Chapter 3
Lightning flashed, hail the size of fifty-cent gum balls bouncing off the windshield as Cowboy drove along the curving road that connected the string of islands to mainland Maine.
This had already been the travel day from hell, and these last hundred miles were bound to be the worst of them all.
They’d made the flight out of Atlanta by the skin of their teeth, putting them in New York shortly after lunch, but there were no direct flights scheduled to Bangor until morning.
To his credit, Razorback had come through with a chartered plane, but the worsening weather made the landing an event Cowboy would rather not remember.
Any hope of outrunning the storm had ended then and there. “You sure you don’t want to stay overnight at a hotel?” He’d asked as they disembarked. “This is a three-hour drive in good weather.”
Charlotte flipped her hair and glared back at him. “And then what? The roads close and we’re stuck here? No thanks.”
“Or we slide off the road and spend the night in a ditch somewhere,” he grumbled under his breath.
She smiled a saccharine grin. “That’s why you’re here. To make sure that doesn’t happen.”
He nodded once. “As you wish.” They headed for the car rental counter, Cowboy choosing the heaviest SUV with four-wheel drive they had available. They made their way out to the vehicle, then got onto the road.
It was even worse than he’d feared, wind and heavy rain battering the SUV as if racing them to the shore, the rain gradually changing to a frozen mix that iced over roads before turning to this hailstorm of biblical proportions.
It was dinnertime, but the sky was so dark it looked like the dead of night.
Charlotte wasn’t talking to him, and every beat of silence seemed to stretch out eternally.
He missed their easy rapport. He missed her.
If only she’d realize what he’d been trying to tell her for months—that they should become husband and wife—she’d be as happy as him, he was sure of it.
She just needed to open her heart little wider, not close it off.
Up ahead, the car in front of him slowed abruptly at the threshold of a low bridge before creeping across the expanse.
Cowboy could just barely make out the reason for the other vehicle’s hesitation—the glistening whitecaps of the bay were a mere two feet shy of the roadway.
“Jesus Christ, look how high the water is. If it gets much higher, this bridge could wash out.”
“It’s happened before. She was stranded for two weeks after Hurricane Mercer went through here.”
“Maybe she learned her lesson and evacuated this time.”
Charlotte laughed without humor. “No way. She thought it was a grand adventure. There are six of these bridges connecting one island to the next. Her island is the last one in line.”
“Her island?”
She shrugged. “Not literally. It’s only a couple of square miles. There are a few seasonal houses and an old lighthouse. The rest is state land. Wooded, mostly.” Her voice took on a wistful quality. “It was the most amazing place to play when I was a kid, especially the lighthouse.”
“They just let you play in there?”
“My grandma owns it. It was falling down, and the state auctioned it off. She fixed it up inside, made a little apartment and an office for my grandfather before he passed away.”
She’d never told Cowboy about this place, and it reminded him of how much he still had to learn about her. Charlotte was a woman of intricate details and depth. It was one thing he loved about her, but being excluded now felt like an additional arm’s length between them.
“My cousins and I slept out there once when we were in high school. People said it was haunted, but I didn’t believe it until that night.”
“What happened?”
“It rained most of the day, but I remember it smelled like a storm was coming. It’s maybe two hundred yards from the house along this narrow flagstone path, and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face without a flashlight. Creepy, you know?”
Cowboy hated ghost stories, but he’d be damned if he would admit it. His hand gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.
“My cousin Tierza had stolen a pack of Marlboro Lights from my Aunt Belinda,” she continued. “We went to the top of the lighthouse to smoke them on the gallery, the little walkway that goes around the top. You ever been in a lighthouse before?”
“No.”
“This is one of the oldest in the country. Not old enough to get all the fanfare and tourists of the Portland Head Light, but old enough for the governor to come out for the ceremonial lighting on its 200th anniversary next month. It’s even a stop on the free cruise for veteran’s that goes by here on its way to Acadia. ”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her.
“Anyway, I think it’s cool. It has a big spiral staircase inside the structure.
The top floor is the lantern room, where the old mechanics for the light are.
It was originally gas, with gears that needed to be wound by the watch keeper, but the coast guard converted it to electric like fifty years ago.
I don’t think any of that stuff works anymore.
There’s a switch on the wall on the first floor, but all of us were too afraid to touch it, not wanting to get in trouble. ”
He could picture it, the round walls and spooky preamble reminding him of an Edgar Allen Poe poem he’d had to read for school. “Okay.”
“The light was off when we got up there.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t stay that way.”
“You’ve seen this one before.”
He shook his shoulders, a chill running through him. “Go on.”
“We were talking and laughing. My cousins were smoking. I tried it but it tasted terrible. The ocean was rough, the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks drowning out any other noise. That’s when the lantern started to glow like a candle.
All three of us just turned around and stared at it.
It wasn’t electric, Leo. It looked like a flame. ”
She blew out air slowly. “It scared the shit out of us. We ran down the stairs and that’s when we heard the screaming.
It was so faint we almost ran right by. I opened the door to the lower gallery and there was Jonah, my five-year-old little cousin, hanging half-off the gallery bars and wailing.
He’d followed us out there. We never would have heard him from the top of the lighthouse, not with the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. I don’t know how we heard him at all.”
“Was he okay?”
“Yes. Tierza and I grabbed him and got him back up. But he would have died if it hadn’t been for the ghost.” She shook her head. “We told the adults, and I think Grams was the only one who really believed us.”
Cowboy believed her. He wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts if he didn’t believe they were real.
Okay, maybe not afraid.
Uncomfortable.
He liked what he could control. Ghosts were definitely not in that realm. He changed the subject. “Tell me about her—your grandmother.”
“She’s the sweetest woman on the face of the earth. She makes cookies and martinis, though not necessarily at the same time. My grandpa died when I was eight and she took over the family business, so now she makes cookies, martinis, and guns.”
“Guns?”
“Yep.”
“How did I not know this?”
“You never asked.”
“But Logan didn’t even know how to shoot a gun when he came to HERO Force.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “It’s not like we got to play with them.”
“I should hope not.”
“She had a set of lawn darts, however. Remember those? You’d throw them up in the air and they’d land spike first into the ground?”
“Yep.”
She chuckled. “I used to scare the fuck out of Logan with those things.” She sighed. “But no guns.”
“Probably a wise choice.”
He crossed another bridge, the truck sliding toward the guardrail as it hit an icy patch. “Whoa.” He hit a stretch of packed snow and was able to correct his path. “Looks like the water’s splashing right up onto the roadway.”
“We’re definitely not getting out of here for a while.” She directed him to the house and the long dirt driveway covered in the pale white of slushy precipitation, the car coming to a stop alongside a wide front porch.
An extended visit was just fine with Cowboy.
The longer they were here, the more time he had to convince Charlotte to take a chance on him.
He just hoped the ghost in the lighthouse didn’t make an appearance, but he figured so long as no children were dangling precariously off the edge of the gallery, he should be okay.
A single light was visible from deep inside the house, and he imagined it came from the kitchen.
Charlotte put her coat on as Cowboy holstered his weapon, covering it with a sweatshirt, then slipped his knife into an ankle holster.
He didn’t expect the grandmother’s husband to be dangerous, but he’d rather be safe than sorry.
He thought this entire trip was unnecessary, if he was being honest. “Ready?” he asked.
A wind chime clanged wildly in the distance as she led the way to the door, the intense icy wind going right through his coat. Charlotte turned and spoke over her shoulder. “We’re just friends. That’s all she needs to know.”
His stomach clenched at the unexpected blow. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“Char—“
“Damn it Leo.”
He held up a hand, not wanting to fight. “Fine. We tell Grandma we’re friends.”
Being introduced to a member of her family with no acknowledgement of his intimate relationship with Charlotte was the hardest blow yet.
He realized just how much he had his work cut out for him.
Had he already lost her? Was her intention to break up with him really going to stick? He swallowed hard.
This was going to be the most difficult mission of his life, and that had nothing to do with her grandmother’s new husband.