Devil's Lake (Bittersweet Hollow Book 1) (7 page)

“Go ahead back down, Dirk. I’ve got this,” Daisy said.

“Okay.” He leaned down to kiss both of them, then backed out the door, closing it softly behind him.

Laying her head against the girl’s back, she began to sing. “Hush little baby, don’t you cry…”

For the next ten minutes, she sang the song, over and over again, not sure of the lyrics, but carrying the tune with her warbling voice until the room was full of a mother’s love and her daughter finally stilled, breathing quietly.

“You awake, honey?” Daisy asked in a whisper.

Portia’s head nodded once. “Uh huh.”

“Please talk to me. Talk to your momma. Can you do that for me?”

Slowly, Portia turned on the bed to face her mother. With eyes reddened from crying, her tortured expression pulled at Daisy’s heart.

“My God,” she said, gently pushing back a stray lock of hair over her daughter’s brow. “What did they do to you?”

Portia’s eyes welled with tears again, but she didn’t lose control. “It wasn’t ‘they’ Mom. It was one guy. One horrid man.”

“Oh, my poor baby.” She hugged and stroked her daughter’s back, murmuring comforting words.

Daisy held back, much as she wanted to pepper the girl with questions, get answers, find out who did this and bring the wrath of God raining down on his head. As enfeebled as the cancer had made her, she felt strength rising up within her, and it was laced with a lust for vengeance.

Surprised at herself, she almost recoiled at the intensity of her emotions. She wanted to kill this man, whoever he was. Whoever had taken and hurt her girl.

“Honey?”

Portia raised her eyes to meet her mother’s inquiry.

“It’s time. We need to know what we’re facing, here.” She took both of Portia’s slender hands in hers, squeezing them gently. “Are we in danger, baby?”

Portia collapsed against her mother’s chest, her words muffled. “I don’t know, Mom. I just don’t know.”

Daisy pulled back a little, infusing a bit of stern mom-talk in her voice. “Okay. I’m going to ask your father to brew up a pot of tea. Then we’re going downstairs to see if my cornbread is ready, and you’re going to do your best to fill us in.” She tilted her daughter’s chin up and looked into her haunted eyes. “Okay?”

Portia nodded, misery written all over her face. “Okay.”

***

Boone sat at the kitchen table with Dirk, going over the farm records. The air filled with the scent of cornbread, and as if they both had the same thought, Dirk looked up suddenly toward the oven.

“Oh, drat. I’d better check that. Daisy will kill me if it burns. It’s our first cornbread in over a year.”

He hopped up and opened the oven door, releasing even more of the heady aroma into the room. Grabbing a butter knife from the drawer, he inserted it into the middle of the bread. “That’s how Daisy does it,” he said. “If it comes out clean, it’s done.”

Boone watched expectantly. “It’ll go good with my mom’s pea soup. She’s bringing it over in a bit.”

“Yep. It’s done.” With red oven mitts, Dirk slid the hot bread out of the oven and set it on a rack on the stovetop. “That’s real nice of your mother, Boone.”

Boone smiled. “She doesn’t know how else to help. So she cooks. And cooks. And cooks.”

Dirk laughed. “It’s in our genes, I think. Good food, good neighbors. It all goes together.”

The men glanced up when Daisy and Portia came down the stairs. Boone noticed the girl had dressed in jeans and a sweater, had washed her face, and her hair hung neatly in a ponytail down her back. She offered him a weak smile, then sat at the kitchen table and took a deep breath.

His heart broke for her. Every little action seemed to take so much out of her. Just getting dressed, taking a short walk. She seemed to get winded real easy, as if she had some kind of breathing problem going on.

Maybe she did?

No. Doc has listened to her chest. That couldn’t be it. And she never had asthma, as far as he knew. Could it be she was just so out of condition that she had to build up her strength again? Hadn’t she been able to walk, or move around wherever the hell it was she’d been kept?

When Daisy started toward the teakettle, he jumped up to help. “Let me do that. Why don’t you sit with Portia?”

She tossed him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

He noticed Daisy’s warm glance at Dirk when she saw the cornbread—unburned—on the stove. “Oh, it’s done!” She turned to Boone. “Make a lot of hot water for us. We’re going to need plenty of tea.”

He wondered why, but filled the kettle to the brim and set it on a burner on high.

“Lipton okay?” he asked, rummaging in the cabinet to the left of the stove. “I don’t see much else here.”

Daisy smiled. “Check that Teavana canister in the back. I think we have some Mohito Blackberry in there.”

“Got it.” Boone took it down and popped open the lid. “Wow. Still smells good.”

Daisy took Portia’s hand, as if she were trying to give her strength. “It’ll be okay, honey. Let’s get everyone settled with their tea and cornbread, and then we can start.”

Boone watched Portia’s eyes dance from him to the living room and back. She looked scared, and again, he wondered what was going on.

“Portia?” he asked. “Can I get you a nice big chunk of cornbread? Your father bought some supplies early this morning for his breakfast feast, and I know I saw butter in there.”

Her eyes met his, held his gaze, and for a split second, he sensed a tremor of appreciation in them. “Yes, please.”

Glad to have something to do while the kettle boiled, he grabbed a narrow spatula from the drawer and carved out a big square. He popped it on a plate, added a pat of butter, and slid it onto the table in front of her. “Want a napkin?” he asked.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

The tension in the room grew when Daisy called Grace and Anderson to the table.

“Honey,” she said, leaning in to Portia. “I know it’s gonna be hard talking in front of all of us, but we all need to know what happened so we can help you to the best of our ability.” She looked around the table at the circle of concerned faces. “And if we’ve gotta worry about someone coming here who may threaten you, or any of us, we need to know the scoop.”

 Boone took down the large tea infuser and with a few hints from Dirk on how to work it, he got it set up. He took six clean mugs out of the dishwasher and set them on the table, where eager family hands quickly distributed them. It felt good to be helping, instead of sitting on his hands. These guys had been through hell and back, and he’d missed them all. Well, except maybe Grace.

He glanced at her and was relieved to see she sat close to Anderson, one arm linked through his and her head resting on his shoulder.

Good. Maybe she’s come to her senses.

Dirk passed dessert plates around, set the butter on the table, and put the cornbread dish and spatula on a hotplate in the center.

Boone liked the fact that they were modern men, unafraid to jump in and help.

In his parents’ house, his mother had done all the serving her entire life, and when he’d gone to college he realized how unfair it all was. He’d shocked his mother when he came back to run the farm and started helping her in the kitchen, insisting she sit while he passed around the food. He’d even started doing dishes.

It just felt right.

The old ways were fine, if all parties agreed. But his mother was getting older, and he felt like helping. So, he did.

Dirk had jumped into that role, too. With Daisy so upset about the loss of Portia, then with her cancer coming on so fast, Dirk had needed to become the caretaker. And it made Boone proud to watch this rugged farmer cut the cornbread and pass out napkins.

Maybe that was the test of a real man. He could do kitchen work and still maintain his manly ways.

The family talked quietly, but the air remained taut with expectation.

Boone handed the infuser to Daisy, who filled everyone’s cups. Then he set it up for another brew.

“Okay,” Daisy said. “Boone, take your seat. You’re family.”

Boone pulled up between Dirk and Anderson. Portia’s parents flanked her on either side.

Silence fell, and all eyes were on Portia, who sat like a stone statue, straight and unmoving. With a deep heaving sigh, she began to speak.

Chapter 15

“
I
t happened at work,” Portia said. “I was just closing up the greenhouse for the night.”

Portia’s thoughts went back to the day he’d taken her, and as she replayed the scene in her mind, she spoke the words aloud with eyes closed. She tried to separate her inner self from the voice that spoke, and not react to the gasps and comments of surprise that occasionally erupted from the ring of people around the table.

After she’d earned her undergrad degree in biology, she decided to take a year off before applying to grad schools. To make some money and start paying off her exorbitant school loans, she’d taken a nice no-brainer job at the local garden store.

To her surprise, she’d fallen in love with the job, and had secretly realized if she made enough to live on, she could happily work among the plants for the rest of her life. She’d checked out a few grad schools, but only half-heartedly. There was something so calming and satisfying about working with plants, her hands in the soft soil, the fresh green sprouts that popped up from the dirt, the aroma of flowers that filled the greenhouses…It had become her oasis, and she’d begun to wonder if she really wanted to go forward with her childhood dream of becoming a horse veterinarian.

The Green Mountain Nursery was open from nine-to-nine in the summer. Over time, Portia had moved into a trusted position, quickly becoming indispensable to owner Marty McGorkin, a seventy-something woman who still spoke with a Scottish accent and who was stronger and more energetic than most twenty-year-olds Portia knew.

That night, she’d been left to tend the register and close up. Marty had left at five, to get ready for her usual bridge date with her gal pals. Since it was mid-June, most of the vegetable gardeners had already bought and planted their tomatoes, peppers, and other hothouse vegetables, so the crazy planting season had begun to wane.

A few couples wandered among the herb plants, rubbing leaves and sniffing their fingers to decide which scents they preferred. One elderly gentleman examined the berry bushes just outside the main building, and a family with three kids pushed a green cart through the annuals, choosing a bright assortment of potted zinnias, African daisies, and petunias.

She’d noticed the man puttering around the leftover geraniums an hour earlier. The big push had been in May, for Mother’s Day, but they still had a good assortment of reds, pinks, and whites, and they were on sale now, which probably attracted the man to the display.

He wasn’t a local customer, at least not one of her regulars. He’d put three plants in his cart, taken them out again, and chosen two more twenty minutes later. As the rest of the customers checked out and drove off, she checked her watch. Almost closing time.

She wondered if he needed help, but he hadn’t raised his eyes from the plants for the past half hour, so she’d held back. Some folks just needed time to choose the perfect plants for their yard or porch.

He was a tall man, probably six foot two or three. Broad shoulders, ruddy complexion, pitted cheeks where he’d obviously suffered from a bad case of acne in his youth. A baseball cap mashed down the straight gray hair that reached to his collar, and he wore the regulation jeans and tee shirt that most folks did when they visited her store.

At five ’til nine, she headed over to him. “Sir?”

He looked up, and with a start, she reeled back from the intense expression in his black eyes.

Why had it seemed so odd? The focused, stabbing look he gave her didn’t match the image she had of a doddering, indecisive shopper.

“Sir, I'm sorry, but we’re closing in five minutes. Can I help you decide?”

With a sigh, he put all the plants back except one bright red geranium. “No. I think I’ll just get this one.”

His voice was deep, gravelly sounding. Almost as if he had something wrong with his throat, like surgery or something on his vocal chords that made it sound a little bit mechanical or robotic.

She’d smiled automatically and led the way back to the counter. “Of course. Come on over and I’ll ring you up.”

He’d paid with cash, his cap pulled low over his eyes again.

Those eyes.

They’d almost burned her when they lit on her face earlier.

He pocketed his change and picked up the plant, heading toward his car in the back of the lot. “See you around.”

Although she felt unsettled, she went through her usual nighttime routine. Count the money. Put it in the safe. Shut off all the lights except the few they left on for security reasons. Lock the greenhouse doors. Lock all doors in the main building. Grab her purse and sweater.

She backed out of the main door, checking it to be sure it was locked up tight. Feeling hungry, she began to plan a run to the local Chinese restaurant for a container of wonton soup. She loved the crunchy noodles they served with it, and always felt good about all the fresh broccoli and pea pods they mixed in with the savory stuffed wontons.

Her old, beat-up Camry sat alone by the back of the greenhouse. With keys in hand, she hurried toward it, feeling a slight chill in the night air. Behind the building, the outline of an unfamiliar vehicle took shape.

Someone’s truck?

Why had they parked it there, and left it? Was it one of the delivery guys? But why wouldn’t they have told her they’d left it out back?

When she bent down to unlock her car door, a dark form loomed out of the shadows and a strong arm reached around her body, pinning her to him.

No! With quick instincts, she jabbed backwards with an elbow, like her self-defense teacher had taught her in college.

The big man uttered a low “oof” but didn’t release her.

“Shhh,” he said, and in that moment, she recognized the mechanical sound of his voice. “It’s okay. You’re with me now, sugar.”