Nate peered through the screen door. Sarah’s visitor was sitting at a round table. He looked to be in his early thirties, with glasses, close-cropped sandy hair and regular features. He wore a polo shirt, khakis and penny loafers. Sarah was at the counter in a flour-covered pink apron.
She spotted him, her eyes connecting with his, widening, and Nate knew that whatever had prompted her to call him in a panic was still a factor. He wasn’t going to have prune cake and coffee and turn around and head back to New York. Something was up.
The man at the table leaped to his feet. “Sarah?”
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, moving toward the screen door.
Nate pulled it open. “How are you, Sarah?”
“I didn’t hear your car-” She smiled nervously. “Conroy and I have been busy talking prune cake recipes. Here, come in. Conroy, this is Nate Winter, one of Rob’s colleagues from New York. Nate, Conroy Fontaine, a journalist and temporary neighbor.”
Fontaine put out a hand, then pulled it back. “Sorry, sir. I forgot you were hit the other day. The arm, right?”
“It’s fine. Why are you a temporary neighbor?”
The man seemed taken aback by Nate’s directness, but he recovered and smiled. “I’m renting a cabin upriver a piece while I work on a book.”
“He’s working on an unauthorized biography of President Poe,” Sarah said neutrally, then stepped from behind the counter. “Thanks for stopping by, Conroy. Come back anytime for your slice of prune cake.”
He lifted a lightweight jacket off the back of a chair. “I’ll see you later, Sarah. Deputy, very nice to meet you. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
He slipped out the back door.
Nate glanced around the country kitchen and its squared-off log walls with thick layers of white caulking between them. The oak table and chairs were worn and cracked with age, the simple linoleum floor spotless, the cabinets and countertops timeless and functional. A cross-stitched sampler about friendship hung above the table.
The window next to the table looked out on the side yard with its azaleas and vegetable garden. Ethan Brooker had abandoned his pile of horse manure.
The place was more isolated than Nate had expected.
“Whose truck?” he asked.
“The family’s. Ethan uses it, too. Conroy walked down from the fishing camp where he’s staying.” Sarah returned to her mixing bowl and cutting board of what presumably were chopped prunes. “You were expecting Tara, weren’t you?”
“Well, not Daniel Boone.”
“My parents have lived all over the world,” she said, lifting handfuls of chopped prunes into her mixing bowl. “But this has always been home.”
“I met your gardener. He almost stuck me with his pitchfork. Conroy’s a buff guy, too.” Nate settled on a stool across from her at the counter, noticed the slight tremble in her hands. “How come you don’t have any scrawny old guys hanging around you?”
“Conroy runs to keep in shape-apparently he has a grueling deadline for his book. I met him last fall when he was still deciding if he wanted to take on the project. He wants to interview me, but I keep putting him off.”
“By bringing up prune cake recipes?”
“Watch, he’ll find some way to use it in his book.” She picked up a wood-handled spatula and folded the prunes into the brownish batter. “And Ethan’s the nicest guy. Anyway, a pitchfork’s no match for whatever you’re carrying.”
Which Nate had no intention of discussing with her. She lifted her bowl and started spooning the thick batter into one of the square pans she had set out on the counter. She took a breath, setting down the bowl quickly, as if she’d been about to drop it. The tremble in her hands was noticeably worse.
She avoided his eye and spoke as she stared down at her cake batter. “You didn’t have to come here. I should have stopped you. I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time.” She picked up her bowl again, stubbornly folding batter into another pan. “I’m not in any danger here.”
Nate didn’t respond. She set down the bowl once more, batter spilling down its sides, then tore open the oven door and shoved the pans inside. She turned on the timer with more force than was necessary.
“I need air,” she said, pulling off her apron and tossing it onto the counter.
She moved down a hall toward the front of the house, at a fast walk at first, then a run. Nate could hear her footsteps on the wood floor. He eased off the stool and followed her out to the porch, overfurnished with old rockers and chairs, even an iron daybed.
Sarah had made it down the steps and was well on her way to the river and the small, well-kept dock.
He wondered if she’d run right into the water and try to swim away from whatever was bothering her. It wasn’t him. Or not just him. He was a reminder, tangible evidence that she wasn’t just home on vacation. That was an illusion, a ruse that had helped get her through the morning.
She stopped at the very end of the dock.
Nate walked out to her. An ancient fishing boat bobbed in the dark water. He didn’t blame her. He felt an urge to grab her and jump in the boat, go wherever the river took them and forget about shootings and whatever had frightened her. In an image that felt real, that rocked him to the point his knees almost buckled, he saw them stopped at a quiet clearing, a blanket spread, the sun on them as they made love. It was as if her body were under him now, soft and yielding, their lovemaking tender, slow, as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
Christ. What the hell was wrong with him?
Sarah glanced back at him. She had on jeans and a lightweight zip-up top in a dusty blue-gray that matched her eyes. “How’s your arm?”
The air seemed cooler, damper, on the river. His arm ached. His whole body ached. “Doctor rebandaged it this morning before I left. It’s healing well. Doesn’t bother me that much.” He glanced at the undergrowth and the rocks along the riverbank, upriver, toward the Poe house. “You swim in the river?”
“All the time. The Corps of Engineer dams backed up the river so that it’s wider and deeper here than it used to be. It’s more like a lake nowadays, so the current’s not bad.”
He shifted back to her. “Snakes?”
“Oh, sure, but they leave us alone. Sometimes you can see a water moccasin sunning on the rocks. They’re poisonous. You don’t have them up north.” She looked back at him, her words almost rote. “People often confuse them with water snakes that aren’t poisonous.”
Nate decided to let her talk about snakes and prune cake, until she was calm enough to tell him what was going on, why she’d called him at six her time-why she hadn’t called him again and dissuaded him from coming down here. “You can tell the difference?”
She nodded. “Water moccasins are a kind of pit viper. They swim on top of the water with their heads above the surface-water snakes tend to swim under the water. They’re not as fat as the cottonmouths-that’s what people call water moccasins-and they’re more likely to hang from trees and slither off when they’re startled. A cottonmouth will stand its ground.”
Like her, Nate thought. Like her brother. Even in the short time they’d worked together, Nate had done enough arrests with Rob to know he didn’t like to back down. “Ever run into a cottonmouth?”
“All the time. Rob and I used to catch them when we were kids, but Granny Dunnemore told us to leave them alone. None of the snakes will bother you if you don’t bother them. It’s when they’re startled or feel threatened that they bite.”
He smiled. “I’ll try not to startle or threaten any snakes.”
She didn’t smile back, seemed barely aware that he’d spoken. “Even most cottonmouth bites aren’t fatal.” She stared into the water, as if she were looking for snakes. “Thank you for coming down here. It was a decent thing to do. I know I must have sounded awful on the phone this morning. I’m sure I overreacted to something.”