Wait Until Dark, page 36
"She referred to it as a snack," he told her.
"Let me guess," Val said. "A little fried chicken. A little salad. A couple of biscuits she made this morning. A few cookies..."
"I see you've done the Catherine Hollister picnic tour of Golden Lake before." Sky nodded.
"Oh, but not for years." Val grinned. "I'm delighted to see that the menu hasn't changed."
"I hope you have your bathing suit on under those shorts," Sky said. "It's going to be hot this afternoon, and that cool mountain water is going to feel really good after a long hike."
"I'm prepared," she assured him. "And frankly, that long hike will feel really good to someone who's been inactive for the past few weeks. I'm looking forward to the walk and the swim."
They left by the front door, Val taking care to make certain that the screened door was shut tightly, though not locked. It was only ten in the morning, but the sun had already begun to bake the hills. Val began to regret her earlier decision, obviously not a good one, to leave her straw hat with its wide, sheltering brim back at the cabin. She'd stood before the mirror, tying it this way and that, trying to cover the red streak that twisted down the side of her face. She had given up with a sigh, and tossed the hat across the room. There was no point in trying to pretend that her face was intact. It wasn't. And there was no sense in pretending that it didn't matter, because it did. There was nothing she could do about it, so she tied her hair back in a ponytail and searched for her sunglasses, reminding herself that she'd spent months pining for the sights and sounds of the hills. As long as she was here, she'd indulge in them. If she could share them with Sky, so much the better.
Sky linked his fingers through hers and set off up the well-worn trail toward the lake.
"I remember one time when Liza and I were little, Trevor told us that if we startled a bear up here, it would turn around and eat us both," Val said, "so we always sang at the top of our lungs all the way from the top of your driveway until we got to the lake."
"Ever see a bear?"
"Nope." She shook her head. "We never did, so I guess all of that off-key singing must have worked."
They paused where the trail crested, giving them a view out over a shallow valley.
"My granddad told us that the Crow Indians used to camp down there," Sky told her. "We used to find arrowheads and all sorts of things after a big rain."
"Cale told me that Old Jed had a Crow wife," Val said softly, "Maybe he met her right down there in that valley."
"I remember Cale mentioning that, that he had an ancestor who'd married a Crow woman and who'd gone into the hills by himself after she and their baby son had been massacred by some white soldiers."
"I don't remember that part." She frowned. "About them dying. I wonder where Cale heard that."
"I think he looked it up in the library for a paper he did in high school. We had to write about our family's ties to the area, if we had one."
"I wonder if he made that up," she murmured. "It's too sad if it's true."
Sky shrugged. "You'll have to ask your brother. Though I do seem to recall he did have an A on that paper."
"What did you write about?" she asked.
"About the Dunhams searching for gold in the streams on the other side of the hill. About how they found the silver mines instead. And about how the silver paid for the spread that my great-grandparents had down on the other side of town."
"The farm that you and Trevor are working this summer."
He nodded.
"It's been in our family for over one hundred years. After my grandfather died, my grandmother started to worry about what would become of the farm, what would happen to their animals. So Trevor and I, and two of our cousins, agreed to share the work to keep things going for a while. At least until a decision could be made about what to do with it."
"It's wonderful that you have such a close family," Val said. "That the four of you would get together and rearrange your lives for your grandmother's sake."
"We couldn't have her being worried at her age." He shrugged as if there was no personal sacrifice involved for any of them, though Val suspected there must be. "And besides, we all love that farm. You know, we all spent so much time there, growing up. I'm starting to realize that I love farming as much as I love ranching. Maybe more. And besides, having the farm on which to grow grain is great for the ranch."
He held her forearm to steady her as they began their descent from the top of the rise to the lake shore.
"One of the reasons why ranching has become so expensive, is that it costs so much to bring in feed. Dairy herds, for example, are just about non-existent out here these days - it's cheaper to ship milk in than it is to feed the cattle. Years ago, when we were little, my dad tried his hand with a small herd, but it was labor-intensive and not profitable. He ended up keeping a few milk cows for our own use, but after experimenting with several types of livestock, decided that the wool-producing sheep were his best bet." He grinned as he helped her down the uneven staircase of rock. "Meat producing animals were out, since my mother couldn't face raising animals to be sent away to slaughter."
"Then I guess raising sheep for their wool was a good move."
"We've done well with it." He nodded. "My dad supplies exclusively to Pandora Mills. The arrangement simplifies things, takes a lot of pressure off him, because he knows he has a steady market. And last year, we decided we'd try our hand at breeding horses."
"I didn't notice that there were more horses at the ranch," she said as they sat on an outcrop of rock that overlooked the crystal clear below.
"They're mostly at the farm. We're breeding thoroughbreds and quarter horses." Sky grinned and added, "Not necessarily to each other."
"You're breeding to sell?"
"Yes. The quarter horses go mostly for rodeo stock, and the thoroughbreds, well, we're hoping to get a few that are fast enough to race on the tracks back east."
"Why back east?" she asked.
"Because that's where you'll find most of the best tracks and the biggest purses." Sky scanned the line of trees across the lake and pointed to the left. "Look there, there's an eagle at the top of that last pine."
Valerie raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and following Sky's sight line, located the large bird where it sat preening.
"I can't remember the last time I saw such a sight," she told him.
"Then you've clearly stayed away too long."
"Not much argument there." Val nodded.
He touched her arm and drew her attention to the eagle who had left its perch. They sat in silence, watching the majestic bird take flight to soar across the lake, over the heads of the two who sat watching below.
"Why did you?" Sky asked when the eagle had disappeared.
"Why did I what?"
"Stay away so long."
"I hadn't intended to." She frowned. "It just seemed that things began to move so fast. 'Val, they want you in Milan.' 'Val, you need to be in Rio next week.' 'Val, you'll be three weeks in Australia.' "
"Tough being so popular."
There was a feint undertone of sarcasm that Valerie did not miss.
"It's my living, Sky," she said gently. "It's how I support myself."
"And then some, I'd imagine," he. noted.
"Yes, and then some. Some for those rainy days. Some for when the time comes that I no longer have work." A worried look crossed her face. "Like now."
"Has someone told you that you won't work again?"
"No, but... well, let's be honest here." She tried to laugh but it sounded hollow, brittle. "There are few calls for a model with a zipper running down the side of her face."
"It's really not as bad as you think it is," Sky assured her, "and besides, didn't the doctors tell you that you need to give it time to heal?"
"Yes. It will heal. But it won't disappear." Val stared at her hands for what seemed to be a long time. Then, she sighed and looked up at Sky and said, "I'm lucky that I was able to make enough money over the past ten years that I could afford to invest some of it. I guess one of these days soon I'll need to call my business manager and see where all that stands. I didn't expect to need to be drawing from it now, but I'm glad I have it. And I have the cabin, so I'll always have a place to live. My expenses are very low here."
"You don't think you'll be going back to California?" he asked, trying hard not to sound as eager as he was to believe that, this time, she'd be staying for a while.
"I'll go back to pack up my apartment, but I don't want to live there anymore. Without work, there's nothing to keep me there."
He could have told her that her assumption that she'd not have work was probably premature, but he let it pass.
"What's going on with the investigation?" Sky asked. "Have you heard anything at all from the police department? Any suspects?"
"I called the detective who is handling the case, Detective Rafferty, but he wasn't in, so I left a message for him to call me on my portable phone. The last I heard, he was still looking at Bruce, my next-door neighbor, as his prime suspect, which is ludicrous."
"Why?"
"Because he just wouldn't do something like that. He just doesn't have it in him to be that violent. Besides, the guy who attacked me was tall and strong. Bruce is tall, but he isn't that strong."
"How do you know?"
"What do you mean, how do I know?" She frowned, annoyed with the question.
"Sometimes, under certain circumstances, people exhibit a strength that they might not normally have."
"You mean, like in attacking someone, your adrenaline might start flowing in the heat of the moment?"
"Something like that."
Val shook her head. "You just don't know Bruce."
"You haven't known him all that long yourself," Sky reminded her. "You've only been out there, what, six months?"
"It doesn't matter," Val insisted. "Bruce is not a physical person. I'm hoping that the police have come to the same conclusion and that they're looking for the person who really did attack me. And I'm hoping that someone will call me back soon - the detective, Bruce. Hell, even my agent - I've left messages for all of them and haven't heard from a soul yet."
"I'm sure you'll hear from someone sooner or later."
"I hope so." Val sighed. "I'd feel a lot better knowing that they've found the person and locked him up."
"You don't feel threatened here, do you?"
"Oh, no, not here." She smiled up at him, and another bit of his heart was hers. "This is the only place where I do feel completely safe."
"Good. We want you to feel safe here. You are safe here." Sky ran his hand through the long tangle of her dark hair. "And we want you to stay."
"Are you part of that 'we', Schuyler Hollister?"
"A big part of that 'we.' " Sky leaned down and, cupping her pretty face in one hand, kissed her pretty mouth, which was so soft and perfect that he kissed her again.
He was just getting into serious kissing when she jumped.
"What?" he asked. "Did I hurt your face?"
"No, no," she said.
"Then what?"
"I just for a minute ... just... well." She appeared somewhat flustered. "Just for a minute, I felt like someone was watching us."
Sky turned and looked up the hill behind them.
"Val, who do you think could be out here? There's no one around for miles, literally," he reminded her. "My brother left for the farm last night, and my sisters left early this morning to go shopping in Lewistown with my mother. There isn't anyone else up here."
"I guess I just got jumpy," she told him. "Talking about the man who attacked me, knowing that he's still out there ..."
"Still out there in California, Val. Not here."
"I know, I know." She nodded. "I just got spooked."
"Let's take a swim," Sky suggested, "and then we'll walk up to Elizabeth's cabin and have our picnic up there."
"That sounds like a plan." Val nodded.
She stood and stripped off the T-shirt that covered the top of her bathing suit, then stepped out of her shorts and toed off her sneakers.
"I can still beat you to the raft," She pointed out toward the middle of the lake where a wooden deck, tied to a post, floated.
"You could never out-swim me," Sky scoffed.
"Try and catch me." Val laughed as she slid carefully down the smooth side of the rock to the grass below, and strode, on long legs, to the water. She walked in till the lake was almost to her hips, then dove forward, and with strong strokes, headed for the raft.
It felt so good to have the water gliding off her skin, to feel the sun on her back, to stretch her arms and legs and test their strength. While in the autumn, Golden Lake was in fact golden from the larch trees that framed the southern end of the lake, in mid-summer, the lake was purest blue. She raced through it and felt her muscles begin to burn just slightly, and slowed her pace. Still, she reached the raft before Sky did, and pulled herself up onto its edge. And there she sat, watching him swim toward her in long even strokes.
When Sky reached the raft, he pulled on her feet to bring her back into the water. Encircling her waist with his hands, he drew her close, and kissed her, causing that old tingle to start back down her spine again. What could she do but kiss him back?
The sweetness of him flowed through her, and she moved herself back through the water, just slightly, to lean her back against the rough hardness of the raft. Twining her arms around his neck, she pressed against him, wanting to feel his skin against her own. Sky's hands slid down her back to rest on her hips, and she felt, more than heard, the soft intake of his breath as her body melted into his own.
This is just about where we left off last time, she reminded herself of the week before Cale and Quinn's wedding. Just about this close. Just about this intense.
The same sensations she'd felt then flooded through her now, as Sky's tongue traced the inside of her bottom lip and splinters of want sped through her, head to toes.
"Here we are again," he whispered.
"I was just thinking that same thing."
"So where do we go from here, Val?" he asked, his brown eyes warming now with the reflection of the sun off the lake.
"I guess we just see where it all leads," she said carefully.
"Not good enough." Sky shook his head. "We tried that once, and it led nowhere. I'm not willing to let you drift away again."
"What do you want me to say, Sky?"
"I guess I want you to acknowledge that what's between us is not something casual. That it's too important to leave to chance. That it's worth taking time with."
Val looked up into eyes that had gone dark and smoky.
"It's worth taking time with." She nodded. "It's well worth whatever time it will take."
And time, she reminded herself as his lips found hers again, was one thing she had plenty of right then.
9
HIS FIRST THOUGHT as he followed Route 191 South outside of Lewistown in his rented SUV was, when they called Montana Big Sky country, they meant BIG sky. It was almost intimidating, seeing how wide and how high overhead it stretched. Why, there was prairie ahead for miles, as far as the eye could see, and out here, with endlessly open countryside, that was pretty damned far.
Then there were those mountains in the background, surrounding all like a moat made by a giant's hands. Rocky outcrops - buttes, he figured, recalling all those cowboy movies he'd watched over the years - rose solidly here and there, seemingly out of nowhere. It was, in fact, a breathtaking land, with breathtaking views on every side. He'd just never imagined it to be so, well, so damned big.
He'd bought a map just that morning at the airport, and though he'd pretty much memorized the names of the roads and the appropriate turns he would have to make, he found himself pulling over to the side of the road to double-check. This wasn't an area where one would want to take a wrong turn. Lost out here would mean lost for real, and who knew for how long?
Leaning over the console, he grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler that sat where a passenger's feet might. Twisting off the cap, he downed a few long swallows while he consulted the map. All appeared well so far. He was right where he wanted to be, and making good time, too. He'd make it to Larkspur by mid-morning and he'd check into that little motel that the guidebook told him was right outside of town. Then maybe he'd have some time to scope out the lay of the land, get his bearings so that tomorrow he'd not be worrying about finding his destination.
He had big plans for tomorrow.
Dropping the bottle into the cup holder, and putting the car into drive, he eased back onto the two-lane road. Up ahead on the left, wire fencing enclosed a herd of buffalo, and he stopped in the middle of the roadway to gape at the lumbering beasts. Ugly things, he shook his head in disgust, with all that dirty fur and those humped backs, but they sure do make you feel like you're back in the Wild West. There was something very cool about driving through the prairie and coming across a herd of buffalo, watching them roam. Just like that old song said. Unconsciously he began to whistle that old song, wishing for just a moment that he was astride a horse instead of behind the wheel of a rented Jeep.
The moment of nostalgia passed, and he gunned the engine, drawing dull gazes from several of the animals closest to the fence.
The town of Larkspur was there before him without warning, and he braked quickly to avoid exceeding the posted twenty-five mile speed limit. Pretty town, he observed as he drove past the tidy business district. Not much activity, with its few shops and fewer restaurants, but a nice enough place.
A sign with an arrow pointing down a side street indicated that the regional high school was off to the left. On a whim, he turned and drove the four short blocks to the school, which sat back off the road at the apex of a long and wide circular drive. He followed it halfway up, then stopped under some aspens and, motor still running, sat for a few long moments, just staring at the building.
