’s very important that no one know where I am.”

  His face grew still. “No one?”

  “Absolutely no one.”

  “Is that why you were sneaking around your own house yesterday?”

  Laura grinned. “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if you didn’t like hot showers.”

  He blushed and she laughed.

  “At least tell me why you and Fay were fighting.”

  Laura’s eyebrows rose. “What makes you think we were fighting?”

  Mack shrugged. “She sounded upset. Then you showed up, skulking in the woods as if you were hiding from something. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you had an argument.”

  Laura shrugged. She stood up and paced to the wall. “We don’t get along. Dad and I were very close, and I think she always resented it.” She looked at him, suddenly sad. “She never understood me the way he did.”

  “Oh please,” he scoffed. “Next you’ll say she doesn’t really love
you and she’s to blame for all your problems. You’re supposed to outgrow that crap when you’re an adult.”

  He sat perched on the sawhorse, long legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed, staring at her. Although he smiled sardonically, something in his eyes had changed. He was disappointed in her.

  Who the hell did he think he was?

  The sudden bleat of his cell phone saved her from replying angrily. He stood up. “Excuse me,” he said, and turned away to take the call.

  Laura watched him for a second longer, then stalked to the edge of the floor. She jumped down, landing on the mossy ground with a soft thud. Behind her, Mack interrupted his telephone conversation to call out, “Laura, wait!”

  Back stiff, she kept walking. Her eyes filled with tears of rage.

  How dare he pass judgment on her relationship with Fay. He didn’t know her at all—a kiss didn’t entitle him to preach!

  The tears streamed down her face, enraging her further. She hadn’t wept since her father died, and now this sanctimonious stranger was making her cry!

  She found the path by luck more than anything and broke into a run. She would go back to Fay’s house and if the article was there, she would take the first plane back to Montreal. She’d had enough of this emotional merry-go-round.

  The trail veered briefly away from the cliff and as she entered the shadowy woods, she realized she had forgotten her sweatshirt at Mack’s. Well, she wasn’t going back. The tears stopped and she slowed to a walk, breathing hard. It was hard to sustain rage when she was gasping for breath.

  A shiver ran up her arms and she rubbed them. She slowed down even more, suddenly uneasy in the dark woods. It seemed very quiet.

  The setting sun blinded her as she emerged from the trees. She blinked, and then her eye caught a flicker of movement. She turned her head, forgetting to breathe. A young man stood among the shadows. He was tall and wore jeans and a leather jacket. His hands hung by his sides, empty. He was no more than ten feet from her, and she clearly saw his hazel eyes and light brown hair. He frowned at her.