She put the lamp and candles on the round oak kitchen table and followed him. "Any wood?"
"Uh-huh." Keifer switched on the light in the living room.
Close at his heels, she pulled to a stop.
Because the kitchen was devoid of personality and warmth, she'd expected the same in here. But this room, a good twenty by fifteen, was paneled in dark, burnished oak, with a lovely crystal chandelier hanging over a long dining room table. Beyond that, a matching set of overstuffed chairs, sofa and love
seat were grouped in front of a massive stone fireplace, which took up half of the far wall.
With the framed Robert Bateman wildlife prints on the walls, Navajo throw rugs on the oak floor, and gleaming brass-and-glass sculptures accenting the end tables, it was a comfortable and very masculine room. Right down to the dust, Abby thought with a smile, glancing again at the chandelier.
Keifer crossed the room to the fireplace and prodded a well-stocked kindling box with his foot. "He's got lots of logs, if we want a fire."
"That's a relief. You wouldn't by any chance be a Boy Scout, would you?"
His head jerked up. "Why?"
Touchy. What was it with this kid? "I just wondered if you knew how to start a fire, that's all."
Behind her, an open staircase with a log railing led to a balcony, where three doorways presumably led to bedrooms. To the left of the fireplace, a door stood ajar. She rubbed her upper arms, shivering. "I can take care of making the fire. But first, I need some dry clothes."
The boy put several logs in the fireplace. Studied them, then arranged them in the reverse order. From the stubborn tilt of his chin she suspected that it was just guesswork.
"Urn, Keifer, could you tell me where I'd find your dad's closet?"
The boy hitched a thumb toward the door near the fireplace.
ROXANNE RUSTAND 53
"You don't think he'd mind if I borrowed something?"
"Nah. He always wears the same old stuff anyway:'
Maybe this charming room was out of character, but Ethan's choice of clothing apparently wasn't. It really was surprising, she thought as she moved to the doorway and tentatively reached inside for a light switch. A recluse like Ethan, having such a lovely home.
Inheritance, maybe.
Or the lottery.
Perhaps even something illegal, which would account for his worry about a stranger taking care of his son. Kids tended to talk too much and if there was some sort of evidence...
She pushed the door open wider, expecting to see a sea of clothes scattered across the floor and a rumpled bed that hadn't been made since 1970.
But again, Ethan surprised her.
The bedroom was huge—easily double the size of her own back in Detroit. There was definitely male clutter. Magazines piled next to the bed. A pair of jeans and a shirt slung over a chair. But the log-framed bed was made, and intriguing wildlife paintings hung on the walls.
Filling the wide outward curve of floor-to-ceiling windows stood a built-in desk topped with a computer, two printers and a phone/fax. Stacks of paper tilted precariously on the desk, on the floor next to it and on the chair. There were books open
on every flat surface not filled with electronics and crumpled wads of paper lay like snowballs across the hardwood floor.
Whatever Ethan Matthews did, he certainly did with a vengeance.
She stopped to study a framed eight-by-ten on the bedside table. Ethan sat on a boulder with the boy— perhaps four or five—on his knee. Fall sunshine lit a backdrop of bright fall leaves and caught the golden highlights in his chestnut hair.
Abby's breath caught at seeing the man in his element. She'd seen only his injury. His stubbornness. She'd been focused on his immediate need for appropriate care.
Here, his teeth flashed white against the tanned planes of his face. She couldn't help but appreciate his broad, muscular shoulders, square jaw and strong cheekbones, yet she was even more impressed by the protective way he held his son.
Standing in his most personal space, she suddenly felt very much like an intruder. "Hey, Keifer," she called over her shoulder. "Could you come here a second?"
He grudgingly showed up a few minutes later, a smudge of soot on his cheeks and his fingers blackened.
She hid a smile. "Could you help me find those clothes you mentioned? I hate to go hunting through your dad's things."
"The drawers," he mumbled, pointing across the room. "Over there."
She'd made it past the king-size bed when a loud
crack! shook the house and the lights went out. The pungent, sharp tang of ozone filled the air.
She spun toward the door. Stumbling over something, she reeled into the edge of the desk. A towering stack of paper showered to the floor. "Keifer! Are you all right?"
He didn't answer. ''Keifer?"
Shuffling through the paper on the floor, she reached to steady herself against the desk and yet another stack of documents cascaded over the edge.
"Keifer!"
When she finally reached the door, the empty living room was dark and illuminated only by flashes of lightning, and she could hear the back door in the kitchen banging against the wall as gusts of damp air blasted through the house.
A door she'd locked just minutes ago.
"My God," she whispered into the darkness. "Why would he leave?"
Ignoring the sound of Abby calling his name, Keifer took a wary step off the porch stairs, clutching the edges of his rain slicker together with one hand. He aimed the flashlight around the yard, hoping Rufus would come running.
It was all the way dark now 7 , with the rain falling in steady icy sheets. Such total blackness that the flashlight hardly mattered, and with the wind tearing at his raincoat, the beam wavered, creating spooky shapes and shadows.
Shaking as much from the cold rain as his lifelong fear of the dark, he took another step. And another. Then he gave up trying to hold the coat closed and gripped the flashlight with both hands. "R-Rufus? Roooo-fus!"
He heard whining from the direction of the toolshed. A faint yelp.
Lightning flashed. The surrounding trees lit up for a split second, their gnarled branches reaching for him, the whorls of bark on their trunks forming misshapen faces straight out of some slasher movie.
Stifling a sob, he ran to the shed and fumbled with the latch. From inside he heard the frantic scrabbling of toenails against the wood and a sharp bark. "Rufus?"
She burst through the door the second he got it open, twisting and wiggling around his legs, jumping up to lick his cheek. He fell flat on his butt, his hands palms down in the squishy mud. She licked his cheek again, but by the time he scrambled to his feet she'd disappeared into the shed again.
"Rufus!" He tried to fight back his panic as lightning struck again. "C'mon, girl. Please!"
She didn't appear.
Warily, Keifer aimed the flashlight into the shed. Creepy stuff hung from hooks: ropes and saws and garden tools, the glittering blade of a scythe he'd seen Dad use to cut weeds. A few old rabbit cages were piled in a corner.
In the center, an old quilt covered a lumpy shape roughly the size of a grizzly.
"R-Rufus?" he whispered. "Where are you?"
Thunder rumbled through the sky, shaking dust from the rafters. He wavered, took a step back.
The black lab emerged from the shadows a second later with something small and limp hanging from her mouth. His stomach lurched. A rat?
Then something clamped onto his shoulder, and all he could do was scream.
pup in her mouth. "It looks dead," Keifer whispered.
Abby studied the puppy. "No, but I bet the poor thing is cold. Does the dog have a bed in here? Anything your dad might've set up to help keep her family warm?"
Keifer held out his hands, palms up. "He never said anything to me."
"I think I'd better check." Abby searched the floor with her flashlight.
Uneasy, Keifer looked over his shoulder at the darkn
ess outside. Anything could be out there. Watching. Waiting. Back at home, he never slept without a night-light in his room and the hallway light on. Here, everything was darker. Lonelier. A lot more scary.
"Oh, dear," Abby called. "Two. Three. Four, five, six...I think there's seven, and they're all huddled together on an old burlap sack. I'll bet the mom wants to take them someplace else."
"The kitchen, maybe? We could make a bed there, and I could stay with them all night." Abby didn't say anything for a moment, and he started to worry. "Are you still here?"
She reappeared with a small cardboard box filled with squirming puppies. Rufus whined and nosed through them, as if she was counting. "I was just thinking. You know, your dad's kitchen is awfully clean and tidy. I'm not sure he'd want dogs in there."
"Sure he would!"
"But I didn't see any dog dishes. I'll bet this gal is an outside dog, don't you think?"
"He has her inside, too, sometimes. Honest" Abby still looked doubtful. "Really. She's in the house all the time, and he just lets her outside a lot. I'm sure of it."
Rufus gently released the pup in her mouth. She licked it from head to tail, the puppy rolling over with each sweep of her tongue.
"Well.,.if you're sure." Abby frowned down at the pups in the box. They were shivering and squirming over each other as though trying to get warm. "Let's bring them in tonight, anyway. It's awfully chilly out here."
Rufus followed them anxiously to the house. When they reached the porch, Abby put the box down and held on to Rufus's collar. "You go on in and close the door to the living room, okay? And bring me an old towel so I can wipe the mom's feet."
In twenty minutes the pups and Rufus were settled into a corner of the kitchen in a big cardboard box cushioned with an old blanket Abby had found in the basement.
Keifer had found a sleeping bag upstairs and rolled it out next to the puppy's box. He'd brought in a stack of books, too. With the thunder rolling outside and the glow of light from the kerosene lantern on the kitchen table, it almost seemed like camping.
"I'm going to work on that fireplace," Abby said. "I think we'll want a little heat tonight.. .and the extra light would be nice. Maybe we can warm something
up for supper, too. Like a campfire. Does your dad have any hot dogs? Marshmallows?"
Keifer hadn't seen anything in the bare refrigerator that looked as good as that, but he just shrugged and stared at the faint, muddy paw prints circling the kitchen.
Rufus had brushed up against the white cupboards, too.
He tried to imagine what Dad would say.
He sure didn't have to imagine Mom's response—she'd be totally freaked out. Anything involving dirt, animals, blood or sweat freaked her out. Which is why he'd never had any real pets. Only some dumb fish that couldn't do anything but swim in circles.
After Abby left the room he stretched out in his sleeping bag, propped his chin on his palms and listened to the tiny squeaks and squeals from the puppy box.
He'd counted the days until coming here, but the first morning had been scary. And now Dad wasn't even here and a stranger had taken his place.
But Abby said he'd probably be back tomorrow, and the puppies... He squirmed caterpillarlike in his sleeping bag until he could see over the top of the box and count them all over again.
The empty feeling in his chest eased as he watched Rufus lick and nudge her pups. Even if Dad wouldn't be able to do all the fun things he'd promised, there'd still be puppies to play with, and
Keifer wasn 't going to be homesick for Mom and all his friends back home.
He backhanded a hot tear before it had a chance to fall. Nope, he wasn't going to miss them.
Not much at all.
After a sleepless night on the sofa, Abby cracked an eye open to look at her wristwatch. She flopped back against the cushions and pulled the afghan up over her shoulders. Five o'clock.
When had she last been awake at five?
The storm had finally passed, but Rufus had barked anxiously at the door at least three times. She'd blearily shuffled out to the kitchen and then had stood on the chilly porch until the dog returned. Amazingly enough, Keifer had barely stirred.
Drifting and dreaming, only half awake, Abby snuggled deeper under the afghan, thankful for the marshmallow-soft sofa.
It was so peaceful here, the silence of the forest broken only by the distant hoot of an owl, a chorus of coyotes... gentle mooing....
She sat bolt upright. Mooing?
Throwing back the afghan, she hurried barefoot across the cold hardwood floor to the window and squinted out at the gray predawn landscape. Heavy fog hung low to the ground, leaving the tops offence posts and bushes hovering weightless several feet above the ground.
Farther away, large dark shapes drifted past like
ungainly rowboats floating on a sea of fog. Very oddly shaped boats. One of them mooed.
Keifer pushed open the kitchen door and stood next to her, his hair tousled. "Weird," he observed after a loud yawn. "So, are you gonna do chores?"
Chores. Interesting concept, that. What, exactly, did chores entail? She rubbed her upper arms and considered. "I don't suppose your dad has a list?"
Keifer looked at her with the patience of a person dealing with the mentally incompetent. "He just does them. Why would he need a list?"
Lists were comforting. It was fun, making lists of things to do and crossing off each success. Without a list...on foreign ground...she was at a complete loss.
She crossed her arms and tapped her fingers on the bulky sleeves of the sweatshirt she'd borrowed. "If there's no list, have you seen him do chores? I assume those cows get food. And what about the horse and those goats you mentioned yesterday?"
"I don't know. I just got here." Keifer shrugged. "Their food's probably in the barn."
"I'm sure it is, but I don't know how much or what kind to give them." She had an unsettling thought. "Urn, he doesn't milk those cows, does he?"
Keifer rolled his eyes. "They're the beef kind, but he doesn't eat them. He says, 'Anything that dies here, dies of old age.' He gave them all names."
"Names?"
"Yeah. He was gonna raise cattle for money, but
then they all sorta got to be pets. So now he says they're the lawnmowers for his meadow."
Feeling more and more like Alice after she'd tumbled down the rabbit hole, Abby sighed. "So, this mowing crew of his, have you ever seen your dad feed them?"
Keifer shrugged.
"Maybe we'd better try contacting him. He probably had his arm fixed last night, and he might even be on his way home. If I can track him down, maybe he'll tell us what he wants done."
Far more confident now, she tousled Keifer's hair and went to the phone in the kitchen. In the far corner, Rufus raised her head over the box, then dropped back down, clearly occupied with her new family.
The line was dead.
Abby reached for her purse and rummaged for her cell phone. Her hope faded at the words No Service.
No way to contact the outside world.
No car—because hers was still mired in the road.
And, she remembered with a heavy heart, she'd promised to contact the animal shelter this morning about that poor dog on death row.
But surely the shelter wasn't open to the public on Sundays, anyway. And surely the staff scheduled to feed the animals wouldn't actually euthanize anything today.. .would they?
Biting her lower lip, she leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed her face, the image of that sad, wary dog all too fresh in her mind. "I'm going
outside, Keifer," she called. "Can you tell me where the barn is?"
He came to the doorway. "Past the house. Driveway goes back there."
Here, at least, was a ray of hope. She remembered driving through Wisconsin's dairy country and seeing herds of black-and-white diary cattle lining up to get into their barn. Did beef cows know that trick, too?
"Maybe the cows will, um, follow me if
they think they'll be fed."
Keifer wandered into the kitchen with a sullen expression. "The TV doesn't work. Not the computer, either."
'The electricity's out. Maybe you'd like to just crawl into your sleeping bag and go back to sleep while I go outside. It's too early to be awake, anyway." When he glanced nervously at the curtain-less kitchen windows, she added, "Rufus will be in here with you, so you'll be fine."
"Uh...maybe I better come along. Just in case."
She hid a smile as she went to the back door. "If you prefer. I'm sure you're more of an expert at all of this than I am."
She sorted through a pile of boots, found a small pair that had to be Keifer's, and handed them over. The rest were size elevens. After considering her muddied shoes, still wet from last night, she took a pair of rubber work boots, found some ratty yellow gloves and stuffed one into each toe.
"These are going to look like clown shoes," she muttered, looking up at Keifer. "Promise you won't laugh?"
He nodded solemnly, though his mouth twitched.
The fog still hung low and heavy, tinged now with the faintest shade of rose. The cows had moved farther toward the road, where—luckily—she'd closed the gate last night.
"Do you ever see wildlife around here?" she asked casually as she followed Keifer down the lane toward the barn.
"'Possums. 'Coons. Deer. No wolves, though, if that's what you mean."
He stepped into a mud puddle with a splash and nearly fell, his arms flailing. "Whoa!" She steadied him.
She glanced around at the forest still shrouded in mist.. .where something rather large could hide.
"I think I saw a bear once," the boy continued, "but it was pretty far away. Dad sees wolves, but not this close, so I never saw one. Pictures, though. Dad takes lots of pictures."
"Pictures," she echoed, trying to imagine the man she'd met as a photographer. "Really."
The lane climbed a gentle hill and soon they were out of the ground fog. "For his book."
"Like a picture album?"
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