An hour passed. Megan had long since lost sight of Jake and had long since stopped hearing any sounds that might have been caused by his passage.
The sun had moved on in its march to the west and now beat unmercifully through the windshield of the truck; the breeze, what small breeze there had been, had died in the heat. And the gun still lay, untouched, on the seat beside her.
She should have gone with him. If she hadn't been such a coward, she would have gone with him. Now all she could do was wait here. She couldn't go back to the house, even though Jake had as much as told her to wait there. She couldn't abandon her post, couldn't leave him out here all alone. Couldn't go back to his house and risk running into Lydia and Granny Rogers again.
Lydia. And Sam.
Megan leaned her head back until it rested uncomfortably against the empty gun rack at the rear window.
Sam had been a real person. Had Lydia? How could she find out? Lydia was a white woman; she would not show up on the rolls of the Choctaw Nation. Besides, the Dawes Commission rolls hadn't been compiled until the turn of the century, thirty years or so after the first entry in Lydia Tanner's diary.
"Not Lydia Tanner's diary," Megan said, gripping the steering wheel. "My journal. My imagination." She released her grip on the wheel, only to beat against it with one small frustrated fist. "My fears and neuroses finding a unique way of expressing themselves."
She sighed and sagged forward on the seat. Somehow, some way, she'd heard the legend of Sam Hooker. Sarah spoke as though everyone in this area should know it. That had to be it. She'd heard about Sam Hooker and his red horse and his damnable sawmill somewhere. After all, fiction and legend ran rampant all over the eastern part of the state. Tulsa wasn't that far away. The Creek Nation of northeastern Oklahoma was not that different from the Choctaw with their rumors and myths.
And Lydia? Asked a small annoying voice in the back of her mind. Did you hear about her too?
Of course not, Megan told herself. Lydia was just—was just—
She sighed and looked up, searching the hillside below her for some sign of Jake. She needed to see him, needed to know he was near.
Lydia was just her, Megan, cloaked in an identity far enough removed from Jack McIntyre's daughter and Roger Hudson's wife for Megan to be able to look at her dispassionately and without prejudice.
"Ha!" Megan pounded the steering wheel again. Without prejudice, maybe. But there had been nothing dispassionate about any of her experiences with Lydia Tanner.
Suddenly determined, Megan opened the glove compartment and rifled through it until she found a pen and a small notebook. If she was going to wait, and she had already decided she was, she might as well put her time to good use. She opened the notebook to a clean page, leaned back in the seat, and studied it for a moment, fighting an almost overpowering urge to throw the notebook far away.
"Okay, Lydia," she whispered, "let's see what you have to say for yourself."
Nothing. After more than an hour of making his way over to the ridge, after almost as long searching the terrain, Jake had nothing to show for his efforts except confirmation that someone had been here and the knowledge that he had needlessly frightened Megan.
And himself.
God, what had all that come from? She hid her fear well, but he knew she felt it, had to feel it after what she'd witnessed at the clinic and experienced here. He'd only meant to reassure her—no, he had been compelled to reassure her that he'd be safe. Had been compelled to give her that damned gun. And he'd never been more reluctant to do anything else in his life than place that weapon in her hands.
"A whole damn flock of geese," he muttered.
That was another thing: he was talking to himself more and more, out loud and in strange, restrained monologues in his mind.
He'd found broken bramble marking the place where the vehicle had turned around, had found signs that, as the last time, two men had gotten out, walked in opposite directions, circled, returned to the vehicle, and driven away in the same direction from which they'd come—the south and east, as before.
He'd set Deacon to searching the paths the two men had taken and then had ridden the trail they made in leaving, to a dilapidated fence that marked what he thought must be Megan's southerly property line. They hadn't bothered to cut the fence—it wasn't that substantial anyway—but just drove over it, knowing, as Jake did, that in a week or a month or a year, whenever anyone got around to checking, it would simply look as though it had fallen over from disrepair.
He'd had Deacon on patrol during that ride. Now, as he retraced his route, he again had Deacon searching. Maybe the intruders were looking for army gold. And maybe he was paranoid, because Deacon's highly trained and sensitive nose had found nothing, absolutely nothing to indicate that any kind of narcotic had been anywhere near the men, their vehicle, or within tossing range.
He looked toward the north, toward the general direction of where he had left Megan. He couldn't see the truck, of course, but he felt her there, waiting.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Megan looked at the notebook in disgust. A few disjointed sentences sprawled across the page, but they were her sentences and in her handwriting.
Did this mean she only accessed that part of her who came out as Lydia while in her own home? Or did it mean that Lydia—God, just listen to me! She thought—did it mean that she, Megan, only felt free enough to explore Lydia in a book to which she was—safely?—confined, not on any old piece of paper and certainly not in a book that belonged to Jake?
She ripped her page from the notebook and leaned across the seat to stash the book and pen back in the glove compartment. The gun was there, ominously in the way.
"Hateful thing," she whispered.
Cautiously she lifted it and tucked it away, out of sight under the seat. Then she replaced the notebook and pen. She stretched her legs across the hump in the floorboard and leaned back in the seat, relishing the caress of a tiny errant breeze. She was tired, so tired. She slept, but she never seemed to get enough rest.
She shouldn't sleep now, she knew. Jake was out there, protecting her property. The least she owed him was to stay awake until he returned. But maybe she could just close her eyes for a moment, not to sleep, but just to rest for a tiny little while . . .
She hurt. Oh, God, she hurt so bad. The pain was constant. From her ankle, to her ribs, to the bruise on her jaw where one of them had hit her.
She wasn't dead. She had sworn she wouldn't see another day without killing one of them or dying. She was beaten and torn and bruised. But she wasn't dead.
Her hair was wet. She felt it against her shoulder. Had it rained?
No, the cloth that covered her wasn't wet.
A cloth covering her? Yes, she felt it now, and clean dry cloth beneath her. And some sort of mattress, lumpy but infinitely better than the rocky hillside.
What now? Panic overwhelmed her. What new torture had they devised?
She heard footsteps approaching on what must be a dirt floor and felt the dip of the mattress as someone—someone big but not truly visible in the dim light—sat beside her. A hand reached beneath her shoulders, lifting her.
No more! She could take no more. She came up screaming and clawing and fighting with every drop of strength in her abused body.
It wasn't enough. He caught her hands in one of his, holding them away from himself, and, with the other, pushed her down on the bed.
She couldn't stop the ragged moan that broke from her. "Kill me. Please. Just do it now and get it over."
"Never."
She recognized the voice, and when she did, she also realized that the hands that held her restrained her from inflicting hurt but were not, in turn, hurting her.
"Sam?"
He released her hands and picked up a wet cloth from a basin on a packing crate next to the bed. "That's right," he said softly, gently, "and you know I'd never hurt you."
Yes. She knew that. But when he brought the cloth to her face, when he touched her, she cringed and shrank away, not from him but from his touch—from the touch of any man—and she felt her fear in the chill that drove away her pain, saw her fear in her trembling hands pushed quickly between them, heard her fear in her raspy breath, smelled her fear in the dank, quiet dark of the little cabin.
Sam drew away from her in a steady, unhurried motion. He dropped the cloth back into the basin and sat slumped on the side of the bed, defeat and a deep pain of his own etched in every tired line of his body.
After a moment he lifted his face to hers, and she saw an agony there that acknowledged her pain and embraced it as his own.
"I'll never hurt you," he said. "No one will ever hurt you again." He lifted his hand toward her and, God help her, she cringed away from him again—cringed away from Sam. He dropped his hand to his side.
Slowly, as though not sure he should proceed, as though not sure he could proceed, he lifted his revolver from its holster at his hip. "Take this, " he said, placing it at her side on the bed.
She shook her head, not understanding.
"You don't have to be afraid of anyone ever again," he told her. "Not even me."
A sharp crack jarred her from the dream. Megan sat up abruptly, bumping her knee on the bottom of the steering wheel before she realized she lay in a fetal curl she had assumed on the seat as she slept. "Oh, God," she moaned, as waves of unreasoning panic slammed through her. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!
And then she remembered the noise. For a moment the hillside was alive with the sounds of screams and shots. Only memories. No more real, now, than her dream.
But the noise: a gunshot? Had that been what woke her from the nightmare? Another sharp crack splintered nearby, and she allowed herself to notice what she hadn't before. The breeze had grown to a full-fledged wind, and the sky had darkened with a summer storm.
"Great," she said shakily, pulling herself upright in the seat and looking into the early darkness. "This is just dandy: special effects and everything. But do you think you could hold off with the rain just a little while maybe?" she asked the wind. "Just until Jake gets back? Would that be too much to ask?"
Maybe not. Megan leaned over and rubbed her knee. The thunder continued to roll in from the west, and lightning speared across an almost black sky in the distance. But no rain fell, not yet, though she could smell it in the wind that rushed through the cab of the truck, almost but not quite taking away the scent of her terror.
The sounds of the thunder and the wind lashing the trees masked Jake's arrival. One moment she was alone with the storm; the next, he appeared on Red out of the darkness. She jumped from the truck, knowing better than to run toward him and risk spooking his horse. But oh, how she wanted to!
She waited beside the truck until he rode up to her. He looked at her intently but didn't dismount. "Why are you still here? Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded. A little lie. She could explain later. "Are you?"
"Yes. But we need to get back to the house before this breaks."
Of course they did. Lightning would soon be skittering all over this ridge. She should have realized that sooner. She would have, if—if what?
Still, she reached tentatively toward Jake, needing to touch him before they were once again separated. Her fingers rested lightly on his knee and she felt his small start of surprise before she withdrew them and once again climbed in the truck. "Don't wait for me," she said. "Hurry on back to the barn. I'll be right behind you."
He didn't, of course. He waited until she had backed the truck from its hiding place, turned it around, and started down the hill before falling in behind her.
Miraculously, they made it. Megan ran into the house and began closing windows against the rising wind while Jake unsaddled Red. She knew the side fronting the porch would be safe from rain, so she ran into Jake's bedroom and closed those, checked the second room, a dimly lighted and closed-up bedroom, and ran back into the living room on her way to the kitchen.
She skidded to a halt. The damned quilt frame was back. The fire in the fireplace was back. Lydia and Granny Rogers were back.
Lydia clipped the thread from the stitch in front of her, jabbed her needle into a pincushion, and lifted her chin defiantly. "Sam is my dream."
The older woman shook her head and dropped her hand on the girl's shoulder. "But you're not his. You never can be. Sam has no dreams left, child."
Jake came into the room with the clang of the screen door and the rough sound of boots on the hardwood floor. Deacon nosed his head under her hand before skirting around the edge of the living room to lie on the cool stone hearth. And the women were gone.
"Whew," Jake said, slapping his hat against his thigh before hanging it on an carved-oak hat rack. "That wind's got a bite to it for a summer rain. How about some coffee?"
"What?"
"And a little light," Jake added, flipping a wall switch that turned on a couple of table lamps.
It was raining, an all-out cats-and-dogs downpour. The room had grown so dark she could barely see until Jake turned on the lights, and the only thing her mind had registered until just this moment was that the women were gone.
"Ah—yes," she said. "Coffee would be fine."
"Megan?" Jake crossed the distance separating them and stood in front of her. She tilted her head back to look up at the questions in his eyes. "Are you all right?"
She wasn't, and she wasn't sure she ever would be, not after today, but a sense of the ridiculous, too long denied, refused to be silent any longer. "Do you have any idea how much time we spend asking each other that question?"
A slow grin warmed Jake's face. "A lot. Are you?"
Her humor faded. "I don't know, Jake. I just don't know anymore. And you? You were gone so long. Did anything happen?"
He lifted his hand to her face, gently rubbing his thumb across her cheek. Damn! Was she crying again? No. Her cheek was smooth and dry beneath his touch. Smooth and dry and needy. She felt her lips part, felt the subtle changes as her body began preparing to welcome more than just his touch on her cheek, felt the heat of embarrassment flare across her face as she realized that Jake had to see, more clearly than she could bear for him to, how vulnerable she had become to him and to his touch.
Slowly a gentle regret filled his eyes. He slid his hand down to rest on her shoulder and turned her, half leading, half pushing, as he walked with her into the kitchen, flipping on the switch for the overhead light and filling the room with brightness.
"I found where someone had been," he told her, giving her an easy push down onto a chair before turning his hands but not his attention to the old-fashioned percolator.
"I know where they came in and approximately when, how many of them there were, and where they went. But not what they did or why."
"Did they do any digging?"
"As in, for treasure?" He didn't wait for her response as he filled the pot with water and the basket with ground coffee. "There was no sign of digging or of rocks being turned over. No sign of shell casings such as a hunter might leave. No sign of a campfire. Nothing, in fact, other than a strange kind of shuffling, foot-stomping search. That's the only thing that would account for the underbrush being trampled the way it was. But that doesn't make any sense either."
He set the pot on the stove and lighted the burner with a wooden match, took a tin from the cabinet, settled himself at the kitchen table across from Megan, and pried off the lid.
"Mattie?" Megan asked when he offered her the tin, revealing several huge chocolate-chip cookies.
"You bet." He grinned and took a bite.
But she wasn't in the mood to be diverted, not from this. "What's going on, Jake? What do these people want?"
"Damned if I know," he told her. "If it were a mile or two over, I'd almost think—"
A formidable flash of lightning lit up the outside sky while dimming the lights in the kitchen, and the accompanying blast of thunder covered Jake's words.
"Think what?"
He frowned, shook his head, and reached behind him to adjust the flame under the coffeepot. "Nothing," he said. "It's so off-the- wall that even your stolen treasure theory makes more sense. . . .
"Did you leave any windows open in your house?" he asked abruptly.
"Jake," she said, with a reluctant chuckle, "don't you remember, 'What good does a lock do when it isn't used?' "
"Oh."
The wonderful aroma of perking coffee filled the room with warmth and comfort, dispelling the gloom of the rain sheeting down the darkened windows.
She could sit here with him forever, not thinking about the prowlers on the property, not thinking about Sam and Lydia or the tragic unknown woman who haunted her dreams, not thinking about Rolley P and his threat, not thinking about her father's betrayal, not thinking about the clinic and Roger and Helen and—
She caught back a moan and twisted to one side, disguising it as a cough.
The coffee boiled over. Jake jumped up from the table to tend to it, and Megan slumped in relief. Saved again. Saved from what? From exploring too closely something that had the power to destroy her? No. She was exploring all those things. Hadn't she spent hours with Dr. Kent and that blasted notebook he'd insisted upon? Yeah, right, she remembered. A notebook that except for the two damning entries she'd removed sounded about as personal and soul searching as a résumé.
"Here," Jake said, handing her a mug of steaming coffee. "There's no need to look so discouraged. We'll find out what they want."
She smiled at him, grateful for the coffee but more grateful that he had misunderstood her turmoil. "What time are Barbara and Patrick supposed to be here?"
"Oh, damn!" Jake stopped halfway down into his chair, jerked upright, and marched into a small room off the kitchen. She heard a door open, heard him fumbling with packages, heard the door slam. Jake emerged from the room with two packages wrapped in white butcher paper. "Maybe they'll thaw before midnight," he said as he set them on the counter. "I really had meant to feed them something more original than steak, but I guess this will have to do."
He opened the refrigerator, peered inside, and slammed it shut with a disgusted sigh. "And I left most of the salad makings at your place last night."
She bit back a grin. She suspected Jake would eat steak every night if the decision were left to him. "And it's pouring axes and hammer handles outside and your road is getting more impassable by the moment."
"Yeah," he said in disgust.
"So why don't we wait for the rain to slack off a little, take those steaks and that big truck of yours, slide down the hill, and cook at my house again?"
"You're sure you don't mind?"
"No, I don't mind," she told him, rising from the table and carrying his coffee to him where he stood at the sink. "I like Barbara and Patrick, and I've discovered that in spite of what I once thought, I enjoy entertaining. At least, I'm beginning to."
Megan had heard somewhere that a storm cell never stayed in one place longer than forty-five minutes, and she'd always accepted it as truth. However, either this cell was especially slow or a faster one moved in behind it without any clearing between, because it was well over an hour later before the rain let up enough for them to make a dash for the truck.
Laughing, Megan slid onto the seat, slammed the door behind her, and pushed the hood of her borrowed yellow slicker from her hair.
She looked up in surprise as Deacon jumped into the seat from the driver's side, laughed again, and scooted over to make room for him as Jake climbed in and scowled at his dog at the same time as he ruffled Deacon's fur.
Except for a light sprinkling, the rain had stopped by the time they reached the curve near the creek. Megan rolled down her window, drew in a deep lungful of fresh rain-washed air, and listened to the rush of water so near the road.
"It's really wonderful out here, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," Jake said. "In spite of what's been happening, it really is."
They met Barbara's car at the turnoff to Megan's drive, and Jake stopped, switched on his turn signal to confirm that Barbara should enter the drive, and waited until she did before following her in.
Patrick's truck was already there, parked in the turnaround, but Patrick himself was nowhere to be seen until he came hurrying around the south edge of the house.
"There you are," Patrick said, walking up to the side of Jake's truck. "When I saw your Jeep here and couldn't find sign one of either of you, I began to get worried."
"Hey, love of my life," Barbara called, "do you want to give me a hand with this?"
"Sure," Jake called back. "Just let me get rid of this blond intruder first."
Patrick lifted his fists in a mock boxer's stance before grinning at Jake and turning to help Barbara lift boxes and bags from the seat of her car.
"What's this?" Jake asked.
"Dinner," Barbara told him, shoving two flat boxes at him. "I doubted the rain would let up soon enough for you to get your grill going in time to feed us at a reasonable hour, so we're having something truly different tonight."
"Pizzas?" Jake asked.
Laughing, Megan led the way up onto the porch. She unlocked the door and stepped back, allowing her guests to enter first. She held the door for Deacon, but he flopped down on the porch with a tired wag of his tail. Smiling, she went on into the house, flipping light switches, leading her new friends toward the kitchen, and enjoying every moment of their friendly bickering.
Jake and Patrick set their packages on the table. "Salad?" Jake asked.
Barbara indicated a bag. "Right here."
"Drinks?"
Again Barbara pointed. "Jug wine and cold beer."
The house was remarkably cool for having been closed up all day—pleasantly so. Megan opened the windows over the sink for a little more fresh air and turned to survey the room which in the past few days had finally become part of a home instead of just four walls. It didn't have the ambiance of Barbara's kitchen yet, but it was fast getting there.
"Why don't I set the table in here?" she asked.
Jake flashed her a grin. "Good idea." He threw an arm over Patrick's shoulder and led him toward the back door. "Patrick, my friend, while the women tend to domestic things, I've got a little job I need to discuss with you."
Patrick groaned. "I should have known it. You never get me out here unless you have work for me. Now what is it?"
"Just a porch," Jake told him. 'Just a little ten-by-thirty screened-in porch. No trouble at all for two accomplished carpenters such as ourselves."
Barbara joined Megan's laughter as she helped her set out plates and flatware and glasses.
"I can't let them do it," Megan said.
"Why not?"
"Because it's too big a job for—for friendship."
Barbara laid a restraining hand on Megan's arm as she started to turn toward the refrigerator. "They love that kind of work. Jake and Patrick did most of the renovations on our house, and all of them on Jake's place. Friendship isn't always doing for someone else, Megan. Sometimes it's letting someone else do for you."
"Are you saying I'd be doing them a favor by letting them rebuild my back porch?"
Barbara nodded. "And me. Jake will get to play with his saws and power tools again, turning out custom moldings and trim for the project, and Patrick will be so contented working on something, anything, that he'll put off his plans to redo part of a house that I've finally gotten just the way I want."
They had finished the last piece of two large pizzas when the rain started again, in earnest, with thunder booming close enough to rattle the glass in the glass-fronted cabinets. The lights dimmed once but remained on.
"Uh-oh," Barbara said. "I bet you didn't think to buy an oil lamp when you moved out here."
"You're right, I didn't." She felt a soft brush at her ankle and looked down to see Shadrack, the larger of the two black kittens, winding around her feet. She reached down and picked him up. "There you are, you sly cat," she said. "Where's your buddy?"
"I thought we left them outside today," Jake said. "In fact, I was a little worried about them."
"We did." Megan rubbed her face against the cat's smooth fur, found it dry without a trace of damp, and listened to his rumbling purr. "But these two are the great sneak artists of the world. Obviously this one, at least, got in past us, either when we were coming in the front door or while you and Patrick had the back door open."
Jake frowned. "Megan, I didn't see them either time."
"You didn't see a black cat on a rainy night? Why am I not surprised?"
Patrick chuckled. "Relax, Jake. Time out. You're off duty, remember?" A loud crack of thunder sounded as lightning struck somewhere near. "Wanna tell ghost stories?"
Barbara groaned. "Next comes a bag of marshmallows, a stick, and a fire to roast them over."
The warmth of friendship. Megan had never known it until these people came into her life. She smiled over at Jake. She had him to thank for it.
"No ghost stories," Megan said, reaching for the plates and stacking them neatly in front of her. "But how about some real ones. For example, do any of you know the history of those foundation stones on the south side of the house?"
Barbara snagged a last piece of crust from Patrick's plate and munched on it reflectively. "Only that they've been there forever. Mom said—wow, it's been a long time since I thought about them, but they fascinated us when we were kids—Mom said they were the ruins of her grandfather's house. Grandfather Tanner lived there when he was a kid."
"Tanner?" Megan asked. "As in Daniel Tanner?"
Barbara shook her head. "Peter, I think. His dad was some big- shot white entrepreneur who'd come into the Nation to make his fortune, and made several, but nothing was ever good enough for him except the money. You know the kind of man I'm talking about, don't you?"
Too well. Megan was very much afraid she knew more than just the type of man. She nodded.
"Well," Barbara continued, "there used to be a pile of stones out there too, until—when? I guess we were almost grown before we found a nest of copperheads in it and Aunt Sally had it hauled off. Mom said it was the remains of a carbide house."
"A what?"
Barbara grinned. 'They didn't teach that in Oklahoma history when I was going to school either, but a lot of the wealthy plantation owners down on the Red River had them. They used them to pump carbide into the house to power their version of gas lights. And Peter's daddy, according to the rumors, not being one to be one-upped, especially not by any Choctaw, had one built for his new house, and I guess it worked fine until it blew up." Barbara's expression sobered. "Killed his daddy, and that's a heck of a punishment for pride. But Great-grandpa Peter got out okay."
Peter Tanner, with a white father, living close enough to the creek to go there regularly, living close enough to what was now Jake's house for Lydia to visit regularly.
"How—how old was your great-grandfather?"
Barbara shrugged. "Fourteen, fifteen. I'm not sure, but not grown because Mom says he went to live with a widow he'd known for years."
"Then he had no—no other family?"
"Gee, Megan, I'm not sure. You know how family history has a tendency to slip away. Mom might know. Why?"
Megan glanced at the friends seated so companionably at her table. She was about to take the biggest risk of her life, and she wasn't at all sure she should.
But damn it, there were so many connections, so many coincidences, she had to tell someone. These people—yes, she knew without a doubt, these people could be trusted. She looked at Jake. "I told you a little of my strange experiences this morning." She glanced at the others at the table. "Jake calls them my 'vacations,' " she said, and knew by their quick darting looks at each other that Patrick and Barbara had been aware of them too. "Oh," she said. "You knew."
"Not what was happening," Barbara said kindly, "just that something was."
Megan attempted a smile that failed miserably. Again she looked at Jake, wanting to plead with him not to lose all regard for her, wanting to shut up and not say another word, wanting at the moment for none of the otherworldly things to have happened. "I told you about only part of them," she repeated. "There's more. And there's something I think I need to show all of you. If you'll wait here, I'll get it."
She felt herself trembling as she rose from the table and felt the chill of fear as she walked through her house—fear of rejection, fear of losing the first true friends she had ever had, fear of losing her sanity, fear of losing . . . Jake.
The chill intensified as she reached the hallway, but Megan remained lost in her thoughts. Peter Tanner was real too. Sam Hooker, Peter Tanner, the wealthy white father. Who else?
She'd reached the spare bedroom when it finally dawned on her that her chill wasn't completely internal. A draft whistled down the hallway. A draft? In a closed-up house? She hesitated. The breeze seemed to be coming from her room. Slowly she turned and made her way to the end of the hall.
Her room was dark, as it should be. She'd left no lights on. But she had closed the windows. She remembered that clearly. Jake's admonitions about safety and security had been far too fresh when they left the house for her not to have heeded them. So why, then, did she feel the rush of rain-damp air coming into her room?
Slowly she reached into the room and passed her hand over the light switch. The overhead fixture flared to life, freezing Megan in mid step, holding her motionless in the doorway, unable to do more than moan as she looked at the desecration of the place that had been her private haven.