Cabin Fever Read online

  “Not much. The name on the lease is Lorraine Giardello, she lives in Boston, and she paid a year’s rent in advance. At the time Mr. Harper gave the okay for the lease, I wasn’t aware that you and your daughter would be moving here. It seemed a good idea for the property to be earning a little money. Of course, if I’d known you would change your mind . . .”

  She brushed off the apology in his voice. It hadn’t been a matter of changing her mind, exactly, but a flash of temper at finding out that, at Marlene’s direction, Obie had been running her business behind her back. He had okayed renting the cabin. He had put the feed store up for sale. He’d been in the process of arranging for the disposal of Hiram’s personal property when she’d found out and put a stop to it. Marlene had even had the nerve to claim they only had her best interests at heart.

  That was bull, and she’d told them so in language that had made Marlene turn purple. Right then and there, Nolie had decided to take back her life and move to New York.

  She hoped she didn’t live to regret it.

  “Is anyone staying at the cabin now?” Mr. Thomas asked.

  “Yes, a—” She’d been about to say gentleman —one thing Chase definitely was not. “A man by the name of Chase.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Is that his first or last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there a problem with this man?”

  His concern made Nolie feel foolish. What answer could she possibly give? He looks scary? There were certain times of the month when she could match him in the scary department—times when even easygoing Jeff had been quick to duck and happy to keep his distance. Even at her best, she was no great beauty. Red hair, freckles, and forty extra pounds of lusciousness didn’t rank high on most men’s ideal-woman list.

  “No, no problem. I was just curious.”

  “If you’d like me to find out who he is and check into his background, I can do that.”

  Nolie considered it, then shook her head. He’d paid his rent—or, at least, Lorraine Giardello had—and he’d done nothing wrong. Scaring her daughter was hardly deserving of being investigated, especially when Micahlyn was scared by lots of things, like bugs, thunder, and that talking Chihuahua on the old Taco Bell commercials.

  “No, thanks,” she said as she stood up. “I was just curious. I know in most small towns everyone knows all there is to know about everyone else, so I thought I might learn something.”

  “Well, that’s true in Bethlehem, too, but the power of our grapevine doesn’t extend all the way to Boston. We’ll have to find out about this man the old-fashioned way— asking him.”

  She thought about sitting down for a get-acquainted chat with her neighbor and mentally shuddered. There were only two questions she wanted to ask him: Would you cut your hair, shave, and take a bath? followed by If I return Lorraine’s money, will you go back to Boston?

  Switching the papers to her left hand, she stood up and walked to the door with him, then extended her right hand. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Thomas.”

  “Anytime. And, please, call me Alex. Mr. Thomas is my Uncle Herbert. And let me know when you’re ready to get your little girl together with some of the other kids in town. You can call here, or my home number’s in the phone book.”

  “I will. Thanks. Micahlyn, let’s go.”

  With all the toys to choose from, her daughter had picked a book she couldn’t yet read. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, she put it away, said good-bye to the receptionist, then dragged herself down the stairs in front of Nolie.

  After three days of waffling, Nolie was just almost certain that she’d made the right choice in leaving Whiskey Creek. She was the owner of a business that could practically run itself. For the first time in her life she had money in the bank. The more she saw of Bethlehem, the more she liked it, and if the other folks in town were half as nice as Alex Thomas, living there was going to be a delightful change from life in Obie and Marlene’s world.

  And if only one of those other folks was male and single and as nice as Alex, if he wasn’t prejudiced against kids, and if he could see past her size-sixteen exterior to the perfect ten hiding inside, she would be downright ecstatic.

  The improbability of it all made her laugh out loud, which earned her a scowl from Micahlyn. Forget Obie and Marlene’s world. She had now entered Nolie’s Fantasy-land.

  Welcome and enjoy the visit.

  Chapter Two

  CHASE WAS FEELING DAMN SORRY FOR HIMSELF when he finally had to admit he was awake on Thursday. Truth was, the sound of car doors had awakened him half an hour earlier, but he’d kept his eyes closed and pretended he was about to fall asleep again. But he wasn’t, and finally he quit pretending otherwise.

  Turning onto his side, he reached for the cigarettes he usually kept on the night table, but found only an empty pack. He’d smoked the last one on the porch the night before, he remembered with a grimace, kicked back in a wooden chair, with nothing but the darkness, the tree frogs, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for company.

  And his neighbors. Not that he’d seen them. No doubt, Miz Nolie Harper and her prissy little girl were staying inside with the windows barred and the doors bolted. But he didn’t have to see them, or their car, or the lights in their windows, to know they were there. Their mere presence had changed everything. His private hideout no longer was.

  The sun was high in the sky, shining brightly enough to hurt his eyes as he sat up. Catching his reflection in the dresser mirror, he grimaced. He’d slept in his jeans again— the same jeans he’d worn the day before, and the day before that—and the sharp light showed stains on the denim and a torn place on the knee where a hole was trying to start. He hadn’t shaved in a week or more, and he smelled of stale tobacco and sweat. No wonder the screamer had mistaken him for the bogeyman the other day.

  He eased out of bed carefully, then combed his hair with his fingers as he went into the kitchen to look for food. A liquid lunch would be easiest, but he already had so much booze in him, his blood was probably 180 proof. There was stale cereal in the cabinet but no milk in the refrigerator, and the freezer in the utility room was packed with frozen dinners. He thought about walking the extra twenty feet to the freezer, then waiting five to six minutes for the microwave, and instead he took the cereal box from the cabinet. He didn’t bother with a bowl, but ate straight from the box as he walked through the cabin and outside onto the porch.

  It was a warm day in spite of the trees that towered over the cabin. It was April, though his best guess for the date would be exactly that. It was funny how things like days and dates no longer mattered when you’d lost your job and your obligations. No one cared whether he got up at fivethirty, as he’d done for years, or slept in until the middle of the afternoon, least of all him. After all, the things that filled his time—watching television, drowning his sorrows, a whole lot of nothing—could be done in the middle of the night as easily as during the day.

  No one cared.

  Hand in the cereal box, he eased down onto the top step, then automatically looked toward his neighbors’ place. The station wagon was parked out front—he’d heard it leave that morning, then return—and the screamer was standing near it, but there was no sign of her mother. No doubt she was around, though. No way the kid would have ventured outside alone, where she might run into him.

  As he munched the cereal, he wondered what kind of name Nolie was, and whether there was a Mr. Nolie Harper, and why they’d left Arkansas in the first place. Not that he cared about any of it. After a month of no one’s company but his own, he was just so damn bored.

  The kid tilted her head back, then raised both hands to shade her eyes. She was dressed in pink shorts and a T-shirt—not the best color with her long red hair—and appeared to be paler than anyone he’d ever known with blood pumping through their veins. Even Fiona, who religiously protected her delicate Irish complexion from the sun, wasn’t that white.

  For a moment he wondered when the
kid would get started in school, if she was old enough, and whether the other kids would give her a hard time because she wasn’t cute and apparently couldn’t see without those thick glasses. Probably. They sure would have when he was her age. Hell, back then, he would have been the ringleader in the tormenting.

  God, that was another lifetime. Another person.

  Not wanting to remember, he shifted his gaze in the direction the little girl looked. Pine trees blocked the best view, but . . . yeah, he could just make out a flash of white on the cabin’s roof. Miz Nolie, he presumed.

  He polished off the cereal, tossed the box aside, and calculated the odds that if he went inside to the refrigerator, he would come back with water or pop instead of beer. Since they weren’t in his favor, he more or less stayed put—not on the step but on the hammock that hung at one end of the porch.

  Settling in, he folded his arms under his head and contemplated a nap to make the day pass more quickly. Freedom—at least, his freedom—wasn’t really so different from being in prison. Both inside and out, all he was doing was passing time. He had no goals, no plans, no future. He just wanted to make it through one day at a time.

  But instead of closing his eyes and willing himself to sleep, he looked over at the Harper cabin again. How had Nolie gotten on the roof? There was no ladder propped against the porch, and no way she could have climbed up without one. She’d probably gone out one of the upstairs windows, though why was anyone’s guess and none of his concern.

  His view of her became clearer as she scooted near the edge of the roof to talk to her kid, but whatever she had to say wasn’t going over well. The kid— What had Nolie called her? Something unusual, a guy’s name . . . Michael Ann, Michael Lyn—no, Micahlyn. Micahlyn stood there, hands clasped in front of her, shaking her head adamantly enough to make her hair fly. Nolie argued. Micahlyn refused. Making an exasperated gesture, Nolie turned onto her hands and knees and hesitantly backed to the edge of the roof, then extended one leg into space.

  She was actually going to try to climb down from the roof to the porch railing. It would be a miracle if she didn’t fall and break her fool leg—or, worse, her fool neck. The only thing he needed less than a neighbor was a neighbor who couldn’t take care of herself and her banshee-voiced child because she’d fallen off her damn roof.

  He rolled out of the hammock—a task easier drunk than sober—and took the steps in one stride. By the time he’d covered half the distance to the cabin, her other leg was dangling in thin air, too, her feet searching for the railing and missing it by a good twelve inches.

  “Micahlyn, you have to go get our neighbor,” she was saying, her tone sharp. “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. Come on, baby, he’s not gonna hurt you. Please , just run over and knock on his door—”

  “Nooo, Mama! I’ll get you a chair, and you can stand on it!” She started toward the steps, then turned as Chase rounded the station wagon. Her eyes opening wide, she let out a squeal and ran inside, slamming and locking the door. So much for family loyalty.

  “Micahlyn!”

  A yellow ladder lay on its side on the ground. Judging from the marks it had left, Nolie had set it up in soft soil and then, because it was only six feet tall and the roof was at least seven, she’d disregarded all the warning labels and stood on the very top to make it onto the roof. Unstable footing plus a shaky transfer of weight equaled a ladder on its side.

  “Micahlyn! Come out here right now!”

  “She’s abandoned you,” Chase said.

  She let out a pretty good imitation of her daughter’s shriek, lost her grip, and started to fall. Reacting instinctively, he grabbed her around the hips, planted his bare feet in the dirt, then slowly lowered her to the ground. Slowly because, books and movies aside, anything over a hundred pounds was a lot for the average guy to support, especially when he was off balance.

  Not because he hadn’t held a woman in more than three years. Certainly not because she smelled sweet and clean and . . . jeez, innocent or something. For damn sure not because her skin, when his hands slid under her T-shirt, was soft, warm, smooth.

  God, he’d forgotten how different women were. How nice soft could be. How stimulated a man could get.

  That last was brought home to him with a vengeance as his body reacted to the contact with hers, but it didn’t mean a thing. Was purely involuntary.

  Like the widening of her eyes when she felt it, too.

  The instant her feet touched ground, she scrambled back a few yards, tugged her T-shirt down past her hips, then folded her arms across her chest. Her cheeks were flushed bright red, and her gaze never quite reached his as she shifted uneasily. She looked as if she wanted to rush inside and cower someplace safe with her daughter, but she didn’t flee.

  “I, uh, I’m sorry. I mean, thanks. I-I didn’t expect the ladder to-to fall and strand me up there. I, uh, really do appreciate . . .”

  When her voice trailed off, he waited a moment, breathing deeply, replacing sweet, clean, and innocent with the scents of pine and richly decaying vegetation, and he willed errant parts of his body to behave. Feeling steadier at last, he said, “Get a taller ladder. A ten- or twelve-foot extension ladder should do it.” That way she wouldn’t need rescuing again.

  “I’ll do that.” She freed one hand long enough to anchor a strand of thick coppery hair behind her ear, then immediately tucked her long, slender fingers between her body and her other arm again. “I, uh, haven’t seen you since—since we moved in.”

  “I’m not a neighborly person.”

  She tried to laugh, but it sounded as phony as it was. Her skin, where it wasn’t colored by the blush, was as fair as her daughter’s, with freckles scattered across her cheeks and one right in the fullest part of her upper lip. He could tell because she wasn’t wearing makeup.

  He’d been married to Fiona for more than eighteen months before he’d seen her without makeup. It had been quite a revelation, not that he’d cared. It was just that Fiona without makeup bore little resemblance to Fiona with. One was incredibly beautiful, glamorous, damn near perfect, and the other was . . . average.

  How much Fiona Kelly Wilson Kennedy would have hated being described as average.

  Nolie Harper was average, too, he decided, though in a healthy, fresh-faced Midwestern farm girl sort of way. He doubted all the cosmetics in the world could come close to making her beautiful, glamorous, or anywhere near perfect, but she was real. He’d discovered in the past few years that that counted for a lot.

  She was shuffling awkwardly, at a loss for words, and he didn’t have anything to say, either. He should tell her bluntly that this was his first and last rescue, that she wouldn’t be seeing him again except at a distance, then make good on it by leaving. But his feet seemed rooted in the warm soil, his gaze locked against his will on her.

  “Well . . .” The word sounded more cheerful than it deserved, the cheer as phony as the smile that fluttered across her lips. “I-I really do appreciate your help. I, uh, was going to remove the window screens. They’re so dirty I can hardly see out, and I-I like that. Looking out, I mean. At the stars. I like stars. Astronomy is kind of an interest of-of mine.”

  She tucked her hair back again, this time with her left hand, and this time he noticed what he’d missed earlier—a slender gold band. So there was a Mr. Harper. That was relief he felt inside, he told himself, though for some odd reason, it felt more like . . . disappointment. Which it obviously wasn’t. He wanted to be left alone, and no husband worthy of a family would let them have any contact with the ex-con down the road.

  “Let your husband take them down,” he said at last. “When will he be here?”

  She lowered her gaze to the wedding ring, looking at it as if she wasn’t quite sure how it had gotten there. Then she glanced up again. Her expression was distant and colored with emotions he had no desire to identify. “My husband’s dead. It’s just Micahlyn and me.”

  “I’m sorry.”
/>   “So am I.” A breeze rustled around them, and her nose did a delicate little twitch. As if to cover it, she forced another fake smile. “Micahlyn and I baked a cake earlier. Would you like a piece? It’s pineapple upside-down cake.”

  When a grateful neighbor trying hard to be friendly couldn’t hide her aversion to the fact that he reeked—and worse, he was only vaguely aware of it himself—it was way past time for a bath. His own face grew warm as he backed away. “No.”

  “It’s a good cake,” she said. “You don’t have to take my word for it. The judges gave it a blue ribbon at the last county fair. And it’s still warm from the oven, so it’s—”

  He made it past the station wagon before she finally shut up. Hopefully, she got the message that he wasn’t interested—not in cake or blue ribbons or county fairs in Arkansas.

  And he damn sure wasn’t interested in her.

  BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON, NOLIE HAD CLEANED the cabin from top to bottom. She’d found places for everything she’d brought with them in the station wagon and had called her best friend back in Arkansas and told her to ship the few things that hadn’t fit. She’d also whipped up curtains for every window in the place, and had endured two more phone calls with Marlene, followed by two more temper tantrums from Micahlyn.

  And she hadn’t seen Chase again.

  He’d made it clear that he wasn’t the neighborly sort, and she intended to respect that. He’d made something else very clear that day, she remembered, heat flooding her face again. Of course, it hadn’t meant anything. That sort of thing happened a lot, and men just happened to be equipped where they couldn’t hide it. He certainly wasn’t attracted to her in particular. It had just been coincidence.

  A coincidence that hadn’t happened to her in a long time, and one that reminded her how lonely it was, being widowed at the age of twenty-two. She missed the intimacies she and Jeff had shared—the little things like hugs and holding hands, and the big things like toe-curling kisses, making love, and snuggling in bed together afterward. She missed talking to him in the dark and watching him doctor the cattle as if the thousand-pound beasts were nothing more than oversized puppies. She missed doing his laundry and listening to him laugh and watching him with Micahlyn.