Karah Lee scowled at the lake. “Sorry to be such a burden to him.”
“Now, don’t get all hot about it. This whole thing has hurt Dad for a long time.” Shona’s voice grew suddenly soft. “It’s no fun having a daughter hate your guts.”
Oh, great, here came the guilt trip. And they always said Mom was so good at it. “I don’t hate his guts, I just—”
“And it hasn’t always felt so great to me, either.”
“Oh, come on, Shona, you’ve had Dad to yourself all these years. You should be ecstatic.”
“Lucky me, I got to listen to him complain about his prison sentence with Mom, and then I got to watch his office romance with a woman barely six years older than me. Great fun.”
Karah Lee sighed and slumped back down into her chair. Just the way she’d wanted to spend her Sunday afternoon, pulling out and analyzing ancient dirty laundry. “So how’s our socialite stepmom doing these days?” Irene was another reason Karah Lee had as little as possible to do with her father, but right now she’d be a welcome change of subject.
“Oh, her? She’s got a nice little apartment by the Missouri River at the edge of town. She doesn’t come around much.”
Karah Lee swallowed. “They’re separated?”
“I’m just waiting to see who files first. Dad’s showing his age these days, and that’s another reason I’d like to see you two smooth out your differences.”
Karah Lee rubbed the back of her neck. She was beginning to get a headache. Here in Hideaway, she’d begun to feel as if she were living on a planet removed from her old life in central Missouri. It didn’t appear to be a permanent pleasure.
“Karah Lee?” Her sister’s voice grew softer still.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Geoff and I are getting a divorce, too.”
That news hit Karah Lee like a kick in the gut, and she caught her breath audibly. “Oh, no, Shona. I’m so sorry.”
Shona and Geoff had been high-school sweethearts, but then had gone their separate ways for college. After four years they had reunited when they both went to work for Kemper MacDonald after graduation. All that time, Geoff had been the one strong connection between Karah Lee and her family. Though she avoided her dad, and she and Shona had found it difficult to hold a single pleasant conversation, Karah Lee had always gotten along with her brother-in-law.
“Are you going to be okay?”
There was a sniff on the other end of the line, and Karah Lee’s vision blurred through sudden, unexpected tears. “Sure, I’ll be okay. Why wouldn’t I? Isn’t that what we MacDonalds do best? Divorce and get on with life?” There was a new sound of unaccustomed vulnerability in Shona’s voice.
“Why?” Karah Lee asked.
Another sniff on the line. “I don’t know for sure. Maybe I’ve just got too much of my parents in me. Geoff and I can’t seem to stand each other lately. We’ve fought so much this past year, he’s started staying gone half the time. After all this time trying, I guess it’s a good thing we never had kids.”
The sudden flow of words startled Karah Lee. Why was Shona telling her all this? And why, considering their relationship, did Karah Lee feel the sense of loss so keenly?
But this was more than just a loss for her sister. It was like the loss of hope for Karah Lee. Her father couldn’t seem to find a way to hold a marriage together—he’d failed twice. And now her sister…What hope was there for Karah Lee Fletcher to find a happily-ever-after relationship?
But she was being selfish. “I’m sorry.” More tears fell. She sniffed and grabbed a tissue from her pocket. “I’m really sorry.”
“Me too. And you know what? I could really use a sister right now.”
More tears. More sniffing, more tissues. “I’m here. I’m not sure I know how to be much of a sister, since I’ve been out of the habit for so long.” And whose fault is that, Karah Lee? You’ve wrapped yourself in bitterness just as much as the rest of your family. “I’m pretty rusty at it, and I’m not sure we know how to do anything besides fight.”
“Do you think we could give it a try?” Shona asked. “It isn’t as if I have a crowd of bosom buddies up here, you know. Trusted friends don’t come into a political aide’s territory too often.”
Karah Lee nodded to herself. “Yeah. We could try.”
More sniffing on the line. “Thanks. And if I promise not to let Dad use any more political influence, will you promise to think about giving him a nice casual call? You know, to let him know you don’t really hate his guts?”
“How about if I just send flowers?”
“Words are so much more powerful than flowers, Karah Lee.”
That sounded like a campaign slogan. Actions were more powerful than words, and time would tell if her family would be able to get their actions right after all this time.
A few moments after Karah Lee and Shona ended their call, Bertie came to the veranda door again. “Karah Lee, it’s your young man.”
“I don’t have a young man.”
“You know, it’s Taylor.”
Amused, Karah Lee picked up the cordless once again. “He isn’t my young man, he’s just orienting me for the paramedic stuff.” She pressed the phone button. “Yeah, Taylor.”
“I just received a distress call. Are you doing anything?”
“Nope. Can you pick me up?”
“I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“Okay, give me time to put my shoes on.”
“Make them hikers if you’ve got them.”
Hikers? She’d have to dig them out of her suitcase. “Are we going to run a rescue operation?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be ready.” She hung up and turned to see Bertie standing in the doorway looking smug, with her arms folded over her chest.
“If that’s not your young man, why’re you grinning from ear to ear?” Bertie looked pretty today, with a touch of lipstick and powder on her face—her concession to dressing up for church. She wore navy slacks and a navy and red pullover that offset the silvery highlights of her white hair.
“I’m finally getting to go out on a run.”
Bertie shook her head and strolled into the dining room, grabbing a bib apron from a nearby chair as she set to work clearing dishes from the tables. “Call it what you want to, Karah Lee. I never saw Cheyenne that happy about taking medical call.”
Karah Lee made a face as she passed the older woman on the way to the storage room for her suitcase and medical pack. Come to think of it, she’d never felt this excited about an ambulance run. Could be she was bored. Or maybe there was just something about a lakeside resort that made everything more fun.
Taylor waited for Karah Lee to snap on her seat belt, then he put the truck in gear and sped onto the street. It felt good to have a partner after making these runs alone for so long. Of course, this wouldn’t last. He was just orienting her.
“Want to tell me what’s up today?” she asked.
“I got a call from someone on a cell phone in the northeast sector of the trail. A woman collapsed.”
“Heat?”
“Probably.”
“Any symptoms?”
“The usual. Confusion, leg cramps, nausea. Probably someone exercising too much without food. Where I come from, they call it the Canyon diet.”
“Canyon?”
“At the Grand Canyon, people do it a lot. They hike the trails to lose weight. They drink plenty of water but don’t eat, don’t replace their electrolytes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Hyponatremia? And they do it to themselves?” Karah Lee asked. “Sounds like they’ve already lost some weight—about two and a half pounds where their brains are supposed to be.”
Taylor scowled at her. “Wow, Fletcher, you’re all heart.”
“Sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. “Not everyone has the privilege of your vast store of medical knowledge.” He heard the sarcasm in his own voice and wondered if he was pus
hing it too far. Then, from the periphery of his vision, he saw her grin.
“That’s right,” she said. “But this victim will know better next time, if I have anything to say about it. I’ll make sure she’s medically stable before I start my free lecture. So you worked at the Grand Canyon before you came here? I hear ranger work is getting more and more dangerous.”
It was, but that hadn’t been the reason he left. “Any kind of law enforcement work is risky.”
“Did you cycle out?”
He gave her a puzzled look.
“You know, stay there a certain number of years then get forced to transfer.”
“No. Things have changed in the past few years. We have a promotion program now, and I wanted to stay at the Canyon with my family, so I chose not to ask for a promotion for several years. My wife did the same.”
He sensed Karah Lee’s interest level kick up a notch, but decided not to elaborate.
“How long did you work there?” she asked.
“Seven years.”
“Your wife’s a ranger, too?”
“She was an interpretive ranger.”
“Interpretive? Somehow, I don’t think that means she’s multilingual.”
“An interpretive ranger is someone who explains the natural world to visitors to the park. We used to call them naturalists.”
“I heard the ranger program’s tough on marriage. I’m glad you found a way to make it work for you.”
He was sorry he’d even mentioned Clarice. “I didn’t.”
She picked up his binoculars from the console and raised them to her face to study something at the foot of the cliff as they drove up the side and around toward the top. “Divorced?”
“That’s right.” Not that it was any business of hers.
“Oh. Sorry. I was just wondering, because on Friday, when you suggested the possibility that I might stay at your place while you stayed at the ranger station, you never mentioned there might be someone else.” She adjusted the binoculars. “Kids?”
“One.”
She shook her head as she lowered the binoculars. “It’s toughest on them.”
“This kid was the reason for the divorce.”
Another beat of silence. She replaced the binoculars and sat back. “You’re blaming your kid.” It was not a question, it was a castigation.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You sure did, you said—”
“I said my kid was the reason for the divorce, I didn’t say I blamed him.”
“I don’t see the—”
“He’s dead.”
For the first time since he’d met her, she didn’t have a quick reply. He kept his attention on the curving road, though he could feel her still watching him, could sense her shock followed quickly by sympathy, and he wondered, to his shame, if he’d subconsciously manipulated her for just such a response. He’d have to be a real jerk to use his son’s death as a ploy for sympathy.
“How old would he be now?” she asked, her voice much gentler.
“Sixteen.” And he didn’t want to talk about it. Did he?
“Nearly Blaze’s age, then,” she said. “No wonder you get along so well with him. He seems to like you, too, amazingly.”
Taylor glanced at her. Seeing the teasing glint in her eyes, he realized he hadn’t manipulated her at all. And really, he wasn’t trying to.
When he thought about it for a moment, he discovered his only intention had been to tell her the truth about himself, about where he was coming from. It had been such a long time since he’d been able to do that—since he’d allowed himself the luxury.
He also realized, to his amazement, that he was enjoying her company, though he didn’t know how long that aberration would continue. When had he last enjoyed a woman’s company, enjoyed the gentle teasing, the sharing…
He pulled into the parking area at the trailhead, turned off the engine and got out. “Let’s go see if we can find our patient.”
Chapter Seventeen
Another droplet of sweat broke loose from Fawn’s forehead and tickled her in its race for freedom down her neck, and someone screamed with laughter far down on the beach. With the cliffs behind this barn reaching around to form a natural barrier behind Hideaway, noise seemed to funnel through the loft door and straight into her ears.
From what she could see from here, the shore was crowded with kids, teenagers, couples and gangs of girls in bikinis. Boats in all shapes and sizes kept the water in constant motion, flickering blue and green fire the color of the sky and the trees.
And Fawn sat in a rattly old prison with moldy hay and a snake to guard her.
Something moved in her line of vision at the construction site between the barn and the beach. A guy in jeans and a blue shirt stepped past a bulldozer that had been parked across an entrance to the site, obviously to keep people out. There were Keep Out signs everywhere, and usually there was a guard somewhere on the property, though Fawn didn’t see him now.
So maybe this guy was a new guard coming on duty. He didn’t act like it. In fact, he looked a lot like that guy who’d cruised around town with the sheriff yesterday. Maybe the deputy, out of uniform today.
He kept glancing over his shoulder toward the street as he stepped around cement mixers and stacks of lumber. He leaned over a hole in the ground and peered down into it, then reached out and thumped his hand against one of the supporting beams.
Curious. Maybe he’d decided to buy one of the units and wanted to check it out, make sure it was sturdy.
“Don’t do it, mister,” she muttered.
Yesterday, when she’d been too sick to do anything but watch out this window, a lot of things had started to make sense. That construction project was the only one in town, and it was obviously going to be a huge building—the condominium Bruce had been arguing about with his killer.
So something down there was dangerous. But what?
She wiped another stream of sweat from her face. And what could she do about it? Whom could she trust?
Again, she thought about Karah Lee. There was something about the doctor…something about her gaze that held steady when she was talking to you, as if she meant what she said. She never looked away or fidgeted with her hands or anything. Fawn had been lied to enough times, she could read it in a person’s eyes. Dr. Karah Lee wasn’t a liar. But she’d told on Fawn when she said she wouldn’t. So that meant what? Does she think I’m really sick?
The man down below took out a cell phone, talked into it for a couple of minutes, then stuck it back into his pocket. He gave one last look around the concrete slab where he stood, then left the area to blend back into the crowd.
Before he disappeared, though, someone climbed out of the van parked nearby and watched him leave.
The sun glared down on Taylor as he stepped out. They’d been experiencing unseasonably warm weather this month, more like July or August than June. No wonder the heat-related illnesses were already striking.
As Karah Lee grabbed her pack and closed the door, Taylor reached into the rear seat for his own rescue backpack.
“My boy’s name was Chip.” He locked the door and turned toward the trail, leading the way past a truck and two cars and a motorcycle in the parking area.
“And was he?” She fell into step beside him, matching him stride for stride.
“Was he what?” he asked.
“You know, a chip off the old block. Was he more like you or your wife?”
“Ex-wife. She is no longer my wife, she’s an ex.”
“Gotcha, but it wouldn’t hurt you to tone down the bitterness a notch.”
“Just helping you get the facts straight, since you seemed so determined to know everything.” He led the way along the broad trail, hoping this was the right direction. The dispatcher had told him the caller wasn’t sure of her position.
“I’m just curious if your recent experiences might explain why you’re such a hermit.”
He winced. �
�I’m not a hermit.” What had made him open up to this woman?
“Okay, so you’re the life of every party.” Her voice reflected the dryness of a desert. “What was Chip like?”
Taylor slowed his steps as they neared an overlook. He stared out over the surface of the lake, breathing the scent of the water that blended so effectively with the baked chlorophyl of the overgrown, lush jungle of the Ozark forest, so unlike the place where his son had grown up.
“People seemed to think he was a lot like me,” he said at last.
“Serious, quiet, determined?”
Taylor blinked and looked at her. That was her impression of him? “No. Chip was never quiet. He talked a lot, laughed a lot. He had friends over to the house all the time. He made decent grades in school and he was active in church.”
“He really does sound like Blaze, then.” She looked up and caught his gaze, and she seemed stricken. “I’m sorry. I guess maybe I seem too nosy sometimes. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose a son, and then a marriage. None of this is my business.”
Taylor nodded. He had discovered, twenty-nine months ago, that he was truly unprepared for his situation. The emptiness was like hiking in the Canyon wilderness without water—forever.
Strangely, something about Karah Lee made him think of Clarice. Certainly, it wasn’t her size. Clarice was a foot shorter than Taylor, part Navajo, with lots of long, straight dark hair and dark eyes. Before Chip’s death she’d been one of those people who smiled and laughed a lot as well. After his death, it was as if her spirit had gone on vacation and forgotten to return.
Clarice didn’t have Karah Lee’s audacious, in-your-face attitude, and if she’d thrown up on someone’s uniform, she would have died of embarrassment. Karah Lee had apologized profusely, but she’d seemed more worried about her cat.
So, really, Taylor couldn’t put a finger on what it was about Karah Lee that seemed so familiar to him. In fact, there was a quality about her that he would’ve liked to have seen in Clarice, and it was that very same quality that also tended to irritate him if he allowed it to. Her forthrightness.
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