Incident At Elder Creek Page 21

  She blew out a breath in frustration. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t walk you out, Sheriff. I can’t handle those nosy gawkers tonight.”

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Stevens. I’ll tell them to go home—and we’ll keep patrolling by here again tonight. Make sure you lock everything up tight when I leave, okay?”

  “We will.”

  He said goodbye to Leah and Tucker. Tucker closed and locked the door behind him. Leah headed to the back door, then down the hall, turning off lights as she went. Tucker followed, catching up with her as she checked the window in her office. Tucker stood in the doorway. Leah stepped across the room into Tucker’s arms.

  They stood holding each other, silence surrounding them, until Leah said, “Stay with me tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I am staying with you. I live here now, remember? At least for a while.”

  “You know what I mean, Tucker Stevens.”

  Tucker smiled into Leah’s hair at her use of the teacher tone.

  “Leah, I don’t think this is a good idea. I’ll be right in the living room on the couch. I’ll protect you. Don’t worry.”

  “It’s not me who needs the protecting tonight, Tucker.” She stepped back and looked into Tucker’s eyes.

  Tucker felt the aqua-blue depths drawing her in the dim light. A shiver ran through her. Leah was so beautiful. She felt so good in her arms.

  “I want us to be close tonight. I won’t be able to sleep wondering if you’re awake all night on the couch, worrying. Please. This has nothing to do with sex. I want you nearby so I know you’re all right.”

  Nothing to do with sex? Tucker didn’t think she could say the same thing. She weighed her answer. If she said no, she’d only make things worse for Leah, who might be awake all night worrying about her. If she said yes...she sighed. “All right, but this only has to do with comforting each other. I don’t want you to think I’d ever take advantage of you in a situation like this.”

  “I know, my noble friend. I know it very well.” Her look changed. She looked impish, filled with mischief. “Maybe someday I’ll convince you to...maybe...not be so honorable.”

  Tucker raised an eyebrow and said, “Maybe. Someday.”

  She tightened her hold on Leah again. Maybe when all this craziness is over and life tilts back onto a more normal axis, she thought.

  TUCKER AWOKE AROUND three in the morning to a dull scraping sound at the back door. She tried to slip her arm out from under Leah’s body without waking her, but Leah opened her eyes and smiled up at her.

  “Bathroom?”

  Leah’s sleep-tinged voice sent a pleasant shiver through Tucker.

  Tucker whispered, “No. I thought I heard a noise out back. I’m going to go check.”

  Leah’s eyes popped open wide. “Not alone, you’re not,” she whispered back. “I’m coming with you.”

  Tucker wiped her hand over her eyes in exasperation, knowing Leah would never stay put.

  “You don’t happen to own a gun, do you?”

  “No!” Then realizing she might have said it a little too loud, she repeated in a whisper, “No.”

  “How about a baseball bat? Do you have one of those?”

  Leah shook her head, her tussled hair bouncing on her forehead as she did so.

  Her face brightened and she said, “Golf clubs.”

  “Golf clubs?”

  “Yes. I used to play down in southern California.”

  She got out of bed and walked over to the closet and opened the door. Her head disappeared as she dipped toward the back of the small space, and when she emerged she held a driver with the biggest head Tucker ever saw. Tucker stood beside her now, smiling.

  “This’ll work,” she said, her voice still quiet. “Got another one of these?”

  “Not quite as big, but it’ll do.” Leah extracted another club with a smaller head.

  They heard the scraping again as they stole down the hall.

  Tucker put her lips up against Leah’s ear and said, “You stay right here.” She tried to convey it in as commanding a voice as possible, but concern filled her that Leah wouldn’t hear the whispered message the way she intended it. “I’m going to go out the front door and come up behind whoever it is. If you don’t hear anything in a few minutes, call the sheriff.”

  Leah opened her mouth in protest. “You can’t—”

  She gave Leah a stern look. “Got it?”

  Leah looked deflated. “Got it,” she said.

  Tucker left her standing in the hall.

  Tucker crawled to the front door, trying to remain invisible to the intruder at the back of the house, dragging the club with her. When she got to the front, she stood up, opened the door enough to slide through the opening and slipped outside.

  When she reached the corner of the house she peeked around it into the back yard, trying to maintain her stealth. The porch was bathed in shadows, but it looked empty from her angle. She’d have to try to get closer to be sure. She flattened her back against the siding and slipped along the back of the house, crab-like, holding the club down at her side. When she got close enough for a better view of the porch, she confirmed no one lurked there. She stepped away from the wall and looked around into the darkness. No sounds. No movement. She let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Thinking she should check the back door for signs of attempted entry, she slithered around to the porch steps. Then, she saw it. At the back door, through the window in the kitchen, a dark shape loomed.

  Was the perpetrator already in the house? Her mind clouded with fear as she thought about protecting Leah. She skulked to the door, grabbed the knob and twisted. At the same time, the door gave way from the inside. Tucker raised her club and met—

  “Leah, stop! It’s me.” Leah stood on the other side of the threshold, her own club held high, ready to bash in Tucker’s head.

  The surprise on Leah’s face melted into an expression of horror, and she slowly lowered her weapon. “Oh, God, Tucker, I almost killed you.”

  Tucker dropped her club in the doorway and pulled Leah into a tight embrace. “Nah, you probably would have only given me a concussion. Maybe you’d have knocked some sense into me.” She grinned at Leah.

  “You’re not even a little bit funny, Tucker Stevens.”

  Tucker turned Leah gently toward the living room. “Let’s get inside and lock up again. If someone was out there, they’re long gone now.”

  Tucker retrieved her golf club and locked the back door. When she went to the front door, she found Leah already locked it. Good woman, she thought.

  They went back to bed, leaving their newly conscripted weapons propped up beside them at the ready should they need them again.

  “Leah, did you unlock the back door just now?”

  “Yes, I turned the lock very slowly. Thank goodness it’s quiet. I wanted to be able to yank the door open and bash in the head of the person trying to break in.”

  Tucker debated her next thought but decided she needed to point out the flaw in Leah’s reasoning, even at the risk of irritating her. “You do realize by unlocking the door, you may have allowed someone to rush you and get in, don’t you?”

  Leah sighed. “Well, I couldn’t just do nothing. What would you have me do? Stand there while someone tried to force his way in. I wanted to be able to strike first. Therefore, the door must be unlocked.”

  Although Tucker couldn’t agree with it, she could acknowledge there was some logic to Leah’s reasoning. Leah certainly wasn’t put off by the challenge, even if it was dangerous.

  As they lay in the darkness, Leah asked, “Did you ever see anyone out there?”

  “Everything was quiet by the time I got there. I have a feeling whoever it was heard us moving around and it resulted in second thoughts about trying to break in.”

  A dog barked, the sound cutting through another pause in their conversation. Tucker drew Leah close.

  “You know,” Tucker said, “we’ll have to ca
ll Baker again in the morning.”

  Leah groaned. “He’s going to think we’re a couple of crackpots.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Tucker said.

  TUCKER DREAMT OF searching for and trying to open doors all night long. When she found one unlocked, it revealed a deep, dark, swirling abyss. She knew if she crossed the threshold she’d be plunged into oblivion. Yet the swirling nothingness pulled at her, trying to suck her through the opening. When she thought the battle would be lost and she felt unable to hold back, the negative pressure drawing her toward the other side against her will, someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her back, out of harm’s way. When she turned around, Leah stood there, smiling, saying she thought she’d return the favor. The clear message meant Leah would help and protect her as much as Tucker would Leah. She found comfort in the thought.

  The dream continued, but she knew the danger no longer existed. The sky lightened. The sucking wind on the other side of the doorway died down. The door slammed shut, but the brightness remained all around her. The dream dissolved. She blinked her eyes open and found herself in Leah’s bedroom, surrounded by morning light and Leah’s side of the bed was empty.

  Tucker breathed a sigh of relief when she found Leah in the kitchen, staring out the back door window, a cup of coffee in her hand. The aroma of the brew met Tucker’s nose. It smelled heavenly.

  She cleared her throat and Leah turned. Only it wasn’t Leah. Leah’s blonde hair framed the scowling face of Nigel Dunbar. Tucker felt the fear and confusion rise to her throat. Dunbar came at her, but when he put his hand on her shoulder to grab her, his touch felt surprisingly tender.

  “Tucker.”

  He sounded like Leah, confusing Tucker even more.

  “Tucker, wake up.”

  Dunbar’s image faded with sparkling transparency in the sunlight streaming through the window.

  “Tucker.”

  She felt a push at her shoulder, more insistent now.

  “Tucker, wake up.”

  Leah sounded desperate. Tucker put every ounce of energy into prying her eyes open. When she finally lifted her lids, she saw Leah’s worried face close to her own.

  Leah let out her breath in relief. Then she smiled, and Tucker’s fear and confusion dissipated.

  “I was worried there for a minute, Tucker. I thought you’d never wake up. Are you all right?” The concerned look reappeared while she spoke.

  “I’m okay,” Tucker said.

  Her voice cracked a little when she spoke, mostly from just having awakened, but some resulted from recalling Leah as she turned around in the kitchen to reveal Dunbar’s face. She suppressed a slight tremor.

  “Are you sure, Tucker? You’re shaking.”

  “I’ll be fine. Bad dream. Nothing to be concerned about.”

  She looked into Leah’s eyes. The blue of them reminded her of the color of shallow water on a tropical beach. Emotion filled her. A warm glow followed as a thought hit her. She knew with certainty they should do it. “When this is over, let’s go to Hawaii,” Tucker said.

  “What?”

  Now, Leah wore the confused look. “How did we get from a bad dream to ‘let’s go to Hawaii’?”

  The uneasiness melted away. The shaking stopped. Tucker smiled.

  “Your eyes. They remind me of tropical waters, they’re so blue.”

  Leah’s cheeks flushed, looking as if they’d been splashed with Rosé Moscato. Tucker, unable to resist, pulled herself up on one elbow and kissed the pink tinged skin lightly.

  Leah’s chest rose and fell as if she were having trouble catching her breath. She held Tucker’s gaze, the blue of her eyes darkening to deep turquoise. Tucker watched her pupils dilate and recognized her arousal.

  Tucker threw off the bed covers and stood up, causing Leah to reel back. “I’d better go make us some coffee.”

  LATER IN THE day, Sheriff Baker arrived and scolded them, especially Tucker, for going outside with only a golf club for protection.

  “But it was a really big golf club,” Tucker said. She cupped her hands together in a circle to indicate the size.

  The sincerity in her voice didn’t dissuade Baker from admonishing them. “And whoever you heard out there could have been wielding a really big gun.”

  “Well, he didn’t. Or at least he took off by the time I got there, with or without a gun,” Tucker insisted.

  Baker stared at her, then said, “I’ll go have a look around. If we’re lucky, this person may have been dumb enough to leave something behind to give us a better handle on who they are and what their motive was for coming here.” He looked at them sternly. “You two stay put,” he warned. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Tucker raised her eyebrow at him. He sounded like he thought she’d interfere with his investigation if he didn’t nail her to her seat with his words. Good thing she already liked this guy. She wouldn’t take offense at his attitude.

  He walked out the front door to retrace Tucker’s steps to the backyard.

  “He thinks we’re taking things into our own hands,” Leah said.

  “Probably. You know how the police are. They don’t want anyone compromising their investigation. They’re kind of touchy about such things.” Tucker grinned at Leah.

  Leah cupped her chin in her palm, elbow resting on the kitchen table. “So tell me about this trip to Hawaii. When are we supposed to take this, now?”

  “When all this is over and done with. When they figure out how Notch is related to all these strange goings-on. Maybe when they finally find out what happened to the Hammersmith girl...”

  Her voice trailed off. She wanted to say more, but the timing was wrong. She knew Leah cared for her and she cared, very much, for Leah, too. She realized it with a clarity she’d never understood before—this relationship with Leah felt so completely different from anything she’d experienced previously. However, with all the recent events, how could she complicate their lives by letting her attraction to Leah propel them in a direction they might not go under normal circumstances? Besides, for all she knew, Leah liked flirting with her for fun. Maybe it’s what got her into trouble with the woman down south. Maybe she attracted crazy people and stalkers, Tucker included among them.

  As soon as she thought it, she recognized it as a defense mechanism. She liked Leah a lot. And not just to kiss, although her kisses were wonderful. She would find it so easy to make a life with Leah, and she definitely wanted to do more than kiss her.

  “Tucker, are you okay?”

  Tucker snapped back from her musings. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “Your face went from normal color to bright red in about three seconds. I watched it happen. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Tucker gave her a grin tinged with embarrassment. “I’m fine,” she insisted.

  Rescue came when the sheriff returned.

  “Got more looky-loos out there I’m afraid, Tucker.” Sheriff Baker waved toward the front window. “I asked them to move on, but you know how people are. They took about two steps away from the house and called it good.”

  Tucker grunted her frustration.

  “I’ll be gone in a few minutes. Then they’ll disperse, especially if you two stay put for a while.”

  Sergeant Baker reported he found nothing in the backyard or on the porch. “Too bad it’s not later in the year,” Baker said. “Since we haven’t seen any rain, the ground isn’t wet or I might have found something in the way of a footprint, but I didn’t find anything, though. The ground’s still too solid.”

  He walked the entire back yard, he informed them, all the way to the perimeter of the unfenced boundary, and found nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to indicate an intruder. He also checked both sides of the house and along the front. Again, he found nothing. Baker said. “I wish there was something to go on, but there’s nothing to show anyone prowling around out there.”

  Tucker and Leah thanked him, and Tucker walked him to the door. As Baker put
his hand on the knob, he said, “Make sure you keep the doors and windows locked.” He gave Tucker a warning look. “And if you hear anything, anything at all going on outside, call. Don’t do anything foolish.”

  More plea than admonition tinged his voice when he added, “Please.”

  “I’LL TELL YOU what, I’ll make you a deal,” Tucker said.

  She struggled to make her last, best proposal acceptable to Leah on Sunday evening. They spent the weekend holed up in the house, avoiding all contact with the outside world except for a brief visit by Jackie, who came looking for assurance they were okay.

  Later, Tucker and Leah discussed their plans for the next day, Monday, without conclusion. Tucker tried to encourage Leah to call in to school, telling them she came down with a bug. Leah insisted she needed to go to work. They went ’round and ’round as they finished the apple pie Leah baked earlier in the weekend. Tucker said the pie defined perfection, but the impasse continued until late in the evening on Sunday, when Leah eyed Tucker with suspicion and asked, “What’s your proposal?”

  “I’ll take you to work. While you’re there, I’ll spend the day in Portero. I’ll take my computer with me and stake out a table at the Cuppa Joe. It’ll give me a chance to work on my novel without distraction. God knows I’m behind with it and need to concentrate on getting some work done or I won’t meet my next deadline.”

  Leah considered the offer.

  “What about lunch? They only have pastries at the Cuppa.”

  “Maybe someone I know can accompany me somewhere for lunch.” Tucker wiggled her eyebrows.

  Leah laughed.

  Tucker’s stomach did multiple flips at the sound. Days passed since she’d heard Leah laugh. The sound delighted her.

  Silence followed, until Leah said, “I’m not going to win this one, am I?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Tucker stared into those eyes—eyes as blue as a Mediterranean lagoon.

  Leah sighed. “And what do you propose to do for the rest of the day, after lunch?”