Page 20

He backed away and pressed against the wall.

What should he do? He could try to trap them in there, but the last thing he wanted was to get into a shootout.

He had to assume they were armed, and there were two of them and one of him.

They were inside and he was out. If they killed him, nothing would stop them from breaking into the house.

They could find Brooklynn.

Thick, wild bushes poured out of what used to be a pretty flower bed. They’d be easy enough to hide in. When Forbes heard the voices moving toward him, he ducked behind the bushes and watched.

Two figures stepped outside. It was too dark to make out faces, but Niles’s voice carried on the wind. His words were impossible to make out.

The taller man had to be Bernie.

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

They bent low and jogged past Forbes toward the driveway and the road. When they were a good twenty feet past, he cocked his weapon and shouted, “Hey!”

“Run!” one shouted.

They both broke into a sprint.

Forbes aimed high and just to the left of the shorter one. He fired.

Niles hit the ground. The bullet hadn’t come within ten feet of him, but he was smart enough to know one could.

Bernie, the moron, kept running.

Forbes aimed for just north of his ear and fired again.

The big man dove.

“Stay off this property!” Forbes yelled to be heard over the wind, never revealing his position. “Next time, you’ll leave in a body bag.”

He counted to ten, dripping in rainwater. They might as well get as wet as he was. Finally, he shouted, “Go. Don’t come back!”

They both hopped to their feet and bolted toward the road.

Forbes hoped he’d made an impression.

When they were out of sight, he let himself in the garage.

Everything looked fine.

He checked his pickup truck’s engine, then that of Grandmother’s Cadillac. He checked the brake lines. Both undisturbed. No ticking bombs. No booby traps.

He saw nothing worrisome at all, which was…worrisome.

What had they done?

He had no idea, and the not knowing bothered him almost as much as the intruders themselves.

* * *

After Forbes changed into dry clothes, he made a quick stop in the kitchen, then grabbed an armful of wood from the stack in the garage. He wasn’t worried about kindling. This wood had been dead for twenty-plus years. It would burn way too fast.

He was practically jogging, Brooklynn’s fearful tone when she’d asked him to hurry playing on a loop in his mind. Nothing would happen to her as long as she stayed put.

But this was Brooklynn.

Making the odds she’d start snooping fifty-fifty. Maybe seventy-thirty.

At the family room and carrying an armful of logs, he kicked the closed door.

“Ford?”

“It’s the boogeyman. Open up.”

The door swung open. Thanks to the darkness, he couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to. He conjured her smile in his mind’s eye.

“I always pictured you bigger, with claws.” She took the phone from his hand—her fingers were colder than his—and lit the way to the fireplace with his flashlight.

“Common misconception. We boogeymen get a bad rap.”

“Did you just make a joke? Are you bantering with me?”

“No.”

“I love to banter. Bantering is my favorite.”

He dropped the firewood, thankful she couldn’t see his smile.

This woman.

She was incredibly irritating. And funny and sweet and happy.

Stop that.

Nosy. That was what she was, and he couldn’t have it.

He put the sack that’d been hanging from his wrist on the coffee table, then found the box of matches Dad had always kept on the mantel and set them down as well. “Light the candles, please.”

“On it.”

While she rustled in the plastic, he took the weapon from where he’d tucked it at the small of his back and set it on a side table near the windows.

“Is that a gun?”

“Yeah.” He took a breath and blew it out. “Your friends Niles and Bernie decided to take advantage of the power outage. I saw them on one of my video feeds.”

She gasped. “What happened? I thought I heard…I thought it was thunder. Did you?—?”

“I scared them off. Don’t worry.” He’d do enough worrying for both of them. “If they come back and try to get in the house, the alarm will sound. We’re safe.”

He turned the knob to open the flue, realizing too late that he hadn’t grabbed anything to warm the chimney or light the flame.

He must’ve grunted because she asked, “Something wrong?” She sparked a match and lit a candle, but the light barely penetrated the darkness.

“I forgot newspaper.” He pushed to his feet, suppressing a sigh. “I think there’s some in the garage.”

“There’s a ream of paper in Grace’s office.” She nodded to the closed door. “It’s useless, old and yellowing. I’m sure it would work.” She stood. “I’ll grab it.”

“Stay here. Where is it?”

“Bottom desk drawer, right side.”

“The drawers were dusty inside?”

“Terribly.”

“Hmm.” He should call her on her snooping again, but at the moment, he was just glad he didn’t have to return to the garage.

The walls were too thin, and it was already getting cold out there.

Summers in Maine could be colder than winters in many parts of the country, especially when the wind whipped like it did tonight.

The new wing of the house was better insulated, but there were no working fireplaces.

He’d had this one inspected before he’d moved back.

It was the only one in the house he dared to light.

He found the paper right where Brooklynn had said and set to work building the fire.

Brooklynn was busy doing something behind him, but he didn’t look to see what.

As predicted, the old wood lit right up. It was throwing heat into the room within a couple of minutes—and enough light to show him what she’d been up to.

She’d moved the coffee table and sofa so they faced the hearth, blocking the rest of the room’s furniture.

Okay, then. Apparently, she was chilly.

He made his way to a club chair in the corner and dropped into it.

“What are you doing? Come sit with me.” She patted the space beside her. “It’s warmer over here, and I opened the snacks. Good thinking, by the way.”

She’d torn a box of crackers at the corners so that the cardboard was flat and laid out the things he’d brought up in a spread like they were at a cocktail party. Two of the bottles of water he’d brought were open.

“What is it about sitting in front of a fire that makes me want to eat?” She chose a cracker and added a slice of cheese. “I wasn’t even hungry until I saw the fire. Now, I’m looking for marshmallows and graham crackers.”

He leaned toward the food but was too far away to reach it.

“Sheesh, Ford.” She tapped the cushion again. “I’m not going to bite you, not while I’m eating, anyway.” She punctuated the statement with a bite of her snack.

It did seem silly to sit so far from the heat.

“Don’t be a scaredy-cat.”

He couldn’t help himself.

He chuckled.

She gasped again. “Oh, my gosh. Did I make you laugh? Where’s a video camera when you need it?”

“Shut up.” He stood and settled beside her so he could reach the food and feel the heat. Not because he wanted to be closer to her.

“You’re safe there until we run out of food,” she said. “Then, all bets are off.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He grabbed a handful of crackers and cheese slices and sat back to enjoy them.

“For me,” Brooklynn said, “it’s the history, I think.

When I was a kid, if we had a fire, it was for a reason.

Christmas morning or a game night. And of course when we lost power, we had to light the fire to stay warm.

If we lit a fire, it was an event, even if the event was a storm.

Mom always had the stuff for s’mores. We’d have hot chocolate and popcorn—if the electricity was working.

If not, then crackers or…whatever she could find.

If we lost power in the summer, Mom claimed we had to eat all the ice cream or it would go bad.

” Brooklynn smiled, shaking her head at the memory.

“Only as an adult did I realize ice cream would last in a freezer for hours.”

In the fire’s glow, her face was golden, her hair radiant.

Couldn’t she just be normal for two seconds? Did she have to give off that…that annoying, tempting glow?

Everything about her drew him. Her sweet voice. Her kind demeanor. Even her cheerfulness wasn’t as irritating as it should have been.

She was his opposite in every way. Where he was closed off, she was an open book. Where he was quiet, she was chatty. Where he was serious, she was lighthearted.

They couldn’t be more different. They would never work.

He focused on the flames, which were much less dangerous than the woman at his side.

“Did you grow up around here?” she asked.

“No.”

“Ooh, tell me more.”

He shook his head and ate another cracker.

“Where did you grow up?”

He took his time swallowing, hoping she’d give up waiting for a response. When she didn’t, he said, “Massachusetts.”

“So specific. Wow. Do you have siblings?”

“No.” Another lie, but Ford Baker had no siblings. He figured the only way to get Brooklynn to stop asking questions was to ask his own. “Tell me about your sisters.”

“Well, there’s Alyssa. You know about her. She’s a year older than I am.” While Brooklynn described her four sisters in detail, Forbes listened, really listened. He had nothing else to do, after all, and Brooklynn’s voice just made him…happy.

Which was stupid, and which he wouldn’t admit to under threat of death.

She spoke about each sister with great affection, then went on to describe her mother. “I always wanted to be just like her. She’s so elegant, my mom. And she makes everybody feel right at home.”

“You do that.”

“You think so?” Hope filled her voice, as if he were right on the verge of making her year.

“Sure. You’re nice.”

Nice?

That single word didn’t begin to describe Brooklynn.

“I do try to be nice. I like people to like me.”

Yeah. That fit.

“But I’m not elegant. Mom’s just got this way about her that makes everyone take notice when she walks into a room. I swear, in a past life she was a queen.”

A past life? “Are you a Hindu or something? Into some New Age?—”

“I’m kidding.” Her laugh was lighthearted. “I’m a Christian. I’m just saying, she was born to be royalty, you know what I mean? Alyssa’s like her, with that long pretty blond hair. I’m nothing like that. I’ve always been… I don’t know. Just ordinary. And also… Too much.”

“Too much of what?”

“I don’t know.”

At the shift in her tone, Forbes looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Obviously something. You’re not smiling.”

“I don’t always smile.”

“You do unless something’s wrong.”

She licked her lips, and the sudden rush of warmth Forbes felt had nothing to do with the burning logs a few feet away.

“I don’t know what makes me too much, but I’ve always had the sense that people think I am. Just…too much. Too much to deal with. Too much trouble. Even you think that.”

“I never said that.”

“I snoop.”

“That is annoying.”

“See? Too much.”

“That doesn’t make you ‘too much.’ It makes you nosy.”

“Too nosy. Too much. It’s fine.” This time, her laugh was forced. “I am who I am. I can’t help myself.”

“You could try not snooping.”

“Hmm.” She made the sound as if she were considering the option. “I could, theoretically. But in practice… I’m not sure.”

At least she was honest.

Far more honest than he’d been.

“How did you find the hidden compartment in that desk?”

“Oh. If I didn’t know the house had secrets, I probably wouldn’t have. But the dimensions inside the drawer didn’t match the depth.”

“How did you see that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It was obvious.”

It hadn’t been to him. She’d also noticed the resemblance between Bernie and Shane Dawson, which he hadn’t picked up on at all. And he’d seen Bernie face-to-face, not just in a grainy photograph.

“You see what others don’t see,” Forbes said. “Which makes sense.”

“How so?”

“You know, because you’re an artist.”

She sat back and scoffed.

“What?”

“I’m not an artist,” she said. “I just take pictures. The art, the beauty, is already there.”

“You see what others don’t see and capture it. You evoke emotions with your work. A painter does that with paints. A poet does it with words. You do it with a camera.”

“It’s not the same. A painter has skill. A poet… I mean, I can barely read poetry, much less write it. That’s crazy skill. I just point and shoot.”

“You’re being ridiculous. You don’t really believe that.” He hadn’t meant the words to come out angry.

To be fair, he hadn’t meant the words to come out at all.

She said nothing, just crossed her arms and stared into the flames.

“What?” he demanded. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Just tell me.”

She looked his way, head tilting to the side. “Do you find that annoying? When you ask a question and get no response, or just a one-word answer that doesn’t actually explain anything?”

“Whatever.”

“Because I imagine that might be a little frustrating.”

“I was just making conversation.”

“No, you were expecting me to make the conversation so you could sit there silently. Maybe it’s my turn to be the mysterious one, mmm? Ever thought of that?”

“Nobody forced you to talk.”

She pressed her lips together.

Not sure if the darkness hid the way his cheeks burned, he stood and added another log to the fire. Sparks crackled and rose. He used the poker to position the log, keeping his face averted so she couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Telling himself not to ask again. That he didn’t care.

There was a story. There had to be a reason a woman who owned a gallery and filled it with her own art didn’t consider herself an artist.

He shouldn’t care.

The problem was, he did care, and it did matter how this amazing woman saw herself. She thought she was too much.

From what Forbes could tell, everything about her was just right.