When Love Finds a Home (25 page)

"Not really. I'm just
here for the weekend."

"You got a place
nearby?" he asked as he gave her the total of the purchase.

"I'm staying at a
friend's cabin up on the lake," Rona replied. She took some money from her
pocket.

He pulled his lower lip in and
nodded. "Reckon you know to be careful with the bears."

Rona's head snapped up.
"Bears?"

"Yep. It's 'cause of all
them deer hangin' around up there. Bears just can't resist the taste of
venison."

"John," the woman
scolded.

"Now, Eleanor, if these
girls are goin' to be stayin' up there on the lake all alone, they need to know
about them bears."

The woman looked at him and
shook her finger.

"Okay." He shook his
head and handed over her change. "Don't ever get married." He sighed.
"After you do, all the fun is just plain gone."

"Lordy, here he goes
again," the woman said as she stood. "I'm going to check on dinner.
You be good, old man."

Anna poked her head into the
doorway. "Ready?"

Rona looked from the man to
his wife and back.

He leaned forward and
whispered, "You keep a close lookout for them bears. You most likely won't
see any durin' the day, but they'll be comin' out after dark." He winked.

"John," the woman's
voice came from the back.

He rolled his eyes.
"Don't ever get married." He sighed again and shuffled off.

"What was all that
about?" Anna asked when they were back in the car.

"Nothing, he was just
having fun with me," Rona said as she stared out the window. She spent the
rest of the trip probing the darker shadows of the woods.

The stone cabin, with a balcony
that extended over the lake, wasn't the crude little one-room structure Rona
had envisioned, although it was remote. The last house they'd passed was a good
two miles down the road. "Where's the key?" she asked as they stepped
out of the car and gazed at the spectacular view of the lake behind the cabin.
There was one rather large area of woods across the road from the cabin, but
Rona chose to ignore it.

"The back door is locked
with one of those keyless entry thingies that real estate agencies use. Tee
gave me the combination." Anna pointed to the side of the cabin.
"There's a stairway on the side that leads to the back door. I'll go
around and unlock it, if you'll start unloading the car."

"You seem to be in a
hurry," Rona said and smiled.

Anna stopped and took a deep
breath. "You're right. I've been so afraid something would happen to
prevent us from coming up here, but I've told Sharon that nothing short of a
family emergency was dragging me back into the office before Monday
morning." She reached out and took Rona's hand. "I guess I'm a little
nervous."

"Why are you so
nervous?" Rona asked, ignoring the butterflies dancing in her own stomach.

Anna shrugged. "I don't
know. I guess I see us going away for a weekend as another step closer
to"—she looked away for a moment—"whatever we're heading
toward."

She realized that their
nervousness stemmed from two separate issues. With some effort, she pushed away
the old man's warning. He was probably trying to scare her, anyway. She needed
to prove she wasn't afraid of her own shadow. "I think we should stop
worrying about where the relationship is headed and concentrate instead on
where that pathway over there leads." Rona pointed to a well-worn path
that disappeared around the side of the cabin. The path was in the opposite
direction of the larger area of woods. The area immediately around the cabin
was open. No large trees or sinister-looking dilapidated shacks were present
for undesirable things to hide behind.

"Was that an admission
that you've been worrying too?" Anna asked, interrupting her covert
surveillance.

"I'm not sure I would say
I was worried, but I'll admit to being nervous," Rona said, deliberately
leaving her meaning vague. "Let's walk down to the lake before it gets
dark. We can unload the car later."

Hand-in-hand they strolled
toward the lake. "Why were you nervous?" Anna persisted.

Rona was embarrassed to admit
that she had considered the old man's warnings. She decided to play along with
Anna's worries. "I don't know. We're already spending most of our nights
together, so it's not like I don't already know you snore."

Anna gasped. "I do not
snore."

Rona rolled her eyes.
"Who told you those lies?"

"You're being
horrible." They came around to the side of the cabin and Anna stopped
suddenly. "Look," she whispered and pointed to four deer standing
near die water's edge in a small grove of trees.

As they stood watching, a
large buck came out of the trees and eyed them. Rona instinctively clutched
Anna's arm. She was certain that she'd read an article about a buck attacking
someone. "Are there a lot of deer around here?"

"Scads," Anna
whispered.

Oh hell, was the old codger
telling the truth about the bears?
A
fine bead of sweat broke out along Rona's hairline as she stared at the deer.
She considered asking Anna about bears, but if he had been pulling her leg then
Anna would think she was silly.

Anna apparently mistook Rona's
clinging to be a sign of excitement, because she continued to stare,
starry-eyed, at the animals. "I think the doe closest to the water is
pregnant," Anna said softly.

Even more reason for the
papa to be protective,
Rona decided
as she eyed the sharp points of the buck's rack. "It's getting dark. Maybe
we should go back and unload the car now," Rona said. "We wouldn't
want to scare them away." As they walked back to the car Rona kept
glancing behind them. She wasn't going to tell Anna, but she was a city girl
through and through. As far as she was concerned, wildlife observation was best
done from inside the house.

While Anna went to unlock the
door, Rona quickly grabbed their suitcases from the car. After she was sure
Anna wouldn't be able to see her, she raced back to the side of the cabin and peeked
around it to make sure the deer were still occupied with dinner and not in the
process of sneaking up on her. Satisfied that they didn't appear to be planning
any covert attacks on her, she ran back and wrestled out the enormous ice chest
filled with food.

By the time Anna opened the
front door, most of their things were waiting for her on the front porch.
"Why didn't you wait and I could have helped you with that?" she
asked.

Rona grabbed an armload of
things. "I'm anxious to get the weekend started," she replied as she
made one more sweep of the perimeter.

The cabin had two bedrooms,
one on either side of the cabin. They both provided clear views of the lake.
Rona took their bags to the guest room.

She opened a set of French
doors and stepped out onto a large balcony that ran across the entire back of
the cabin and protruded over the lake. "Wow. Now this is a view." She
could appreciate the beauty of the place much more now that she was out of the
reach of all marauding wildlife.

Anna came up behind her and
wrapped her arms around her waist. "I've always loved it up here."

Rona felt a stab a jealousy.
"You've been here before?"

"Yes. I come up once or
twice a year."

"Oh."

Anna chuckled. "You're
jealous."

"No, I'm not." Rona
cringed at the petulance in her statement.

Anna hugged her tighter.
"Tee and Yolie occasionally invite me up to spend a weekend with them.
I've never brought anyone else here."

Rona knew her reaction was
childish, but she still felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

"Let's get the rest of
the stuff," Anna said as she kissed the back of Rona's neck.

When everything was inside,
Anna turned to Rona. "While I unload the ice chest, would you mind
bringing in some wood and building a fire?" She nodded toward the
see-through fireplace that separated the living room and kitchen as she began
to remove items from the ice chest.

Rona glanced out the window.
It was dark. "You want me to walk around in the woods looking for
firewood?"

Anna stood up with a carton of
milk in her hands and gazed at her.

Rona could see she was
struggling not to laugh.

"There's a small room
just outside." She pointed to the back door. "You'll find wood
stacked inside there."

Rona nodded, but continued to
stare at the darkened panes of the window.

"You know what,"
Anna said as she handed the milk to Rona. "I know where everything is. You
might have trouble finding it in the dark. I'll get the wood."

Rona practically snatched the
carton from Anna's hand. "Great, I'll unload the ice chest." She put
the milk in the refrigerator before going back and grabbing packages of cold
cuts. As soon as Anna disappeared out the door, she stopped and breathed a sigh
of relief. All kinds of things could be hiding out there in the dark. She
removed a bowl containing carefully wrapped eggs from the ice chest and
stopped. Anna was out there with those unknown things. The old man could have
been telling the truth. Maybe the woman had told him to hush because she didn't
want him scaring away the customers. Rona stepped closer to the door to see if
she could hear Anna moving around. There was nothing. She eased the door open.
Still nothing. "Anna," she whispered. She shivered when there was no
reply.

This cabin was exactly the
kind of remote place that appeared in those horrible murder thrillers her
brother had loved to watch. Clutching the bowl of eggs, she took a tentative
step onto the balcony. She tilted her head from side to side, trying to hear
beyond the sound of the water lapping against the balcony supports. As she
turned to her right, she noticed a thin trickle of light that appeared to be
seeping from beneath a door.

Relief washed over her. Anna
couldn't hear her calling out because the door to die wood storage area was
closed. Rona turned to go back inside, and as she did, something enormous rose
up in front of her.

"Bear," she screamed
as she dashed back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. There was
a loud crash just beyond door. The bear was trying to get in. Rona threw her
body against the door and locked it. Then she remembered. Anna was still out
there getting wood. Had she heard her scream? If so, would Anna lock herself in
or would she run to help her? If Anna hadn't heard her scream, she would walk
out totally unaware.

Rona searched about wildly for
a weapon; the only thing she could find quickly was a broom. It would have to
do. If she made enough noise, perhaps she could scare the bear away. At the
very least, she could distract it long enough to get Anna safely into the
house. Rona threw the door open and charged out screaming at the top of her
lungs. She turned in the direction where she had first seen the bear, and
seeing nothing, spun in the other direction. It was then she heard the
strangled sound. The blood pounding in her ears made it difficult for her to
hear. It took her a moment to realize the sound was laughter. She finally
located Anna sitting on the floor laughing hysterically. The broom slipped from
Rona's hand and clattered to the floor.

"I don't see what's so
damn funny," she said in a shaky voice.

Anna tried to stand but
slipped back down as a new wave of laughter overtook her.

"I thought you were about
to be some bear's dinner."

Anna wiped her eyes and stood.
"And you came to rescue me. Oh, how sweet." She wrapped her arms
around Rona. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Rona saw no humor in the
situation, and the continued spasms of shakes overtaking Anna's body told her
that she was still being laughed at. "It's not funny," she replied.
"I really did see a bear."

"You're absolutely right,"
Anna said and sniffled. "There's nothing funny about you thinking you saw
a bear."

"I did," Rona
protested.

"It was me. I had an
armload of wood. I had just turned the light off and stepped out of the
storeroom when you first walked out. I spoke to you, but I guess you didn't
hear me."

"Well, you should have
said something else," Rona sputtered.

"I would have, but when
you screamed 'bear!' and threw the eggs at me, you scared me so badly I dropped
the wood." Anna could barely speak over her laughter.

"Oh, crap. I threw the
eggs." She started to pull away to look for the bowl.

Anna held onto her.
"Forget about the eggs and look at me."

"Why?" Rona asked.
"So you can laugh at me some more."

"No. Look at me, because
I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"You running out with
nothing but a broom to save me from a bear is the sweetest, bravest thing I've
ever seen. I love you, Rona."