Waking the Dead (9 page)
“Down, cheesedick,” Zach muttered. But the guy was too far away to hear him, which was probably a lucky thing. Because he had no business warning men away from Caitlin Fleming. The woman was probably better versed than most in how to get rid of unwanted male attention. If it was unwanted.
Zach’s gaze shifted from the guy in the tub back to her. Cait had reached the bottom of the slope and was scanning the ground. She appeared to be looking for something. But even he was surprised when she dropped to her hands and knees, seeming to examine the water’s edge where it lapped up against the rocks.
“Did you lose something?”
The pine tub constructed for tourists intent on soaking in the springs was several yards upstream. The man inside it seemed to have lost interest in the sulfuric water in light of the newcomer. He’d risen and was peering over the side at Cait, placing his back to Zach.
“I can help you look, if you want.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Cait’s voice was businesslike. She’d gotten to her feet again and was walking slowly around the area, still studying the ground intently.
“Water’s great. There’s plenty of room if you want to join me.”
Zach smirked. As pick-up lines went, it was fairly transparent. And it didn’t even warrant a response from Cait. She was on all fours again, this time with her pack beside her. Pushing away from his stance against the tree, he took a few steps closer to see what she was up to. But the next few moments provided no real answers. Why would she be collecting soil samples from the area?
Cheesedick was getting out of the tub now and making his way carefully over the rocks to join Cait, still talking. “Whatsa matter, don’t have a suit? I won’t tell. There’s just the two of us, anyway. I promise, if you come in for a soak, it’ll be a whole lot more fun than—what’re you doing there, anyway?”
“Please stay back.” The authority in her tone had the man pausing, and Zach’s gaze narrowed consideringly. He watched as she swiftly scooped up dirt with what looked like a tiny trowel and placed it in plastic containers, carefully labeling each.
“You’re much too beautiful to be messing in the dirt. Why don’t you come on over here and mess with me instead?”
Zach rolled his eyes. But his mood abruptly darkened in the next moment when the man made a grab for Caitlin’s arm. She deflected his grasp easily enough by throwing up a forearm and stepping aside. Pushing away from the tree, he was striding toward the couple before he had the conscious thought to move. “You about done down there, Cait?”
The guy froze, his eyes widening at the sight of Zach. “Ah . . . I was just asking her if she needed any help.” He gave a weak laugh, his gaze moving between the two of them and back again. “I see now that she doesn’t so I’ll just . . . ah . . .” He jerked a thumb back toward the tub and inched away.
Zach simply stared until the guy flinched a little. “Yeah. Why don’t you do that?”
Cheesedick started to turn but got no more than a few steps before he slipped and began to fall backward. Swiftly Cait took a few steps in the stream toward him and caught his arm to steady him, but the momentum of his fall had her losing her balance, as well. She went down hard on one knee, bracing herself with one hand in the water, but managed to keep the guy semi-upright until he regained his footing.
“Geez, I’m sorry. Really. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Cait was on her feet again, wiping her hand on the leg of her jeans.
The guy had turned to her once again, his expression sheepish. “Now you’re wet, after all.” He nodded to her half-soaked pant leg. “I’ve got a towel up by the tub.”
“I’m okay.” Her tone was polite, but she was already making her way back up the slight embankment.
Cheesedick looked like he was about to say something else, but then he happened to glance Zach’s way again. “Well, thanks again.” He made his way carefully back toward the tub, where hopefully sheer embarrassment would have him thinking twice before tossing lame lines at the next woman who happened by. Zach wondered if the man was capable of realizing that the female he’d just tried to accost likely could have kicked his ass with very little effort. He’d gotten off lucky.
Cait appeared to have already forgotten about the incident. She was back on her haunches taking more soil samples and carefully labeling each clear container before moving several feet away to repeat the process.
Zach found a nearby fir to prop his shoulder against and prepared to wait. And to wonder what hot springs had to do with the skeletons he’d found in that cave.
“Where to next?”
“Terwilliger is closest, isn’t it?”
Without answering he nosed his Trailblazer out of the Springs Resort parking lot and headed out of town. Since there wasn’t a damn thing to do except drive her around and watch her, he kept his mind busy trying to figure out just what the hell she was doing. She hadn’t just taken soil samples in various areas around the springs; she’d waded in, too. Not taking water samples. Just looking.
Problem was, since answers weren’t forthcoming, he’d settled on just looking, too. At her. It sure as hell was no hardship.
She didn’t exactly downplay her looks, but she didn’t do a lot to call attention to them, either. Her hair was usually pulled back like today, discounting the time she’d loosened it to taunt him. Her casual clothes hadn’t been selected to turn heads. Trouble was, she was the type to turn heads regardless, and he couldn’t quite figure out whether she was just used to it so didn’t pay it any attention or whether she just didn’t give a damn. Given her attitude, he was beginning to suspect the latter.
He lifted a hand to return Jodie Paulsen’s nod of greeting as the man wrestled a trough into the back of his pickup. Probably had had the thing welded again for Tim Jenkins, the farmer Jodie did chores for. Most people would have bought a new feed trough years ago, but no one pinched a dime tighter than the miserly Jenkins.
As he headed toward Highway 126, he noticed the woman beside him swiping her hand down the leg of her jeans. And the streak it left behind.
“What’d you do?”
With one eye on the road, he leaned over and opened up the glove box. Grabbing a handful of fast-food napkins, he shoved them at her before closing the compartment again.
“Scraped it on a rock helping that idiot out of the water.”
One side of his mouth kicked up at her irritated response, but the smile faded when he glanced over again. “Jesus, don’t bleed all over my car.” Though she’d wadded up the napkins against the wound, it was oozing too fast to be a mere scrape.
“Nice bedside manner, Sharper. Ever consider the medical field? You’d be a natural in a trauma.”
Sarcasm he could handle. And it almost, almost pushed aside the images her words had conjured.
The blast of the explosion flinging them backward. The horrible realization that the body parts raining down all around him came from Drummy and Simms.
And Becker . . . there’d been nothing left of Becker but pink mist.
He kicked that mental door shut and brought himself back to the here. The
after
.
after
.
The napkins were doing little to staunch the flow. After a brief hesitation he slowed, pulled over to the shoulder, and put the vehicle in park. “Let me see.”
He half expected to see little more than a scratch, even with the copious amount of blood staining the napkins. But the wound in her palm—a palm she relinquished only grudgingly—was about two inches long, and deep. “You did this when you helped cheesedick?”
“Cheese—” Her lips quirked. “Catchy. And oddly fitting. Yeah. I slapped a Band-Aid over it under my glove so I could finish up my samples. But I could use some Steri-Strips.” She looked at him hopefully. “You don’t happen to have any in your bag, do you?”
“You need stitches,” he said flatly. More Band-Aids would be useless, and that’s about all he had in the first aid kit in his pack. “I think there’s a physician’s assistant staffing the medical clinic here most days.”
“That’ll take hours. Just find me a store where I can buy Steri-Strips, and we can be on our way.”
He sat contemplating her, ignoring her discreet tugs to release her hand. It occurred to him that he should have noticed her injury sooner. But after a while he’d just focused on not watching her. Seemed smarter that way.
Reaching a decision, he put the Trailblazer into gear and checked the mirrors before pulling a U-turn to head back into town. “The General Store isn’t going to have what you need. Maybe you can talk the PA out of stitches, but the clinic is the only place to get what you need.”
“I’m not going to the doctor.”
The words sounded like they’d been issued through gritted teeth. Ignoring them, he turned at the corner and drove the two blocks west to the small boxlike building that held the town’s clinic. And uttered an oath when he saw the overflowing parking lot.
“Like I said, I’m not wasting the rest of the day. Just forget it.” She was bent over the bag she had wedged between her feet and was rummaging through it with her good hand. “I can rig something else up that’ll work until I get back to Eugene this evening.”
“You need to wash the wound out.” Years of experience had taught him the wisdom of avoiding infection. The obvious solution occurred, was firmly rejected. He had what she needed at home, but everything inside him rebelled at the thought of taking her there. Guests were rarely invited. And by no stretch of the imagination did Caitlin Fleming qualify as that.
“I’ve got some sanitary towelettes in here somewhere,” she muttered, her head still bent over the bag. “Just head over to Terwilliger. We’ve wasted enough time already.” She pulled a small wrapper from her pack, ripped it open and removed a couple moist wipes. As she pressed them to her palm, they immediately darkened with blood.
Deliberately, he headed for the highway again. The gash was on the fleshy part of her palm. The wound would ooze heavily, but it wasn’t like she was in danger of bleeding out, for cris sakes. If it wasn’t important enough for her to want to see a doctor, why the hell should he waste time worrying about it?
There was a rustle of paper. He flicked a glance in her direction and saw her taking her wrapped sandwich out of its plastic bag and filling the bag instead with the bloody napkins and wipes.
“Shit,” he muttered. There wasn’t a conscious decision. He just found himself turning off at the next corner. Heading for the isolated drive a couple miles down the road that would lead to his heavily wooded piece of property.
And he tried to ignore the clutch in his belly that warned him he was about to make a very big mistake.
“This is your house?” Vaguely stunned, Cait opened the door of his Trailblazer to jump out and stare up at the mass of angled cedar and glass. The drive to this place had to have been at least a mile long, every inch of it lined with trees that canopied overhead. No fewer than three times Zach had had to get out of the Trailblazer to unfasten a chain blocking the way. It didn’t surprise her that he was a man that didn’t relish company.
But this surprised her. The home looked like it would pass for a small hotel itself, surrounded by thick stands of firs and junipers as far as the eye could see. There were no curtains or shades at the windows that she noted. Why would he need them? With the woods surrounding him, privacy was practically guaranteed.
“It was my grandfather’s property.” His voice was brusque as he headed toward the house at a rapid clip. She could tell he was already regretting bringing her. “There was a resort here at one time, before it burned down when I was a kid. He left it to me and I’m rebuilding, on a smaller scale.”
Belatedly, she noted the signs of construction in progress. The four-car garage lacked doors, and lumber and power tools were stacked neatly inside. As she followed him up to the planks that served as a walkway to the house, she noticed that only the front had the polished glazed cedar siding, while the other sides were unfinished. There was far more to be done here, but what was completed was nothing short of magnificent.
And about as far removed as possible from what she would imagine for him.
She stopped while he unlocked a side door, pushed it open, and stepped inside. Without waiting for an invitation, she followed.
Things were even less finished here. She ignored his brusque order to stay put and wandered freely around the lower level while he headed toward the back of the house. Obviously the kitchen wasn’t a high priority, since he had little more than the plumbing, gas pipes, saw horses dotting the area and a decades-old fridge. But the room was large, with a wall of windows that would open it up to the outside. Make a person feel like they were a part of nature.
The great room was next, and Zach must spend some time there, as it was furnished with soft dark leather couches and chairs and the prerequisite—for a man anyway—big-screen TV. The room ran the width of the house, with gleaming wood floors and two walls of glass on opposite sides. In front of one large window that showed flashes of the river between the dense pines was a card table and chair. Obviously his dining needs were simple. Her gaze lingered on the lone chair. And solitary.
Other books
Because He Steals Me (Because He Owns Me #6) by Ford, Hannah
Three Sides of the Tracks by Mike Addington
Rebel Kiss: A Historical Romance Novel (Scottish Rebels Book 1) by Stone, Jenna
Secrets of Sin by Chloe Harris
Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies by Bilof, Vincenzo
Compendium by Alia Luria
Brightness Reef by David Brin
Reluctant Guardian by Melissa Cunningham
Slaves of the Swastika by Kenneth Harding
Watcher by Grace Monroe
