Rather than dwell on it, she dug out the small bottle at the bottom of the purse and took out two pills. She swallowed them with a drink of water.
Next up, caffeine and lots of it. The few minutes that it took to set the coffee to brewing kept her too busy to think about the things that didn’t quite add up.
Such as the noise she’d heard, and how her purse came to be under the cart. While she waited for the coffee to perk, she leaned against the counter and studied the room to see if anything else was out of place.
Her computer pack sat right where she’d left it on the kitchen counter. She frowned. Something was different, though. Last night, one of the last things she’d done was look at the picture of Wyatt McCain that she’d printed out. She smiled. Uncle Ray would’ve gotten such a kick out of what she’d learned about Blessing when the town had been alive.
But now the picture wasn’t where she’d left it.
She searched her pack in case she’d put it back. No dice. Nor was it in the living room or anywhere in plain sight. She’d found her purse under the cart. Had the picture fallen there, too?
Only one way to find out. She tugged on the cart, wheeling it out of its usual position. The only thing she uncovered was a wadded-up piece of paper, obviously not the picture of Wyatt. Uncle Ray must have missed the trash can with it.
She bent down to pick it up. Before throwing the paper away, she’d make sure it wasn’t something important. As she smoothed it out on the counter, her pulse kicked right back into overdrive. Okay, so she’d been wrong. Uncle Ray hadn’t thrown this paper away. He couldn’t have for one important reason: he’d never seen it. Wyatt McCain’s piercing pale eyes glared up at her, the wrinkled paper doing nothing to dilute the intensity of his gaze.
This was the picture she’d brought with her, but she hadn’t been the one to crumple it up. Chills washed through her as she looked around the room. She had proof positive right there in her hands that she hadn’t imagined the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen earlier.
She dropped the paper on the counter and hurried to double-check the lock on the door and the windows. It didn’t take long to verify that everything was locked up tight. Even if someone had the key to the deadbolt, they couldn’t have fastened the chain from the outside. There was no obvious sign that the cabin walls had been breached.
Surely she would’ve heard someone climbing to the second floor? Had she left her window open when she came downstairs? She grabbed the nearest weapon she could find, her uncle’s rolling pin, and charged upstairs. Sure enough, her window was still open. She knelt on the bed to close it and throw the latch.
She paused long enough to survey the clearing surrounding the cabin. Her past visits had taught her that anyone walking across the meadow while the dew was still on the grass left a visible trail. From what she could see, there was no sign that anyone had passed that way.
She checked the tree line, too. No movement there except for a few birds flittering among the leaves. So it was just her, the bright morning sunshine and the mountain.
From there, she went into the bathroom, but the window in there was too narrow for anyone but a small child to squeeze through.
That left Uncle Ray’s room. She hesitated before opening the door. Eventually, she’d have to cross that threshold, but she hadn’t planned on doing it so soon. It was Uncle Ray’s most private space, his sanctuary from the world outside. Even when she’d visited him, she’d never been allowed inside.
She turned the doorknob but still hesitated before pushing the door open. This was silly. What did she expect to find? She gave the door a soft shove and took a single step forward into the space that her uncle had kept private.
Tears stung her eyes as she realized how much the room looked like her uncle—solid, comfortable, plain. The queen-size bed filled up most of the space. Made from pine, the design was simple, which matched the patchwork quilt and utilitarian blue curtains. The haphazard pile of books on the bedside table came as no surprise. Nor did the closet full of flannel shirts and T-shirts featuring the names of old rock bands.
“Uncle Ray, you sure loved your books and music.”
Something else they’d both shared besides their love for his mountain home. She pulled one of the flannel shirts off its hanger and slipped it on. Maybe it was whimsical of her, but wearing the soft cotton felt like one of Uncle Ray’s hugs. For the first time since waking up on the kitchen floor, she felt safe.
Eventually, she’d figure out what had happened downstairs. Maybe she’d walked in her sleep; not exactly a comforting thought. And even if it were true, why would she have crumpled Wyatt McCain’s picture? Too many questions she had no answers for.
But now that she’d reassured herself that she was alone in the cabin, it was time to do something useful. At some point, she’d have to go through Ray’s things and dispose of them. Surely there was a homeless shelter in one of the nearby towns that could make good use of his clothing. Maybe some of his books, too. His extensive music collection, though, she’d keep.
As she walked back out of the room, she rolled the sleeves of the flannel shirt up several turns. Despite being a couple sizes too big for her, the black-and-white-plaid fit her just fine.
At the bottom of the steps, she hesitated briefly. Nothing but silence this time. Good. Where to start? The attorney had gone over the terms of Uncle Ray’s will with her in great detail, some of which were odd to say the least. To start with, he’d made the attorney include a message from him saying that he’d loved Rayanne and had known that she’d loved him right back.
Bless the man, those few words had melted away her guilt over not visiting him up here on the mountain. He’d known how she felt about him and that’s all that mattered.
Next on the list was the requirement that she had to move to the cabin immediately. If she stayed until Labor Day, the property and everything on it was hers to take care of for her lifetime. She couldn’t sell it, rent it, or give it away. Failure to comply would result in the place being left to a distant cousin, and Rayanne and her parents would be banned from ever setting foot on the property again.
He’d also set aside enough money to see her through the summer. Once September rolled around, the rest of Ray’s surprisingly substantial estate would also be hers. With care, she wouldn’t have to work again.
Meanwhile, the attorney had suggested that she begin by doing a room-by-room inventory of the cabin. The only question was where to start?
The kitchen would be the simplest. Before starting, she picked out some CDs from Ray’s collection and put them on to play. His taste was eclectic, but this morning some red-dirt rock and country fit her mood.
With the sound of fiddle and guitar filling the empty silence, she got out her spiral notebook and favorite pen and started to work.
* * *
Wyatt drifted closer to the edge of the woods to listen. With the doors and windows closed up tight, he couldn’t make out the lyrics. The singer had a smoky voice, the kind that had a man thinking of a pair of lovers breathing hard as they tangled up together in between soft sheets.
After all this time, he had only vague memories of what it had been like to coax a woman into sharing his bed for the night. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the scent of his last lover’s perfume. Something flowery, maybe. He had better luck remembering
