by Amy Frazier
He leaned against the door frame and watched her until he was conscious his cheeks ached from smiling. “Come on!” he called. “If you like your cabin, you’re going to love the spring.”
“Spring?” she shouted, standing suddenly still, her hair in wild blond curls about her head. “I have my own spring?”
He held out his hand and when she took it, he led her farther into the hollow to an escarpment hung with vines. Out of a crevice flowed a small but steady, clear stream that tumbled down the rock face and disappeared in the thick, spongy moss beneath. He hadn’t visited this place in years, but just hearing the gentle splashing, he could taste the cool, mineral water of his childhood summers with Mack. Like Samantha, he’d felt the healing magic of this place.
“Can I drink from it?” she asked when she saw the old wooden dipper hanging from a branch near the springhead.
“Sure, but it’s not your ordinary supermarket bottled water taste.”
Filling the dipper, she closed her eyes, then sipped as if she were some wine connoisseur. “Mmm. It’s very cold. And tastes like…thunder and lightning.”
He laughed. “I can’t picture you in a business suit. What’s the opposite of buttoned-down? Poetic?”
“That’s a beautiful thing to say.” She held out the dipper for him to drink. “I do feel freer because of this place. So far away from everyday pressures and expectations. And because of you…because you understood I needed to be brought here.”
“I needed to bring you here.” With this gentle woman, in this special place, he might be able to unravel the small, yet painful knot he’d carried around inside him his whole life. A daunting task.
“Funny, I don’t think of you as having needs,” she replied. “You’re so in control.”
“It’s getting cool.” He suddenly wondered if letting down his guard was such a good idea. “Let’s gather up some more firewood and I’ll try to explain while we make supper.”
As Samantha picked up fallen tree branches on the way back to the cabin, she watched Garrett. What had he almost told her? And why had he stopped?
Ever since she’d moved to Applegate, she hadn’t run into one person who had a bad word to say about the sheriff. She got the feeling he was a homegrown success story. In a few of them—Rachel, Red, Mack—she’d sensed a rather fierce protectiveness, yet for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine a person less vulnerable than Garrett McQuire.
“You know you actually have to put the wood in the fireplace.” Garrett’s voice startled her.
She came out of her thoughts to see him standing in the cabin doorway. Tanned. Well muscled. Rugged. Framed and ready to be hung inside her locker door.
“Wh-what’s for supper?” she asked.
“The one other meal I’m famous for besides trout. Beans and franks.”
“Can we skewer the hot dogs on sticks and roast them over the fire?”
“So you want the gourmet version?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you’re going to have to work for it.” He reached out for the wood she carried. “I’ll start the fire. You cut a couple switches to roast the franks.”
“Did you bring a jackknife?”
He turned one hip to her. “In my pocket.”
She hesitated and felt her cheeks grow hot.
“You afraid I’ll bite?” he asked, his eyes full of an unexpected mischief.
Slowly she slid her hand into his pocket warmed by his body. As she grasped the knife, he leaned over and captured her earlobe with his teeth. The sensation was of being caught in some exquisite trap. Almost immediately he released her, but more than her ear had begun to tingle.
“I-I’d better put on my sweatshirt before I get those switches,” she said, feeling as if they should be shedding clothes instead of adding more.
“Don’t take too long. I’m hungry.”
And so was she. In more ways than one. Wriggling into her sweatshirt, she dashed outside to cut two long, slender branches. She pared away the leaves and whittled the ends to sharp points, then hopped joyously back up the steps and into the cabin. The fire crackled, and beans already simmered in a pot hung on an iron hook embedded in the masonry. Garrett was spreading the sleeping bags on the floor in front of the fire. Not two separate sleeping bags, but each single opened then zippered together to form a double.
He looked up as she came in. “You did know we were headed here from the first day we met.”
“Yes.” Dismissing the prospect of food, she came to him and offered up her kisses.
And there, as the twilight gathered around the cabin and the birds sang a benediction, Samantha and Garrett made love. Not roughly or heedlessly, but tenderly as if they’d each been waiting for this moment for a very long time. As if they knew that what they shared was fragile and perhaps fleeting. Afterward, she lay in the crook of his arm, her cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“Was this what you needed to bring me up here for?” she whispered.
“I’d be a liar if I said this wasn’t part of it.” He pulled the sleeping bag more closely about her shoulders. Wrapped both his arms around her. Kissed her hair. “But I also needed to see how you fit in a place that gave me—how can I explain it?—comfort as a kid.”
She raised up on one elbow to look at his face. “What do you mean?”
“I know Red’s told you I was in foster care. And maybe Mack’s explained how he befriended me in grade school. How we roamed these hills. Here, I wasn’t the outsider, the kid without a family. I just was. Although I don’t think I can really explain it.”
“You don’t have to.” She kissed the corner of his mouth and felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “I understand.”
“I gave up camping and hunting when I got married. Noelle hated it, and I guess I figured the real me should be defined by family, not some forest.”
“But when your marriage broke up, you felt as if you’d lost some innate part of you.”
“Yeah.” His eyebrows knit together in obvious pain. “Exactly.”
“You didn’t think of getting away occasionally with Mack?”
“No. We weren’t kids anymore. Besides, Mack had gotten involved in the reserves. I just thought I needed to suck it up and move on.”
“We all need someplace to step outside the role we’ve chosen. Or are forced to play.” She grew wistful. “So, did I pass your test?”
“My test?”
“To see if I fit.”
He pulled her down on top of him. “We fit,” he declared huskily before making love to her again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AS THE MORNING SUN CUT ACROSS the cabin floor and he made coffee, fried bacon and eggs, Garrett couldn’t take his eyes off the woman sleeping peacefully but a few feet away. Her hair spread out about her face like a wild, rippling current, her arm was flung above her head, and her mouth curved in a mysterious smile.
There was no mystery about the way Samantha made him feel. Alive. Whole. It’s as if she’d poured balm on his unsettled soul.
Slowly, sensuously, she opened her eyes. “Good morning.” Those might be his two, new favorite words in the English language. “I’m ravenous.”
“You mean beans and franks at midnight weren’t enough to tide you over?”
She stretched luxuriously. “I think we burned those calories and then some.”
“Breakfast is almost ready. The restroom is—”
“I’ve been camping before,” she said, crawling out of the sleeping bag with a wink and nothing else. She rose, then, flashing him a grin over her shoulder, padded outside. As natural as the day she was born.
Garrett dropped the skillet on the stone hearth with a clatter. If she didn’t watch it, they’d be eating breakfast—cold eggs and bacon—at noon.
When she returned, she pulled on shorts and a T-shirt as he dished out their meal. Lord, he was going to need the strength only protein could provide.
As she ate, she grew serious.
“Considering how you were raised, you must hate Rory’s custody arrangement.”
“I do. It’s no life being shuttled between parents.”
“For you,” she amended. “I think Rory’s one of the most well-adjusted kids I’ve ever met.”
Damn. She might be right. Yet he’d never until now uncoupled his own experience from that of his son.
“I still hate to think of him in London.”
“Why?” She turned her soft hazel gaze on him. “There are daily trans-Atlantic flights.”
“And phones. And e-mail. I know. You sound like Noelle.”
“Don’t make that a bad thing. Remember, she’s half of what produced your well-adjusted kid.”
He stole a strip of her bacon. “What makes you so charitable this morning?”
“This place. You. Really terrific sex.” As he was putting the bacon in his mouth, she leaned forward and caught the other end between her teeth and nibbled her way up to his lips. Her kiss lent new meaning to the phrase honey-smoked.
Needless to say, they didn’t start back for Whistling Meadows until late morning.
HER ARMS WRAPPED AROUND Garrett’s waist as they drove down the dirt track bordering the Stones’ farm, Samantha noticed some unusual activity in the distance on the county road. Several vans with what looked like television satellite dishes were parked close to the ditch.
“No!” she breathed. Please, say they hadn’t found her.
Garrett stopped the ATV and pulled out his cell phone. From the one-sided conversation, she understood he’d called headquarters. When he signed off, his expression was grim. “I’m going to cut across your property here,” he said without further explanation.
“Is it…an accident?” She knew it wasn’t.
“You could say that.” In an instant, Garrett, the man, was gone. The sheriff was back. “We need to get you in the farmhouse.”
She didn’t like the sound of this.
When they drove into the barnyard, he pulled not in front near the cruiser and ATV trailer but up to the back steps. As soon as they’d stopped, he took her hand and quickly led her to the house, taking the keys from her to unlock the door. “Where’s your TV?”
“In my bedroom.”
He took the stairs two at a time. When she entered her room, he’d tuned the television to CNN. A talking head droned on about breaking news. She only half listened as she focused on Garrett staring at the screen. “Runaway heiress…rehab treatment for alcohol abuse…tiny hamlet in western North Carolina…”
Her photo flashed on the screen.
Her photo.
Oh. My. God.
She ran to the window and parted the blinds. Way down near the road a sheriff’s department cruiser blocked the end of her drive. Standing next to the cruiser with shotguns cradled in their arms were two figures who could only be Mack and Red, keeping a crowd of a dozen or so reporters and cameramen at bay.
Her throat dry, her palms sweating, she whirled around to confront Garrett. “What the hell makes me newsworthy? I have never been able to figure that one out.” She began to pace until Garrett reached out a hand to stop her.
His eyes were not unkind. “People crave stories about the rich and—”
“I wasn’t some party girl courting celebrity,” she snapped. “My family’s rich, yes. But we’re hardworking rich. My grandfather was a shoe salesman. My father’s a self-made man. I worked my ass off. Apparently so that some couch potato can get a smug sense of superiority when I take a nosedive.”
He tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away. “Who would out me?”
“It damn well wasn’t me,” he said between clenched teeth as he shut off the television. “But, believe me, I’ll find out who it was.”
“Why would I be news?” she asked again, slumping onto the bed.
“Why ask why? This is the age of infotainment. A tabloid mentality. Insatiable, inappropriate curiosity. Reality shows where, at the same time, the grass is always greener and, as you said, someone else’s troubles make the viewer feel better. It’s sick, and I’m sick you’re the object of it all right now.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Nothing. You’re going to stay here.” He pulled out his phone again.
“Who are you calling?”
“Geneva. She’ll stay with you.”
His real meaning began to dawn on her. “I don’t need watching.”
“No. You need someone you can trust.”
“What about you?”
“I have to get back to work. I have a feeling this county’s going to heat up before it cools down. I’ll stay till Geneva gets here. Why don’t you take a shower. I’ll be downstairs.”
She went into the bathroom, closed the door, sat on the edge of the tub and called her mother.
“You can’t believe what’s happening,” she said when Helena picked up.
“I can. I’m watching the news right now. An abomination. The Prescotts called to alert us as we were driving home. Which is where you should be. Home. Here. Where we have adequate staff to shield you. Your father will send the jet.”
It was so tempting.
“No. This can’t be more than a twenty-four-hour story. I’m going to ride it out on the farm.”
“Darling, you’re underestimating the interest. First you ran—”
“I did not run.”
“Oh, let’s not quibble. Appearance is everything.” Her mother’s voice had gone sharp. “Then you changed your name. The ratings chasers are going to think that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They’re going to keep digging. We need to present a united front as a family. If necessary we’ll issue a press statement. Thank goodness Ashley International isn’t a publicly traded company.”
Appearances. The business. Samantha had had enough.
“Mother, don’t you think you and Dad had something to do with all this?”
“What can you possibly mean?”
“You sweep into town in a limo—you couldn’t have rented a Kia? Then you organize a very public, very extravagant, twenty-four-hour farmhouse makeover while Dad buys out my neighbor to keep me insulated from the locals. I came here to quietly recuperate while fitting in.”
“You make us sound so…forcefully subversive.”
“Well?”
“Darling, calm down. How this disaster came about is not the issue. Right now you need us.”
No. In coming to Applegate, Samantha had deliberately struck out on her own. If she wanted to prove her mettle, she needed to face this situation without her family’s influence.
“Mother, I’m hanging up.” And she did.
Which didn’t make her feel any better.
By the time she’d showered and headed downstairs to make herself a cup of tea, Geneva had arrived and Garrett had left. Mack and Red were still guarding the head of her drive, making Samantha think she’d traded the Virginia solution for a modified North Carolina one.
She felt like a hostage.
GARRETT STARED OUT HIS OFFICE window onto Main Street. “The vultures,” as he now referred to the reporters and their crew, were highly visible, although in the past three days most of the residents had refused to give interviews. Bless their hearts, as Mack’s mother, Lily Whittaker, would say. “The vultures” were subsequently left interviewing “the gawkers”—folks who’d made Applegate a day-trip destination just to be part of the feeding frenzy. It was amazing how people, when confronted with a mike and a camera, could make jerks of themselves on a subject about which they knew absolutely nothing.
His cell phone rang. It was Noelle. He didn’t pick up. He’d found out that, a few days back, she’d phoned a cousin in Asheville to ask if she knew anything about the possibility that the Lawrences of Ashley International Hotels were vacationing in Applegate, of all places. The cousin had called an aunt who’d called a friend who just happened to be the editor for the Western Carolina Sun “Living” section, and the rest was history. Which—although it w
ould be convenient to blame his ex—made Garrett the source of the leak. Stemming from the one phone call he hadn’t stopped himself from making. He’d lost his right to pass judgment on other people’s insatiable curiosity.
Now, of course, Noelle didn’t want Rory in the middle of the mess. Samantha had emphatically agreed. So Rory was running errands in town for the department and getting updates from Geneva, Red and Mack. Samantha had also insisted Garrett not put a deputy on her property. She didn’t want any hint of preferential treatment. He’d complied but made sure his staff continuously cruised that strip of county road. He’d only talked to her once since they’d returned from the cabin but hadn’t seen her.
He missed her.
Rory walked into the office. “Rachel needs you over at the diner.”
“Did she say what it’s about?”
Rory shook his head. “I gotta run an errand for Red. He wants me to see if the hardware store has two dozen No Trespassing signs. If they do, I’m supposed to put it on the Whistling Meadows tab. Then can I deliver them?”
“No. I’ll have one of the deputies drop them off.”
“Dad…are you mad at Samantha?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“You haven’t gone to the farm. You won’t let me see her.”
“I’m just trying to cut down on the speculation. The media watches everyone who goes in and comes out of Whistling Meadows.” In fact, a photo taken with a powerful telephoto lens of Garrett and Samantha on the ATV had turned up in a national tabloid with the headline, The Sheriff and the Socialite and the subheading, Love Nest Uncovered.
“But you seem upset,” Rory persisted.
He was. At himself.
“’Cause she’s not the person you thought she was?”
Apparently, in prying into her private life, he wasn’t the person he’d thought he was.
“I know you don’t like liars…” Rory screwed up his face as if trying to find the right words. “But if this is the kind of stuff she faced back in her old life, maybe she thought the only way to escape was to start all over again. With a new name and everything.”
Sadly, if she’d done it once when the going got tough, she could do it again.