Maybe someone at the clinic could tell her how to contact that kid who treated animals. Monster didn’t appear to be injured, but she didn’t want to take any chances with the life of her grumpy roomie.
Drawn by the irresistible aroma of a country breakfast, Karah Lee strolled through the comfortable-looking lobby, with its Victorian sofa and chairs and fireplace, to a wide hallway that led to a large dining area with fifteen tables decorated with cut-glass vases holding fresh carnations.
This morning, the only diners in evidence sat outside on a deck overlooking the lake. Karah Lee glanced toward a steam table near the wall to her right. A white-haired octogenarian stooped over the table, stirring a pot of gravy. There were steel trays containing sausage patties, omelettes, waffles and all kinds of toppings, fresh fruit, biscuits, hash browns with onions…the aromas made Karah Lee dizzy with hunger.
“There you are.” The lady set down her platter of biscuits and gestured toward a table beside a window that overlooked the deck—and the sparkling blue lake just a few yards away. “You’re Dr. Fletcher, ain’t you?” she called across the room.
“That’s me.”
She studied Karah Lee’s scrubs and lab coat. “Cheyenne sure is looking forward to seeing you.”
“Good. I’ll walk over there as soon as I finish my breakfast.”
“She’ll be glad of that.” The woman dusted her floury hands on her apron as she crossed to Karah Lee’s table. “Nobody can believe how fast her business grew this year, and what with her signed on to work down at Dogwood Springs for the rest of the summer, to boot, she’s been working night and day sometimes, it seems like to me.” She held her hand out.
Karah Lee took it in a gentle grip, looking for a name badge that wasn’t anywhere in evidence. “You must be Edith Potts’s business partner.”
The lady’s dark eyes lit with a gleam of amusement. “Called me that, did she? ‘Idiot partner’ is more like it. I’m the one who talked her into this fool idea last fall when the former owner retired.”
“You mean this bed-and-breakfast?”
“That’s right. Can you believe it?” She gestured around the room, then plopped a biscuit in a plate, split it in half, and stepped to the warming table to spoon some gravy over the top of it. “Two old women, each with a foot in the grave, and we’re buying this place from somebody younger than we are by ten years.” She shook her head as she set the plate in front of Karah Lee. “You look like a gal who likes rib-sticking food. Oh, where’re my manners? My name’s Bertie Meyer. I’ll get you some coffee and freshly squeezed juice. You can have anything here you want to eat, you don’t have to eat what I stick under your nose.”
“I love biscuits and gravy.”
“You sure? Red always griped at me for being too pushy.”
“Biscuits and gravy are my favorites for breakfast except for waffles and strawberries and cream. Who’s Red?” Karah Lee took a bite of tender biscuit and perfectly seasoned gravy.
“That was my husband,” Bertie said. “He died last year. He was eighty-five or eighty-seven years old, we’re not sure which.”
“How could he not know how old he was?”
“When he applied for social security he thought he was seventy, and those people told him he was two years older than he thought. We knew better than to argue with the government, so we just let ’em think what they wanted.”
“Why do you think buying this bed-and-breakfast was a bad idea?”
Bertie snorted. “You kidding? I must’ve lost my senses when I talked Edith into buying this place.”
“Obviously Edith didn’t think it was a bad idea.”
“Most folks didn’t at the time, but that was before a bunch of greasy-handed scoundrels called the Beaufont Corporation bought up most of the town.” She glanced toward the steam table, then leaned toward Karah Lee. “You like black walnuts?”
“Love ’em.”
Bertie’s face crinkled in a pleased smile. Nearly a foot shorter than Karah Lee, she moved with a quickness that contradicted her professed elderliness as she poured coffee and juice and decorated a plate with a thick Belgian waffle, strawberries, whipped cream. White running shoes peeped out from beneath crisp green slacks as she quick-stepped back to the table.
“This here’s my specialty.” She set the platter in front of Karah Lee with a flourish. “Black walnut waffles made with milk and eggs from our own private supplies. My pet goat, Mildred, donated the milk.”
Karah Lee held her breath for a moment, then sniffed, closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. “Black walnut waffles,” she whispered. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”
“Aha! So you do appreciate fine dining.” Bertie glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Don’t tell Cheyenne I said so, but she could use a little culture. Poor gal can’t tolerate black walnuts.” She pulled a chair out and seated herself across from Karah Lee. “You go ahead and eat, and I’ll fill you in on some of the stuff that’s been going on around here lately.”
“You mean like the greasy scoundrels who bought up the town?”
“Two men in nice coveralls and bill caps, posing as farmers, came along with a deal I couldn’t pass up. I should’ve known they was fakes when their hats didn’t have a single sweat mark on ’em, and the overalls were brand-new. Red and I worked hard on that farm all our married life, and you know what? Those frauds couldn’t farm a two-bit garden. I should’ve seen it, but I was so crazy with loneliness after Red died, I couldn’t think straight.”
“They offered you a lot of money?” Karah Lee asked between bites of a delicacy so scrumptious it was making her high.
“The money wasn’t bad, nosiree. To boot, I told myself they was real farmers, and the land needed to be farmed. Now those so-called farmers are subdividing my home, and I can’t hardly stand it. I’m just glad I sold our milk goats to the boys’ ranch across the lake. No telling what those idiots would’ve done to my babies.”
“Someone mentioned there was a local boys’ ranch.”
Bertie nodded. “Dane Gideon—he’s our mayor?—he runs it. Wouldn’t be surprised if your boss ended up over there at that ranch with him. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
“Dr. Allison?”
“Cheyenne. She and Dane’ve been sweet on each other since before Red died—that’s how I count time now—Before Red, and After Red.”
The food was so distractingly delicious, Karah Lee couldn’t keep up. She blinked in confusion.
Bertie gave an inspection of Karah Lee’s empty coffee cup, then carried it over to the pot for a refill. “Dane Gideon also owns the general store down the street from the clinic. I should’ve listened to him. He warned me to check out that offer a little closer, but did I listen? Oh, no, not me. In a few months, when they change the whole look of our town and get that monster condominium built and sold to the poor saps who’ve been flocking in here, Edith and I’ll be out of a job, sure enough.”
“Why do you say that?”
Bertie shook her head. “Honey, I’ve seen the tourists pour in here like this before. It was a regular holiday boomtown back when Branson got put on the maps with all those singing stars. Half those famous people came right here to this little place to stay when they wasn’t performing. Then the developers built more of them fancy hotels closer to Branson, and we lost a lot of business. Mark my words, when that condo building’s finished, it’ll suck all the attention away from our little bed-and-breakfast. Tourists are fickle folk.”
“I bet you’re wrong.” Karah Lee savored the final mouthful of strawberries and whipped cream, then wiped her mouth and pushed away from the table. “You’ve got what, ten cottages along the shore?”
“That’s right, and three more rooms upstairs in this building, though the top floor ain’t finished yet. Too quaint for the crowd the big boys are trying to reel in. Why, they’re building them an honest-to-goodness hiking trail, and renting out kayaks and bicycles, and running one of them
starlight-dinner boat rides into Branson. Ain’t any way Edith and I can compete with that. And jet bikes! I never heard of such a thing around here. It’ll scare all our fishermen away. They’ll hate it.”
“Seems to me you’ll get a good clientele from those who just want peace and quiet, not all that crazy activity,” Karah Lee commented.
Bertie leaned forward, the skin around her eyes crinkling with worry. “But I know our customers, and they ain’t going to stay around here with all that activity. That company is set to take over this whole town. We won’t be the same.”
Karah Lee remembered what Taylor had said on that subject last night. Was his forecast of a disaster accurate after all? Bertie seemed to think so.
Dressed in new jeans, a pink T-shirt with LOVE BRANSON in big blue letters across the front and white canvas tennis shoes, Fawn carried the rest of her purchases across the parking lot of the outlet mall with the bright blue roof. Her ankle still felt stiff, but she tried really hard not to limp. She wanted to continue blending into the crowd—until she could escape it.
As soon as she reached the quiet backside of the mall, she cut behind the strip of buildings where no one could see her, then pulled out a compass and a map of Branson and studied the map for a minute to get her bearings.
She’d gone on a wilderness trek with a church youth group a couple of years ago—some friends of hers had tried for a few months to “save” her soul. All that Jesus and God talk didn’t make much sense to her. Why would she want another father? They weren’t good for anything but leaving. Or worse.
Anyway, the trek had been fun, and she’d learned some great stuff, like how to use a compass and how to wrap a sprained ankle. Judging by the map, she needed to cross Highway 76 and find a nightly condorental place down by Lake Taneycomo. If she pulled her con right, without getting caught, she might be able to find a place to hide out for a few days, until the police decided she’d left town.
But first, she needed to make a few changes. Still trying not to limp, Fawn scrambled back down to the bank where she’d slept the night before and opened her bags of purchases. She pulled out the denim backpack she’d gotten for half price at the wilderness outfitter store, tore off the tags and opened the zipped pockets so she could stuff it full. She stuck toiletries into the pockets, along with food, extra underwear and some shorts. By the time she filled the compartments, they would hardly zip shut.
She shoved the pack to the side and pulled out a food-coloring kit she’d purchased at the kitchen-supply outlet. In that whole mall, she hadn’t found a single hair-color kit, so she’d have to make do. She was allergic to the hair-color developer, anyway.
Beside the little plastic bottles she set a tiny bottle of shampoo, a pair of rubber gloves, a mirror, comb, scissors. When she got finished with this rig, nobody’d recognize her from last night.
Before Fawn went to Las Vegas, she’d been an emancipated minor living with two older girls. One of her roommates had been a beautician and had taught her some of the basics, but there wasn’t time for anything fancy right now. She whacked her hair off in long chunks, then buried the telltale blond strands beneath the mud along the bank, just in case someone came looking for her here. She couldn’t afford to let them know what she might look like after she finished this.
She washed her hair, combed it out, trimmed it again. Using the rubber gloves, she mixed the food coloring until it was the same sort of burgundy brown a lot of kids sported, and spread it onto her hair, adding water from the creek to get it soaked through. The food coloring stained her cheeks—she had to scrub hard and even then didn’t get it all off. Still, it looked like a big birthmark, so maybe she’d get by with it.
By the time she finished her makeover, Fawn didn’t even recognize herself. She was a new person. Again. She’d done that a lot lately.
Sometimes it seemed as if she might go through the rest of her life becoming a new person every few weeks—as if the old person wasn’t good enough.
When would the real Fawn Morrison ever be accepted as she was?
Chapter Five
Taylor Jackson inhaled the sweet scent of honeysuckle through the open window of his truck as he pulled into the scenic overlook above Hideaway. The Beaufont Corporation had just completed their new hiking trail along this ridge, and even though he wasn’t crazy about all the disimprovements those people were making, he liked this trail. It was the only smart move they’d made, in spite of the difficulties with zoning laws and purchase of the land. Their efforts would help draw the business they would need to fill that ten-story condominium eyesore under construction at the east edge of town.
He might even use that trail himself, from time to time. One thing he missed about his job at the Grand Canyon—one of the only things—was the hiking.
As the echo of hammers, saws and the rumble of the crane drifted up to the cliffs from the construction site, Taylor climbed out of the truck, taking his coffee with him. He glanced at the ashtray and considered, for just a moment, pulling a cigarette from the pack he kept stashed there. But he was trying hard to quit. He’d managed to do it three times already in the past year. Amazing how hard it was for a guy to live healthy when there were times that he saw the futility of living at all.
Gravel crunched beneath the soles of his boots as he strolled to the edge of the pavement to gaze down on the village of Hideaway. Settled comfortably on a small peninsula along the shore of the Table Rock Lake, the tiny town with a population of barely over a thousand always held him spellbound. He came to this spot often to remind himself why he’d requested the transfer to the Ozarks. The contrast between this view and the view from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon often made him feel as if he had traveled to a different planet.
Of course, he loved the starkly angled vistas of one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. He couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t gaze in awe across the shadowed gorges from the South Rim to the North Rim and marvel at God’s artwork. Part of his heart would always belong to the Canyon. But he no longer wanted to live with the memories the place continued to evoke.
Here in Missouri, he’d made no memories except those from childhood, when he had traveled historic Route 66 with his parents on vacation, and they’d made a detour south to this place.
The beauty of this area began with the lush June green of an abundant Ozark Garden of Eden, brilliant with flowers that dotted the grass and trees like enormous jewels. Generously proportioned gazebos dotted the broad lawn that reached into the lake on a peninsula down below. The Victorian angles and gingerbread trim of those gazebos blended with the bright yellow, green, blue and pink cottages of the Lakeside along the shore at the west edge of town.
Okay, so a guy could live without the pink, but the overall effect wasn’t bad.
A large new dock, crowded with boats, extended from the shore, and it appeared as if construction had begun on still another dock to the east—another project of Beaufont. Across the lake, a tree-topped cliff—twin to the one on which Taylor stood—embraced the water and held captive vines of honeysuckle and wild roses.
The village municipal district was a square of connected brick-front buildings facing outward to the street that surrounded it on four sides. Each doorway had a flower box, and each box held red, blue, yellow or purple blooms. From Taylor’s position, he could see nearly everything that went on below, from the dock all the way back to the ancient, abandoned barn directly below him in the shadow of the cliff. The barn was old, constructed of weathered gray board, old corrugated aluminum roof, loft door broken, barely hanging, old hay spilling out. A dilapidated wood fence caged nothing more than a herd of wildly tangled weeds in the corral.
A movement redirected Taylor’s attention as the front door to the lodge at the Lakeside opened and a woman with curly red hair stepped onto the quaint, wooden front porch. She wore a long white jacket and a pink jumpsuit of some kind, though he couldn’t tell the design from here. He was pretty sure, however, that th
e woman was Karah Lee Fletcher. She ducked beneath a low-hanging potted plant and descended the steps to the walkway. When she reached the street, she strolled toward town. Except for the new sidewalk that encircled the town square, Hideaway had no paved public walkways.
Taylor thought about his telephone call to her this morning. He’d obviously awakened Karah Lee, and he felt badly about that. He ordinarily had a little more finesse than to call someone barely past sunrise. After last night’s conversation and this morning’s—during which she’d made clear her eagerness to cut the talk short—he’d decided not to bother her again.
She frustrated him. Last night she’d shown obvious signs of injury, and yet she’d refused any kind of treatment. Her hostile response to his concern still rankled. His main concern had been her physical safety, and even though she looked perfectly healthy to him now as she walked along the road, last night she had not seemed well.
Too many people delayed medical care after an accident, and they paid the price for it later. Was he wrong to show a little human compassion this morning, knowing she was alone, with possible brain injury?
He just needed to keep reminding himself this wasn’t the Grand Canyon, where the hot, dry climate had added a dash of danger to every situation during his shifts. The climate in the rolling hills of these Missouri Ozarks was more forgiving. But this was about an accident, not heatstroke, and on his watch, nobody was going to die from neglect.
The figure below crossed the street as she reached the square, and Taylor nodded with satisfaction. She was going to the clinic, just as she’d promised.
Static from the radio on his belt interrupted the rumble of the crane below, and Taylor returned to the truck as he listened to a message about the manhunt—which was actually a woman hunt. The murderer who had killed the Las Vegas businessman and the hotel employee last night in Branson had not yet been apprehended. No surprise there.
Safe Haven Page 5