Spirit Lake (26 page)

The memory fueled his disgust at the slime inside. Snapping off the flashlight, he shouldered the door for a moment, then pushed off his good foot, giving the door a good heave.

It gave way, too quickly.

A sharp object slammed into Cole's gut, ripping the breath from him. Cole dropped to his knees in the doorway, and the man kicked him hard in the chin, bowling him backward down the few steps. Cole splashed into the mud, but caught the pant's leg of the man and he went down.

The man scrambled backward toward the graveyard, kicking at Cole's arm. A hoarse voice snapped, “You never learn."

A hard slam down on Cole's arm sent him reeling in new pain, and the stranger ripped away from his grasp, stumbling through the graveyard gate and into the chaos of monuments and shrubbery.

Cole flung himself after him, flashlight flicking here and there, catching a headstone but nothing else.

“Come out, you bastard. I'll stay here all night—"

At a rustle, Cole spied a figure vaulting the fence. Cole took off, but his foot caught in a flower basket and he went down. He pushed up only to hear an engine start. A vehicle roared away on the nearby country highway.

“Son of a..."

Sliding down against a headstone, he sat in its protection from the wind, letting the rain wash over him. The muscles in his bad leg were seizing up around the wound. Losing the vile thug devastated him. All he could think of was Laurel. With that man on the loose, she couldn't be safe. His aching muscles be damned.

He pointed the flashlight about to get his bearings, to figure out the fastest way to wend his way out of here.

The flashlight's faltering light helped him spot the dratted plastic flowers he'd tripped over. He would never forget watching Laurel planting the geraniums. He felt close to her being here, and even with the rain, he found he wanted to linger.

Limping from one headstone to the next, he tried to recall where she'd been planting the flowers. She came here every Friday. This night from hell was a Friday.

Lightning cracked, rippling its residue through his veins and skipping blue light across the tops of the headstones.

Nudging his good leg ahead, the flashlight's beam wavered. Driving white rain splashed back up his legs.

He pointed the failing flashlight about, searching for the right names. It was a crowded cemetery, the kind with trimmed evergreens flanking headstones, flags for veterans, plastic flowers among the real. Despite the storm, the place seemed contented. Settled. He began to understand why she visited every week, why some shadows were good. There was peace in them.

Finally, he found Gerald Hasting's monument. It was a tall granite spire, with a fish carved above his name with the final date of December 24, ten years ago. Christmas Eve. He shuddered to think what it must have been like for Laurel that night. A time of birth being celebrated around the world, and she in mourning.

A few feet beyond was the headstone for Kipp O'Donnell. His was plain, no fish motif. Just “Beloved son of Mary and Kipp O'Donnell, Sr.” And the same date, ten years ago.

A hard, clawing guilt overwhelmed Cole. He'd been jealous of this man. Now, he wished the man hadn't died. Laurel had needed Kipp. Maybe Cole didn't buy into the notion of her loving Kipp the way she should, but at least things would have been different for her. Laurel needed a partner in life, someone to keep her from worrying too much, someone to make her smile, snap and sizzle sexually to forget all those things that worried her.

Someone like himself? “Partner” took a hell of a lot more commitment than mere “friend.” So far, they'd agreed only on friends. He dared not entertain other dalliances.

Searching through the rain, placing one foot past the next carefully, he finally found the arc of geraniums around a tiny headstone. The rain drove down harder, smashing the flowers flat to the ground. He shook the flashlight, attempting to keep its beam going. He couldn't read the inscription for the curtains of water whipping past him. That frustrated him, because he wondered about the child's name. Cole had never thought to ask. Wretched regret wound around his heart.

Kneeling down, he poked his head and the flashlight close to the inscription. He muttered, “To Our Dearest Son,” before crashing lightning blinded him momentarily. Was it a warning? He had no business here in Laurel's shadow garden. Was she coming down the trail herself?

Cole pressed the flashlight up to the inscription again. “To Our Dearest Son, Jonathon."

Then an especially bright bolt of lightning turned the tiny gravestone white, sending its lettering into clear shadowy relief.

“To Our Dearest Son, Jonathon. You were borne of the Sunshine your Father and Mother shared, and to the Sunshine of God's Heaven we return You."

The gravestone went dark again in the storm.

Laurel used to adore the sunshine. She'd revel in it. The two of them would run through the meadow on sunny days, racing for the pond. Did she enjoy the same with Kipp? She must have. Cole's heart lurched at the discovery.

As he struggled to stand up, the flashlight's weak beam hit the tiny headstone one last time before it flickered out. That's when stone-cold fear gripped Cole and stayed him in his tracks. Something was wrong here.

Cole laid a shaky hand over the carved date, felt the rain washing down the stone and over his fingers.

“God, no. It couldn't be,” he cried out, “you've got it wrong!"

In a rage, Cole shuddered, curling one hand into a painful fist that he wiped furiously back and forth over the block lettering and numerals forming the date of birth and death.

“April,” he said between clenched teeth. “But you've got it wrong!"

He wiped and wiped, harder and harder, across the indentations. The wind howled louder.

He must have misread the inscription. Lightning flickered. The year was plainly carved to last forever. It could mean only one thing.

Jonathon was ...
his son
.

Chapter 14

COLE WISHED HE smoked. He paced back and forth in the cabin living room, glancing across the bay at the round window of the old mansion. Somehow he'd convinced Laurel to try and sleep. He'd lied, told her he'd found a couple of teenagers out for a lark, a muddled story she seemed to buy. He couldn't remember their conversation exactly. He only knew he wasn't ready to confront her about Jonathon. Not yet.

The storm gathering inside him, though, wouldn't let go. He vowed to wait, hope it would abate with the storm outside. He couldn't talk with Laurel in this condition of heat and anger. It would be better to wait for the anger to simmer down to just leaden disappointment.

He'd had a son with Laurel.

All of them—the Hastings, the whole town, and Laurel—hadn't bothered to let him know about it. Something deep in the earth seemed to claw up at him to pull him under.

He'd laid the sextant on the uprighted table, with the crayon box of Mike's and the locket. His life lay on the table, everything that should lead him to happiness. None of it did.

Hollowness surrounded his heart.

He tried to plot what he'd say to her, how the conversation would start. “Oh, by the way, I found out we had a child together.” Or, “I was taking a walk in the rain and just happened upon..."

No words were right.

Knowledge robbed him of rational thought. It rendered him raw. Emotions fought like gladiators inside his belly. What would win out? The hurt spewed through him, crashing molten waves of ache, even in his head. The burning hurt was winning.

He wasn't ready to talk with her.

Eventually, he peered in her bedroom. She lay rolled up in blankets, sleeping deeply. His heart flinched. He knew she slept only because he was here watching out for her.

But he had to turn and go back up the short hall because he resented her for that normalcy. She lived and slept happily in shadows. Damn her. Cole hated being plunged into them like this. No warning. Like watching Mike's boat explode....

And then he knew he couldn't blame her. He had to rise above this anger because he didn't know what had happened back then.

He blamed himself. Guilt racked him. Why did she never tell him? What was it about himself she hated that much?

He stayed up, staring over at the pirate's ship, where the ghost of Mike would protect him from doing something stupid.

He perused the knuckles of his right hand. They were raw from the night's activities.

But Rojas no longer mattered.

Only Laurel mattered. Her betrayal of him, his own guilt. The anger and devastation flipflopped back and forth inside him. He felt like he was wrestling with alligators. Life or death. His secrets, her secrets. Meted out a piece at a time because they both feared the future.

At least he saw it that way. Their futures at stake. Facing her on all this now mattered to Cole. A great deal.
They'd had a son. She hadn't told him
. It gnawed at his soul, crowded his throbbing head.

Betrayal and guilt.

Could they ever find trust for each other again?

* * * *

THE BRILLIANT sunshine of morning dappling the lake with rainbows sent Laurel out into the yard looking for Cole to ask him about last night. When she spotted him, hands in pockets down at the end of the dock, she retreated to her garden to weed. She knew that stance well. Something bothered him. But the fact that he'd made sure he was out of the house when she awoke said much more to her. Her heart pumped, worrying about the unknown. He knew something. And he was wrestling with how to talk to her about it.

They spent an exhaustive day, but each going their separate ways. Cole worked on a boat, repaired the hole in the fence and brought over yet another load of wood from the mansion, while she tended the animals.

Underneath her efficient doctor's facade, her nerves coiled. She mindlessly bandaged, gave shots, stuffed weak animals in overcrowded cages. What was bothering Cole?

After a lunch of salad made from her garden, in which Cole always seem to avert both his gaze and the subject matter from anything too serious, he took off for a walk, ignoring her admonishments about his sore leg.

When the sun began to droop toward the western horizon to mark late afternoon, Laurel couldn't stand the not-knowing any longer and decided to head off down the trail after Cole.

She stopped when she spotted him emerging from the forest with flowers clutched in his big fist.

“Brown-eyed susans,” she said inanely.

“Our special flower.” The breeze tousled the bouquet. The rich brown of the flower stamens matched his eyes. She yearned to run to him. She knew he would smell of the richness of their meadow, where he must have picked the tall-stemmed beauties.

“I was beginning to wonder where you'd disappeared to,” she said, leading him through the doorway at the front of the cabin.

“I'll get some water for the flowers,” he said, making her feel oddly like the guest instead of the hostess of the house. He added, “Iced tea? I feel like something cool after the long walk."

He shifted, but winced, and shifted back again to take the weight off his leg, his eyes not veering from her now.

Shaken, she licked her lips against a sudden dryness and rushed to the refrigerator. “I made sun tea. I'll pour us a glass."

She flicked on the kitchen light.

Putting the flowers in a quart jar, he mused, “You rarely turn on the lights at night, much less in the afternoon."

When he glanced her way while turning the faucet on to fill the jar with water, a flicker crossed his eyes. What was wrong?

She decided she needed to take the initiative or she'd burst. She plunked ice in Mickey Mouse glasses. When Cole raised a brow at them, she was glad for a reason to smile. “The fourth grade class last year. They were a thank you for telling them about small rodents and how important they are on the food chain."

“Suddenly I'm not hungry but I bet the children loved it. You and children just seem to go together."

The way he looked at her then could have chased the sun behind the clouds forever.

Her stomach turned colder than the ice in the glass she handed him. “You know the truth. Don't you?"

He flinched, his coal-dark eyes piercing her. “Why didn't you tell me?"

Sweat broke out on the back of Laurel's neck and in the valley next to her heart.

“Damnit,” he said when she turned away to seek the shadows of the livingroom. “Say something. For fifteen years you kept quiet about this. Why?"

Echoing, his voice vibrated through her body, pushing her to reply. Pushing. “Because ... I didn't think you cared. And telling you couldn't resurrect him,” she whispered, not daring to look at him. “Why did you leave me?"

“Your father's threats."

“Threats?” She whirled around to face him, but he averted his gaze. “What were they?"

“He's gone. It's not important.” Raking his hair, he paced to the kitchen window. “Why didn't you tell me?"

“It would also bring all the hurt back to me. I'd have to live everything we had all over again and I wasn't strong enough for that.” Heaving a heavy sigh in search of clarifying oxygen, she added, “And I didn't see the point in hurting you either."

When he turned around, Cole's gaze softened. “All last night, all today, I wanted to see his face, to look into the innocence, to breathe life into him, to feel him wiggle in my arms."

He guzzled desperately at the ice tea, downing it before slamming the glass down on the counter.

She lowered her glass to the dining table before she dropped it. “Cole, I'm sorry."

“No you're not."

She came to him, placed a hand on his shoulder. It scorched like fire. “I did what I had to do to protect myself from you."

“From me?” Flinching her off, he limped over to the fireplace where he kicked at the hearth bricks with his good leg.

“I knew you'd be angry. I knew you wouldn't understand."

“But you let me find out by myself.” He slammed a balled hand against the mantle. “I'm worried about you, protecting you by chasing a man out of your house last night and then I stumble on the grave and the truth by accident. By accident. As if my knowing anything didn't matter. Do you have any idea what that did to me?"