Whispers in the Night

Not that it had anything to do with this specific woman. In his state, she could have been any female of the species. On top of that, there were too many other sources of stimulation this morning not to have some kind of reaction. He’d been locked up for four years, and now here he was, on top of a gorgeous mountaintop. There was an endless expanse of forest all around, not to mention fresh, clean air, a warm kitchen, even freshly brewed coffee.

And the woman. His groin tightened even more with a fierce desire that nearly took his breath away. Yeah, most especially the woman.

She wasn’t the first female he’d encountered since being released five days ago. But it had been a long, long time since he’d been intimate with one, and at the moment, Kayla Thorne was provoking a reaction far stronger than anything he’d expected.

He didn’t like it. Not at all.

He angled his body away from her. “This place is pretty old,” he said, steering the conversation toward safer territory and figuring he’d score points if she thought he really did know what he was doing. “A hundred years or more, I imagine.”

“It was built in 1895,” she said.

“Just move in?”

“Hell no.” Hank answered the question cheerfully from the corner table. “Property has been in the Thorne family forever.”

Mrs. Thorne correctly read Paul’s one raised eyebrow. “Walter, my late husband, said he liked to keep it just as he remembered it as a child, before garbage disposals and subzero refrigerators.” A small, fond smile lit her face. “He was happy here, with his grandparents, every summer. A golden time, he called it.”

Damn, she had a great smile, Paul observed, attracted to her genuine niceness. Then he ruthlessly banished the thought from his brain. He had an agenda here, and none of the softer emotions were welcome. Besides, he no longer believed in much of anything having to do with men, women and possibilities.

Too close, Kayla thought. She was standing way too close to Paul Fitzgerald in the small kitchen. Despite the impersonal chill of his gaze, his big body radiated enough energy to power an electric blanket, and it was warming her up. Setting Bailey down, she said brightly, “I think the kitchen is a bit small for all of us, so shall we go outside?”

She swept past both men and out into the garden that covered the entire area between the house and the driveway. Whew, she thought, as the cool morning air hit her. If she had a folding fan, she’d flutter it in front of her face, that’s how hot her cheeks felt.

Hot now, shivering earlier, all in Paul Fitzgerald’s presence. But why such a strong reaction? He terrified her, that was why, she told herself. But was that all it was?

No, she was forced to admit to herself. Standing next to him in the kitchen, she had felt an odd kind of—what? A connection with him. Not to mention a quivery, shuddery sensation in various body parts. There was a name for it: chemistry.

Hello and welcome to good old-fashioned lust.

No! Her mind rebelled. How could that be? Paul Fitzgerald had the personality of a serial killer. Heck, he might even be a serial killer, for all she knew. And while there seemed to exist women who found potentially violent, dangerous men a turn-on, she was definitely not one of them. Never had been, never would be.

It was the lack of sleep, she told herself. Her fragile emotional state since Walter’s death. This, whatever it was between her and Paul Fitzgerald, was an aberration, and would soon pass. She fervently hoped. And she could help it along by not hiring him.

There! she thought, mentally brushing her palms against each another in job-well-done fashion. She’d made her decision. Fitzgerald was history. She was sorry if he needed the job, but her own peace of mind had to be her first priority.

The men had followed her out the kitchen door, and now the three of them stood along the fenced-in compost heap that was situated in the shadow of a tall pine tree. “I hate to sound stupid, Mr. Boland, I mean, Hank,” she said with another bright smile, avoiding Fitzgerald’s gaze, “but are there bears around here?”

“Bears?”

“I heard something last night. It woke me up, and I guess Bailey wasn’t the only one who got scared. I must have fallen asleep listening for it again.”

“Bears?” Boland repeated, scratching his head. “Could be. We’re on the edge of wilderness up here, you know. Or it coulda been a coyote, even a raccoon.”

“Are raccoons heavy enough to make the porch creak?”

“Well now—”

“There’s your culprit,” Fitzgerald said, cutting him off, crouching down and picking something out of the compost heap. “Chicken bones.”

“Excuse me?” Kayla said.

“If you don’t want to attract wild animals, you need to keep animal remains out of the compost. Carrot peelings, coffee grounds, stuff like that, is all that should go there. No bones or animal fat.”

The slight condescension in his tone made her cross her arms over her chest and declare defensively, “I know that.”

He raised one jet-black eyebrow. “Do you?”

“Yes. Walter, my late husband, taught me well, and I’m very careful about what I put in that compost heap. Nothing but vegetation. All other garbage is wrapped tightly in plastic and kept in the mudroom until garbage pickup day. I’m not a total fool, you know.” She was annoyed, at him for figuring her for a dimwit, and at herself for having lustful thoughts about him just moments ago.

Which, thank heavens, were now gone.

“Besides,” she said, her chin sticking out defiantly, “I haven’t had any chicken since I’ve been here, so there’s no way I could have put those bones in there.”

Again, the raised eyebrow, the shrug. Then he stood, towering over her, blocking out the sun with his body. “Maybe it was a tramp,” he said, hitching his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans, the material of his T-shirt tightly stretched across pecs the size of boulders. “Some homeless guy. What do you think, Hank?”

“Maybe,” the other man said. “Up here’s usually too big a hike for strangers, but there’s some great hiding places if you’re on the run.” He scratched his head again. “Gee, Miz Thorne, I wish I could help. Are you sure you’re all right here, all by yourself?”

“I’m fine.”

“How long you planning on staying?”

“As long as I need.”

“Oh, I thought it was maybe a few days, that’s all.”

She lifted her shoulders. “I really don’t know.”

“But not during the winter, right?” Hank persisted. “It gets snowbound up here in the winter.”

“Isn’t there a plow service?”

“Can’t count on it. Hardly anyone up here then. You’d be pretty much alone, with no way to get down the mountain.”

“Maybe,” Fitzgerald joined the conversation, “someone from your family should come up here and stay with you. Your dad? A brother?”

Kayla nearly laughed bitterly at the ludicrousness of that suggestion, but all she said was “I don’t think so. And, anyway,” she added philosophically, “winter’s a long way off.”

“Maybe only a month or so,” Boland said. “It’s late September. Snowfall begins in the autumn.”

“Hank Boland,” she said, her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to scare me?”

He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned sheepishly. “I’m just old-fashioned, I guess, about women being alone up here where there’re wild animals. In case you get, you know, attacked or something.”

She gave him a forgiving smile. “You’re allowed to be as old-fashioned as you like. But I assure you, I really can take care of myself.”

An amused, exaggeratedly patient look passed between the two men, one of the aren’t-females-foolish? variety, but she decided to ignore it. The male brain worked differently from the female’s, and that was just the way it was.

“Well, look,” Hank announced, “I’d best check on that leak under the church. Why don’t the two of you go over the stuff on your list?”

Now was the moment, Kayla knew, the one where she could say, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Fitzgerald won’t do.” She wouldn’t have to explain her reasons. After all, she was doing the hiring here and didn’t owe anyone anything.

But before she could, Fitzgerald said, “What church is that?”

Kayla pointed toward an expanse of birch trees on the far side of the house. “It’s over there. The Old Stone Church. It’s part of the property.”

Paul had always been fascinated by early American architecture, and now his curiosity was piqued. “Mind if I take a look with Hank?”

“We can all go, I guess,” Mrs. Thorne said.

As they followed Hank down the gravel driveway toward the main road, Paul asked her, “Does the church still function as a church?”

“Mostly it’s used for weddings and funerals. Anyone who wants to belong to a congregation has to go down the mountain to Susanville.”

Susanville.

The name sent a chill through him. It was where he’d just spent four hellish years in the penitentiary. Where the families of the prisoners rode the bus from New York City and Albany and Buffalo on Sunday mornings, filled with excitement and picnic baskets, and returned on the same bus, subdued and sad, their baskets empty, on Sunday nights.

As they walked along the main road for a brief period, then turned up the path leading to the church, Paul shook himself mentally. He was out now. His lawyer had gotten him released on a technicality, but if he was lucky, he’d never have to go back. Hell, he couldn’t go back. Didn’t think his soul could take another day there.

Which was why he was here, high in the Catskills, on the way to checking out an old church with Kayla Thorne. She held the key to his freedom, although he doubted she was aware of that.

And, if he played his cards right, she would never have to be.

Chapter 2

Kayla remembered the first time she’d seen the Old Stone Church; it had been nearly four years before, when Walter had brought her here on their honeymoon. As he’d shown her around his family’s mountain retreat and related stories of his childhood, there had been rueful pride and unabashed sentimentality in his voice. At the moment, she couldn’t help comparing that time with this one.

Somewhat guiltily, she contrasted her late husband with Fitzgerald. Walter had been under six feet, reedy rather than muscular. And, of course, a young-thinking but still aging man of seventy. Fitzgerald was so much taller and broader, so much more muscular…and so much younger. Always a fast walker, Kayla had had to slow her pace to match Walter’s stride. Today, she had to hurry to keep up.

They paused at the front of the building, which was relatively modest as churches went, one story made to look a lot taller by its sharply pitched roofline and a high, broad steeple. The bell tower still had its original nine-hundred-pound bell, one that was rung on special occasions.

Fitzgerald ran one huge hand over several of the dark gray and dusty brown stones that made up the entire facade. “Solid workmanship,” he said, and she detected a flicker of admiration—an actual emotion?—on his face as he did. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Just what’s in the brochure. It’s native fieldstone and was carved by Italian masons,” Kayla explained, “brought to America in the mid 1890s for that express purpose. A wealthy widow, Honoria Desbaugh, built it to honor her husband. For years, it was run by some monks, an offshoot of a sect called the Brothers of the Sacred Nazarene. Our cabin was their dormitory. One by one, the monks died out, and the place was pretty much abandoned till the 1920s, when Walter’s family bought the entire property.”

“The church is a real tourist attraction in the summer,” Hank added. “Good for the town.” He pulled open the thick wooden front door, and they followed him in.

As it had before, the cool quiet of the church’s interior had the effect of a balm on Kayla’s nerves; even if she hadn’t been aware of being tense, the easing of the tightness in her shoulder muscles and abdomen was a dead giveaway. She stood in the nave and breathed deeply of the air—it had the slightly musty but clean smell of damp earth and old caves.

The calm lasted seconds only, because Paul Fitzgerald came up to stand beside her, his hands in his back pockets as he peered upward, his gaze taking in the high ceiling and its heavy beams. She couldn’t help noting his strong neck and prominent Adam’s apple. The filtered sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows cast shadows on the sharply defined planes of his face.

Good Lord, she thought, he was like some kind of stone monument himself.

“This has been kept up,” he said.

Hank, still standing near the door, said, “Mr. Thorne paid for the restoration years ago,” to which Kayla added, “Walter set up a fund to keep it up in perpetuity.”

“Religious, huh?”

“Not particularly,” she said. “He intended the church to be nondenominational, sort of a general, all-purpose place to worship whatever god you believe in.”

He angled his head to gaze down at her. His pale eyes were grim and joyless, and spoke of bone-deep bitterness. “What if you don’t believe in any kind of god?”

“Doesn’t everyone need to believe in something?” she asked him softly.

His gaze remained on her face for another moment or two, revealing nothing of whatever was going on inside him. She felt, again, her blood running cold, signaling her dread of violence. The bleakness in Fitzgerald’s eyes did that to her.

Then he shrugged and looked away. “If you say so.”

He walked over to one of the walls, and as he had outside, rubbed his hand over the stone. His attention caught by something near his feet, he bent over and scraped a nail against a floorboard. “This must be it, Hank. The leak’s under this area of rotting wood.”

“Okay.” Hank headed for a small side door near the altar. “I’ll just check in the basement, see where that water’s coming from. You two look around, I’ll be back in five minutes or so.”

Kayla watched as Fitzgerald ambled past the pews and to the altar. On the rear wall were five wooden statues of saints, each about four feet high. He studied them silently for a moment. What was he thinking? she wondered. Had he ever had any beliefs?

Why couldn’t she shake this need to understand this emotionally cutoff man? He was none of her business, especially as she would be sending him on his way as soon as they got back to the house.

Annoyed with herself, she followed his progress as he strode over to the east wall and, one by one, perused the stained-glass windows. Several were dedicated to people who’d passed away, dating from the early 1900s to the 1970s. Desbaughs had given way to Montgomerys, who’d given way to Thornes. She joined him at her favorite, an exquisite rose window, its colors pale pink to deep red and all hues between. Along the bottom of the window ran a green-leafed vine, above it the words “Entwined forever.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said as they both gazed at the fine craftsmanship combined with a delicate sensibility.

He didn’t reply for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’m having a window made in honor of Walter.”

Again, he made no reply at first. Then he said, “Good for you.”

Was he being sarcastic? She had no way of knowing.

They were near the rear of the church now and he pushed open the back entrance door. Sunlight poured in, obliterating the shadows and sense of mystery in the old building.

Fitzgerald pointed ahead. “What’s that?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her answer, striding out the door toward what she knew was the memorial arch.

By the time she’d caught up with him, he’d already covered the cracked paving stones that led to the monument, a tall, narrow archway made up of small, ivy-covered stones. He stood beneath it and gazed out. Her instinct was to join him beneath the high curving shrine, appreciate the view, tell him a story or two about the arch’s history.

But the thought of standing under it, next to Paul Fitzgerald, made her distinctly uneasy. She remained several feet behind and to the side of it.

A sudden wind came up, the way it did here in the mountains, and she had to raise her voice to answer his previous question. “It’s called the Memorial Arch,” she told him, “in honor of the Native Americans who used to roam these mountains. Mrs. Desbaugh had some Mohawk blood in her, and asked that it be part of the original construction.”

He looked back at her, a slight frown forming between his thick brows. “Am I breaking some kind of law by standing here?”

“Not at all.” The wind whipped her ponytail around to smack her in the face, and she pushed it away.

“But you’d rather I didn’t.”

He was reading her unease. “No, no, it’s not you. I’m just being…superstitious.”

“There a curse or something?” he asked sardonically, and she knew he was scoffing at the possibility. “Something bad happens if you stand under this thing?”

“Not at all. People stand under the arch all the time. Sight-seers, couples getting married. It’s fine.”

She was being silly. But, in truth, she was actually afraid to stand under the arch with him. At the same time, she was experiencing this unexpectedly strong pull toward the ancient monument, a sense that she needed to be under there, next to Fitzgerald.

What was that about? And why the fear? Nothing popped into her head. She sighed, shook her head. The only way she’d get the answer was to—as she’d learned—go toward it and find out. Sometimes she yearned to return to the days of being the little girl who hid from life, but her path had gone in a different direction. For better or for worse, she was a woman who faced and fought her fears.

Shoulders squared with determination, Kayla took the few steps that had her standing side by side with Paul Fitzgerald, under the arch. The minute she got there, the wind died down, leaving her with that same vague sense of unease.

Also a nearly palpable awareness of—darn it!—that connection again to the man by her side, the way she’d felt earlier, back in the kitchen. Only it was stronger now, as if there was some invisible wire strung between them, with a jolt of electricity passing through it.

She knew that she and Paul Fitzgerald made an all-too-intimate picture: a man and a woman, surrounded by history and tradition, enveloped by a monolith that marked sacred ground, one used in ancient ceremonies of all sorts…including weddings.

Her heart stuttered. Oh, God, was she doing a you-are-my-destiny head trip? Because if she was, then fate had a major sense of humor, pairing a grieving widow with an embittered ex-con who looked like he ate small children for breakfast.

Turning her head, she studied his profile. The slight hook to his strong nose brought back her initial impression of him. “Do you have any Indian blood?” she found herself asking.

He turned to look at her, his features carefully neutral. “Cherokee. My grandmother.”

“I thought so.” A grandmother he’d loved, she just knew it.

Kayla was always interested in family stories; ordinarily she would ask him to tell her about his grandmother, but there was that don’t-go-there quality to Fitzgerald that discouraged questions. As though to prove her point, he turned away from her and stared out at the view again, which, from this angle, offered mostly treetops, and beyond, Shawangunk Ridge, with its single soaring pine tree reaching high into seemingly endless clear, blue skies.

The only expression on his face was a slight downturn of his mouth. “Nice,” he said.

“Something of an understatement,” she countered wryly.

“There you are,” Hank said from behind them.

She nearly jumped with surprise as he came up to them, wiping his hands on a large white handkerchief. “I can fix that leak in the basement. No problem.”

Kayla stepped out from under the archway and faced the older man. “I’m sorry, Hank,” she said. “Really I am. I already told you on the phone that Walter was adamant when it came to the church. Any repairs, anything that needs to be done, is to be performed by a restoration expert. I’ve called the man Walter used, and he’ll be up in a couple of days to look it over and give me an estimate. I just wanted to see if there is something I should do until then.”

Stubbornly, Hank shook his head. “Those people cost a lot of money. Hell, me and Paul and a couple of my guys could do it just as well, cost you a third of what them fancy experts charge.”

She could see that she was dealing with a bruised ego, and she felt badly. Hank had always been kind to her and helpful to Walter. “If it were up to me…” she said, then shrugged with an apologetic smile. “It’s out of my hands. It’s actually in the will.”

Again, he shook his head. “Damn foolishness,” he muttered. Then, resigned, he stuffed the soiled handkerchief into his back pocket. “Guess I can’t fight a will, now, can I?”

“How about we go back to the house and take a look at your list?” This abrupt change of subject came from Fitzgerald, who didn’t wait for a reply before taking off, around the church rather than through it.

As Kayla and Hank followed, she was thinking, once again, that it was time to dismiss him. Just because he’d admired the church didn’t make him someone she wanted around her all day. Besides, she reminded herself, she had way too strong a reaction to him, equal parts attraction and repulsion, neither of which she needed in her life at the moment. It was most likely the nurse in her that was stirred up by the pain she sensed beneath the man’s steel surface. He might need healing, but he wasn’t about to get it from her.

“Um, Mr. Fitzgerald?” she began as the three of them strode up the driveway to the house.

“Call him Paul,” Hank said genially.

Before she could go on to tell him that she wouldn’t be needing his new recruit, Fitzgerald had taken the list of chores from Hank, glanced at it and headed for the drainpipe that ran down the side of the house near the kitchen door. He knocked on the metal, then said, “I think it would be better to replace this instead of repairing it. I’ll clean out the rain gutters first and make sure there are no rats making nests. Or snakes.”

If he could have invented a better conversation-stopper, Kayla had no idea what that would be. “Snakes?” she squeaked.

Hank shrugged. “We got ’em up here, sure.”

Her hand flew to her throat. “I hate snakes.”

He shook his head sadly. “They’re part of the habitat, Miz Thorne.”

But Fitzgerald had already headed for the rear of the house and Kayla and Hank followed. He leaped up onto the porch, forgoing the three steep steps, and kicked some of the floor slats with his foot, then rapped his knuckles on several pieces of wood siding.

“Yeah, it’s old,” he said with a nod, “but it’s good solid wood. Oak. They don’t make them this way anymore. I’ll have to find some older house undergoing demolition, cut and shape some of the slats. I can do that in Hank’s shop, bring them up here, install them. No problem for me there, I’ve done it before.”

Paul was aware he was doing a blatant selling job, being chatty as a woman over the back fence. But he’d seen the look in Kayla Thorne’s eyes, the one that said she’d made up her mind and was about to give him the heave-ho.

He couldn’t allow that. He needed access to her. If his first stab at finding out about her family had gotten no response, if his little attempt to introduce the topic of her brother had taken him nowhere, there were still several more ways to bring up the subject.

But only if he had the time and opportunity to do so, and to have that, he needed to remain here, on the premises.

“Let’s look at the rest of the list, okay?” he said, trying for upbeat but doubting it came out that way. He no longer knew how to be or sound cheerful. Tension and anger had filled every day of the past four years and he wondered if it would ever go away completely.

Instead of waiting to hear her answer, he slid open the sliding glass doors off the porch, entered the living room and took the stairs, two at a time, to the upper floor. When he heard her footsteps behind him, a small part of his tension eased. At least she was letting him get this far without canning him.