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Chapter 11

Anne had spent too many years getting up before dawn for something as sane as a holiday to keep her lazing in bed. She didn't like it, but she was up and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, leaning against the kitchen sink, not quite awake enough yet to tackle any work on the house, and waiting for the coffee to finish dripping into the pot long before eight o'clock Thanksgiving morning.

David hadn't returned to his cabin until after midnight the night before. Even then, he hadn't been happy about leaving her alone in the house with the warrior and at the whim of whoever might decide to come looking for him. Which was pretty silly, Anne thought in the dim, cool light of early morning as she rubbed her neck and stretched and tried to wake up.

She'd been alone in the house with the body upstairs for the past six months. And vulnerable to whoever decided to come looking for him. She shuddered at that sudden thought. Maybe David hadn't been quite as arbitrary as she had believed last night.

She wondered where David was. She wondered why, for probably the ninetieth time, she hadn't told him she didn't give a hang what small-town gossips said and asked that he stay with her last night. She wondered why—and how—he had so quickly become a part of her life.

She heard the groan of an engine and pushed aside the faded kitchen curtain to look out the window over the sink, just as the gray-green Blazer David drove topped the hill of her driveway.

She dragged open the back door just as he stepped onto the porch. "Morning."

"Good morning to you, too," he said as he thrust a brown paper bag at her.

She took the bag and stepped back in mock alarm. "My God, you're actually awake. What happened?" She opened the bag enough to glance inside. "And doughnuts? Where on earth did you find someplace open this morning?"

He headed directly to the coffeepot, eased the carafe from under the stream of dripping coffee and one of the waiting cups into its place. While the cup slowly filled, he stood facing the window, not looking at her. "Are you in a better mood this morning, Doc?"

Uh oh. Doc not Annie. And she heard no teasing in his voice, only a weariness that might be explained by lack of sleep last night. He had thought she'd been incredibly stupid in refusing his protection last night.

But he had brought a peace offering.

"Yes," she said quietly, "I am." She extended the bag toward him. "And thank you for breakfast."

He did a quick juggling act with the two cups and the coffeepot and turned, handing her a filled cup. "Come on," he said. "There's something we both need to see."

Maybe if he'd pulled her along behind him, she'd have protested. He didn't; he simply led the way out of the kitchen and down the long wide hall.

What did they need to see? To visit the room upstairs again? Nope. David passed the stairwell. And before she could become even remotely suspicious, he passed the door to her bedroom, too.

The door to the front porch was a massive, carved relic from an older age, complete with an etched glass window showing a woman in a rose garden. Anne had fallen in love with the window the first time she saw it but in the go-for-nothing pace her life had once again assumed—couldn't seem to get away from—she seldom really saw the door any more, simply passed it on her way from one job in the house to another.

And if she seldom paused long enough to admire the door she loved, she certainly hadn't taken the time to open it and step out onto the long covered porch. Now David did, and led her outside into the brisk November morning.

A grouping of nondescript chairs and a settee made of what appeared to be small branches had been left on the porch. Anne noticed that a tarp had been thrown over the settee. David gestured toward it and with more than one unspoken question, Anne sat.

So did David. Close enough to her on the small settee that only inches separated them.

"I'll take one of those doughnuts now," he said, leaning against the tarp-covered back of the settee and drawing a deep breath.

Anne handed him the bag. "So what is it we need to see?"

David stopped with his hand half in the bag and looked at her incredulously. "Annie. Oh, Annie. You can't still be that asleep." He lifted his hand and pointed toward her front yard and beyond. "Open your eyes."

Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she had been asleep most of her life. She had marveled over the view once, twice, maybe even three times when she first moved into the house, had promised herself that she would never grow used to it, and then, like the door, it had become a mere prop in the background of busy work.

The town of Allegro, with its ancient brick buildings and tree-lined residential area, sat on the edge of a hillside, the hillside her house topped. The lake was farther to the south, in the valley, fed by a northern flowing river that, once freed by the dam, continued its meander north, marked in the distance by a tree line not visible at this early hour because of the fog rising from the water. Mountains rose on the south and the east, surrounding them like friendly, aged sentinels. The sun had already risen far enough to have lost the miraculous glowing colors she had once—but only once—seen from this porch, but its early morning slant lighted and highlighted the various shades of green and tan of forest and cleared field on the closest mountains.

Now Anne, too, took a deep, cleansing breath. "Thank you."

She heard the rustle of the paper bag, then felt it as David nudged it back toward her hand. "My pleasure," he told her.

Not willing to look away from the peace of the view, Anne groped in the bag and retrieved a doughnut. The two of them sat there in companionable silence, until Anne shivered, and David shifted his weight beside her.

"Cold?" he asked.

"A little."

"Here." She felt his arm settle around her shoulder and draw her against his side. She tensed slightly, until she realized he offered nothing but warmth, then relaxed against him, loathe to give up the peace they had found on the porch. Not yet. And at the same time realizing David was merely continuing—on a different level—the campaign she had recognized and rebelled against last night: protecting her.

Well, this protection she could take.

"So what do we do now?"

His words were an intrusion and a reminder that she didn't want. Once again she tensed. This time, she moved away from him. And he let her go.

She sighed, stood, and gave one last, reluctant glance at the valley before turning toward the door. "Now, I start cooking. And getting the house as ready as I can for Thanksgiving dinner."

 

The fool woman had invited people for dinner. And not just dinner—televised football and parades and all the attendant folderol of a holiday feast.

David lugged the last packing crate from the downstairs sitting room into place in the upstairs sitting room.

People who would want to see what she had done with the house.

People who would be marching through room after room, opening closet doors, and giving in to natural curiosity. Or maybe not so natural.

He straightened and stretched and looked around the now carefully cluttered room.

Well, this would help. Moving Anne's unpacked goods up here had freed a reasonably sized room downstairs for her television and had given her a reason for the lights in this room to be on at night. And the things he had stacked in the closet helped hide the back wall from any but the most determined of searchers.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all, he thought. Maybe a little enthusiastic gossip about how normal everything up here looked was just what the doctor needed.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned as Anne entered the room. She paused at the doorway and looked around, at the boxes so neatly stacked, at the portable sewing machine he had found and opened and set on a small side table he'd brought in from another upstairs room, at the small stove he'd lighted to heat the room and the bar of soap and clean towel he'd placed on the vanity. At what had become a cozy and efficient work room, a place to sort through boxes and yet keep the clutter from the rest of the house. A place to be comfortable and warm while doing so. A place to clean up afterward.

"Oh," she said. "Oh my. You have been busy."

Almost as though against her will, she crossed the room and opened the closet door. The boxes he'd stacked there were not heavy, could easily be moved, even by her, but seemed to fill most of the closet. She stepped inside, silent, looking at the boxes, then placed her hands on the small portion of the back wall not covered by crates and stood there for a moment, head bowed, quiet.

"He's—all right?"

David knew the emotion that fueled her question; he'd felt it, too, as he'd begun the job of further hiding the warrior. He knew it, but didn't like at all the fact that Annie felt it.

"Annie. He's dead."

She whirled to face him. "I know that!"

But did she? he wondered. Did he? Because even he had to admit what they were doing seemed much more personal than hiding an already hidden treasure.

 

The kitchen was redolent with the aromas of Anne's childhood and as sparkling clean as two people could make it. The supplies had all been either stashed in the room off the kitchen or hidden away elsewhere. The small sitting room had been dusted and swept and the dining room truly cleaned for the first time since she'd moved into the house. And her plain white china looked almost festive on her grandmother's Battenburg lace tablecloth.

She didn't know why David had fallen so willingly into helping her prepare for this meal, but she knew she couldn't have done it without him. She doubted that she would have done it without him, but knowing he would be alone for Thanksgiving unless she invited him to dine with her, knowing that she would be alone, had started her thinking about others who might be alone. Nellie, her receptionist, and her small daughter, and Margaret, her nurse.

But it seemed Margaret wouldn't have been alone. Not according to her response to Anne's invitation. She wanted to come, but she wasn't sure about other plans—and if she did come, could she bring someone?

Anne heard the first car groan up the drive just as she and David stashed the last tool and closed the double doors to the supply room. Anne wiped her hands on the dishtowel she had tied around her waist, then, after looking around distractedly, dropped the towel into the hamper by the washing machine.

"Nervous, Annie?" David asked. "Don't tell me you've never entertained."

Anne shook her head. "Not for a major holiday. Not anyone other than roommates or close family."

He dropped his hand onto her shoulder and gave her a gentle push toward the door. "You'll do fine."

She shot him a disbelieving look. "And what if I burn the pie, or the turkey's dry? What if I absolutely ruin this meal?"

"Then we'll eat cornbread dressing and Aunt Elena's cranberry relish and start practicing the stories we'll tell for the rest of our lives about your first Thanksgiving feast." He grinned at her. "Provided, of course, you ever open the door and let your guests in."

Nellie Flynn stood on the porch with her hand resting protectively on a four-year-old, scrubbed clean, wide-eyed, miniature version of herself.

The little girl smiled shyly and held out the pie carrier she held. "Mama said be real careful, 'cause this is special for Doc Anne. Are you Doc Anne?"

Anne knelt and took the carrier from the little girl. "Yes, I am. And who are you?"

"I'm Lilly, silly." The girl giggled. "I made a poem."

"Oh, my word." Nellie shook her head and sighed. "It's Lilly that's being silly. You know better than that, cupcake. Apologize to Dr. Locke."

"Grownups aren't silly?"

Anne chuckled. "Sometimes grownups are very silly. Just like we are right now for standing out here in the cold." She stood, lifting the carrier, and stepped to one side. "Why don't we all go in so I can see what's in here that smells so good. You know you didn't have to bring anything, Nellie, but I think I'm going to be real glad you did."

When Nellie didn't move except for her hand tightening on her daughter's shoulder, Anne looked up to see her staring into the house. At David. In all his bruised and battered glory.

She had no idea what caused Nellie's tension, but worked quickly to defuse it. "Nellie Flynn, meet David Huerra." She smiled at David and handed him the pie carrier. He lifted an eyebrow but dropped right into the domestic role she had just assigned him as though he suspected Nellie might not set foot in the house if he didn't.

"Nellie's my receptionist," she told him. She turned her smile on Lilly and took her hand. "David is the Dallas police officer who was hurt in the wreck with Hank Foresman. He's been helping me with the house. My goodness, you're a big girl, Lilly. Your mother tells me you're four?"

"Yes." Nellie held up four fingers. "This many. Are we going to have turkey and gravy?"

"You bet," Anne told her, at last ushering the small party into her kitchen.

"I like the leg."

Anne laughed and bent to help the little girl with her jacket. David set the pie carrier on the table. She noticed that although he stood close, he made no effort to help Nellie with her jacket until she had freed herself from it and was looking for a place to put it down.

"Why don't I hang those up?" he asked, holding out his hand but not aggressively reaching for them.

Nellie kept the large bag she had carried and slung it once again over her shoulder as she handed him her coat. She then turned quickly to her daughter, fumbled in the bag and brought out an obviously well-loved rag doll.

He'd just hung the two coats over pegs in the battered coat rack on the wall next to the back door when the sound of another engine, this one considerably more powerful than Nellie's Escort, announced the arrival of her other guests.

"It must be Margaret," Anne told him. "She was able to come after all."

Not only had Margaret managed to come for diner, she had brought the "someone" she'd mentioned. When Anne opened the back door, she found her nurse and a tall, lanky man with hard, suspicious eyes standing on her back porch. And in a replay of the earlier arrival, he, too, was staring over her shoulder. At David.

Margaret thrust a covered casserole dish at Anne. "Thanks for inviting us," she said. "Anne Locke, this is my husband, Wayne Samuels."

Anne didn't let her eyes widen, but she knew her shock must be evident. Husband? Margaret?

Instead, she took the dish and smiled at the man. "I'm happy you could come today, Wayne." Then, because he was still staring past her, she half turned. "Have you met David Huerra yet?" she asked, knowing that he probably hadn't. "David's—" For some reason she didn't examine, she didn't want to tell this man that David was a police officer. "David's a friend of mine who's been helping me with renovating the house."

"Huerra." The man's voice was abrupt, almost curt, and rusty as though little used.

"Samuels."

Anne looked from one to the other of them. Honestly! She thought. Men! They were facing each other, measuring each other, like a couple of territorial dogs. She stepped between them and considered handing David the casserole the way she had the pie carrier, but decided she probably wouldn't get away with it this time.

"Come on in," she said. "We finally got the television tuned in, and it's almost time for the parade. I know Lilly is really looking forward to seeing it."

With relief she saw Margaret's lip lift in a shadow of a smile, acknowledging Anne's diversion. "Lilly isn't the only one," she said as she entered the kitchen and held the door open, encouraging the man she called husband to follow her. "I love the Thanksgiving parade, too, but there's no way on earth we can tune it in at our place enough to tell even one band from another."

Anne set the casserole on the table and watched as the man entered cautiously. With great care and gentleness for such a dark, rough-looking man, he helped Margaret remove her coat and hung it on the rack before removing his own.

David closed the kitchen door but stood braced in front of it, Margaret spoke quietly but with what could almost have been forced cheer about how much better the kitchen looked than it had only days before, and Nellie looked as though she wanted to run away.

"Doc Anne? Doc Anne?"

Anne felt a tug on her skirt and looked down to find Lilly pulling on it.

"Are we going to watch the parade, Doc Anne? Really?"

Thank heavens for babies and their sublime self-absorption. "You bet, cupcake," she told Lilly. She glanced up at her assorted guests. Had this been such a good idea? She wasn't sure now, but she was in for the duration. Unless Nellie bolted or—good grief, who was Margaret to call David tall, dark, and dangerous when she had her own edition of that hidden away on her mountaintop?

"How about something to drink?" she asked. "I have coffee, hot cider, and tea. David, would you mind showing everyone the way to the small parlor while I fix a tray?"

"Let me help," Margaret said.

Anne looked toward Nellie and doubted that she would walk through a strange house with two strange men. "No," she said. "Thanks, Nellie will help me. But why don't you make sure that Lilly doesn't miss anything?"

Nellie shot her a look of pure gratitude and turned toward the cabinets as the others left the kitchen. Anne considered asking her why she was so uneasy. Was it because of David, or this house, or even something that had happened before she arrived, but decided that Nellie would only speak when she felt safe in doing so.

The little downstairs sitting room was really quite pleasant, Anne admitted later as she and Nellie carried the trays containing beverages and snacks into the room. At the end of the living room, it had double windows that faced the long front porch, French doors that faced the covered porch that wrapped around from the dining room, and a wall of fireplace and book shelves.

Unfortunately, until she had a chance to check out the chimney, the room had no heat. David had solved that by somehow coercing Gretta Tompkins into letting him borrow a kerosene heater, which he had set in front of the open fireplace.

A heater which he and Wayne Samuels were standing by, discussing, just before coming to words about when Anne entered the room.

"Let me ask her."

And before she had time to more than set the tray on a small table, David grasped her arm and led her from the room.

"That's quite a crowd you called together today, Annie," he said when they reached the front hall, well away from any chance of being overheard.

"Ask me what?" she said, deciding that might be a safer topic than her guest list.

"You know he's done time, don't you? Hard time, and I suspect not too long ago."

"No. I—He's—Well hell, David." Sometimes there was nothing to do but swear. "I thought Margaret was a widow. I didn't even know he existed until ten minutes ago."

David looked at her in silence for a moment before he chuckled and pulled her head against his shoulder.

"Well hell, Annie," he said, mimicking the exasperation in her voice. "A woman who can keep a secret better than I can, a hard-time con, a woman who's either been raped or seriously assaulted, and a four-year-old. Nobody's ever going to accuse you of a dull mix at your parties."

"Nellie—"

"Sshh. I shouldn't have said that."

"But—"

"Annie, if she wants you to know, she'll tell you."

"But—" How on earth had she worked with the woman and not picked up on anything even hinting at that kind of past until today?

"We have something more immediate to discuss," he told her. "Samuels doesn't like kerosene heaters. Says he doesn't think they're safe. He's volunteered to help me check out the chimneys."

His shoulder was nice. Too nice. And she shouldn't be leaning on it. Even if he had tucked her head against him, he obviously had meant nothing by it. Anne pulled away.

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

David shook his head. "That's not the point."

Confused, she looked at him. "What is?"

"We'll have to go on the roof," David told her. "And in the attic."

"Oh." Now she understood his reluctance.

"And he volunteered."

"Oh, dear. Do you think— No. Not if he's with Margaret. She— If she doesn't hate Joe, she at least considers him a lower life form than algae."

"I don't know what I think, Annie. I do know there's nothing in the attic for him to see. Maybe he needs to know that, too. And maybe I need to check him out some. Working together, I could do that."

"Is he— Do you think he's dangerous?"

"Who the hell knows, Annie? But the next time my captain tells me to go off and rest for a month, I'm going to introduce him to you and tell him about this trip."

 

Samuels knew what he was doing. That didn't surprise David. A man as hardened as Wayne Samuels wouldn't suggest doing something he wasn't competent to do. Not even as an excuse to snoop where ordinarily he wouldn't be able to.

He didn't appear to be snooping. That didn't surprise David either. Any man as hardened as Samuels would know how to hide his interest.

It seemed that his only interest in the dim light of the attic was the construction of the house. He played his flashlight beam across the unplaned lumber of a massive roof truss and a smile as unexpected as a bolt of lightning cracked his hard face.

"They knew how to build," he said, then fell silent and stone faced again as he went unerringly to the chimney for the downstairs sitting room.

David was respectably familiar with modern chimney construction, but he stood back and watched as Samuels inspected the bricks for discoloration and the mortar for failure. "This one looks okay, at least under the roof. You want to check out the other ones while we're up here?"

There were three other chimneys for wood or coal fireplaces, and two chimney flues for stoves, including the one for the small upstairs sitting room. David shrugged. He knew how to hide his interest, too. "Might as well."

So they did, finding all the brick unstained, all the mortar intact, and David learned absolutely nothing about Wayne Samuels other than that he knew chimneys, he worked with an intensity that blocked out everything else, and he showed no interest in Annie's attic other than an appreciation for the craftsmanship that had gone into building it.

Well, hell.

Well double hell, he thought when they walked out to Samuels's truck and he saw, stashed neatly under the low camper shell, all the equipment necessary for cleaning the chimneys, and most of the supplies for any repair they might have decided was necessary.

Maybe he had lost more than just his edge.

"You always come to dinner ready to clean and repoint chimneys?"

Samuels had draped a coil of rope over his shoulder and had begun pulling an extension ladder from the back of the truck. He stopped and leaned against the tailgate. "Maggie said the doc was cold." Whatever accent the man had had once had long since vanished into his rusty voice. "You got a problem with neighborly help for your lady? Or is this just your cop working its way out?"

His lady. The town gossips had been working overtime if they'd already paired the two of them, in spite of all his precautions about going back to that permanently air-conditioned cabin each night. But the gossips weren't the issue here. And neither was his relationship, or lack of one, with Anne. Or his right to question any guest of hers. Damn. He had no right to do what he was doing, but it sure seemed as if he did.

"Maybe both," he told Samuels, in a voice just as uninflected as the other man's had been. "Where'd you do your time?"

For the first time he saw life in Samuels's eyes. A glimmer of what vaguely resembled humor lighted them for a moment before fading back into their flat darkness.

"Not did I do time? Or why did I do time? But where?"

It had seemed a logical question to David. He knew it had happened, and he wasn't interested in any explanation of mix-up or setup. A nice clean where would give him all the information he needed for finding out the rest. "Yeah."

Samuels bent back to the truck and hauled out a stack of plastic sheeting, a long-bristle chimney brush, and a burlap-covered weight on another length of rope. He hefted the burlap and pushed the sheeting at David. "Take this to Maggie. She knows how to set it so we won't have rooms full of carbon and soot and bird skeletons to clean up. Then come back for this stuff. I'll meet you on the roof."

Neatly done. David watched Samuels slowly but deliberately walk away. He hadn't argued or denied David's assumption; he'd just acknowledged and then ignored it. But the day wasn't over yet.

Margaret—there was no way he could think of that stately woman as Maggie—met him on the back porch and took the pile of plastic from him. He knew she'd watched his brief exchange with her husband; the tension in her eyes, her hands, and the set of her jaw all told him she had. She glanced once toward the side of the house where Samuels had passed on his way to the chimney. "He's a good man, David Huerra. Don't ever doubt that. Not for a minute."

Maybe he was a good man, but maybe Margaret only thought he was. And what the hell difference did it make to him anyway? If the man wasn't interested in the secret in the closet, he could keep all the secrets he wanted to. After today he'd be gone and Annie—and he would never see Samuels again. Right? Right.

Then what the hell did he care if the man had a rap sheet three miles long?

Because he was married to Annie's nurse. Because he would be in Annie's life long after David had gone back to Dallas. Because—

"Ready down here." Margaret's voice floated up the chimney only seconds after David had climbed to where Samuels waited.

Samuels stood staring at the overgrown, wooded area beyond the back hedge. With visible reluctance he turned his attention from the hillside to the chimney. "All right," he called down the open flue. "We can handle it from here, but it will be a minute."

A minute? Why the wait, David wondered as he hefted the long-handled brush up onto the roof and glanced pointedly at the weight and rope. It looked to him as if their party was all ready and waiting.

But maybe not for chimney cleaning. At least not yet.

Samuels stared once again at the hillside. This time, David followed his example, seeing nothing but wild land. "Is there a problem?"

"Maybe," Samuels said. "Maybe not." He stooped, picked up the brush, and looked at it as though wondering how it came to be there, how he came to hold it. "But I reckon you've got a right to know. I'd want to know if my lady was at risk.

"I wasn't going to come today. I don't get out much, don't mix with folks too well, didn't figure I needed the hassle of you asking me all sorts of questions I don't plan to answer. But Maggie likes the doc. Maggie wanted to come. So I drove up last night just to look around, check out the place.

"It was late. Your Blazer was gone, and the house was dark except for a light from a downstairs room about there." He pointed to the opposite side of the house, in the general direction of Anne's bedroom. "And one from a upstairs room at the back. I thought at first that one was from a television but the color was wrong, more amber than blue. Outside it was dark. Real dark. So I could be mistaken about what I saw."

David's warning signals kicked in with a vengeance as the back of his neck started its too-familiar prickle. "You saw someone?"

"Nope." Samuels put down the brush and picked up the weighted bag, resting it on the chimney ledge. "Something. Two actually. Might have been mountain lions. Big ones. But I don't recall ever hearing about them coming this close to town before. At least, not in any way I believed. Just thought you ought to know," he said, tightening his hold on the rope and lowering the bag into the chimney. "Maggie'd be real upset if something happened to Doc Anne."

David turned once more to look at the hillside, remembering the sound he'd thought he'd heard the day before but had dismissed as only a trick of the wind. "Maybe we ought to look for tracks," he suggested.

"Already did." Samuels said.

"And?"

Samuels turned to look at him. "There weren't any."

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