One man was stunned, the other was fighting off a wild lug wrench. Eloise was doped and fading, but free. She wriggled, crawled, then dug in with her feet and bolted away, staggering, weaving, disconnected from her feet, barely understanding what her eyes may have been telling her.
But somewhere in her mind she could see the gate, the white fence, the three aspens, the big house on the heavenly hill …
“Hello?” he called. There was no answer save for the ring of his voice off the vaulted ceiling.
He looked over the rail into the house below, listening again for a stirring, a creak, a rustle, whatever may have clued him in that he was not alone. He looked out the south windows, searching the front acreage, the driveway, the distant gate. No, not out there.
She came to mind. Eloise Kramer! Every time he saw her, every time she showed up in his life …
He caught something in his peripheral vision, looked toward the east windows—gasped with a start, then froze.
There was a woman standing by the windows, looking out, her back toward him. Her hair was golden blond with a sheen of silver, teased, layered, and draping her shoulders. She wore a blue bathrobe that reached nearly to her feet and had a cup of coffee in her hand.
After forty years, he knew who she was. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, was afraid to breathe lest anything scare the vision away. Please. Just let me look at you, just for a moment. Please.
She turned, every feature of her face more alive, real, and lovely than he ever could have remembered, and he almost said her name. She was looking straight at him, but she looked puzzled, alarmed.
He didn’t say it but thought it, his face and body carrying the question What is it?
She immediately looked out the window again with intent and alarm, enough to make him approach.
What is it?he thought, and then he whispered it, “What is it?”
He could have touched her. He could smell the scent of her hair. She was looking out over the meadow. He followed her gaze.
What in the world was this? At very first glimpse he took it to be some kid traipsing across his land, but his next impression was the right one: it was Eloise Kramer, just coming around the pond and up the meadow, staggering, falling, crawling, walking again, looking seriously injured and crazy with fear.
And—who was that guy rounding the pond?
He looked at the woman.
She was gone.
But she’d reached him. He thundered down the stairs, bounded through the living room, grabbed a sword off the mantel—it was a stage prop that wasn’t sharp and would probably break, but it was all he could think to grab—and burst out the back door.
She was so small, so far away. It would take so long to reach her. The man coming after her was closing fast, running like an athlete, definitely not sixty. Nagging little thoughts squeaked in Dane’s brain: You don’t know what you’re doing. That guy could kill you.
The girl may have seen Dane coming. She staggered one step in his direction, then another, then crumpled, half disappearing in the yellow grass. From there she tried to crawl, reaching and pulling with one feeble arm and then the other.
Dane stopped listening to little thoughts and charged, wielding the sword, animal rage sending strength to his legs and a war cry from his throat, a maniacal, high-pitched scream.
The other guy kept coming, but Dane didn’t slow down. He passed the barn—it was only a blurred flash of a shadow on his right—and galloped down the narrow trail into the meadow, sword waving above his head, teeth bared, a crazy, screaming barbarian.
It didn’t seem to be working. The other guy was still coming at him, and the way things looked, he and Dane would reach the fallen girl at the same time.
Well then, there’d be a fight even though Dane didn’t know anything about fighting. He’d just have to bite the guy’s ear off first chance he got.
But then the guy stopped, just came to a halt about thirty yards away and stood there, sizing Dane up through impenetrable sunglasses.
Dane reached the girl and positioned himself between her and the stranger, holding that sword out with murder and mayhem in his eyes and not the slightest idea of what threatening thing he ought to say.
The girl was still trying to crawl away, her hands too weak now to grip anything, her arms only swimming over the top of the ground, flattening the snow-wearied grass. Her speech was so slurred she could have been talking in her sleep, “I’m Eloise … I’m … driver’s license …”
Only now did Dane notice how hard he was breathing, how tired and sore he was. If that guy wanted a fight … well, maybe the girl could still get away.
But the man only looked at him with a tilt to his head, the trace of a smile on his lips. What, he was amused? He thought this was funny?
He looked familiar. Blond hair. Steely expression. That guy from the other night? Hard to tell from this distance. But he didn’t look well, even for him. His face might have been a little puffy in places, and Dane thought he might have a streak of red by his right ear.
The man looked down for a moment as if thinking things over, then wagged his head with resignation, gave both hands a little flip as if to say, “Well, so much for this,” and turned. Putting his hands in his pockets, he walked away. He didn’t run, he just walked.
Dane stole quick, precautionary glances at the girl. She’d fallen silent, her eyes closed, and after two final twitches of her hands, she was motionless. He knelt and checked her pulse. Still strong. She was breathing.
His eyes remained on the stranger, his stage sword ready to bounce harmlessly off flesh. The sinister stranger never checked behind him. He just walked across the meadow, climbed through the fence, crossed to the road, and disappeared over a rise.
What had he gotten himself into?
Eloise Kramer couldn’t tell him. She lay on the wet grass, her hair smeared across her face, unconscious—right where he’d scattered the ashes, he realized.
But he didn’t dwell on that. He knew only what he had to do next, and after that …
He stooped and gathered her up. She stirred a little, then clung to him like a frightened child, her arms around his neck.
“Dad … dy,” she said, and she may have been crying.
He carried her into the house.
chapter
20
She was a svelte, young-bodied girl and should have been easy to carry, but she went totally limp and offered no more help—no arms around his neck to support some of her weight, no curling against him as he supported her behind her back and under her knees. No, she just hung over his arms like a big sack of dog food, arms dangling like empty sleeves from a laundry basket and her head—oh, her head! It was like trying to balance a bowling ball against his shoulder with no free hand to hold it there. He feared for her neck and had to stop and lurch rearward several times to get it back in place. By the time he reached the side door his arms and back were sending him warnings.
Then he discovered he had no way to grab and turn the doorknob. Somehow—and it did not go smoothly—he got her flopped over his left shoulder so he could open the door with his right hand and get inside, trying not to bang her dangling arms and head against the door frame or the walls.
He made it through the kitchen, his wet soles squeaking on the tile floor, then into the living room, where he gingerly let her unfold from his shoulder and flop on the couch, cradling her head lest she hurt her neck. He put a pillow under her head. One leg still hung off the side of the couch. He lifted the leg as if it were crystal and set it neatly next to the other. Her clothes were wet from lying in the grass. Her shoes were smudging the couch. Little running shoes. Size six, probably. Cute.