Chapter Two
The warm sun shone on Jillian’s face, waking her from a deep sleep sometime before noon the next day.
She slowly opened her eyes to see Molly’s nose only inches from hers and the horrible smell of cat poop filling the whole cabin.
She grabbed her nose and rolled out of bed in one swift movement.
“You might not like this place, but you don’t have to punish me by not covering it up. ”
She scooped up the horrible stuff and dropped it into a plastic bag.
Then she used an aerosol spray that smelled like roses.
She took the bag out to the back porch and dropped it into a poly cart.
The instructions on the lease said that the trash collector came on Mondays and that the trash can had to be sitting on the edge of the paved road.
That could very well be a chore since Jillian wasn’t sure how she was going to fit a full poly cart in her SUV.
“It’s a Scarlett O’Hara situation.” She chuckled as she went back inside the cabin, remembering a line from Gone with the Wind about tomorrow being another day.
She stripped out of her clothing, took a long hot shower, and dressed in a pair of sweatpants and oversized T-shirt covered with paint stains.
Then she opened a can of cat food for Molly, heated up a cup of water for instant coffee, and took a package of breakfast pastries from the box.
There wasn’t a toaster anywhere to be found, so she carried it and her coffee to the front porch.
She sat down in a rocker, ripped open the pack holding what amounted to two layers of pie crust with some kind of brown sugar and cinnamon-flavored goo between them.
She dipped the first one into the hot coffee and took a bite.
Biscuits and gravy from the corner mom-and-pop diner around the corner from her apartment in Beaumont would be better, but she had no complaints.
Her agent had said her work had power. She would think about that every time she wanted to fuss about a hot breakfast full of salt and carbs.
“But I do miss real coffee,” she muttered.
As if on cue, her neighbor walked up to the edge of the porch and handed her a disposable cup with a lid on it.
She didn’t want to take it from the sorry bastard, but her taste buds won out over anger.
Besides, he was either a very good actor or he was sincerely contrite.
A vision popped into her head of how exciting it would be to run her fingers through his long hair and taste his full lips.
She shook her head to erase the picture and motioned toward the other rocking chair. “Have a seat.”
“Can we start over?” he asked.
She took a sip and nodded. Anyone that would bring her coffee deserved a second chance. However, she made a mental note to put a cheap coffeepot on her to-buy list when she went into town.
“I’m Wyatt Creswell. I’m sorry that I was angry, but in my defense, I thought I would be the only one out here.”
“Hi, I’m Jillian Williams.” So this was the famous, award-winning author of several mystery books.
“Thank you for finally turning down your music last night.” She used up a major portion of her willpower—she had very little left after the crying jag and the walk down memory lane—to get that much out. But the coffee was that good.
“Do you read?” Wyatt asked.
“Not that scary stuff you write,” she told him.
“So you’ve heard of my books?” He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the porch railing.
“Of course I have. You’re the bestselling author of several books,” she answered.
She remembered reading only one of his stories, and it involved the molestation of a young girl.
She cried for hours at the memory that book evoked.
Her foster father got arrested for molesting one of the little girls.
The cops hauled him and his skinny wife away in a police car and put the rest of the girls in a group home until they could find another place for them.
She hated it when the ugly memories surfaced like corpses floating on the top of a shallow river.
She didn’t care if Wyatt was Jesus Christ and promised to be as quiet as a slug crawling across the kitchen floor, common sense told her to pack her things back into her SUV and get the hell out of Dodge, or in this case, Wamba, Texas.
“Are you okay? All the color just left your face,” Wyatt asked.
“I’m fine. Just a bad memory,” she answered and changed the subject.
“I didn’t even know there was another cabin up here.
The pictures didn’t show two, and another one wasn’t mentioned in the description or amenities.
That is, if a wringer washer and a bathroom the size of a postage stamp can be given such a fancy name.
Would you like a breakfast pastry? Since you were kind enough to bring me coffee, I’ll gladly share what I have with you. ”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” He shook his head.
“I made my weekly run into town yesterday. Got the laundry done and bought food to last a few days. I had biscuits and gravy this morning. When I arrived two weeks ago, I made a list of everything I needed—coffeepot, toaster, a set of decent pots and pans, charcoal for the grill—and went back down the road from hell to Texarkana. I hate standing in line at Walmart, but they don’t deliver out here. ”
“I’m probably going to do that tomorrow.”
“What’s happening today?” Wyatt asked.
“I’m working on a charcoal piece,” she answered. “My agent thinks it’s going to do well enough that I may do some more like it.”
Wyatt straightened up. “So you’re a starving artist?”
“Not exactly starving, but I haven’t made it to the seven-figures-a-year mark, yet.” She pushed up out of the chair. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Sure thing. I’ll share every morning until you get your own pot.” He took a few steps away. “And welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thanks,” Jillian said, and went inside the cabin.
She wondered what had made the neighbor change his mind so quickly.
He had yelled at her when she asked him to turn down his music, and now he was bringing her coffee.
What had caused him to do such an abrupt turnaround?
Not that she was complaining or even whining about the new situation.
She’d much rather have an amicable relationship with someone who lived so close to her as to be in a constant argument.
Molly stopped snooping around the wood pile and came over to rub around Jillian’s legs.
She picked the cat up and sat down on the sofa, thinking again about her first boyfriend.
She was fourteen, and his name was Justin.
It would have never worked. He came from a wealthy family who would have never wanted the likes of a foster child in their lives.
She had thought she was in love, but looking back, she had simply wanted someone to love her.
She had never seen him again after they moved her—yet again—and she was sure that he forgot all about her in no time.
Molly meowed in agreement, jumped down from her lap, and in one graceful leap, she was on the bed. She hopped up on the windowsill and fussed at a couple of squirrels playing chase around a nearby tree.
“You are not a very good therapist,” Jillian told the cat as she lined up her charcoal sticks and started working again. With light coming in the window now, she was able to get a lot done by suppertime.
“Good grief!” Jillian gasped when she realized that the sun was dropping fast and presenting a beautiful orange-and-yellow sky through the branches of the trees. “I’ve been sitting here for hours and I’m starving.”
She put away the charcoal and headed to the kitchen area with Molly under her feet. She opened a can of cat food, dumped it into a bowl, and set it on the floor before she started making another box of macaroni and cheese.
While that cooked, she browned a couple of hot dogs in a cast iron skillet.
She added a little mustard and sweet relish and put them on a plate.
When the macaroni was done, she scooped more than half of it beside the hot dog and carried the plate to the sofa.
She sat at an angle so she could study the black-and-white picture coming to some semblance of life.
She studied the charcoal drawing depicting Wyatt and the little dog walking away from her. She looked at it from the front, and then from every angle, and each one seemed to bring it more and more to life.
“Not every sexy guy has a dog that looks like him, and that one surely doesn’t,” she told Molly, and wondered what the story was behind why he had a ragtag mutt like that.
Wyatt intended to ask Jillian how long she planned to stay, but the subject didn’t come up.
Besides, that haunted look in her eyes mesmerized him.
Last night he wanted her to leave, but now, he wished she would stay long enough to tell her life’s story.
He sat down at his computer, brought up his manuscript, and a new character came into being right there on the screen.
She had dark hair and big brown eyes, and she was Sheriff Adam Lightfoot’s new deputy.
Before that moment, Adam had always worked alone.
Did things his way. He didn’t want anyone, especially a woman, to get in his way, but Wyatt silently assured him that the woman would soon be instrumental in helping him solve the mystery.
“I hear you, Adam,” he whispered. “I know you aren’t happy and I’m sorry to spring Jolene on you like this, but you need some help.
A fresh set of eyes on the wily serial killer in your county won’t hurt.
” He talked to his characters because in his mind they were real.
Maybe even more so than honest-to-God people.
“But you are going to have to make the best of things. I promise by the end of the story, you will like her better. She’s a tough cookie to get to know, but we’ll get through this together. ”