Peppermint Creek Inn (30 page)

He tried to ignore the warmth and softness drilling into his side from the woman who lay curled up against him. But her sweet body heat reminded him of the fierce lovemaking they’d shared last night and today.

After experiencing her passionate side, he wanted even more from her.

He wanted a relationship with her.

A lifetime of love.

A future that just might not be there for them. It might only be a matter of time before he was killed or incarcerated. Then he’d never see her again.

A horrible chill gripped him at that thought and his eyes popped open again. He turned and looked at her. In sleep, she looked like a sweet angel. Her full lips curled upward in a pretty, irresistible smile. What was she thinking to put such a wonderful smile on her peaceful face?

Her breathing was steady and rhythmic, slowly but surely lulling him to sleep. He closed his eyes and listened to her lullaby. In the distance, he heard the rustling sounds of the night creatures as they slowly crawled through the tall grass, heard the occasional splash of a fish jumping in the water outside the boat.

His mind grew heavy with sleep.
He mustn’t drift off
, he chastised himself.

He should stay awake. If he slept, he’d remember.

He tried to lift his heavy eyelids. But they didn’t budge. Too late! Too damn late! He didn’t want to remember what he’d found in the well…

He was floating through the air, his stomach sinking as if he was on a runaway elevator. Darkness wrapped around him. Cold, damp air welcomed his descent. He could feel the rough, tightly packed rounded stones scrape past his fingers as he instinctively reached out to grab something, anything to break the fall.

The right side of his head cracked bluntly against the rock wall and for a moment he saw stars. He cursed his rotten luck and continued to grab madly around him. Something hard slammed into his leg. He reached out and his hands clamped around a cold, round, wooden object.

A momentary searing pain ripped through his shoulders and for a second he felt they would pop out of their sockets. However, the fall was broken. He swayed from his arms for a moment on what he figured to be a log stuck horizontally across from wall to wall of the pit he’d fallen into.

He allowed himself a minute to catch his breath, and then he pulled himself upward, his arms shaking with the effort. A moment later, he sat upon the beam.

Reaching out, he dug his fingers into the nearby wall and pried a trickle of dirt and a round palm-sized rock loose. He let the rock drop. A loud splash echoed throughout the cavern. If he were to venture a guess he’d have to say he’d found the local watering hole.

He cast a glance upward. He didn’t have to wait long. Lightning flickered. It illuminated the entire opening.

Eight feet. He’d fallen at least eight lousy feet. It had seemed an eternity.

He took a deep breath of the cool, putrid air and exhaled slowly. Damp air ambled through his clothes. It nestled onto his skin, and sunk deep down into his bones. He shivered violently. Another flicker of lightning spilled down toward him.

“Damn,” he hissed under his breath when he spotted something at the bottom of the well.

—

In the morning, Sara awoke to find herself curled up against Tom like a cat snuggling her master for warmth. His strong supportive arm lay protectively under her head acting as a pillow.

She sucked in her breath and lay quiet, relishing the exotic feel of his warm body heat as it seeped into her skin. She wanted him to wake up, to take her into his arms. Wanted to feel his hard, hot mouth press against her eager lips. Ached to feel his firm body on top of her. To become one with him. His long, thick cock sliding into her warm pussy.

Thrusting. Plunging deep inside her.

Explosions of desire raced up her spine as he suddenly snuggled closer. As if sensing her thoughts, he nuzzled his face into the side of her neck. His other arm slowly reached around her waist and pulled her closer to him. But his eyes remained closed, his breathing slow.

She remained wrapped in the silky cocoon of his strong arms and reveled in the ticklish feel of his day-old beard pressed pleasantly against her cheek. She watched him sleep for a long time in the chilly breeze of the early gray dawn.

After awhile when he didn’t awaken, Sara reluctantly wiggled away from his warm embrace. Reaching for the nearby knapsack, she searched for an apple to nibble on when her hands fell upon her sketchpad.

“What in the world?” she found herself whispering as with further searching she discovered Tom had also stuffed the slender box of charcoals into the pack along with the strip of photos he’d purchased for her.

He really wanted her to get back into her art.

She found herself grinning as she looked at the pics and then at him sleeping soundly.

Why use his picture when she had a live model right here?

Maybe she should surprise him with a drawing? Show him how cute he looked when he slept. The instant her fingers slipped around a thin velvety piece of black charcoal, she began to feel the familiar excitement pound through her veins. In a flash, she became lost in the angles and various shadings of Tom’s sleeping face.

She sat cross-legged, drawing from her heart. The smallest details of his face emerged onto the sketch paper. Wonderful tiny lines stretched around his sensuous mouth. Cheerful laugh lines crawled away like crow’s feet from his sleeping eyes. And those gorgeous, long dark lashes. Oh, God, how she loved those luscious lashes.

In the past, she’d sketched like this. Sitting all day in front of her subjects. Drawing wildlife animals one day, a scenic meadow another day, and toward the end of her painting career, her imaginary children had intermingled with the wildlife world of the north.

Her husband would seek her out in the late evenings where he’d find her in her studio or out in the forest working to near exhaustion, trying to beat the drowning light just to finish a sketch or a painting she wanted just right before calling it a night.

At the thought of her dead husband, Sara lifted her gaze from the completed sketch, a wistful smile on her lips. She found herself looking at her surroundings. Really looking and for the first time in a long time she saw the beauty of nature.

She realized why Jack’s spirit had come to her on the day she’d almost pulled the trigger. He’d wanted her to experience these feelings of love and beauty once again.

She stretched lazily and stood.

In a moment she was dressed in a pair of shorts and a powder blue pullover that would keep the early morning chill off her. Grabbing the sketchpad, the charcoal and her flashlight, she gave Tom a long, loving look and then tiptoed out of the boathouse.

Bright sunshine and abandoned houses greeted her as she walked through the old town, which smelled mildly of fish. The smell didn’t make her wrinkle her nose in disgust. She understood it belonged here.

Just as she belonged here—amidst the healing nature of the wilderness.

For some strange reason, the abandoned houses looked picturesque today. And so romantic. Each conveyed its own aging character.

Their scarred and weather-beaten wooden foundations, once homes for quite a large town, stood defiant. Their lonely, vacant windows watched her as she walked past them. Soft pastel shades of early morning sunlight splashed gently against their peeling paint and green tinged moss-covered roofs. The soil beneath her feet seemed thin and barren, and she wondered how the townsfolk were able to tend to their vegetable gardens in this rocky paradise.

In a sizable clearing, warm sunshine swirled around her, chasing away the chill of the shadows and the gray mist nipping at her heels. She stopped to bask in its warmth and sketched a couple of close-by buildings.

She realized she’d come back here again one day with her paints and pastels and capture on canvas the romantic colors and history of this ghost town called Jackfish.

As she finished the sketching, Sara tucked the book under her arm and continued her peaceful walk through the derelict town. She stepped over rotten boards, careful to avoid the protruding rusting nails and she lost herself for a moment in the cheerful chatter of a couple of chipmunks as they chased each other up one tree and down another.

Then she continued walking.

As she fought her way through the wild tangled clump of raspberry bushes, she quite unexpectedly stumbled upon the yawing chasm of the local well.

The same well Tom had climbed out of last night.

Sara stopped in front of it.

It would be dangerous to leave it like this. Someone else could fall in and be seriously hurt. She would search for sturdy boards in a bit, but first she needed to take a peek.

Flipping on the flashlight, she shone the yellow beam into the hole.

The well was deep. Horribly deep. And so dark.

How in the world had Tom been able to climb out of there? No wonder he’d been so quiet and distant last night. He’d come so close to death. Understandably, the experience had left him shaken.

What if he’d been seriously injured? Or killed?
Sara shuddered at the horrible thought. What would she do without Tom in her life?

She stilled the flashlight. A pang of uneasiness slithered up her spine. Something was down there.

She lowered herself onto her belly, all the while dipping the flashlight deeper down the hole with her right hand. Cold, damp, dusky air swelled from the bowels of darkness. It swarmed against Sara’s skin, instantly making her shiver in revulsion.

A piece of silvery metal flashed in the lamp’s beam.

A belt buckle? A belt. Dark blue pants.

Surely she was seeing things. Surely she was having some sort of horrible nightmare and she’d wake up snug and secure beside Tom.

Her grip loosened and the flashlight dropped into the hole. The bright light gave Sara a momentary clear view before it flickered off as it drowned in the murky water.

“Oh—My—God!”

Her hand flew to stifle the scream threatening to erupt from inside her throat. Cold shivers draped over her body. Her pulse raced wildly. In a split second, she leaped to her feet.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God,” The words strummed through her like a death chant. She had to get away from here. Far away!

Blindly she stumbled backward away from the unseeing eyes that peered back at her and cried out as a sharp plain sliced deep into her heel. She jumped as safe, warm arms wrapped around her waist to steady her.

“You okay?” Tom’s whispered voice was soft and full of concern.

“Sam Blake is down there! He’s the missing officer. We have to tell someone.”

Tom’s entire body tensed against her. “Why? What good would it do? He’s dead.”

Sara broke from his embrace. Anger tore at her every fiber as she surveyed the casual way he glanced at the well opening.

“You knew already last night. You could have at least told me. Why didn’t you? Why are you keeping me in the dark?”

“Believe me, you’d rather be in the dark. I just wanted to protect you.”

Sara responded by twirling away from him and she stumbled as the pain sliced through her heel.

He grabbed her by the elbow preventing her from falling.

“What’s wrong?” His concerned gaze raked over her.

“My foot. I stepped on a nail.”

His grip on her elbow tightened with alarm and he ushered her quickly to a nearby fallen log. Slipping off her running shoe, he quickly peeled the blood-soaked sock from her foot.

Tom frowned. “When did this happen?”

“Just now.”

Her heel throbbed like a bitch. Shit! That hurt!

“We have to get you to a doctor. You need a tetanus shot. You could get lockjaw.”

Before she could protest, Tom swooped her off her feet and into his arms.

“No arguments,” he stated firmly.

Her anger with him vanished when his hot body warmth seared through her clothes as he carried her along the overgrown path his handsome face mere inches from hers.

“Tom, please put me down,” she whispered feeling quite breathless at being so near to him. “I’ve already had a shot.”

He looked at her, doubt flaring in his eyes.

“It’s true. Right after the fire, as I cleared some debris I cut my wrist on a piece of metal. See? I immediately went to my doctor.”

Sara raised her arm and showed Tom the thin two-inch scar streaking diagonally across the underneath part of her wrist.

His eyes darkened and he let out a deep breath of relief. “Then let’s go down to the lake and wash it out.”

With her still cuddled in his arms, he headed toward the shimmering dark blue bay.

Every nerve ending in her entire body seemed to be on fire as she valiantly fought her desire for him. His strong muscular arms cradled her securely as he swept her onto a warm piece of driftwood near the water’s edge. Delicately, he dipped her foot into the cold clear water all the while his body heat kept slamming into her, making Sara pant for air.

He worked diligently, splashing the cold water against her sore heel, thoroughly intent on cleaning the small wound.

“I meant to tell you about the dead man,” Tom said as he worked. “But like I said, I wanted to protect you.”

“I don’t need your protection, Tom. I need your trust,” Sara replied softly.

His head snapped up and he nodded.

“Okay, you’ve got it.”

“No more secrets?”

“No more. I promise. How’s your foot feel?”

“Just a little sore. I’ll live.”

She noticed his gaze stray to the one lone abandoned house set into a nearby hillside, far off the train tracks. A house they hadn’t explored yet.

His eyes narrowed.

“What is it?”

“Something about that house.”

“Should we go and explore it before we leave?”

He hesitated before answering. “I think that’s the house they held me captive in.”

—

Ever since he’d fallen in the well last night, frequent flashes of memory had bombarded him. Amidst the turbulent snatches, he still couldn’t grab onto his name or where he lived. Instinctively he knew the whirling vision of a dead man lying in his blood with someone yelling in the background was a recent event. The vision of him being held captive in a dark, damp cell was also recent. And in the abandoned house straight ahead of him lay the answers. He was so sure of it, he could taste the sour bile in his mouth.