Stepping to the door, Greer looked off in the direction of Noah’s house. Earlier, lights had flickered through the trees. Now there was nothing but blackness. She cupped her hands to the glass and peered up at a moonless sky. The kitchen clock she’d hung said it was approaching midnight. Time to go to bed. She wasn’t normally jumpy, but it’d been an eventful day. She’d be okay after a good night’s rest. In addition to everything else, there’d been a lot of emotion tied to moving home.
Greer decided that for tonight she’d leave the small light on over the sink. Father Kelley claimed there wasn’t such a thing as bad omens. Once again she recalled those anonymous letters. She’d initially wondered if someone at the bank or on the land application committee opposed her plan to open a guest retreat. The typed, unsigned notes suggested she’d be happier with a section nearer town. Or maybe she could turn one of the big older houses into a bed-and-breakfast.
Miranda insisted no one officially involved with the project would’ve sent the letters. She admitted facing opposition. It was known that Clint Gallagher had tried to raise capital to buy the whole parcel. The Dragging F would make a nice addition to the Four Aces. In any event, someone had sent the notes.
As she undressed and showered quickly before crawling into bed, Greer blanked her mind to those negative thoughts. She was here now, and she planned to stay, planned to build a good life for herself and Shelby. Just before the comfort of sleep closed around her, Shelby’s comment about their needing to find Greer a nice man brought a faint smile to her lips. It was a fantasy that made for interesting bedtime illusions. But Greer would never admit that tonight, ever so briefly, the face of such an illusive lover bore a distinct resemblance to Father Noah Kelley.
A SOUND, a woman’s scream, had Greer bolting upright out of bed, jarring her out of sleep. She grabbed the small bedside alarm. The illuminated hands showed it was just after 2:00 a.m. A cougar? No, this was the Hill Country.
A bad dream, she decided, and sank back into a crumpled pillow, hoping her heart would slow its mad gallop.
The second scream, partially muffled, ended in an eerily dragged out moan. Catapulting up again, Greer scrabbled for her robe. Seconds later, she was pounding down the hall toward Shelby’s room. By now Greer’s heart had lodged in her throat. Why hadn’t she realized immediately that her daughter might have awakened in pain or confusion caused by being in a new place?
A pencil-slim beam of light shimmering from the night-light in the bathroom landed on Shelby’s bed. Her eyes were closed and her breathing regular. The arm not encased in the cast curled around her spotted dog and a tattered teddy bear that had been Greer’s first gift to her newborn daughter.
Backing out of the room, Greer next made a cursory inspection of the house. It was when she opened the front door a fraction of an inch to scan the porch that a third garbled cry, clearly drifting up from the direction of the river, sent Greer racing back to her room to dress.
She threw on the jeans, boots and plaid shirt she’d laid out for working in the next day. This was the next day. However, she hadn’t planned to get going on so little rest.
She looked around for some means of protection, although her mind had locked on the probability that some human or animal out there needed help.
Greer had never been a proponent of guns, but she used to carry one on trail rides, and she could shoot. Now she wished she’d brought a handgun from Denver, since they were two females alone out here.
She recalled having seen a rusty pitchfork lying in the barn; her mom had said it should be tossed in the trash before someone accidentally stepped on the tines and ended up with tetanus. Leave it to her mom to think in terms of worst-scenario accidents. Greer remembered her mother had carried the pitchfork up to the house, where she’d stood it by the green garbage can outside the back door.
Feeling her way like a blind woman, Greer located the pitchfork. Although she was armed now, what she really needed was a flashlight. It occurred to her to try to find one in a box of miscellaneous kitchen items she hadn’t yet unpacked. Just as she began to open the carton, the thin, almost strangled cry wavered again.
Greer dashed out the door, torn at leaving Shelby alone for however long it’d take to trek the distance to the river. When she started to walk, she quickly found a path. Greer recalled that it zigzagged across her pasture to a small stand of cypress overhanging the river. That was where it now seemed the cries were coming from. Did people boat at night? Boys she used to know went south to hunt Lord-only-knew-what at night.
Her property sloped from the house all the way to the water’s edge. If she hurried, she could get down there to see if a boater or perhaps a calf had somehow got stuck or stranded, and be back before Shelby even realized she was missing.
A desire to be a good Samaritan won out over her fears. Greer took off at a half run. By now, her eyes had adjusted to the almost starless night. All the vegetation along the path had been chewed away, probably by cattle.
It’d only been her land for seven days. One week since she’d signed the city’s contract and put her name on a two-year trial mortgage held by the Homestead Bank and Trust. The fact was, Greer had no idea when Jase Farley had abandoned his ranch. No doubt he’d owned animals he watered at the river, just as she hoped to do one day soon.
The closer she drew to the dark trees, the more tightly she gripped the rough-hewn handle of the pitchfork. So tightly her palms were sweating and her fingers ached. Greer’s mouth felt dry and she licked her lips.
The only sound she’d heard since she embarked on this fool’s errand was the rapid thunkity, thunkity, thunk of her heart. The mournful cries appeared to have stopped.
Slowing her charge into the dark trees, which could be home to any number of dangerous animals or humans, Greer glanced at her house. How stupid was she, leaving Shelby alone and unprotected?
Backing up a few steps, intending to make a mad dash back the way she’d come, Greer hit something solid and warm and—she feared—very human. She wrapped her hand firmly around her feeble mode of protection, the pitchfork. Hoping the element of surprise might at least buy her running time, she spun, ready to launch a counteroffensive.
Suddenly she was blinded by a bright stream of light that burst suddenly from an industrial-size flashlight. Greer threw up an arm to ward off what she assumed was an imminent attack. She stumbled, tripped over a bulging cypress root and fell hard on her backside. A yelp of frustration mingled with her pain.
The last thing she expected was to hear a voice she recognized. “Greer, why in heaven’s name are you tramping through the woods in the dead of night? Are you sleepwalking?”
Noah Kelley. He was behind those ghastly cries?
Greer lost no time in scrambling up. “Maybe the question should be why have you lured me down here?”
“What?” He finally pointed the light he carried at the ground, which gave them each a better chance to peruse the other.
Greer saw he had on the boots he’d worn earlier, and blue jeans somewhat less faded than the previous ones. His dark blond hair was thoroughly disheveled, and he was shirtless. His skin had turned dusky gold in the light. His chest was dusted with hair a lot darker than the wheat-blond locks draped appealingly over his forehead. She’d thought her mouth and throat were dry on the trek here; now she couldn’t have swallowed if her life depended on it. But as Noah continued to look dumbfounded, she snapped, “You obviously hoped to frighten me, with all those woman-in-distress noises.”
“That’s exactly what it sounded like. I’ve got no idea what time it was, but a high-pitched scream woke me up. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I heard it again. Not quite as distinct, but worrisome enough to get me out of a warm bed. Since you’re the only person here, and you’re female, why wouldn’t I think you’re the one out here caterwauling at the moon, not the other way around?”
The hand not gripping Greer’s pitchfork curled into a fist. “There isn’t any moon, in case you’re too unobservant to notice. And