“Daar was here this morning, looking for breakfast.”
“What else did he say?”
Michael gestured at the ancient weapon in Robbie’s left hand. “Only that ya might be by to pick up Robert’s sword.”
“And did he give you a reason for my wanting it?”
“Nay,” Michael said. “Is there a reason?”
Robbie shrugged. “Only that my palm itched to hold it again. Maybe later this week we can have a match?”
Michael nodded. “I’ll give ya a few days to practice first, before I wipe the ground with your arrogance.”
Robbie gave him a final salute and turned and walked to his truck, waving good-bye over his head as he quietly let out a frustrated sigh. If Daar didn’t quit his meddling, he was about to feel the business end of a dangerously sharp sword.
It was nearly five o’clock and just starting to get dark by the time Robbie pulled out of the logging yard behind the last load of saw logs, his stomach growling in anticipation of Gram Katie’s lasagna. He headed toward Pine Creek, then turned onto a less traveled shortcut home that would take him around the north side of TarStone Mountain.
Gunter had left nearly an hour ago, after putting in an impressively hard day of work, according to Harley, who’d been grateful for the young man’s help.
Robbie glanced out the truck window and decided he’d head up the mountain tonight to look for signs of his egg thief, rather than wait for her to come to him, figuring she wouldn’t be raiding his henhouse again after this morning’s chase.
Who the hell was she? The woman had no business camping out this time of year, if that’
s what she was doing. And she certainly didn’t have to steal food. She only had to walk up to any house in town and knock on the door, and anyone would be more than willing to help her. Yes, she was quite a disturbing mystery.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Robbie whispered as he slammed on the brakes, bringing his truck to a halt in the middle of the narrow tote road.
The woman had just stepped out of the ditch not a hundred yards away. She stopped and stared at him for the merest of seconds, then bolted back into the woods.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Robbie scrambled out of the truck. “You’re not getting away this time.”
He ran up the road and jumped the ditch, pushing through the tangle of alders before breaking into the forest. He stopped only long enough to let his eyes adjust to the dimness and listened to the snapping of limbs off to his right.
“Hey, wait up! I just want to talk to you!” he shouted, moving through the old-growth forest in her direction.
He heard a loud crash, a muffled grunt, then more limbs snapping as she scrambled away. He quickened his pace, weaving around large trees, ducking under branches, while still trying to listen, being careful not to make any noise himself.
The sound of his idling truck came to him then, quickly followed by the realization that the lady was headed back through the alders to the road. He turned and pushed his way through the bushes, stepping into the ditch just in time to see her climbing into his truck.
“Dammit, no!” he shouted, running toward her. “Stop!”
The rear tires chittered on the loose gravel, spewing up rocks as his truck sped toward him. Robbie jumped back into the ditch with a curse and stood ankle deep in rotting snow and freezing mud, staring at the taillights of his truck. “You little witch,” he growled as she disappeared around a curve.
The silence of the forest settled around him, and Robbie stood rooted in place, amazed if not awed that she’d stolen his truck. He looked over at the broken alders she’d come through and saw a dark lump hanging in them. He sloshed out of the ditch, pulled the lump free, and realized that she must have gotten tangled in the bushes and been forced to sacrifice her backpack in order to escape.
“Well, my quick little cat,” he whispered, unzipping it and peering inside. “Maybe now I’ll find out who you are.”
He reached inside and pulled out a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a pint of jam, and a fistful of mittens.
Mittens?
Child-sized mittens. With the price tags still on them.
The lady has kids?
One pair of the mittens was barely the size of his palm.
She has little kids.
“Well, hell.” He dropped the food back into the pack, stuffed the mittens in his jacket pocket, and reached deeper into the pack. This time his fingers closed around a wallet.
“Bingo,” he said, pulling it out. He tucked the pack under one arm and opened the wallet, but it was too dark to read the name on the license. He closed it back up and reached inside the pack again, this time pulling out three knit caps.
He stared at the caps and heaved a weary sigh. Damn. His mystery woman had just become a really big problem—times three. He shoved everything back into the pack, hooked it over his shoulder, jumped the ditch again, and started walking the two miles home.
And just what was he going to tell the boys when he showed up without his truck?
Certainly not that he’d been outmaneuvered by a pint-sized thief twice in one day!
Twenty minutes later and less than half a mile from home, Robbie stopped at the sight of his truck sitting in the middle of the road ahead, the lights still on, the engine still running, and his little thief nowhere in sight.
So, the lady had a conscience. She hadn’t stolen his truck, only borrowed it long enough to put some distance between them. Just as she hadn’t really stolen his eggs but had bought them.
Robbie scanned both sides of the road as he approached the truck. He opened the driver
’s door and set the backpack inside. He reached behind the seat, moved his sword out of the way, and grabbed the flashlight. He turned and aimed the light at the ditch, trailing the beam along the alders until he spotted where she’d continued her flight toward the mountain.
Who the hell is she?
Robbie tossed the flashlight onto the seat and climbed in, flicked on the overhead light, picked up the backpack, and pulled out the wallet.
“Catherine Daniels,” he read from the Arkansas license.
Arkansas? She was a long way from home. She was also five-seven, one hundred thirty pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. She was twenty-nine years old, as of January fifth of this year, and an organ donor.
Robbie studied the picture on her license and couldn’t help but smile. Catherine Daniels was a pretty little thing, with huge doe eyes, a turned-up button nose, and a shy smile.
Her hair was shorter in the photo than it was now, falling in wisps around her porcelain-skinned, china-doll face.
“Well, Catherine, what else can you tell me about yourself?” he asked, flipping through the wallet.
He found a somewhat battered photo of an obviously younger Catherine and two children. The boy standing beside her looked about three or four years old, and the baby on her lap couldn’t be much more than one. He turned the photo over and found a five-year-old date scrawled on the back, along with the names Nathan, age three, and Nora, age one.
Which made them eight and six now.
Robbie lifted his gaze to the dark mountain beside him. Dammit. Were all three of them out there? Defenseless? Cold? Hungry? They were definitely scared. At least Catherine Daniels was scared, considering how desperate she’d been to get away. But scared of what? Or was it ofwhom?
Robbie looked back at the photo. It was a studio setting, but someone had been carefully cut out of the family portrait. All that remained of the fourth person was a large, beefy hand sitting on Catherine Daniels’s right shoulder.
Robbie tucked the photo back behind the license, opened the money section, and counted two hundred and sixty-eight dollars. Not much money for being three thousand miles from home.
“Come on, Catherine, tell me more,” he whispered, picking up the backpack and pulling out the food and the caps. He held the pack to the light and spotted a bundle of papers in the bottom. He took them out, removed the rubber band holding them together, and shuffled through them.