Under Montana Skies

Another bolt of lightning illuminated the figure. Though she couldn’t see clearly without her glasses, she recognized the build. Adam Scott. Of course. But what on earth…?

Waves of sheet lightning in the distance kept him constantly in view now. His pose was alert, still.

He faced the window, holding a pair of binoculars. They were bigger than normal, Laura thought, with a long extra piece in the middle, perhaps the night-vision kind she’d seen in thrillers.

She was about to let him know she was awake when, as the room darkened, she thought she saw him turn his head in her direction.

Laura lay stiffly in the dark, feeling that he was staring at her. The bed was under the eaves, cloaked in complete darkness, but even so, she wondered if he could feel her staring back.

She feigned sleep, waiting to see what he would do. After a long moment she heard him cross to the stairwell, cautiously, soundlessly. Just as he reached it, faint flashes of lightning in the distance made his silhouette visible. She watched him descend until finally his head disappeared below the landing.

Lightning continued to pulse in the distance, and she heard the sound of one stealthy creak as he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs.

The whole thing gave Laura a roaring case of the creeps.

THE NEXT MORNING she awoke before the sun peeked over the mountain. She padded barefoot across the cold wooden floor to gaze out the window onto the dewy green expanse of meadow between the cabin and the outhouse. What had he been looking at last night?

Doc was hiking stiffly up the misty path. When he spotted Laura standing in the window, he raised his arm and gave her a jaunty salute.

Everything below looked normal. So idyllic and beautiful, in fact, that she could hardly believe the unsettling incident last night had happened.

Beyond the meadow, Sixteen Mile Creek sparkled in the deep valley, the narrow road beside it winding lazily down, finally intersecting with a bigger road. The view from this window clearly showed the route up to Adam Scott’s property—the only route. He must have been checking that. But why?

Shivering slightly, she slipped into her plaid robe and slippers and made her way gingerly down the creaky stairs, concerned that she might awaken Katherine.

But Katherine was already bustling around the kitchen.

The fire crackling in the old stove, the eggs gently boiling in a pan, the teakettle steaming, all made the small room feel toasty warm and inviting. Laura hated to venture out into the chilly morning, but she needed to make a trip to the outhouse. After she returned, she started to wash her hands at the sink.

“Oh, use the basin, dear.” Katherine suggested. “That pipe water is freezing.” Katherine poured hot water from the kettle and cooler water from an old-fashioned pitcher into a matching basin. Laura submerged her hands in the warm water, then washed her face with the glycerin soap Katherine had provided, marveling at how this primitive setting seemed to enhance the simple pleasures.

When she was finished washing, she accepted a warm bran muffin and a fragrant mug of tea from Katherine.

“There’s a small jar of strawberry preserve in my basket,” Laura offered.

“No!” Katherine exclaimed. “You don’t need to use the things from your basket.”

“But I want to.”

“Well, I make gallons of cherry jelly every year.” Katherine reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a pint mason jar and unscrewed the lid. Then she opened a drawer and produced an ornate silver condiment spoon. All the homey touches in the kitchen were likely this older woman’s doing.

“Thank you.” Laura took the jelly, thinking how much nicer her stay would be with this lovely woman around.

“No trouble.” Katherine smiled. “By the way, Doc and I are strict vegetarians. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll do the cooking while we’re here.”

Laura took a bite of the muffin—heavenly. “Mind?” she said, and swallowed. “I’m a vegetarian, too!”

Katherine’ s smile grew wider. “Why don’t you sit down on that stool?” She pointed at a well-worn bar stool that looked hand-hewn. “We can chat while I finish filling these hummingbird feeders.”

While Katherine measured a batch of red nectar into a large bowl and slowly stirred the mixture, the two women talked about ordinary things.

How well Laura had slept: “Pretty well,” she hedged. “It’s so very quiet up here.”

Where she came from originally: “Texas—Dallas. But I could never go back. So hot. So hectic.”

Where Doc and Katherine came from: “Seattle. Doc isn’t a medical doctor, you know. He’s a botanist.”

How the older couple had long dreamed of retiring up on Sixteen Mile Creek: “Because there is no more beautiful place on earth.”

Laura had to agree. “Where’s your house?”

“Oh, quite a distance back down the road. It takes a good thirty minutes to get there, but one can go faster in a canoe when the creek’s high. There’s also the shortcut—nothing more than a rough logging road. I don’t recommend it to the uninitiated.”

When Katherine showed no signs of volunteering any information about Adam Scott, Laura decided to ask.

“How long have you known Mr. Scott?”

“Oh, many years.” Katherine smiled as she used a little funnel to fill the feeder.

This seemed to Laura a cryptic answer. She tried again.

“What, exactly, does he do for a living?”

“Oh, he doesn’t like to talk about that much.” Katherine screwed the lid on the feeder, carefully turned it over and held it up by its chain, examining her handiwork. “All done,” she said cheerfully.

“And Mrs. Scott? Did you know her?”

Katherine dropped the hummingbird feeder onto its side, and as the sticky cherry-colored liquid gurgled out, the woman did nothing to stop it. She touched her gnarled fingers to her heart and paled, staring at Laura while the mess ran over the side of the cabinet top and onto the floorboards.

“Oh, dear,” Laura said as she jumped off her stool and righted the feeder. “Let me help you clean that up.”

Katherine swung her gaze to the red liquid dripping at her feet, but still she didn’t move.

“Did I say something wrong?” Laura asked gently as she snapped off a handful of paper towels and started soaking up the puddle.

“No.” At last Katherine seemed to come to herself. “No, dear. You didn’t.” She turned toward the sink and ran water over a dishrag. She twisted the rag, wrung out the water, then started furiously mopping up the mess on the counter-top. “It’s…well, Adam’s wife is…” Katherine stopped cleaning and looked at Laura with eyes full of something unspoken. She seemed to be gauging how much to reveal. “Adam’s wife is deceased.”

“I know that. I read it in his chart. I was just wondering about her.”

“I see.” Katherine resumed scrubbing the counter, and Laura could see that her hands trembled.

“She died in the car wreck?” Laura asked gently.

Katherine nodded. “Instantly. The car plunged off the side of a mountain back in Washington.” She kept on scrubbing.

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Laura whispered. “No one told me exactly how it happened.”

Katherine continued to clean.

Laura sensed the woman was holding something back. She squatted down with the paper towels and started wiping up the mess on the rough wood as best she could.

“I’m sorry.” She looked up at Katherine’s back. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Tension built in the quiet kitchen while the ashes in the old cast-iron stove collapsed with a pop and a hiss and bird song filtered in from outside.

Finally Katherine turned and looked down at Laura. Her wrinkled old eyes communicated an unspeakable sadness when she spoke. “I…I did know Elizabeth. Quite well. And I knew their little girl, too. Anna. She died in the accident, also…with her mother.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS CHILD HAD DIED, too?

Laura stared up at Katherine’s seasoned face in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “How old was his daughter?”

Katherine’s hand stilled on the dishrag and she stared out the window. “Three.” She spoke as if in a trance.

“How awful,” Laura said.

Katherine nodded. “Elizabeth and Adam had waited several years to have her. Elizabeth was a research scientist and did not want her demanding career goals to interfere with a child’s happiness. She had waited until…she and Adam had reached a certain level of success and then…then they had Anna.”

“I see,” Laura said quietly. She still didn’t know what to say.

Katherine turned on the spigot in the sink. Water blasted out and she rinsed the cloth under it, shaking her head. “This water drains by gravity from the spring. Never reliable. Sometimes a torrent, sometimes a dribble. And always freezing.”

“Katherine, are you okay?” Laura asked.

Katherine nodded. Laura reached out and clasped the older woman in a hug.

And that was how Adam Scott found them, embracing.

“Ms. Duncan!” he boomed from behind the screen door, then jerked it open.

Laura and Katherine broke apart as he stepped into the room, but not before they gave each other one last parting pat. When their gazes met as they released each other, Laura thought she read warning in Katherine’s.

“Are you ready to go to work?” Adam frowned at Laura’s attire. “I’d like my morning treatment as early as possible.”

“Uh, no. I’m sorry. I’m not ready.” Laura cinched her robe. “I, uh, I need to go up and put my scrubs on, and—” she pulled her mop of hair back “—I’ll be right down.” She turned, jerked on the leather strap on the narrow door and dashed up the stairs.

In her embarrassment and haste she hadn’t closed the door completely and when she got to the landing at the top she froze when she heard Adam say her name.

“What were you and Ms. Duncan talking about?”

“I think you know.” Katherine’s voice sounded tearful.

Laura clutched the railing.

She heard Adam’s sympathetic reply— “Ahh, Katherine,” —and then his heavy bootfalls as he crossed the room. “Are you all right?” he asked tenderly.

She heard Katherine sniffling and saying something in a small pained voice. Then Adam murmuring softly. He finished with something that sounded like, “You mustn’t keep upsetting yourself.”

Laura crossed the room to start dressing and tried to ignore the conversation below her, but the voices continued to drift clearly up the stairs.

“Adam, I think we should be honest with this young woman.” Katherine’s voice was louder, firmer now.

Adam’s tone sounded exasperated. “No. That’s not a good idea.”

Laura coughed loudly, hoping they’d realize she could hear them. Evidently they must have gotten the idea, because she heard Adam’s footsteps again and then a creak as the stairway door closed.

ADAM HAD PUT his finger to his lips as soon as he’d heard Laura cough. Katherine was a little hard of hearing, and it was easy for her to forget how well sound carried in the quiet cabin, but he had no excuse for being so careless. After he closed the door to the stairs, he led Katherine into the front room to continue their conversation.

“Laura and the people at Mountain Home Health Care don’t need to know any details. The fewer people who know, the better. That way nobody can inadvertently lead Gradoff to me before I’m ready.”

“Adam, I told you before—this is a dangerous scheme. You don’t know—”

“I know what I’m doing, and I’m sticking to my plan.”

“But now Laura will be staying up on the mountain with us. How can we possibly keep the truth from her?”

“How much did you tell her?” Adam struggled to keep his voice from sounding alarmed.

“I told her about…both of them. It states on your chart that you’re a widower and I just blurted out the part about Anna.” Katherine’s eyes filled with tears when she said the name.

“Katherine.” Adam looked down at her snowwhite head and his heart contracted. It was bad enough that his brainstorm—his greed—had killed Elizabeth and Anna. He would have to live with that for the rest of his life. His guilt was his punishment to bear. But to see how Doc and Katherine also suffered…

He stepped closer to her. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not, but I won’t speak to her about it again. She’s such a nice person, but still, I know I shouldn’t have said anything.” A note of fear rose in Katherine’s voice. “What if she goes back down to town and talks to someone about what I’ve already told her? How long do you think it would take Gradoff to connect you to a widower who had also lost a three-year-old child?”

Adam didn’t answer. He could send them all away and accelerate his plan, but his arm wasn’t ready. His only choice was to make sure Laura stayed here and didn’t go back to Kalispell until he was ready.

“Don’t worry,” he said firmly, “I’ll make certain she won’t want to talk about it again.” Adam softened his voice. “Katherine, please be patient. You have no idea how grateful I am to you and Doc for all your help. It won’t be long now. Toeless is coming up any day. He has some new information. He’s good at what he does, and Ms. Duncan is evidently good at what she does, too. My shoulder actually felt better after only one treatment. Look—” he wiggled his fingers on his right hand for her “—hardly any pain this morning. When she comes down, would you please tell her I’ll be waiting for her in here?” He put his good arm around Katherine’s thin shoulders and hugged her. “And don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

She patted his fingers, and Adam smiled at her, vowing to end this ordeal as soon as possible.

LAURA CAME DOWN the stairs a few minutes later feeling composed and professional: clean bright blue scrubs with Mountain Home Health Care stenciled on the breast pocket, hair up in a tight braid, immaculate white athletic shoes, equipment bag slung over her shoulder.

She improvised a hot pack, pouring steaming water from the kettle over a folded towel and rolling it up inside a plastic bag. Then she was ready to face her patient.

She found him in the barren front room, going over some papers at the oak table and sipping coffee from a heavy white mug. The shutters had been thrown back from all the windows, thank goodness, making the room a study in soft sunshine and glowing warm wood.

“Mr. Scott?”

He looked up with the mug poised at his lips. He was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, in anticipation of his treatment, she supposed, with only thick gym socks on his feet. He jerked his head toward the massage table, still folded, by the fireplace. “Doc and Katherine suggested we set the table up over there.” He sipped the coffee and resumed reading the papers.

“That’s nice,” Laura said. She crossed the room to the bed, which Katherine had already made up. It was also Katherine, she assumed, who had placed a folded thin cotton blanket across one side.

Laura pushed on the mattress with a palm. “For now, this will be good enough. Nice and firm.”

He grunted and kept reading.

She picked up the cotton blanket—it would be useful—then crossed the room and dropped her bag beside him. “You’ll need to sit backward in your chair like you did yesterday.”

He pushed the chair out from the table, scraping the wood floor, then flipped the chair around and sat facing away from her.

“Here.” She tucked the cotton blanket over the back of the chair for his comfort. “You’ll need to remove your shirt, please.”

He jerked the sweatshirt up and off in one swift move, tossed it on the floor, then draped his arms over the chair back. Laura unrolled the hot pack and positioned it on his shoulder. While she waited for it to warm the muscles, she bent and dug in her bag. She pulled out a CD, positioned the player on the oak table and found the lone electrical plug in the room.

As the beat of the Pointer Sisters’ “Slow Hand” filled the room, Adam gave her an irritated glance over his shoulder. “Is that really necessary?”

“Well, no,” Laura admitted. “But it helps. You and I are both gonna get mighty bored with these therapy sessions. The music will keep us moving.”

He shrugged and turned his back to her again.

As soon as Laura laid her hands on him, she decided she’d been wrong. There was never going to be anything boring about touching this man. She blocked out that thought and concentrated on her work.

She massaged the places where she knew the pain was lodged and wished she’d chosen a different song to start with. The beat was all right, but the words…

Having these thoughts made her a little uptight, but fortunately her hands worked automatically, and her body took up the rhythm subtly, too. Halfway through the song, she smiled as she felt Adam relax.

By the time the song was over, the muscles in Adam’s back felt as fluid as a bank of shifting sand. His head rested on his forearms and his eyes were closed.

Was he asleep again? Laura wondered. Did this guy even get enough sleep? Maybe not, if he was always peering out the attic window in the middle of the night. She had to talk to him about that. If he wanted to play lookout with night-vision binoculars, he had to do it somewhere else.

“Mr. Scott?” she said softly, and he cracked his eyes in a squint at her. “Time for the second half of the treatment—the resistance training and stretching maneuvers.”

Without being told he went to the massage table and lay down.

Laura got out the lotion, gave him some cross-fiber friction massage before starting the stretches. She carefully and slowly brought his arm up, then down, stretching the joint until she felt restriction. She knew how far she could push a patient, but he seemed to be getting tense too quickly. She could feel his muscles guarding, resisting her.

“You know about my wife and child,” he said suddenly in the midst of a particularly difficult stretch.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I was so sorry to hear that. Now you must relax, Mr. Scott.”

But instead of relaxing, he twisted away from her hands and bounded up off the table, facing her, his bare chest heaving with rapid breaths. Every fiber of his body seemed tense now.

“Let’s get something straight, Ms. Duncan,” he said in a low voice. “My wife and child are none of your business. And if you speak about either one of them again to anyone, ever, I will have your license suspended for violating patient confidentiality. Is that understood?”

Laura, stunned, could barely nod before Adam turned and stomped off toward the back of the house. Again she worried: What kind of patient had she taken on?

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