Lakeview Protector

Tonight, with Sarah settled into her room and the tap of icy rain hitting windows and roof, Jazz still felt the aloneness of the night, the emptiness that yawned beside her in bed. At a little after midnight, she was still awake, sketching illustrations for an alphabet book. A tiger. Friendly-looking to go with the cute little rhyme that would be on the page. The only problem was Jazz’s tiger looked more ferocious than friendly, his snarling face and jagged stripes enough to scare even the bravest toddler away.

“Focus, Jazz. This thing is due in ten days.” She muttered the words as she ripped the drawing from the pad, tossed it into the trash can and tapped her pencil against the bed. This should be easy, so why was she struggling with it?

Maybe because being bombarded with photos of John and the girls that sat on every table and shelf in Sarah’s house had stolen her ability to concentrate. Maybe because she was still worried about the financial help she’d given Sarah and what Sarah’s response to that would be. Maybe because she was still thinking about the guest in Meadow Lark cabin—his rifle case, his warm smile, his hard eyes.

Maybe all of the above.

And maybe she should just forget all those things and finish the tiger, the umbrella bird, the vixen, the walrus, the yak and the zebra so she could mail the assignment out.

She smoothed a hand over a clean page, glancing at the storyboard she’d been sent. An easy assignment. Get it done. Get it out the door. Decide if this was really what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing—drawing pictures for someone else’s stories while her Danielle Donkey stories were reprinted over and over again. That was all she needed to do. Simple.

A line. Two. Curves. Shapes, coming together to form the sketch. She’d just finished the tiger’s smiling mouth when a scream rent the air, high pitched and terror filled, heartrending in its fevered intensity.

“Sarah!” Jazz ran across the room, the sketch pad falling from icy fingers, her heart tripping in her chest as she raced for her mother-in-law’s room, shoved the door open.

The light was off and she flicked it on, inhaling the musty scent of age and medicine, and the coppery scent of fear. Her mother-in-law pressed up against the headboard of her bed, her eyes wide and feverishly bright against pale skin, her gaze fixed on the window.

“Sarah? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“It’s out there, watching me.” The hoarse whisper was almost as terrifying as Sarah’s scream.

“What? What’s out there?” Jazz moved toward the window, fear quivering in her throat and belly, images flashing through her head. Bogeymen, ghosts, other things that didn’t exist except in the imagination.

“The thing that’s trying to kill me.”

“There’s nothing there.” Was there? Jazz pressed her face against the glass, peering into the darkness and trying to see shapes in the shadows.

“Call the police. Call them now before he gets in.”

“You saw a man outside the window?” That made more sense, though the idea of a man lurking outside seemed almost as unbelievable as a phantom creature. Even a serial killer would hesitate to be out on a night like this.

“I saw something. A shadow with milk-white eyes.”

“Sarah…”

“Someone was out there. Call the police before he gets away.” She sounded more rational now, more believable, and Jasmine grabbed the phone from the bedside table, dialing the sheriff’s department rather than 911. No sense tying up the emergency line for something that probably wasn’t an emergency. Maybe her mother-in-law had had a nightmare, or maybe she’d really seen something. One way or another, Jazz was pretty sure they were safe inside the house.

Sirens drew Eli Jennings to the living-room window of his rental, their screaming frenzy carrying over the sound of the winter storm. Outside, ice still fell, collecting on the grass and trees and sparkling in the light that spilled out from the window. Down the hill and to the left, blue and white lights flashed. Unless he missed his guess, they were near the small rancher he’d visited earlier. Not that it was any of his business. Then again, he’d never cared too much about whether things were his business. That was why he was in Lakeview, Virginia, instead of at home in Atlanta. And that was why he was about to take a midnight walk in icy rain.

He grabbed his jacket from the coat closet and stepped out the front door. Probably this was a bad idea. Probably he shouldn’t be doing it. But two women lived down in that rancher, one too frail to protect herself, one so brittle Eli thought a strong wind might shatter her.

Not his business, sure, but Eli was hardwired to protect. The weak, the fragile, the frail. Those who couldn’t fight for themselves. It was why he’d joined the military and why he’d still be in it if he could. Unfortunately, the choice had been taken out of his hands. A roadside bomb and suddenly he was Stateside, near deaf in one ear, and sporting a roadmap of scars and a pronounced limp. Seeing as how five of his buddies hadn’t survived the attack, Eli figured he had more to be thankful for than to complain about.

He made his way down the steep slope that led away from the cabin, moving past his SUV and along the gravel driveway that led to the Harts’ house. He’d done his research before he’d arrived, knew exactly who his landlords were. At least who they were on paper. Jasmine Hart—well-known children’s book author and illustrator, faded to obscurity after the death of her husband and daughters, living a quiet life in New Hampshire until her mother-in-law fell down a flight of stairs and fractured her skull and her hip. Sarah Hart—owner of Lakeview Retreat. Widowed young. Raised a son. On the verge of losing the property she’d worked so hard for.

Those were the facts.

Reality was different. Reality was the frail, older woman who’d shuffled along with a walker while offering him tea, and the younger woman who’d looked like more trouble than Eli had time for. From the tip of her multicolored knit cap to the soles of her scuffed brown boots, she had the kind of can’t-hurt-me attitude that could put a person into all kinds of dangerous situations. Tough. Strong. A survivor. But brittle, too. Like overstressed glass, she might shatter at any moment.

He’d met other women like her. In Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. Different places. Same stories. Military life had put him in contact with plenty of people whose lives had unfolded in horrifying tableaux. Jazz was no different.

Except for her eyes.

Not blue. Not green. A mixture of colors that reminded him of Asia’s deep valleys and lush jungles, of hazy mornings and strong, dark coffee. The fact that he’d noticed just proved how much trouble she was going to be. He had a job to do, and that job didn’t include comparing a woman’s eyes to foliage.

Two police cars were parked in front of Sarah’s house, and he skirted around them, stopping when a harsh voice called from the open doorway of the rancher. “You looking for someone, friend?”

“Just making sure everything is all right.” He waited until the officer moved into sight. “I’m Eli Jennings. One of the Harts’ renters.”

“Must be a pretty new one. As far as I know, none of the cabins have been rented in over a year.”

“I just drove in today.”

“Staying long?”

“At least a month.”

“For?”

“Business.”

“What kind of business?”

“Not the kind that’s going to cause you any trouble, Officer.”

“Sheriff. Jake Reed.” The man offered a hand, but his scowl said he wasn’t happy with Eli’s response. Too bad. It was all he was getting. Until Eli got a better sense of which Lakeview residents were important to his investigation, he planned to keep his purpose for being there close to the cuff. If the sheriff questioned him privately, he’d tell all. Otherwise, he had nothing more to say about his “business.”

He plastered a good-old-boy smile onto his face and leaned a shoulder against a porch post. “Good to meet you, Sheriff. So, is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, Mr. Jennings. Sorry for the disturbance.” Jasmine emerged from the house, drowning in gray flannel pajamas, her hair a halo of wild curls around a sharp-angled face, her eyes huge pools of uncertainty.

Fine?

Eli doubted it. “It seems that if everything were okay you wouldn’t have two police cars sitting in front of your house.”

“Sarah thought she saw someone outside her window. I’m sure—”

“That she’s a crazy old fool who’s too muddled in the head to know what she’s looking at.” Sarah Hart appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily on her walker, her lined face pale, her knuckles white with tension.

“You know that isn’t what I think.” To her credit, Jasmine sounded hurt at her mother-in-law’s accusation, though Eli wondered if she actually did believe Sarah’s thinking was muddled.

“I know what I saw and what I saw was a face staring in the window at me.” Sarah sagged a little as she spoke, grimacing and in obvious pain.

Jazz put a hand on her shoulder. “You need to sit down, Sarah. Jake will handle things out here. Give me a few minutes and I’ll come in and make you a cup of tea.”

The older woman’s shoulders stiffened and her chin went up. She reminded Eli of a younger version of his grandma Fern. Soft as warm butter until someone got her back up, then she was hard as steel.

“I can handle making tea myself, and I’ll handle this investigation myself, too, if no one is willing to take me seriously.” She shot the sheriff a hard look that was only slightly less effective because of her frailty.