slight condescension in his tone made her cross her arms over her chest and declare defensively, “I know that.”
He raised one jet-black eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Yes. Walter, my late husband, taught me well, and I’m very careful about what I put in that compost heap. Nothing but vegetation. All other garbage is wrapped tightly in plastic and kept in the mudroom until garbage pickup day. I’m not a total fool, you know.” She was annoyed, at him for figuring her for a dimwit, and at herself for having lustful thoughts about him just moments ago.
Which, thank heavens, were now gone.
“Besides,” she said, her chin sticking out defiantly, “I haven’t had any chicken since I’ve been here, so there’s no way I could have put those bones in there.”
Again, the raised eyebrow, the shrug. Then he stood, towering over her, blocking out the sun with his body. “Maybe it was a tramp,” he said, hitching his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans, the material of his T-shirt tightly stretched across pecs the size of boulders. “Some homeless guy. What do you think, Hank?”
“Maybe,” the other man said. “Up here’s usually too big a hike for strangers, but there’s some great hiding places if you’re on the run.” He scratched his head again. “Gee, Miz Thorne, I wish I could help. Are you sure you’re all right here, all by yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
“How long you planning on staying?”
“As long as I need.”
“Oh, I thought it was maybe a few days, that’s all.”
She lifted her shoulders. “I really don’t know.”
“But not during the winter, right?” Hank persisted. “It gets snowbound up here in the winter.”
“Isn’t there a plow service?”
“Can’t count on it. Hardly anyone up here then. You’d be pretty much alone, with no way to get down the mountain.”
“Maybe,” Fitzgerald joined the conversation, “someone from your family should come up here and stay with you. Your dad? A brother?”
Kayla nearly laughed bitterly at the ludicrousness of that suggestion, but all she said was “I don’t think so. And, anyway,” she added philosophically, “winter’s a long way off.”
“Maybe only a month or so,” Boland said. “It’s late September. Snowfall begins in the autumn.”
“Hank Boland,” she said, her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to scare me?”
He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned sheepishly. “I’m just old-fashioned, I guess, about women being alone up here where there’re wild animals. In case you get, you know, attacked or something.”
She gave him a forgiving smile. “You’re allowed to be as old-fashioned as you like. But I assure you, I really can take care of myself.”
An amused, exaggeratedly patient look passed between the two men, one of the aren’t-females-foolish? variety, but she decided to ignore it. The male brain worked differently from the female’s, and that was just the way it was.
“Well, look,” Hank announced, “I’d best check on that leak under the church. Why don’t the two of you go over the stuff on your list?”
Now was the moment, Kayla knew, the one where she could say, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Fitzgerald won’t do.” She wouldn’t have to explain her reasons. After all, she was doing the hiring here and didn’t owe anyone anything.
But before she could, Fitzgerald said, “What church is that?”
Kayla pointed toward an expanse of birch trees on the far side of the house. “It’s over there. The Old Stone Church. It’s part of the property.”
Paul had always been fascinated by early American architecture, and now his curiosity was piqued. “Mind if I take a look with Hank?”
“We can all go, I guess,” Mrs. Thorne said.
As they followed Hank down the gravel driveway toward the main road, Paul asked her, “Does the church still function as a church?”
“Mostly it’s used for weddings and funerals. Anyone who wants to belong to a congregation has to go down the mountain to Susanville.”
Susanville.
The name sent a chill through him. It was where he’d just spent four hellish years in the penitentiary. Where the families of the prisoners rode the bus from New York City and Albany and Buffalo on Sunday mornings, filled with excitement and picnic baskets, and returned on the same bus, subdued and sad, their baskets empty, on Sunday nights.
As they walked along the main road for a brief period, then turned up the path leading to the church, Paul shook himself mentally. He was out now. His lawyer had gotten him released on a technicality, but if he was lucky, he’d never have to go back. Hell, he couldn’t go back. Didn’t think his soul could take another day there.
Which was why he was here, high in the Catskills, on the way to checking out an old church with Kayla Thorne. She held the key to his freedom, although he doubted she was aware of that.
And, if he played his cards right, she would never have to be.
Chapter 2
Kayla remembered the first time she’d seen the Old Stone Church; it had been nearly four years before, when Walter had brought her here on their honeymoon. As he’d shown her around his family’s mountain retreat and related stories of his childhood, there had been rueful pride and unabashed sentimentality in his voice. At the moment, she couldn’t help comparing that time with this one.
Somewhat guiltily, she contrasted her late husband with Fitzgerald. Walter had been under six feet, reedy rather than muscular. And, of course, a young-thinking but still aging man of seventy. Fitzgerald was so much taller and broader, so much more muscular…and so much younger. Always a fast walker, Kayla had had to slow her pace to match Walter’s stride. Today, she had to hurry to keep up.
They paused at the front of the building, which was relatively modest as churches went, one story made to look a lot taller by its sharply pitched roofline and a high, broad steeple. The bell tower still had its original nine-hundred-pound bell, one that was rung on special occasions.
Fitzgerald ran one huge hand over several of the dark gray and dusty brown stones that made up the entire facade. “Solid workmanship,” he said, and she detected a flicker of admiration—an actual emotion?—on his face as he did. “Do you know anything about it?”
“Just what’s in the brochure. It’s native fieldstone and was carved by Italian masons,” Kayla explained, “brought to America in the mid 1890s for that express purpose. A wealthy widow, Honoria Desbaugh, built it to honor her husband. For years, it was run by some monks, an offshoot of a sect called the Brothers of the Sacred Nazarene. Our cabin was their dormitory. One by one, the monks died out, and the place was pretty much abandoned till the 1920s, when Walter’s family bought the entire property.”
“The
