Chapter 12
B eth awoke to the sound of rain beating against the tin roof.
It seemed impossible that she had slept, but she must have been so drained physically and emotionally that her body had demanded a shutdown.
After John’s anger-fueled account of the Mellin investigation, followed by the whispered dare he’d issued her, which had been fueled by something else entirely, he’d turned his back to her and brusquely motioned toward the bedroom. “Get some sleep.”
She’d tried to think of something to say in response to his tirade, or to that teeming moment that had left her wishing he’d acted on the impulse she couldn’t fail to recognize even though he hadn’t even touched her.
But the atmosphere had seemed electrically charged. She’d feared that saying the wrong thing could have caused a spark that would reignite either his wrath or an agitation even more combustible.
Deciding that the safest course was to say nothing, she’d retreated to the bedroom and closed the door. Only then had she drawn a sufficient breath.
For minutes after, she’d stayed with her back to the door, listening to him moving around the main room. The sliver of light beneath her bedroom door had become progressively dimmer as lights were turned off. Then she’d heard his bedroom door closing, and that strip of light went dark.
She’d used the bathroom. With her finger and toothpaste she found in the medicine cabinet, she’d cleaned her teeth. Realizing that her shoes were in the other room beside the chair, she’d decided to leave them there. She’d also decided not to undress.
The two-bulb fixture in the ceiling was the only source of light, and when she’d clicked it off at the wall switch near the door, the room had gone completely black. She’d felt her way to the bed. Metal springs under the mattress squeaked when she slid under the covers.
Then she’d stared into the unrelieved darkness, wondering why she felt so dejected. But of course she knew why. She’d wanted that withheld kiss. She wanted it now.
She wondered why he appealed to her at all. She’d never been attracted to his type, which Max had termed a “he-man.” That called to mind men in chaps or kilts or armor who rebelled against the rules of society and adhered to their own code of honor. But they were fictional heroes. In real life they didn’t exist. Or so she’d thought until John Bowie had walked into that bar.
He’d looked at her with keen insight, as though he knew the first time they locked eyes that she’d had a chemical reaction to him, that she’d felt a frisson low and deep. That sizzle had both thrilled and frightened her. It still did.
She acknowledged that a large part of his appeal was his elusiveness. He wore an aura of aloneness like a second skin. He was the kind of man women wanted to tame, save, heal. The kind of man that broke women’s hearts.
She lay thinking of all the reasons he was wrong for her, listening to light raindrops ping against the tin roof until she’d fallen into a dreamless sleep.
It was now daylight, but the bedroom was dim. Through the window she saw leaden gray clouds hovering low above the treetops. Last night’s gentle rainfall had turned heavy and sullen. The room was chilly. She was grateful for the socks.
She flashed back to John’s wry smile as he’d handed them to her and said they’d be too big.
Considering the volatile nature of their evening together, and the tuning-fork sexual note on which it had ended, she didn’t know what to expect from her next face-to-face with him. There was sure to be awkwardness.
But delaying the inevitable only heightened her dread. Better to get it over with. She got up, used the bathroom and cleaned her teeth again, then went to the bedroom door and eased it open.
She almost stepped on Mutt before she saw him. He’d been lying on the threshold and immediately jumped to his feet. “Hey, boy.” Tail wagging and quivering with gladness, he nuzzled her palm when she extended it to him.
She saw that John’s bedroom door stood open, but there was no sign of him, and no lights were on. “Where’s your master?” With Mutt at her side, she ventured into the main room, switching on lamps to alleviate the gloom as well as her mounting apprehension.
On the dining table was a scrawled note anchored down by his pistol.
Gone to get your things. Mutt’s been fed, but he may want to go out again. P.S. All you have to do is point the gun and pull the trigger. Don’t hesitate.
He’d written his departure time at the top of the sheet. He’d been gone for more than an hour. She looked down at the dog. “Did he say how long he planned to be gone?” Mutt gazed up at her with a moonstruck smile, tongue lolling.
A pot of coffee had been left on the hot plate. She filled a mug and added her fixin’s. As she stood sipping it, she looked toward the open door to John’s bedroom. “Promise not to tell,” she said to Mutt as she walked over and peeped in.
The room had its fair share of clutter, but it was better organized than the other rooms. The clothes he’d been wearing yesterday had been folded and placed in the seat of a rocking chair, his dress shoes underneath it. He’d made the bed, and that was disappointing. She wouldn’t have minded seeing the rumpled sheets he’d slept between, although it shamed her to admit it.
A low chest, painted matte black, served as a nightstand on the left side of the bed. On it were a digital clock and a framed photograph. The latter drew her like a magnet. She made her way over and bent down to get a better look.
In the picture was John, dressed only in swim trunks and a baseball cap turned backward. From beneath the cap, his hair curled around his ears and the back of his neck. He had the calves of a habitual runner. His pecs were lightly covered with a fan of hair. And he was ripped. Biceps, abs, everything was altogether yummy.
But the most startling thing in the photograph was his broad smile. She’d never seen that smile. She wouldn’t have believed his stern features capable of producing one of such unmitigated happiness. She reasoned that it had a lot to do with the preteen girl beside him.
She was wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit. She was coltishly thin, all arms and legs, knees and elbows. Her smile revealed twin rows of braces. Her dark hair was in pigtails, although a few rebellious, curly sprigs had escaped the braids.
Her slender left arm was around John’s waist. His right was draped over her shoulders. They stood ankle deep in a body of water that extended to the horizon, leaning into each other.
A day at the beach? Who was this girl? Who was this man ?
Beth had never met the John Bowie in the picture, and that was a pity, because she thought she would like to know him.
Made despondent by the thought, she returned to her bedroom. “Stay,” she told Mutt when he would have followed her in. He dropped down onto the threshold again. She commended him with a “Good boy” and a pat. She was about to close the door, then hesitated and left it open a crack. “Growl again if you hear anything suspicious.”
In the bathroom, she undressed, showered, and shampooed. It felt wonderful, but she didn’t linger. Loath to put on yesterday’s clothes, which were mud-spattered and worse for wear, she considered the flannel robe that hung from a hook on the back of the door. It had seen better days, better years , but it smelled of dryer sheets. She pulled it on, then wrapped a towel around her head. Back in the bedroom, she saw that Mutt had nosed open the door just wide enough for him to squeeze through. He was curled up in the center of the bed, dozing. She said, “I’m not sure that’s allowed.”
“It’s not and he knows it.”
Startled, she turned. John, holding a shotgun at his side, used only the tip of his index finger to push open the door the rest of the way. She’d come around so quickly, the towel on her head came unwound. She caught it as it fell.
John took her in, the ugly bathrobe, the unruly wet hair.
She did the same with him, the black rain slicker, the unruly wet hair.
Arrested by the sight of each other, both stood stock-still.
Mutt leaped off the bed to give John an enthusiastic welcome back. He danced around John’s wet pants legs until John acknowledged the greeting by scrubbing his knuckles across his head.
He did so absently, never taking his eyes off Beth. Nor she did look away from him. When she realized she was nervously twisting the damp towel between her hands, she forced herself to stop.
John finally broke the spell and ducked out of sight for a moment. When he reappeared, he no longer had the shotgun. “Everything all right here?”
“Yes. Fine.”
“Sleep okay?”
“Like a baby.”
“Good, good. There’s coffee if—”
“I found it. Thank you.”
“Was it still hot?”
She bobbed her head.
“Good.” An awkward silence stretched out. Mutt jumped back onto the bed but John seemed not to notice.
She indicated the robe. “I found it in the bathroom.”
“Aunt Gert’s, I think.” He drew a breath and let it out slowly. “You do a lot more for it than she did.” His eyes scaled down all the way to her bare feet, and he kept his head down for a time, rubbing his forehead.
Beth held her breath.
When he raised his head, he hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “You’ll have fresh clothes. I brought your suitcase. Purse. I guess your phone is in it?”
“Yes. Thanks.” She glanced toward the window. “It’s pouring.”
“Like a son of a… gun.”
“You went in the boat? The way we came? In this rain?”
“Nothing I haven’t done dozens of times. I had a tarp to cover up your stuff.” He turned away, but only long enough to pick up her suitcase and purse where he’d left them just outside her line of sight.
He carried them over to the bed. “Mutt.” The dog looked at him with imploring eyes, then over at Beth as though begging her to intercede on his behalf, but John snapped his fingers and Mutt hopped off the bed. John set her roll-aboard and purse on it.
She said, “I look forward to being in fresh clothes.”
“Yeah. I need to change, too. I’m still dripping rainwater.” He went over to the door. With one hand on the jamb, he turned back. “Do you want breakfast?”
“Um—”
“Because I wasn’t expecting to be here last night, so there’s nothing fresh in the fridge. I could thaw out a loaf of bread and toast it.”
“Oh, don’t go to the trouble. I can do without.”
He bobbed his chin. “When you’re ready, we’ll go. Just tell me where to drop you.”
Her heart plummeted. The floor seemed to undulate beneath her like the first tremors of an earthquake. So this was how it was going to be: He wasn’t going for it. How na?ve of her to think that he might have slept on it and changed his mind. All along, he, and Max, had warned her what his decision would be.
She swallowed her disappointment and managed to say, “I suppose I’ll go back to the hotel I checked out of yesterday.”
He nodded and turned to leave.
She said, “We can’t get there by boat.”
“I keep a car here.” He pointed through the window. “That way. A two- or three-minute walk.” He glanced toward the suitcase on the bed. “Do you have a rain jacket with you?”
She gave him a smile that was supposed to look prideful and undaunted, but felt wobbly. “I’m a New Yorker.”
By the time they set out for their walk through the woods, the rain had slackened to a drizzle. It had just as well have been raining in earnest. Every leaf on every tree they walked beneath dripped large splats of rainwater, each seeming to find its way down the back of her neck and into her jacket, which had been dishonestly advertised as weatherproof.
Her footwear was also inadequate. Her shoes hadn’t completely dried overnight, and soon became even soggier and more uncomfortable. She was miserable in every way possible.
Fortunately, within the short time frame John had estimated, they reached their destination, which was a prefab metal storage building situated in a clearing carved out of the surrounding woods. It was nearly indiscernible because of its camouflage paint job.
“It blends right in,” she remarked.
“My friend Mitch and I painted it ourselves. He’s a vet. We copied the pattern off a pair of his fatigues.”
The garage door had a padlock on each side. John unlocked them and raised the door. Inside was a compact car, facing out. As soon as John opened the passenger door, Mutt jumped in and settled on a blanket in the back seat. She climbed in. John drove the car out. After it cleared the garage door, he went back to secure the building.
The road that led away from the building barely qualified as such. It amounted to parallel, rutted furrows, worn into the forest floor by car tires. Eventually it spilled them onto a narrow state highway. They went five miles before reaching the first vestiges of civilization. It was disconcerting to realize just how remote the fishing camp was.
“Do you want to stop and grab something? Coffee? Donut?” John nodded toward a diner.
“No thank you.”
They said nothing more until Beth saw that they were nearing their destination. “The next exit,” she said.
“I see the sign. Is it nice?”
“Your standard cookie-cutter hotel.”
He took the exit and pulled into a parking space near the entrance, cut the engine, and then sat staring through the windshield.
Beth endured the taut silence for almost half a minute before reaching for the door handle. “Thank you for the lift.”
“Beth—”
“And for your hospitality last night. It was—”
“Will you wait a minute?”
She looked at him expectantly. “What?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Have breakfast.” She checked her wristwatch. “If they’re still serving.”
He gave her a look that said, Very funny . “Are you flying out this afternoon?”
“Should I?”
“Yes, damn it. Barker’s got to be convinced that you lost interest or that Brady came down hard on you and drew a line in the sand. Whatever he thinks, I’m afraid you won’t be safe until you’re away from here. ”
“Possibly. But if something terrible befalls me, it won’t be your problem, as you so eloquently phrased it last night.”
“Bloody hell,” he said under his breath. Then, “Something else I said, maybe with less eloquence, was that I can’t help you . I won’t.”
She studied his features, the rigid jaw and shuttered eyes, and contrasted them to the smiling face in the picture on his nightstand. “Who’s the girl in the picture?”
For an instant, the diamond-hard eyes flicked. But he recovered quickly. “What picture?”
“Really, John? You’re going to pretend you don’t know? The only picture in that fishing camp that was taken within the last decade.”
“You went snooping?”
“Yes.”
He turned his head aside and watched raindrops turn into rivulets that slid down the windshield. “My daughter.”
Beth had assumed so. “When was it taken?”
“Within the last decade.”
She disregarded the droll comeback. “Her mother got custody?”
He gave her a sharp look, but it didn’t express anger. He stared at her with total detachment and a silent command to back off. She would have preferred it if he’d lost his temper.
“It’s none of my business,” she said. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
He went back to staring through the windshield. For the longest time he didn’t say anything. She vacillated between opening the car door or staying to see what he would say or do until he ordered her out.
She was reaching for the handle again when he made an amused sound. He turned and gave her a crooked smile that had more sadness behind it than humor. “Beth, since I met you, all you’ve done is open old wounds. Even so,” he said around a weighty exhale, “if I don’t do this, I’ll regret it forever.”
Taking her completely off guard, he leaned across the console, curved his right hand around the back of her neck, and pulled her toward him. Beneath the inviting heat of his lips, hers seemed to melt. They became pliant against the undemanding pressure he applied and parted at the first brush of his tongue.
Her mouth yielded to its first tentative and seeking thrusts. Met with no resistance, it became bolder and then, when he tilted his head for a more secure fit, his tongue went deep, and its give-and-take became skillfully evocative.
He placed his left hand on her rib cage between her waist and the underside of her breast, his fingers pressing, lightly squeezing. She wished the lining of her jacket weren’t so thick. Better yet, that she wasn’t wearing a jacket. Or wearing anything. She wished to feel his hand caressing her bare skin, her breast.
His withdrawal was gradual but unquestionable. When she realized he was ending the kiss, she actually leaned forward in an effort to sustain it, but he was already beyond reach.
He resettled himself in the driver’s seat. “Make sure you’re on that flight.” He held her gaze for a beat, then got out of the car, went around, and retrieved her suitcase from the back seat.
Her cheeks, which moments ago had been aflame with arousal, were now burning with humiliation. By the time he pulled open the passenger door, she had collected herself enough to take the handle of her roll-aboard from him.
“Goodbye, John. Take care of yourself.” Mutt whined at her from behind the back seat window. “You, too, Mutt.”
Then she turned away and walked toward the hotel entrance. After the automatic doors had closed behind her, she turned to get one last look.
But he was already driving away.