Indelible (17 page)

Reckless courage. Rash determination. Prodigal confidence
. It was not the story of the rescue, but of the man, and in its telling, he found also the heart of the teller. Here was not the fawning glow, but biting rhetoric. His gaze slid to the byline. Jazmyn Dufoe. Seer. Skeptic. Instrument?

The copier had reproduced the creases, but with a pen he drew over every imperfection, then added details no one but he could see. In the same way he cloaked his dark power, this one masked his majesty. With her disdain scarcely beneath the surface, the writer saw none of it, or else, perchance, she saw and still disdained?

What strength she must possess, this Jazmyn Dufoe—or utter sightlessness. If the latter, this missive would open her eyes. If the first, he might discern her secret. For he feared—yes!—the paralyzing beauty of his foe, his brother, his other. Feared and yearned.

Eleven

N
atalie knocked on Trevor’s office door. She’d seen him return and wanted—The door almost hit her in opening. “What?” His bark startled her, his dark look a force field.

She stepped back, hurt. “I—Do you have duct tape?”

He stared as though he didn’t recognize her, then went back in. Just as the door had almost clicked shut, he pushed it open again and held out a roll. “You can keep it. We have more.”

“Okay.” She wanted to ask who’d body-snatched him. “Thanks.”

After returning to her studio, she set the duct tape on the shelf and went for clay instead. She could do a series.
The Many Moods of Mad Dog MacDaniel
. Had Fleur’s warning been prescient? Just when they’d found some equilibrium. She drove her thumb into the clay and drew it into a scowling mouth.

An hour and a half later, she’d washed up from sculpting, used the duct tape, and was preparing to leave when Trevor spoke through the thick door.

“Natalie? I know you don’t want to let me in.” He cleared his throat. “But if you’ll hear me out …”

She opened the door and stared at the flowers he held, a troubled mix of tight button mums, alstroemeria, and daisies dyed pink. The cool air was either reviving or extinguishing them.

“Do you know how hard it is to find flowers after Bless Your Heart closes?”

The family-owned floral gift shop did great business in its few hours of operation. Outside of that, it was touch and go. “Where did you?”

“The supermarket. They’ve been picked over and maltreated.”

She touched a daisy petal. “There’s life in these. A fresh cut and some lightly bleached water … They’ll make it home.”

“The next ones will be better.”

Her heart fluttered. “Why are you giving me flowers, Trevor?”

“How about I was a jerk?”

She looked at the bewildered blooms. “You’d have to work harder than that.”

“I’m capable, believe me. I’ve got references.”

Glancing up, she risked a glimpse to see if he was better now. “Want to tell me what happened?”

He rubbed his cheeks and jaw with one long-fingered hand. “No, but I do need to tell you something.”

“Okay.” She pulled the door closed behind her until the lock clicked, engaging the alarm. The evening sun shafted through the valleys, layering the mountain range. She walked to the creek bank and settled on a large flat boulder. Laying the flowers beside her, she drew up her knees and clasped them.

He stood before her, downslope, his back to the water. Moments ticked as he decided what to say. “First, I’m sorry about before.”

“The flowers told me that.”

“I got into it with Sara and Jaz and—”

“Nattie makes three?”

He crooked the corner of his mouth. “You’re aware of my wretched track record.”

“Only by reputation.”

“I never cared. Jaz and the rest of them could take me where I was or not at all.”

She rested her chin on her knees. The air carried a scent of wood smoke she might always connect to him.

The muscles of his throat worked. “It’s not that way with you. But if we’re going to do this, you need to know where I’m coming from.”

She shrugged. “I missed your Mad Dog shock and awe.”

He stared slack-jawed, then shook his head. “Please. Don’t say that again.” His vehemence surprised her. “It’s part of … something else, okay?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.” He braced his hips. “It’s just, I wasn’t referring to my former
greatness.”

“What then?”

“Things that happened before all that.”

A scolding squirrel bounced from branch to branch of a blue spruce, sending a thin, papery cone on a crash course to the ground.

Trevor paced two steps and turned. “Two months before my twelfth birthday, my dad took off.”

She tipped her gaze up, but he wasn’t looking at her.

“A wife and five sons”—he blew out a breath—“weren’t enough for him.”

She heard bewilderment and disgust, the confusion of a child betrayed by a trusted adult, still trying to make sense of it. “I’m sorry.”

“The night he left, he took me to a pub for pizza and beer.”

“You were eleven.”

“He knew the proprietor.”

“Still.”

“I think it helped him to treat me like a man.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Since he expected me to be one—in his place.”

“That’s just not right.”

He pulled a grim smile. “Think that mattered?”

She shook her head.

“I was the oldest, and my brothers Conner, Trey, and Matt followed pretty close behind. The youngest, Ellis, was only eight months old. My mother worked, and I kept the boys in line, kept them safe.”

Of course. Her heart fluttered.

He hooked his hands behind his head, tensing. “When Ellis turned five, I gave him this kitten, a scrawny little thing I’d found outside the ski store where I worked after school. He loved that kitten. I’d always see him snuggling it up under his chin. And you wouldn’t think it of a cat, but it loved him. It pined when he wasn’t there.”

“What happened?”

“It got out. Ellis went after it.” His voice got raw. “He fell over an embankment and died while I was playing basketball with my friends.”

“Oh, Trevor.” The loss and condemnation in his face pulled her into his pain. He couldn’t believe it was his fault, but a passing glance at his face said he thought nothing less. “Could you have stopped it?”

“I could have caught the kitten, or kept it from getting out. Maybe I’d
have caught him. If I’d been there.” He stared across the river to the crags. “I did what I wanted instead of.” He lowered his chin and stared at the ground. “I have a lot of my dad in me.”

“Not that, Trevor.”

He cocked his jaw, fighting the emotions.

“You’re not him.” She stood up and looked him in the face. “Nothing you did made your dad leave, and nothing you could have done would make him stay. I’m so sorry your little brother died. But you’ve used that tragedy to help so many others. You are not your dad.”

The look only lasted a moment, but he knew she’d locked him in. He felt her assurance like epoxy shoring up his cracks and fissures. Other people had said it. His own mother said it. But not like this.

“You matter to me, Nattie. But I’m skiing cruddy snow with a bum knee. It could fail at any time.” A pale moth fluttered by. Soon the bats would come out to feed.

“Well.” She blinked at a spot beneath his chin. “You have the spa—for rehab.”

The place he’d let her in. Did she believe they could repair all the damage he might do? “Out on the water, I was wishing you were there, and then I thought how many other things I want you to be part of.” He opened and fisted his hands.

“Do they all require equipment?”

He loved her sense of humor. “I hope not.” He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m going to be gone and out of touch for the next week.”

She raised her brows.

“Wilderness survival course for the high school seniors.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It is. Long-distance trekking, climbing, first aid, endurance training, orienteering, and shelter construction. The school adjusts their course load around it.”

“Mountain community.” She smiled.

“Saves me rescuing them later.”

Setting out, he might know their names, but before the end he’d be familiar with the limitations and excesses in each individual. He would break through the first and curb the second. Life was too precarious to live it halfway, too fragile to leave anything to chance.

She angled her gaze up without quite meeting his eyes. “I’ll miss you.”

A lump formed in his throat at her unexpected and sincere response. After clearing it, he managed, “Gives you time to consider what I told you. It had an impact. It still does.”

“I know who you are.”

“You think you do.” He cradled the curve of her neck, brushing her cheek with his thumb. “Just give it to me straight if you change your mind while I’m gone.”

“I won’t.”

“I’ll walk you back in.”

“It’s okay.”

He tapped her head with a finger. “I know I’m stuck in there. Go work it out.”

She sent her smile to the ground. “That’s a little unnerving, you knowing what I need.”

“It’s what I do, Nat. And believe me, you do it too.” Pausing at the door, he thought hard about kissing her. He’d give her time, let it sink in, let her decide. It was going to be a long week.

With the mountain scenery giving the illusion of perfect peace, Jonah dangled a line into the water beside Jay’s. The half-Danish Cherokee had not repeated or elaborated on his prophecy of doom, but it hung like the predawn mist rising from the water.

Something evil this way comes
.

“What,” Jay said, though neither one had spoken.

Jonah tucked his Tic Tac into his cheek. “Tia’s pregnant.”

Jay showed only a slight pull at the corners of his lips.

Jonah gave his line a flick with his wrist. “As you know, my training came at the edge of a belt and the mouth of a whiskey bottle.” Jay did
know, having saved him from that same bottle. Seven years sober, something the old man never even attempted.

“One of the mysteries of the universe is that trees grow out of decay. The more rotten the decay, the stronger they grow.”

Jonah stared at the clear water running through the gold-flecked bed, carrying the trout like ghosts beneath the leaf-strewn surface. “Sometimes they grow bent and twisted.”

“Sometimes.”

He’d followed his dad into law enforcement, but it ended there. No child of his would shudder at the sound of his voice, dread his steps coming closer. This baby.

“You’ve got it bad,” Jay stated the obvious.

It practically consumed him, his thoughts going there every day all day. It was bigger than marrying the love of his life, bigger than his job, his town. That one life had taken over. “When I put my hand on Tia’s belly, I swear I feel someone there.” Too soon for anything tangible like kicking, it was no more than a profound awareness.

Jay stared into the woods in the waxing light, for once not sharing a quip or piece of lore. They sat in silence, Enola and Scout trotting the creek side watching for trout. The evening had a brittle quality that made the trees suck in their sap and prepare to shine. Any week now, the brilliant yellow leaves would burst into glory.

“The thought of that innocence terrifies me. I know what’s possible. I can only do so much.” He watched the water ripple around his line, something curious beneath. “I used to think I could tell evil by looking. Now I’m not sure I can. What if I miss something crucial, something right in front of me?” As he’d missed the signs with Liz, never guessing the nightmare inside that troubled woman.

“None of us saw it. She was broken.”

Did that make it better? Evil had a form, a force that twisted the minds and character of weak and damaged individuals—or just plain mean ones.

A tug on his line brought him around. Curiosity had snared the unsuspecting quarry. Jay held a hand over the struggle in the water, thanking the fish for its sacrifice, partly tongue in cheek, partly dead serious.

His hair, pulled into a stubby black ponytail, revealed the sharp Scandinavian bone structure, his Cherokee complexion a stark contrast with the startling eyes. His looks intrigued and discomfited people, creating a mystique Jay fostered. But it went deeper than looks, much deeper. They’d been closer than brothers for seven years, and Jonah still hadn’t seen anything Jay didn’t want to show.