Diane Pershing - Whispers in the Night

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, you do what you need to do, and I’ll just…be around,” she finished lamely, and headed into the house.

Knowing she was being a coward, she kept out of his way all day, staying as busy as possible. She took down curtains to have them cleaned, did a couple of loads in the ancient washing machine, puttered in the garden for a while. Basically she managed not to be wherever Paul Fitzgerald was.

At lunchtime, she asked him if he’d brought lunch, and when he told her not to worry about that, she made an extra ham and cheese sandwich and brought it, along with a bag of chips and an apple, out to the porch, setting them on the scarred round table positioned between two ancient Adirondack chairs.

“Your lunch is out on the porch,” she told him when she found him at the side of the house, working on a pipe.

“I told you not to bother,” he muttered.

“Well, I did, so be gracious and eat it.”

Without giving him time to reply, she herself headed into the kitchen and had her lunch there, even though she always took her meals on the back porch. She and Fitzgerald had been getting along just fine, she figured, by not being in the same room at one time. Avoidance? Worked for her. She could keep this up for the week or so it took him to finish his chores, and then she wouldn’t have to see him again.

If in the darker recesses of her brain she was aware she was expending entirely too much energy on keeping her distance from the new handyman, that awareness remained subliminal. She’d come up to the mountain to escape stress and to recoup her energies. To rest. But being in Paul Fitzgerald’s presence wasn’t restful in the least.

The early morning air was crisp and clean. A slight chill forecast the coming winter. The perfect beginning to the day, just the way Kayla liked it.

She sipped her coffee, then expelled a huge, grateful sigh. Would she ever stop being appreciative, she wondered, of her luck, of the chance to be away from the relentless noise and chaos of city life in Albany? Up here there was only quiet. Peace. Solitude.

She’d actually slept well the night before. If there was a bear around, she’d told herself before turning in, then it would just have to share the mountain with her. As for the mysterious chicken bones, someone—a hiker, some kids—must have thrown them in the compost heap because they were too lazy to find a trash bin. Whatever. Here she was, the start of a new day, and she was beginning to get a sense of who she was, a sense of…

“Beware the bones of the dead.”

Kayla literally jumped up off her chair, one hand to her thudding heart, the other making sure the coffee mug was firmly on the table.

At the far end of the porch stood an old, slightly bent woman with long, straggly white hair, a once-beautiful face, and a look of manic intensity in her eyes. Like something out of a fairy tale, Kayla thought wildly. Not Disney, but Grimm.

Bailey, who had been sleeping at Kayla’s feet, rose, took in the newcomer and began to bark.

“Bodies and bones. They will rise and destroy everything,” the woman said, her voice amazingly resonant, her dark eyes boring into Kayla’s with mad fervor.

Even as the words sent a chill down her spine, Kayla couldn’t help making an absurd association: Was the woman talking about the chicken bones? The ones from yesterday? Were chicken bones going to rise up and give birth to—what? Baby chicken bones?

She stifled a nervous giggle, then ordered her one-eyed Yorkie, “Bailey, be quiet.” As usual, he continued barking until she picked him up, at which time his barking became a combination growl and whine.

Swallowing her fear and trying to keep her tone conversational, Kayla took a few tentative steps toward her visitor. The way the old woman’s spine was curved, she suffered either from scoliosis or advanced arthritis. “You must be Melinda.”

The so-called “wicked witch of the mountaintop,” a local character who lived in a shack deep in the woods, half crazed, it was said, but harmless. Walter had told Kayla about her, but in the previous visits she’d made up here with him, she’d never met the woman. At the moment, the word harmless wouldn’t have been Kayla’s first choice.

At the mention of her name, Melinda ceased talking and just stared at her, that same wildness in her eyes not diminished by her silence. Then she shifted her gaze to the dog. “Hush, now,” she ordered, and like that, Bailey did, whimpering for a brief moment, then burying his nose in Kayla’s neck.

Maybe she really was a witch, Kayla thought, thoroughly spooked. Still, she took another hesitant step toward her visitor. “Um, may I offer you something to drink, Melinda? Some water?”

As Kayla moved closer, the old woman’s eyes widened and she backed up until she was at the edge of the long porch. There were three steep steps from there to the ground, and sensing her visitor’s panic, Kayla became concerned that she might fall.

“I won’t hurt you,” she assured her, reaching a hand toward Melinda but remaining where she was. “Tell me about the bones, Melinda. I’m interested.”

The old woman paused briefly. “The bones,” she muttered, almost to herself, a faraway look in her eyes. Then her gaze focused again, horribly fierce and quite crazed. She pointed a crooked finger at Kayla. “Bodies and bones. They will destroy you.”

With that, Melinda whirled around, missed the top step, and might have injured herself had she not fallen against an extremely tall man with an extremely broad chest.

“Whoa there,” Paul said, as a black-clad, elderly woman barreled into him, then slithered around him and scurried off, down the stairs and into the trees beyond. Paul watched her go, then turned to his employer, who stood several feet away, a shivering dog held tightly to her chest.

“Who the hell was that?” he asked her, setting his toolbox down on a side table, then divesting himself of his backpack. “And what was that about bones?”

“A local character named Melinda. She lives somewhere in the woods. And I have no idea what she was talking about.”

“She dangerous?”

“I sincerely hope not. From what I know she lives with an equally strange niece and the two of them manage to take care of each other.”

Paul glanced back at where the old woman had been headed, then returned his gaze to Kayla Thorne. “Weird.”

“Very.”

God, she looked good!

Again, no makeup. Hair swept back, gathered at her nape in a clip. Jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt—sporting a green palm tree against a white background—and sneakers. The opposite of anything considered remotely sexy or provocative, and all he could think about was how much he wanted to get naked with her.

Now and in last night’s X-rated dreams.

In which he had conjured up her body, her creamy skin, eyes the vibrant color of the sky up here in the mountains. The rounded breasts, the long legs—he’d woken up this morning desperately wanting them wrapped around him. Desperately wanting her.

Man, did he need a woman, and soon. Hell, wouldn’t anyone be horny after four years of going without?

Last Thursday, the night he’d been released, he’d stayed on in Susanville and headed for a singles’ bar, intent on finding a willing female and taking care of that need. He’d done the same thing the following night.

On both occasions, the women had been willing, but, for some strange reason, Paul had found an unexpected emptiness to all the conversations he’d struck up, the knowing, two-way, “how long do we have to make small talk before we wind up in the sack?” tone of them. It had seemed, somehow, wrong.

Not morally; he’d given up on moral right and wrong years ago. Just not the way he wanted it to be.

Probably, if he’d been ten, even five years younger, it wouldn’t have been a contest. Forget not feeling right, raging hormones would have dictated that he get laid, however he could. But he was nearly thirty-seven and was no longer ruled by his body’s needs. Especially after four years of practice.

“Coffee?” Mrs. Thorne asked him, snapping him out of his carnal reverie and back to the present. “I’ll get you some from the kitchen.”

She moved toward the sliding glass door, which, for some reason, set off the dog’s yammering. Paul winced at the sound; all day yesterday the mutt had alternately hidden from him and faced him, barking its stupid head off. He’d dealt with the little runt by ignoring it.

“Bailey, be quiet,” the woman scolded, setting the ball of hair on the porch floor.

“It’s okay.” Maybe it was time to make friends with the annoying thing. The Thorne woman would like that.

He approached the frantically yipping animal, now trying to back away but finding himself imprisoned by his owner’s feet. Paul squatted on his haunches, which made him eye level with the woman’s upper thighs, which he tried not to think about. Looking down, he held his fingers under Bailey’s nose.

“Hey, it really is okay,” he whispered. “I’m one of the good guys.”

His words must have had an effect, because the dog stopped barking and cocked his head, as though not quite sure what to do with this change of attitude. Then, tentatively, Bailey sniffed at Paul’s fingers. Dark button eyes peering out at him from under bushy, nearly white brows, the canine emitted a halfhearted growl.

Paul moved closer. “You’re a tough little man, aren’t you?” he said, stroking the animal’s head, then looking up to meet the woman’s amused gaze. From this angle, he could see the underside of her high, rounded breasts, a view that didn’t bother him in the least.

“Wouldn’t figure you the Yorkie type,” he observed.

One eyebrow arched upward. “Oh? What type would you figure me for?”

He shifted his attention to the dog; the thought of reaching up to cup one of her soft breasts in his hand was way too distracting.

He scratched behind his new best friend’s ears. “Well, now,” he managed to say with the part of his brain still functioning, “that’s kind of difficult. Before I saw you, I figured you for some kind of purebred, one of those show-dog types. You know.”

“A Yorkie is a purebred. And what do you mean, before you met me?”

Bailey made satisfied noises as Paul continued to scratch around his head. “I read about you in the papers, saw you on TV. The mysterious millionaire’s widow. Even in the pen, we got the news.”

“Oh.”

“Then, yesterday, when I saw the bunny slippers, well, that kind of changed things.” He glanced up at her again, watched her face flush slightly.

Her mouth twisted in a smile. “Not many have seen me wear those and lived to tell the tale.”

He nearly smiled back. “Well, then, I guess I’m lucky. Anyhow, someone who wears bunny slippers would go for something a lot more, well, fluffy. You know, a cocker spaniel. Like that.”

In mock indignation, she slapped her hands on her hips, unintentionally causing her T-shirt to mold itself more tightly to her upper body. “Wrong on all counts,” she announced. “I used to have a Lab. Well, not all Lab. A mix.” Her smile was tinged with sadness. “She was golden, a little bit of shepherd, a little bit of collie. When I was a kid.” A brief shadow of memory crossed her face before she brought herself back to the present. Mrs. Thorne nodded. “But you’re right. Bailey would not be my first choice. I inherited him.”

Paul raised an ironic eyebrow. “Someone left this to you?”

“Be careful. You might hurt his feelings. He belonged to Walter’s late wife. She doted on Bailey, spoiled him rotten. When I came to take care of her, he grew attached to me. He’s pretty old and he’s mostly deaf, not to mention blind in one eye.”