Stalked In Conard County (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 41) Read online

  And he couldn’t stop thinking about Haley. Last night, sitting on that porch swing with her, he’d badly wanted to draw her close to his side and wrap one arm around her. An innocent hug. Except, his thoughts about her were becoming a whole lot less than innocent.

  The more time he spent with her, the more his attraction to her grew. He was getting to the point where he wanted to weigh in on her decision about staying because he sure as hell didn’t want her to leave.

  But there were no guarantees that, even if she stayed, anything enduring would grow between them. His own life was spattered with broken relationships that had seemed great at first but had withered either quickly or slowly. That was one of the reasons he thought he knew horses better than people. One misjudgment after another on his part.

  At least with horses he felt as if he always knew where he stood. Not so much with women.

  That was okay, though. He was fairly content with his life, and only the pull he felt toward Haley was disturbing anything now. It certainly wasn’t enough to risk upending his life over. Or hers. No, she had to make her own decision about remaining here.

  He locked up then headed over toward Flora’s house. Maybe Haley’s house now. He was antsy, wondering if she’d been okay last night. Or if something had frightened her.

  He still couldn’t believe she’d spent the entire night sitting up, frightened by that Peeping Tom, and hadn’t called the cops. Now he wondered every night if she was doing it again. His problem, not hers. Grown woman, yadda yadda.

  But she sure brought out his protective side. He wondered if that would annoy her if she knew.

  Yeah, probably. She’d been independent for years now.

  Shaking his head at himself, he drove down to her place, taking the truck in case she had boxes to be donated or taken to the landfill. He never wondered if he should call first. She always seemed glad when he arrived.

  Once again she greeted him warmly, but this time he noticed that she looked a little frazzled around the edges, and there were circles under her eyes. Stepping inside at her invitation, he followed her to the kitchen, where she offered him coffee. He waited, hoping she’d tell him what was wrong, but he watched her gather herself, drawing on the inner strength that must have carried her through all the difficulties in life, from her abduction to her parents’ divorce, to her nursing career.

  She sat across from him at the table. “How’s the saddle-making going?”

  “Peachy,” he answered. “Leather soaking, leather drying into necessary shapes. Some pieces in place on a new saddle. Yeah, it’s going. What about you?”

  “Packing, cleaning. The same.”

  “You look like you could use a break.”

  “Maybe. It needs to be done, though.”

  He watched her sip coffee, closing her eyes while she did so. She looked so weary that he couldn’t keep silent anymore. “Tell me to shut up if it’s none of my business, but...did you get any sleep last night? If not, why not? You look exhausted.”

  Her eyes opened slowly. “Sleep was full of nightmares. And I kept hearing noises, probably my imagination. That damn peeper apparently stirred things up really good, and arguing with myself isn’t helping a whole lot.”

  “Ah, hell.” He’d been hoping she’d been able to move beyond that creep, but instead she’d moved into the past. He wished he knew of some way to be useful in helping her deal with her memories, but his own past was uncomplicated by comparison. Yeah, he had memories that could make him unhappy or even squirm, but nothing, not even remotely, approaching what she had suffered as a child.

  “I keep telling myself I’m being silly,” she said after a few more sips of coffee.

  “Why? It’s been my observation that traumas may ease with time but they never quite go away. Given the right trigger, they can pop up again. But I’m no psychologist. Did you think someone was actually out there last night? Old houses can makes noises sometimes.”

  Haley shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Chicken that I am, I didn’t go out and look. But I’ll tell you how ridiculous it got. At one point I thought someone was in the attic. That’s impossible. Just plain impossible.”

  “It should be,” he agreed. Someone would need a three-story ladder. Carrying that and leaning it against the house without waking someone would be impossible. Then there was prying open wood-framed windows that over the years had probably welded themselves to the house. Small windows. “It’s sure not likely.”

  “I know. But I still went up first thing this morning to make sure the two small windows up there are locked. They are. No sign they’d budged.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Tells you the kind of housekeeping I’ve been doing. The sills are thick with dust. Unmoved dust. I don’t even have a rat or mouse up there.”

  “And nobody could come through the attic vent without breaking it.”

  “Exactly.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I lost it, I guess.”

  “Did you run screaming out into the street?”

  Her head lifted sharply. “What?”

  “I’m just saying, if you didn’t run screaming into the street, you were far from losing it.”

  At least that drew a weary, reluctant chuckle from her. “I kept telling myself to quit imagining things, but I swear I heard scratching at the window, as if something was out there, but I couldn’t bring myself to look.”

  “Which window? Want me to check for fresh disturbance? Although it might be hard because it hasn’t rained.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “There’s no need. What I imagined was probably not important. A small animal. No human would scratch at a window.”

  Probably not. He wished, however, that he was sure of that. If some creep wanted her to peek out the window, that might do it. At least she hadn’t looked.

  He rubbed his chin, thinking hard. Could there be a reason that guy had looked in her window in the middle of the night? It appeared odd that there hadn’t been any other reports of a Peeping Tom. He was no expert, but it seemed unlikely to him that a guy who got his kicks from looking in on sleeping women would quit after one instance.

  It was always possible, though, that the guy hadn’t been noticed by other women. Compared to other things that popped into his head, that seemed benign.

  Because surely her kidnapper wouldn’t have returned after all these years. It just didn’t make sense. She hadn’t been able to describe him as a child and the guy had gotten away free of all consequences.

  No, Haley had been left with all the consequences. Every last damn one of them.

  “Roger?”

  He looked at Haley. “Hmm?”

  “He touched me, you know.”

  Everything in him stiffened and then coiled like a snake ready to strike. “The kidnapper?” His stomach turned over as he thought of a five-year-old, stolen from her own bed, terrified and then treated that way.

  “Yeah.” She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t make myself tell anyone back then. I felt so dirty. It was all dirty.”

  “God in Heaven,” he said almost inaudibly.

  “It was more than the kidnapping,” she continued after a couple of minutes. “That was scary. What came after was scarier in a different way.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Just couldn’t find words as horror filled him.

  After a while she seemed to shake herself. “I don’t know why any of it happened. I wish I knew. But in retrospect, what he did...that was a long way from what happens to children with a pedophile. It was almost like he was trying it out, then changed his mind.”

  “Bad enough. Ugly enough. I am so sorry you had to go through that, too.”

  “I was lucky compared to some.”

  It almost sounded like a mantra, something she had been telling herself forever. Maybe it was true, but that didn’t make what she’d endured any less awful. Try as
he might, he couldn’t summon the imagination to fully understand what all that must have been like for her. Just couldn’t. And the last thing he wanted to do was serve up platitudes that she’d probably heard countless times.

  Damn, he thought. He felt as useless as teats on a bull, and he didn’t like that feeling at all. Usually there was something he could do to help. This time he felt so far out of his depth it was unpleasant. No fancy saddle, no stubborn horse, no lunch disagreement or bar argument had taught him anything about this. Yeah, he knew some vets who were struggling with post-traumatic stress, but they had support groups and infrequently leaned on him a bit by confiding. But a woman whose childhood had been scarred by a kidnapping and a sexual assault?

  Yeah. He stifled a sigh because she might misread it. He just wanted to make her feel safer here, but if she couldn’t feel safe, she’d probably head back to Baltimore. Regardless of how he might feel about her leaving, she ought to if it would give her peace of mind.

  Finally he spoke. “Thinking about moving back to Baltimore?”

  “Because of this?” She tilted her head quizzically.

  “Why else?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I was talking to one of my friends back home earlier. I told her pretty much what I told you, only I must have bored on about it for twenty minutes. She told me to just make up my mind, that I had enough spine to go whichever way I chose, but I needed to find my spine.”

  He arched his brows. “Doesn’t sound supportive.”

  She bit her lip, shaking her head a tiny bit at the same time. Her hands curled around her coffee cup. “She was right. I’m being a nervous wreck for no earthly reason. It probably has to do with not making up my mind.”

  He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “How so?”

  “Because my subconscious has joined the game. Can’t decide? Well, let’s imagine some strange noises in the middle of the night, so I can come up with a million reasons to leave. Freda was right. I have more backbone than that. I’m just unsettled.”

  Her subconscious playing games? Well, he supposed it was possible. It was also possible that some creature of the night had been interested in a reflection on glass. After a moment he told her that.

  She perked a little. “That makes sense. It could have been almost any critter, and the moon is still amazingly bright.”

  He nodded, finally feeling that he might have helped a bit. “You should take a nap.”

  She shook her head. “I want to go totally lights-out at nine. Get a solid night, regardless of everything. A nap might get in my way.”

  “Then I have a suggestion. Let’s go take a walk. It’s beautiful out today and stretching your legs instead of your back and arms trying to sort and pack might actually feel good.”

  “I’m sure it would. In my job I’m on my feet most of the time.” She lifted an arm and crooked it, as if she were making a muscle for him. “Of course, the other parts get quite a workout, too. You should see me slinging patients around.”

  That drew a laugh from him. “I hope you don’t let go when you fling.”

  “Seriously not. I might damage a wall.”

  Just like that the whole mood had changed. He hoped she wasn’t just boxing her fears up, the way she was boxing things up in this house, because boxes had a way of springing open with a little pressure.

  “A walk sounds great,” she declared. “I need to get out of here. I’ve been so focused on getting this place shipshape, and I don’t know who I’m shaping it up for. Which may be part of the reason I’m having crazy experiences at night.”

  He wasn’t prepared to dismiss her experiences as crazy, but it was so easy, when alone in the dark, to become uneasy because of strange noises. He’d outgrown that years ago, but he could remember it, and she’d already been shaken by the Peeping Tom.

  She stuffed her stockinged feet into some jogging shoes and together they walked out into the pleasant midmorning. The sun was bright, the breeze light, and birds seemed to be singing from every direction. In short, it was the kind of morning that ought to make anyone feel good.

  He spoke as they walked in the general direction of downtown. “Not knowing your ultimate goal has got to make all this sorting rough to do.”

  “No kidding,” Haley answered. “I’m dithering, like I said. I’m not usually a ditherer, but I find I can sit with something in my hands for ten or fifteen minutes trying to decide if I want to keep it or donate it. Really. Wasted mental effort.”

  “Any emotional connections? That would make it clearer about some things.”

  “I’ve already found those things. Now I’m working on the what the heck was this saved for and what kind of history might I be throwing away. I hope Edith can help. She said she’d come over tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You want me to look around to see if I recognize anything? Flora did talk to me about things other than repairs.”

  “That would be wonderful, Roger. I’ll take all the help I can get. Sometimes I feel as if I’m ransacking a museum.”

  He laughed. “I guess Flora kept just about everything. But that’s understandable. Her family lived in that house for generations.”

  “That would probably do it. You know, I always wondered why she didn’t have much of a family herself.”

  “She was lesbian,” he said bluntly. “And living in a small town like this, she probably figured she’d be better off not letting it be known. I mean, she even married and had your dad.”

  “God! That must have felt lonely. So she told you that?”

  “Some years ago, when she was poisoning me with tea. It was kind of like she felt the need to tell someone. I know she didn’t want you or your parents to know. She feared they wouldn’t let you come visit.”

  She exhaled slowly. “That’s awful. And she’s right, they probably wouldn’t have.”

  “Like it’s a contagious disease.”

  “You’ll never convince some people it isn’t. Thanks for telling me, Roger. Oh, man, I feel so bad for her.”

  “She seemed to think she had a good life. If she had regrets, she never mentioned any, at least not to me.”

  “I hope she didn’t. But you know, that kind of makes her amazing.”

  He glanced down at her as they turned a corner onto Front Street. “How so?”

  “You have no idea how many women I’ve met who married first, just because that’s the way it was, then ten or twelve years later discovered they didn’t fit the cookie mold.”

  “Now that would be regrettable.”

  She shrugged. “Depends. Those who had kids were grateful for them. But it was a painful struggle to realize who they really were.”

  She fell into thought as they strolled along the leafy street. Being midmorning on a workday, they didn’t see too many people, but when they did Roger was able to greet most of them by name and make a quick introduction to Haley. While he linked her to Flora for them, he offered no assumptions about whether she was staying or going.

  One middle-aged woman with hennaed hair wanted to talk about Flora, though, in some depth, so Haley invited her over to have tea in a few days.

  “Roots,” she said as they walked away. “Flora certainly had them and I’m beginning to feel mine starting to grow. Is everyone here this friendly?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  She laughed. “There are problems here, too?”

  “Every village has an idiot or a hundred. Careless, thoughtless, not especially nice. We’re definitely not a painting from Currier and Ives or Norman Rockwell. But most of the time...? Yeah, most of the time people are at least friendly, and in times of trouble they’d give you more help than you’d probably believe. The first settlers out here wouldn’t have made it if they hadn’t stuck together. Some of that has certainly passed down.”

  He spied a ma
n in the blue uniform of the city police just ahead of them. Jake Madison owned a cattle ranch some distance from town but, like many ranchers these days, he was having trouble making ends meet. A number of years ago, he’d begun to supplement his income by becoming a part-time deputy because he’d wanted to be sure of paying his ranch hand. Then a few years back, the city council had received a government grant for law enforcement and decided they needed a city police force in addition to the coverage provided by the sheriff’s department. Jake had been chosen to become the new chief of police.

  It created an interesting situation in one respect: Jake had married Nora Loftis, the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher who sometimes angered town residents when he stepped out of his role as pharmacist at the drugstore he owned. Jake, as chief, had been able to avert trouble more than once with Loftis’s followers.

  “Come on,” he said to Haley. “I want you to meet Jake. He’s a good friend and I think you’ll like him.”

  He called out Jake’s name and the other man turned, smiled and walked toward them. Roger stepped forward then suddenly realized Haley wasn’t moving with him. About two steps away, he turned to looked at her, wondering what was wrong.

  What he saw chilled him. She had halted and was staring at the far side of the street where a chunky man was walking a small dog.

  At once he stepped back to her side. “Haley? Is something wrong?”

  She shook herself but never took her gaze from the receding man. “I thought for a moment...he looked familiar.”

  If her face hadn’t turned so pale, he might have dismissed the guy as someone she’d seen on one of her visits to Flora.

  No, that man had reminded her of someone else. He stared at the man, almost failing to note when Jake reached them.

  “Something wrong?” Jake asked.

  Haley answered, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Then Haley dragged her gaze back to Roger and Jake and smiled slightly. “I’m sorry. Everything’s fine.” She eyed his police uniform. “It’s been a long time since I visited Flora, but I don’t remember blue uniforms.”