Summer Shadows (4 page)

She turned on a country-western station and cranked the volume. No one yelled, “Turn that terrible music down, Abby!” Not her parents, not her husband. She sang along with Faith Hill at the top of her lungs.

The light at Central and Thirty-fourth was red, and she slowed. A little girl in pink overalls skipped up to the opposite corner, her stride awkward as she worked to hone what was obviously a new skill. Her ponytail was caught back in a pink scrunchie, the same shade as her overalls, and it bounced with every skip. Her mouth moved, and she was obviously singing to herself.

What a cutie! Just like Maddie in a few years
.

No, she caught herself. Just like Maddie would look right now. She always forgot that Maddie wouldn’t be two anymore. Three long years had passed. She would’ve been five, just about the age of the pixie in pink. The barb of bereavement twisted in her heart and her vision blurred.

The little girl on the corner looked at the stoplight, saw she had the green signal, looked both ways as an extra precaution, and started across Central Avenue, skipping and singing.

At the same time a car roared down Thirty-fourth Street, trying to make the light before it went red.

“Idiot,” Abby muttered as she reflexively grasped her wheel more tightly. But she was safe. She wasn’t in the intersection. No one could hit her. No one could hurt her.

At the last minute the car flicked on a left turn signal and squealed around the corner onto Central.

Abby screamed.

The little girl in pink never had a chance.

M
ARSH SLID INTO
his red Adirondack chair on his porch and sighed with pleasure. He couldn’t imagine things turning out any better than they had. He stared across the beach at the ocean. The haze of a humid June day caused the horizon to blend with the sea, and a couple of ships miles out in the water looked like a pair of misty toys. Much closer to shore a catamaran sailed by at a snail’s pace in the sluggish breeze.

He studied the pair sitting on the catamaran. Maybe he should learn to sail now that he was a shore resident. He’d enjoy flying across the water on a pair of those sturdy hulls with their colorful sails puffed out with wind. He, of course, would be wise enough to sail only on days with brisk breezes.

Buying this house had been a major financial commitment, but he didn’t regret it for a minute. The realtor with whom he’d worked had been wonderful, making it possible for the whole process to be handled long distance. Marsh hadn’t actually seen the house except in pictures until he arrived for the summer last week, a full two months after the April date on which he’d signed the sales agreement.

But the pictures hadn’t lied. His new house was exactly what he wanted, the perfect place to hide from the world and write. Granted, the furniture that came
with the place left a bit to be desired, but he could live with conflicting plaids until he found time to replace a couple of the easy chairs.

His tenant had arrived a day early, leading to a most interesting contretemps, but with that misunderstanding behind him, he relaxed. A children’s librarian, her rental form had said. He thought of Doc Forbes, the librarian at the seminary where he taught. If Abby were anything like Doc, she wouldn’t say a word all summer.

Which was fine with him. Silence was what he’d paid all that money for, was what he craved. Silence and privacy.

He shimmied in his Adirondack chair, marveling again at how something that looked so uncomfortable could be just the opposite. He stretched out his legs, resting them on the second rung of the porch railing in front of him. Just beyond the railing the low dunes began, sliding gracefully into the flat beach which in turn slid into the sea. He breathed in the tangy air, laced his fingers behind his head, and looked up.

It doesn’t get any better than this, God. Thanks! You have been more than gracious, and I am most appreciative
.

He looked at his dog, who sat staring at him from his resting spot under the picnic table. “Happy, Fargo?”

Fargo woofed, a sound Marsh chose to hear as affirmative. “Me too.”

He reached to the table beside him and picked up his laptop. He’d spent the last few hours finishing a hard copy edit of his next book,
Rocky Mountain Midnight
, due out in October, just in time for the Christmas trade. The corrected galleys were all packaged, lying on the table by the door, ready to overnight back to his publisher.

Now it was time to move on to his next project, the one he’d come here to write. He booted the laptop and went to the file called Frost Spring, the preliminary title for his work in progress. He had to squint a bit to follow the cursor in the outside brightness, but the porch above gave enough shadow that he could manage. He’d already adjusted the brightness level to get the most he could from the machine. So what if he had to squint a bit. No weak cursor was going to send him inside. Writing on the porch while listening to the sea was a major part of his dream.

He began to type.

Marsh stopped typing and stared at that last paragraph. It was the third time he’d tried to write it. Once again he’d described that irritating woman upstairs. He closed his eyes and saw Abby Patterson, all skin and bones and glowing black eyes. Even the coolness between Craig and Marguerite—now where had he gotten that name?—was a replica of the frost between himself and Abby. Too weird.

He reached for the delete key, then hesitated. He’d leave it for now. It’d be easier to make changes later when she wasn’t so much on his mind.

Snotty, irritating, fascinating woman. Silent woman.

Marsh’s hands stilled as he stared at the screen of his laptop. Now where had Snelling and the gun come from? Even more basic—who was Snelling? Did he have a first name? Did he live locally, or was he some kind of hired gunslinger? How was he involved in the coming range war?

And what was Marsh to do with this twist in the story line?

He laid his head against the back of his Adirondack chair, staring out at the blue sky. He lowered his legs from the railing, stretching them out in front of him. Fargo rose and nudged his hand. The dog always sensed when it was safe to bother him. Marsh absently scratched the animal behind his ears. Fargo moaned and laid his great head on Marsh’s thigh.

One of the wonderful things about writing fiction was the sense of surprise when people like Snelling, whoever he was,
showed up on the pages. Now all Marsh had to do was figure out the secret of the man’s identity. It was undoubtedly rattling around somewhere deep in his subconscious.

Okay, God
, he thought,
help me figure out who Snelling is and why he had a gun at Craig’s head. In the meantime, I’ll check my e-mail
.

He minimized his text and went to his AOL screen. He made certain his modem was connected, then clicked on all the right icons for automatic mail. In a moment, he had a filing cabinet of letters to read, and his phone line was open again, not that he was expecting anyone to call. Still, he tried to keep it free until he had a second line brought in.

He loved e-mail. Every day he talked to people all over the country, often all over the world. Courtesy of the Internet, the narrow life of a writer/academic broadened exponentially even as he sat on his deck in New Jersey or hid in his office back in Ohio.

He glanced down the list of messages, checking who had sent them. Maybe there’d be something from his agent about that new series he wanted to tackle—Trails of the West, generational stories of the Strong family that took place on the great pathways to the frontier, on great waterways like the Erie Canal and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, on land trails like the Oregon Trail, the Overland Trail, and the Santa Fe Trail. So far three houses had expressed strong interest. He shook his head at the wonder that he might be the object of a bidding war.

Who’d ever have thought!

It was because of the TV movies made from two of his earlier books and the knowledge that the third one was now in preproduction. With Rick Mathis as the lead in both and signed to do the third,
Shadows at Noon
, the publishers smelled money, big money. He grinned, looked out at the beach, and took a deep breath of salty air. The money smelled very good indeed, if more than slightly briny.

He stopped scrolling his messages at one from rickmathis.com. He clicked it open with anticipation. He liked this actor who played his heroes with a world-weary attitude balanced against a strong moral and ethical core. The fact that Rick was also the producer of all the films helped protect Marsh’s high standards for plot and character.

At first Marsh hadn’t been sure how he’d like working with
Hollywood. He’d heard horror stories galore, but he was willing to take the risk of writing the screenplays from his novels so he could exercise at least some control over the content. Rick had not only agreed to Marsh’s participation but had encouraged him in it. Because Marsh had admired Rick’s work in his weekly series about a cowboy named Duke Beldon, he was predisposed to trust Rick.

“I like the moral core of your heroes, and I don’t want that quality lost,” Rick had said. “I don’t see that kind of integrity in a lot of material today.”

“I write from a Christian worldview,” Marsh told him. “Sometimes Christian things are spelled out, like when a verse is quoted or a doctrine is debated. Other times it’s more subtle, but everything I write is seated within the framework of the Bible.”

Three years ago Rick had said, “Yeah, whatever. I just know I like it.” Today he was a believer in Jesus, trying to be real in the land of make-believe.