Shadow in the Pines (3 page)

Feeling a little washed out after a long day on campus, Dani fixed a quick sandwich when she got home and rewarded herself by ignoring the awaiting chores and heading for the porch. At least in the front yard there weren’t boxes and stacks of papers screaming for attention. She’d just settled in when she was interrupted by a smooth, deep voice floating across the yard.

“Danielle Jones?”

Dani looked up from the book she was reading on the porch swing and felt a twinge of apprehension at the sight of a strange man strolling casually down her driveway. Against the backdrop of trees, he reminded her of a lumberjack, tall and brawny. Shaggy light brown hair and a three-day growth of beard made it hard to see his face in the shadows, but the tank top displayed muscular arms and shoulders and tight blue jeans left little to the imagination. Self consciously running a hand through her hair, Dani stood up, eyes fixed on a black band strapped around his right thigh. As he moved closer, she saw it was part of a holster that held a large gun.

“Yes,” she said uncertainly, suddenly feeling incredibly isolated and vulnerable.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and handed an envelope up to her. “Guess they delivered this to me by mistake.”

“Oh,” she took the envelope from him. It was something from the realtor’s office. “Thank you.”

“I’ve been out of town. Didn’t know I had a new neighbor,” he continued. “Looks like you’ve been busy,” he glanced around the yard.

“Yeah,” she agreed. Up close, he was disturbingly attractive, but her eyes didn’t stray far from the gun on his hip. “You live next door?” There was a house on the next lot, the only one for at least a mile in either direction, but she hadn’t seen anything to make her think it was occupied since she’d been there.

“Sorry! I guess I forgot my manners,” he smiled sheepishly, extending his hand. “I’m Noah Russell, I live next door.”

Her hand felt small clasped inside his big one, but she couldn’t help noticing how strong and warm it was. “Nice to meet you, Noah,” she smiled awkwardly. She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t about to share the close proximity of the swing with this stranger and his gun. “I’m Dani. Have you lived here long?”

“Mind if I sit awhile?” he asked, easing down on the porch steps before she answered.

“Not at all,” she lied, sitting back down on the swing. The neighbors she’d pictured were a nice retired couple that might occasionally send a home baked pie her way. Not someone who looked like he belonged in a biker gang. Just her luck, her one and only neighbor might be some kind of armed felon.

“I moved here in March,” he said. “Transferred in from Austin.”

“Austin?” That got her interest. “I came from Austin, too.”

“No shit!” He looked at her curiously. “Small world, huh?”

“Yeah, it is,” she said, wishing she knew why she found him so intriguing. “Very different.”

“It’s good different, though,” he said. “It grows on you,” he smiled, causing her heart to skip a beat. As if sensing her discomfort, he got to his feet. “It’s good to meet you, Dani Jones. Don’t get up,” he looked at her intently before he turned to walk away.

“You too,” she said, watching him go. His gait was slightly uneven, with just a hint of a limp. She jumped when he turned to look at her again and caught her still staring.

“Hey,” he said. “I have no food in my house. Would you consider getting a burger or something with me?”

The thought of having dinner and an actual conversation with a neighbor she couldn’t afford to offend overrode the qualms she had about the gun strapped to his thigh. In Austin, she’d been surrounded by people, and three days of solitude was enough. “Sure, if you’ll give me a minute to change.”

His face broke into a smile that made him look a lot less intimidating. “Great! I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes, how’s that?”

“Great!” she answered, hoping she was right.

Less than an hour later, she followed him between the tables in a heavily populated diner called “Pop’s.”

“It’s a little loud, but the food’s great,” he spoke loud enough to be heard above the dull roar of conversation and country music. Dani smiled, sliding into the red vinyl booth directly across the table from him.

She couldn’t help noticing the waitress, who patted Noah on the shoulder fondly and offered him a smile that livened up her tired face. “Whatcha want tonight, big guy?”

“Why don’t you give us some menus and I’ll try to act civilized for company?” Noah winked up at the woman who cackled at that.

“You? Civilized? That’ll be the day!” She was still laughing as she went in search of menus.

Noah turned his attention back to Dani and offered her a wry smile and a shrug. Dani returned the smile, but wondered again what kind of neighbor she’d inherited.

“There you go,” the waitress returned, dropping menus in front of each of them. “What can I get you to drink? You on duty?” Dani was surprised to hear her voice drop to a whisper.

“Nah,” Noah shook his head. “Beer, straight up and cold,” he smiled at her.

“I’ll have the same,” Dani said when she looked over at her. “On duty?” she asked when the waitress walked away.

Noah shrugged again. “She knows I don’t like it broadcast.”

Dani wondered what she’d missed. “Don’t like what broadcast?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “I’m a cop.”

It was Dani’s turn to look surprised. She’d imagined all sorts of reasons why he might have a gun strapped to his thigh, but somehow that wasn’t one of them. “Oh,” was all she could say.

“Guess I … forgot to tell you, huh?” he grinned sheepishly.

“I guess,” she smiled again. “I hate to tell you what I was thinking…”

Noah laughed out loud. “I’m sorry. It’s a small town. Even though I do some undercover work, I just assume most people know.”

Unconsciously, Dani breathed a sigh of relief. By the time they’d finished their meals, the two were chatting like old friends.

“You know,” Noah pushed his plate back and slumped down more comfortably in the booth, “I’ve always been interested in the details of biological warfare but I just never took the time to study. Barely passed college chemistry,” he chuckled.

“You either love it or you don’t,” she mused, with a growing awareness of just how attractive this man was and how long it had been since she’d felt like that. Too long. Too risky, she straightened up in her seat and warned herself not to get too comfortable.

“You ready to go?” he asked, as if sensing her mood.

“I hate to, but, yeah,” she said. “I’ve got to go in early tomorrow.”

Dani spent the ride home in his truck trying to remember the best way to end a first date when she didn’t want to get too close, but needn’t have worried. Noah pulled into the drive but didn’t turn off the truck.

“Need me to walk you to the door?” he asked, watching her from behind the wheel.

“No,” she answered, feeling a little let down as she reached for the door handle. “Thanks for dinner.”

He smiled at that. “First of many I hope.”

The next few weeks were hectic as Dani readjusted to campus life. She hated to admit she wasn’t as young as she used to be. Even though the graduate classes had several students who were considerably older than she was, she was keenly aware that the majority of the student body was at least ten years younger. Even so, she was enjoying the freedom and making a few new friends.

The last student had exited the lab, leaving her with nothing to do but clean up and get ready for tomorrow’s activities. Dani looked up with a smile as one of the other lab assistants burst through the door with exaggerated exhaustion.

“All done for the day?” Dani asked.

“Finally!” Beth said in her own unique melodramatic manner.

Dani grinned. Beth was like a breath of fresh air.

“So, how’d it go last night?” Beth asked with a knowing grin. She’d joined the Biology Department as a last minute addition a few weeks ago and Dani took an immediate liking to her. With a smile as perpetual as her frizzy, reddish brown halo of curls and a laugh that reminded Dani of Tinkerbell, the two had fallen into the habit of policing the labs together after the last class each day. It meant each of them cleaned up in six labs instead of three, but it really didn’t take any longer with two of them working and the time passed much faster with someone to talk to. As ditzy as Beth seemed sometimes, she was twenty-four and in her second year of grad school, working on a degree in zoology.

“It was nice,” Dani said non-committally, spritzing the table with disinfectant before wiping it up.

“Details!” Beth demanded, doing the same. “I want details!”

“What details?” Dani suppressed a smile. “We went to dinner, then we went home.” Ever since Noah stopped by the lab last week, Beth had been smitten. He was, in Beth’s words, infinitesimally dreamy.

“Come on! Give it up!” Beth looked up from her scrubbing with an impish grin and mischief sparkling in her clear green eyes. “Your home or his?”

“Mine,” Dani smiled, putting her supplies away. “He came over for coffee after,” she admitted.

“Oh, my God, it’s so romantic!” Beth pretended to swoon. “Why couldn’t I have bought the old Bailey house and moved in next door to Prince Charming? No wonder you’re not afraid of ghosts!”

“Girl, you’re nuts,” Dani laughed, helping Beth put away her supplies so they could lock up the lab and get out of there. She didn’t dare say so, but Noah was coming over for dinner again tonight and she still needed to stop at the store. “And what do you mean ‘old Bailey house’?”

“You don’t know?” Beth turned wide eyes toward her as they locked the door and headed for the parking lot. “I thought everybody knew about the old Bailey house! It’s haunted!”

“Yeah, right,” Dani laughed. She should have known Beth would be thinking like that.

The scorching summer heat had been replaced with cool, fall breezes. With Halloween only a few weeks away, the campus was ablaze with the colorful riot of changing leaves while the building interiors had been invaded by witches on broomsticks chasing ghosts and avoiding cobwebs.

“I’ve lived there for over a month. It’s not haunted.”

“No, I’m serious,” Beth insisted. “Why do you think it was empty for so long before you bought it?”

Dani shrugged. “Cause nobody wanted to live way out there?” She’d wondered the same thing, especially since the price was so low, but it never occurred to her to ask.

Beth’s voice took on a confidential tone as she launched into an explanation while they walked toward the parking lot. “You know the snake farm?”

“You mean Ophidian?” The Ophidian Research facility was the pride and joy of the science department and apparently responsible for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money for the University.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, Dr. Atkinson used to own that house when he worked there and sometimes he’d take a bunch of kids out there and they’d go all out in the woods looking for snakes.” Beth’s eyes were wide as saucers and Dani suppressed a shiver at the thought of snakes slithering around her house.

“I suppose there are always snakes in the woods,” Dani shuddered. “That’s not haunted.”

“No,” Beth said, stopping beside Dani’s car. “Wait! Two of the students that went out there to find snakes disappeared!” Her voice shrank to a stage whisper. “They went out to your house and they never came back!”

Dani tugged her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the car, then turned to face Beth. “Where did you hear that?” Surely she was just repeating some old East Texas folklore, but Dani felt an unexpected cold chill remembering the times she’d been working outside and looked up suddenly with the feeling that someone was watching her.

“Dano,” Beth said, using her own preferred nickname for Dani, “I am serious as a heart attack! Ask anyone. It was five or six years ago…no, six… I was a senior in high school. There was a big deal in the paper about how they were bringing in more kinds of snakes to make the lab bigger. Anyway, if I remember right, just a handful of kids went out there that day, then a girl and a guy disappeared in the woods. Some people said they probably eloped or something. But, they never found them anywhere, Dano! After Dr. Atkinson moved away, some of the kids would still go out there to look for snakes, but they said someone was watching them in the woods. It’s really creepy.”

“Yeah. It is,” Dani agreed, rolling her eyes. Beth’s gullibility made her feel ancient. “Thanks for sharing.”

“Oh, you!” Beth nudged her arm. “I gotta run, big date tonight! Talk to you later!”

“Later,” Dani echoed, smiling. Beth could shift gears faster than anyone she knew. Maybe she was getting old, she thought, putting the car in drive and heading for the store. Still, what Beth had said made her think again about the feeling she’d had that someone was lurking in the woods across the road, watching her house. It had only happened a couple of times, and each time she managed to convince herself she was imagining things. But now, the idea might be a little harder to dismiss.

Chapter Three

Fortunately, traffic to the store was light, so she got in and out in record time, but found herself looking around cautiously when she got out of the car at the house. Great. Now Beth had her spooked. She didn’t know whether to worry more about watchers in the woods or snakes slithering around on the ground. The whole thing made her even more glad she had Noah for her closest neighbor. Even if he wasn’t as handsome as any man she’d ever known, it was comforting to think there was an armed police officer living next door, just in case she might need him.

Turning the music up loud once she got inside, she busied herself cutting up veggies for salad and stir-frying chicken strips for fajitas. She wasn’t much of a cook, really. The coconut pie on the counter, fresh from Kroger’s bakery, was testament to that. But Noah loved Mexican food and would eat almost anything as long as it was accompanied by a huge helping of salsa.

The thought of him brought a smile to her lips as she worked. He’d scared her to death the first time they met, striding into her yard with a big gun strapped to his thigh. She hadn’t learned he was a detective until later that night. Noah didn’t look like any police officer she’d ever seen, except maybe in the movies. He was big enough, that’s for sure, and she suspected he could be mean enough if someone provoked him, but he sported a perpetual three day growth of beard and his shaggy brown hair was longer than hers and always looked like he’d just been in a big wind. As the weather turned cooler, it seemed appropriate to see him wearing plaid flannel shirts.