Hide and Seek (14 page)

A sudden sobbing from the bedroom reminded Caprice of her errand. “Shawn has a fever. I promised him some water."

"Hold on." A drawer slid open and soon a match flared, casting instant shadows. Holt touched the flame to an oil lantern's wide wick. "Take the lamp,” he ordered. “I'll bring the water."

Outside the wind howled, but her thoughts were on Shawn. Caprice left, keeping a hand splayed on the glass chimney. She was in the hallway when something heavy slammed the roof.

Once inside their room, she set the lamp on a table. Shawn stopped crying, but Caprice understood his surroundings were foreign. Holt entered seconds later with a glass and sat on the mattress as she handed Shawn the orange fever reducers.

“Drink slowly," Holt ordered.

Caprice signed the same, stroking her left forearm with her fingers. In need of more comfort, Shawn grabbed Mr. Punch and climbed onto Holt's lap. Caprice shook her head to admonish Shawn, but Holt held up his hand and settled his back against the headboard. "It's okay. I don't mind."

Caprice turned away and lowered the flame on the lantern while outside the rain lashed. Shawn rested with his head tucked under Holt's chin. Caprice considered the picture they made. Despite the calamity in their lives and the howling outside, this was peace and security.

"Caprice." He patted the bed. "Come here." His sharp features appeared savage and lupine in the flickering dimness. She half-expected him to growl. "You're tired. It makes no sense for you to lose sleep too." Holt’s low tone coaxed and courted, vibrating along every nerve in her body as she sat beside him.

"Will you sleep?" she asked, drawing her legs onto the mattress.

"No, but you should. According to the news, Gemma's eye won't pass directly over us." She flinched when another object crashed onto the roof. “Lady, you're a bundle of nerves."

“It’s this storm and hearing Alan’s lies.”

Holt looped his arm around her shoulders and settled her against him. "Relax. Montero is under the impression that we are still traveling, possibly holed up in an Alabama campground waiting for Gemma to pass by.”

Caprice nodded and realized she trusted this man too much. She had come to count on his good sense. How had that happened? Yet, did Holt think she lacked her full mental faculties as Alan wanted everyone to believe?

Holt’s absent caresses on her arm stoked fires she wanted kept banked. Was this attraction a direct result from the circumstances that had brought them together, or was it something deeper and more profound?

"The power is out,” she said. “The food in your refrigerator and freezer will spoil."

"I can’t start the generator, until the winds let up. It will run the fridge and some lights, but not much else."

“Something hit the roof earlier.”

“A tree probably. No doubt, I’ll have some busted tiles to replace.”

“What if Alan's already here?" she asked as another loud crack of thunder released its fury.

"Scott hasn't seen anything and neither have my hands. Once the storm passes, I’ll keep them doing odd jobs. You shouldn't leave the house, Caprice."

She rubbed Shawn's back and could tell by his even breathing that he had fallen asleep. "I'll feel like a prisoner if this continues for long."

"It won't." Holt shifted to see her more fully. Caprice sensed his curiosity and fought a desire to tumble like Alice down the deep, dark well of his eyes. "How did you get hooked up with Montero, anyway?”

"At an art gallery. He flattered my work. Alan was older by six years, so we started dating while I was attending the university, then we married."

She focused on the lantern's low, flickering flame. "Later I discovered Alan's volatile side, but by then Shawn was born. When he turned seven months, I knew something was wrong with his hearing. I had him tested, but Alan couldn't accept any imperfections. Every time he rejected Shawn, he sliced my heart.”

Holt tensed. "I get the picture."

Pain slashed at the lines and angles on his face. Holt was tough, but was he remembering his mother's rejection? Shawn squirmed off Holt's lap and slid onto the mattress. She touched Shawn’s cheek and looked at Holt. "Good. He's much cooler."

In one liquid movement, Holt stood. Capturing her hand, his strong fingers tangled with hers and he tugged. "Come here, Caprice.”

Chapter Eight

The rains strafed and winds shrilled as Caprice followed Holt into the hallway now dimly lit by the bedroom’s flickering lantern-light. She needed clear thinking, but common sense couldn't breathe, or send her heart clattering like a stick along a picket fence.

Backing her against the wall, Holt angled his mouth over hers. She responded, matching him kiss for hungry kiss.

He shoved the thick, terry cloth robe from her shoulders, and his large hand covered her breast through the material of her nightshirt. His heated touch branded.

Tingling all over, she moved her hips against him as good judgment fled and a primal need became all consuming.

When he crushed her closer, she tore her mouth from his. “You and I are playing with fire."

"Is that what this is?" His lips grazed her temple. "Then I'm burning alive."

Caprice pushed at his chest, warm and solid beneath her hands. "This is purely physical for you. If you persist, one of us will get hurt and most likely it will be me," she said, wanting to sound convincing as his thumb stroked the skin at her throat.

Saints!
She liked his caresses far too much. "I have Shawn to consider. I can't give my affections so casually."

He stepped away, and her skin cooled. He was struggling with his physical reactions, but she was tempted to reach for him and raise her lips for his kiss.

"Go to bed," he said hoarsely as thunder cracked an ominous warning. "If you need me, I’ll be near.”

In her room, the lantern’s flame cast dancing shadows on the walls while the storm ravaged the outdoors. She bit the inside of her mouth, already regretting her decision to stop Holt then wondered if she would escape Elixir with her heart intact.

****

The dawn’s cool, side-driven squalls assaulted Holt’s face. His boots sunk in the soggy pasture as he led a black gelding among several pregnant cows. Holt examined his "ladies", checking their legs for lameness, or cuts from the storm's flying debris.

Later he would remove the shutters from the house then fire up his chainsaw. Trees had fallen onto his roof and several pine canopies were slumped across the driveway and on the pastures’ barbed wire fencing.

He studied an approaching feeder band. The sporadic rain showers would last until the late afternoon, making the clean-up process downright difficult.

Shadow stamped a foreleg, dismissing mosquitoes as Holt worked his hand along the mane’s thick crest. Last night Caprice had been warm putty in his arms. Yet, she was right. They were fire, tap-dancing around dynamite. Caprice couldn't be casual, and he would never invest in love's insanity again.

Holt gripped the wet-slickened, leather reins and set the ball of his left boot into the stirrup. He swung up and settled into the saddle…along with his resolve. Nevertheless, until this situation with Montero came to a grinding halt, Shawn and Caprice should remain with him where they were safe. Then, he would send the green-eyed siren packing.

****

Forty minutes later, crispy bread popped from the toaster and warmed his fingertips. Caprice entered the kitchen and stepped among the coiled extension cords. Once at his side, she removed the toast and a butter knife from him. “I’ll do this.”

Granted, he had decided that from now on Caprice was hands-off, but there wasn’t a darned thing wrong with appreciating snug jean shorts. The scooped neckline of her blue top made him glad he was a tall man.

"How's Shawn?" he asked.

The knife scraped the toast as she spread grape jam. “His nose is running, but I don't have a decongestant."

"I’m going into town this morning to check on my sister. She might have what Shawn needs.”

Holt looked at the small plate she handed him. His toast was now crustless, cut into four rectangles. He stifled a frustrated comment as she dropped more bread into the toaster and regarded him, her expression solemn.

“Alan probably knows we are here by now. Will you be safe when you leave?”

“I can take care of myself.” Yet, Caprice’s concern affected him and was downright sweet. However, it was imperative to reassure her. “That reminds me, before I go, I’ll give you the alarm codes.”

"How did your animals survive the storm?"

"They did just fine. Some stayed on the lee side of the equipment building last night. Scott's out checking our bulls and cows in a far pasture."

As she made toast for herself, he leaned against the counter. "I found my grandmother's easel, paints, and brushes. I put them in the room next to yours."

“Thanks, but remember…I've lost my edge."

"Work on getting it back. There's plenty of space to set up." His grandmother had been her happiest when she had been painting, and he wanted the same for Caprice.

"I haven't used oils since before Shawn was born.” She lifted her shoulders. “If only I hadn’t become so arrogant.”

He shook his head. "You’ll never convince me of that.”

"The Lovelace portrait was my best work to date, and I knew it. Sandra was eight, so sweet and agreeable.” She closed her eyes. "Now oils are a mental block.”

“You paint murals.”

“Yes, but with acrylics. There’s no smell. Thinners with linseed make me gag."

“Lady, stop punishing yourself and move on.” Holt stared at the golden smattering of freckles on her bare arms and wanted to hold her, to feel her softness, when the wall phone shrilled. He recognized the caller’s name and snatched the receiver. “Hey, Scott.”

The older man’s sigh was strain-filled. “I’m near the bend by Blackwater Creek. You should come.”

Scott’s tone chilled as Holt pictured cattle killed by twisters that may have touched down during the storm. Just three weeks ago, lightning had struck a cow.

"How many did we lose this time?"

"Just one, but…” Scott hesitated. “Buddy, you need to see this."

"I'm on my way." Experiencing an uncustomary prickling, Holt snatched a sweat-stained Stetson from the counter and started for the door. "I'll eat later."

****

The truck's wipers slapped a fast rhythm as Holt drove along the pasture’s wooded fringe, on an old railroad bed, a relic from the bygone era when pine logs were loaded onto narrow-gage trains headed for an Alabama paper mill. He and his buddy, Mike had made use of the timeworn beds and raced their pickups, sometimes cutting eight minutes off their drive to school. Now the road was littered with pine boughs and maple saplings that Gemma had scattered and tossed like a game of pick-up-sticks.

He braked beside Scott’s ATV. The older man stood over the bulk of a huge, red bovine, and Holt’s insides knotted.
A young bull
? This did not bode well for Scott’s growing herd.

As Holt drew closer, Scott’s lips compressed. He wore a yellow slicker but remained stubbornly hatless, so his close-cropped, gray hair was soaked. Grim-faced, he stepped aside, and Holt looked at the tissue-spattered carcass.

“Diablo?” Recognition coupled with gut-wrenching disbelief upon seeing his favorite bull…the pride of his herd. “What the
hell!
”

Scott handed him two shell casings. “Now you know why I couldn't slam you with this over the phone."

Holt’s heart plunged to his boots. He rubbed a hand over his face as if to wipe away the grizzly sight. The pedigreed descendant of the great Prince Pompadour was still, his fur muddied and blood-drenched.

"The local teens like to shoot up the road signs,” Scott said, shaking his head, “but I would never have imagined they’d resort to killin’.”

“Could have been a twelve-gauge,” Holt murmured, studying the red-plastic shells. He tried to wrap his mind around the out-right brutality when the ugly truth slammed him. “That sonafabitch!”

Scott blinked. “Who?”

Rain wept cool tears as Holt knelt on the soggy loam to rub the animal’s shoulder. “This was Montero’s calling card.”

He stroked wet, muddied fur and his eyes blurred with the chest-aching loss. Sweet, innocent Diablo. What was left of his head was packed with buckshot.

Holt slid his hand along Diablo’s muscled neck, to his chest and the downy, lighter-colored hair between his forelegs and discovered the animal’s fading warmth. Diablo had been killed after Gemma’s fury and just before daybreak.

He'll try to ruin you financially.

Caprice's bleak words came flooding back. No doubt, Montero had received access to stock sales and discovered Diablo's market value.

“Before this guy kills again,” Scott said, the voice of sanity, “contact the authorities.”

Holt shook his head. “That would only serve to alarm Caprice. As it is she lives in fear.”

“Okay, but let’s relocate your bulls to my north pastures.”

Holt stood and the pooled water on his hat’s brim ran down his back. He and Scott started for their vehicles when a movement yards away alerted Holt to a half-dozen turkey vultures.

He scooped up a dirt clod and flung it. “Git!” The raptors lifted a foot off the ground before resettling, flapping their wings like a cluster of black umbrellas at a funeral.

Scott’s hand clamped his shoulder. “Sorry, pal. He was a gentle soul.”

Holt nodded and took one last look at Diablo. "I'll return with the backhoe."

****

Outside the house, the generator’s motor competed with a chainsaw and men’s voices as they worked to clear fallen trees away from the house. Caprice grabbed a barstool and joined Holt’s sister at the kitchen counter.

"I wanted to see how you fared from the storm,” Melissa said.

Caprice smiled. “Holt was on his way to check on you earlier, but he received a phone call and had to leave.”

As the two girls and Shawn discovered board games in the oak entertainment center, Caprice gestured to a coiled cord. "The generator is powering the refrigerator, the toaster, and some lights. It’s a little warm without the air-conditioner, but we have fans and we’re drinking the bottled waters you supplied.”