Whirlwind (6 page)

Cliff couldn't believe what he was hearing. “A couple of hours ago you said you were passing through, and now suddenly you're the prodigal daughter! Why in heaven's name have you taken it into your head to barge in here—”

“I need a place to crash for a while,” she cut in. “To revitalize my creativity. To open my consciousness to new experiences. To—”

“Oh, for crying out loud!”

“I'm
not
here because of you, Forrester, so stop thinking I'm hot for your body or something, because I'm not—even if you're hot for mine!”

“I am
not
hot for your body!”

“I've seen how you look at me, Forrester.”

“Miss Baron—”

“My name is Liza.”

“I know your damned name! My God, you're the most exasperating woman—”

“Oh, cool down,” she said with am impish laugh, folding her arms over her chest and clearly enjoying his pique. “I think you could use some exasperation. You've gotten too comfortable up here all by yourself.” She tossed her head pertly. “I've heard about you, Forrester.”

He quelled the urge to strangle her and ground out, “Exactly what have you heard?”

“You have quite a reputation around town. You're a hermit or a lone wolf—one or the other. Some people even think you're dangerous.”

A few things began to clear up in Cliff's mind. “That's why you've come dancing in here this way, isn't it?”

“Huh?”

“You get your kicks out of dangerous men.”

“Where I get my kicks is none of your business,” she replied, standing straight again and repacking the items in her plastic bag. “I'm curious about you, that's all. You're a mystery man, Forrester, and I just love a mystery.”

“I'll tell you all my secrets,” Cliff said at once, “if you'll pack up and leave in the next ten minutes.”

She laughed and gathered up her bag. “I'm here to stay, Forrester—at least until I feel like leaving. Which bedroom is mine?”

Cliff felt perilously close to boiling over and found himself clenching his fists. “Damn you—”

“I'll take the little pink room at the back of the second floor, okay? You haven't set up housekeeping in that one, I'll bet. Pink isn't your color. I'll use the bathroom near the back stairs, okay? It's working?”

“If you don't take showers by the hour.”

She grinned. “Don't get your hopes up. Were you planning to watch me through the peephole while I'm in the shower?”

“
What
peephole?”

“The one my cousin drilled so he could watch me in the bathroom. He was very immature, but I didn't mind. I kind of liked the idea, you know?”

She was outrageous. At least, she tried to be outrageous. Cliff doubted such a peephole had ever existed. He knew exactly what she was doing. Liza Baron liked to make up lies just to watch people's reactions.

“Oh, one more thing,” she said, turning on the bottom stair. “Will you check with Carl about my car? Tell him I'd like to have it fixed by tomorrow morning, okay? And maybe you'd get some of my stuff out of the trunk? It's all the junk from my office. Thanks.”

She trotted up the stairs then, humming a cheery tune and laughing aloud when she reached the second floor.

Cliff balled up his fists and struggled with the urge to shout after her. He wasn't going to play the butler to her lady of the manor!

“Get your own junk,” he muttered, and went out the back door of the lodge to the terrace.

He plunged into the woods, growling to himself. To have his privacy plundered this way was unacceptable. Enraging, even! Who did she think she was? And what was her plan, for God's sake? The tigress came barging in and started ordering him around like he was her hired hand!

“What does she think she's going to do?”

A girl like Liza got her kicks out of disrupting people, making them miserable. It was her entertainment, a sport.

“Damn her!”

Suddenly Cliff stopped short under the oaks, struck by a thought. For the first time in recent memory, he was fuming over the actions of another person.

It was weird.

Of course, he'd been alone for years. He'd wanted it that way. Staying out of the mainstream had been a distinct choice for him—a way of avoiding the kind of emotional turmoil he hated. Life at Timberlake had been peaceful, and he'd needed peace. The silence of the forest and the tranquil lake had worked together to mend his spirit. He hadn't needed other people. He'd avoided them for lots of reasons.

Now that bewitching Baron girl came bursting into the lodge as if she owned the place! It was a cataclysmic event, Cliff realized. She was the first to break in on his private world. The only person who'd dared.

Grimly, he set off into the forest again. “I can't live under the same roof with her. It's impossible.”

She was a troublemaker. A naughty youngster bent on wreaking havoc wherever she went. She was the last thing
Cliff needed. Already she'd gotten him all churned up inside. Heaven only knew what might happen if she stayed.

He walked for a couple of miles, but it did no good. Still muttering under his breath, he found himself heading for the hilltop that overlooked Tyler—a sparsely treed vantage point that had once been part of the Gerhardt farm. The Gerhardts, he knew, had been forced out of the dairy business by the crunch in farm prices, and their land had not yet been taken over by the conglomerates that were moving into the area. The top field was overgrown now, the lush grass congested by tangles of wildflowers.

Cliff stopped at the break in the trees, resting his hands on the weathered fence post, his gaze drawn by the panorama that spread out before him. It was a scene that had often calmed him. The green pastures of neighboring farms, dotted with cattle, were bordered by darker fields of alfalfa, corn and the pale green-yellow of new oats. It would have made a pretty postcard—picturesque and serene.

But he didn't feel serene as he glared at the wide landscape that spread out majestically before him. The warm breeze that rustled in the leaves of the trees at his back did not ease Cliff's mind. Nor did the warmth of the sun relieve the tension that tightened the muscles of his neck and shoulders.

“Cliff!”

A gentle voice called to him from the field below, and a fragile woman stood up from where she'd been plucking wildflowers. She lifted a slender hand to the brim of her straw hat and called, “Is that you?”

It was Alyssa Baron, perhaps his only friend in Tyler. Cliff waved weakly, not sure he wanted to see even Alyssa this morning. But he vaulted over the fence a moment later and went down the hillside to meet her.

She had brought her basket and was filling it with cornflowers and daisies. To ward off the morning chill, she had pulled a pair of casual but clearly expensive slacks and
scalloped sweater over her slim frame. Her pruning shears swung from the worn ribbon on her belt, and bits of earth clung to her manicured hands.

Alyssa's fair skin was flushed with sunlight and she wore no makeup to conceal her age. With her light hair pulled back into a clip under the hat, she looked ten years younger than she should have. Her blue eyes were large and expressive.

For a queer second, Cliff noted how much she looked like Liza. But Alyssa's was a fragile kind of femininity counterbalanced by the strength in her expression. Liza was more vibrant, in personality as well as appearance. Her features were like her mother's, but exaggerated—not quite so delicate. And her voice wasn't gentle.

Alyssa's was as soothing as the soft sound of the morning breeze. On a self-deprecating laugh, she said, “I can't get used to the way you just appear out of the forest. It's like magic. How can you move so quietly? A man your size?”

He didn't answer, and she thrust her basket into his hands, chatting as if he'd made a clever riposte.

“Don't tell anyone,” she went on blithely, “but I'm stealing flowers. Do you think someone will arrest me? I'm in charge of arranging centerpieces for the senior citizen dinner tonight, and of course I left it to the last minute! Aren't I awful?”

Alyssa Baron wasn't awful. She was beautiful, and she possessed one of the purest hearts in the world.

She was also very perceptive.

Looking up at him, she said suddenly, “What's wrong, Cliff?”

“Nothing.”

Alyssa smiled with understanding. “Not sleeping again?”

He shook his head. “It's not that. I just...it's been a long day.”

She laughed. “My dear, it's not even noon yet! What's going on?”

He couldn't tell her about Liza's arrival in Tyler, Cliff realized. That was Liza's business, not his. He knew how Alyssa was going to react to that news, and he didn't want to be around to watch. Alyssa might cry. She wore her emotions quite close to the surface when it came to her children—Liza especially. How many times had she expressed her feelings about her wayward youngest daughter? Cliff didn't think that he could stand breaking the news of Liza's return and watching Alyssa's eyes fill with pain as she soaked in the information.

So he said, “I'm not used to being around people.”

“Ah,” Alyssa said wisely. “Did you go into town this morning?”

“Just for a minute.”

“That always upsets you,” she said, shaking her head. “I wish it didn't. People don't hate you. They don't know you, that's all. You make them nervous, I suppose. You don't know how to chat.”

Cliff laughed shortly. “No, chatting isn't my strong suit.”

“It's all right,” Alyssa replied, bending into the flowers again and snipping stems with her shears. “I know you're perfectly nice. Someday everyone else will figure that out, too.”

As Alyssa cut more flowers for her centerpieces, Cliff held her basket and considered her words. He didn't disagree. Not aloud, anyway. But Cliff knew in his heart that he wasn't perfectly nice. He could be perfectly awful—that was the problem. And if he wasn't careful, somebody could get hurt by his awfulness.

He hated the thought of hurting anyone. Perhaps that was why he'd come to live at Timberlake in the first place. To be alone. To stay away from people in case he went truly crazy.

That was his biggest fear, he supposed. Going really nuts. It could happen, he knew. He'd read about other guys who'd come home from Southeast Asia and lived normal lives for a few years before snapping out completely. Posttraumatic stress disorder, it was called. Funny how something so terrible could be made to sound easy to cure.

Staying at the lodge was safe, though. Cliff saw Alyssa Baron once every couple of weeks—that was it. Oh, a clerk at the grocery store or at Murphy's Hardware might say a word or two when he made his monthly foray into town, but he forged no real connections. Cliff preferred life that way.

Now Liza had steamrolled into the lodge and it scared the hell out of him. Cliff realized he was trembling again as he held Alyssa's basket. It was being around people that frightened him. He knew he was capable of doing terrible things to his fellow man.

And Liza. She had the power to push him over the edge, Cliff decided. Not knowing the kind of horror she would unleash, she'd taunt and torment and goad him until he exploded. What might he do to her if he went crazy? The thought terrified him.

Alyssa straightened and read his expression. Alarmed, she put her hand on his arm and said, “Cliff?”

He shook off her touch. “I'm sorry. I'm—I'm not...”

“What can I do to help?”

Nothing, of course.
Just stay away,
he wanted to tell her.
Get your headstrong daughter out of the lodge before I do something insane.

But he didn't say that. He wasn't capable of expressing those feelings, not even to Alyssa, who'd been a kind of therapist for him over the years, whether she knew it or not. Alyssa had accepted Cliff from the beginning without making demands on him. She had not insisted that he talk. Nor had she forced him to spill his guts and explain himself to her. She'd simply taken him into her life the way he
was—broken and frightened of the world. And of himself, maybe.

She said, “Don't be upset.”

A lot of responses boiled in his head, fighting to get out. But he said on a tight sigh, “Sometimes I just want to forget everything.”

“You will. You'll get over it, Cliff.”

“Should I?” he asked, half to himself. “Should I keep trying to put it in my past?”

Alyssa sighed, too, sounding troubled. “I don't know what to tell you. Some people think it's best to confront the worst, but I...well, I'm not an expert. I just hate seeing you so distressed, Cliff. Every time you start thinking about what happened over there...”

“I did some bad things,” he said, closing his eyes and letting the sunlight warm his face. “I don't want to be that way again.”

“You won't!” In a rush, Alyssa said, “Cliff, that was a terrible time. You did what you had to do to protect people you cared about.”

Alyssa said more, but Cliff had stopped listening. She didn't know everything. Not the worst, anyway. She knew why he'd gone into the hills and befriended the people of that mountain village. She knew how he'd found himself trapped with them when the enemy struck. He'd learned from the Hmongs and taught them his own skills, and they'd fought together. They'd managed to find escape routes for women and children.

But after that...well, he'd been unable to tell Alyssa the rest of his story. Perhaps she could guess the kinds of atrocities he'd seen. Maybe she imagined what he'd done to survive and to shepherd the innocents to safety. But Cliff couldn't bring himself to tell gentle Alyssa Baron about the nightmare he'd lived in Cambodia.

Nor could he tell her how terrified he was that it might
happen all over again—that the bonds of reason might snap inside him and trigger something horrible.