Chapter 18

 

The harsh light of late day cast sharp shadows across the bog’s low profile. Samantha shivered and told herself it was because of the perpetual frostiness emitted by the glacially carved pit of water trapped beneath layers of sphagnum moss. Yet, she glanced at the deepening angle of the sun and couldn’t help but be reminded of Archer’s warning—a warning she’d defied out of stubborn pride.

At least she wasn’t alone. She had Ed. Though she wasn’t so sure she should have followed him to the far side of the bog this late in the day.

Or was that just another manifestation of the paranoia created by Archer’s crazy prediction?

"If we dredge out that ridge of land over there," Ed was saying, "the bog will drain off into the lake."

Absently, Samantha glanced in the direction Ed waved. "Bog water is acidic," she said. "Pouring dead water into a living lake would change the ecological balance."

"Depends on the volume of this hole."

She raised an eyebrow at her business partner. "Sounds like you’ve already checked into this."

"I do my homework, Sam. You know that."

"Just how long have you been doing homework on this property?" She turned to him, but he seemed preoccupied scanning the clearing.

"Most of the information needed for analysis was already available. On file at the college."

"You used my father’s studies?"

"What did he spend a lifetime researching this place for if he didn’t expect people to use the info?" The glint of acquisition in Ed’s eyes made her shiver.

Or was it just the sinking sun and the lingering chill of Archer’s warning?

She blinked, breaking the hold of her business partner’s gaze, and shrugged. "I suppose. It just seems ironic. He intended his data to be used to support the importance of wetlands, not supply data for how his own private heaven on earth might be eliminated."

"That was his dream, Sam. Not yours. Let it go."

"Maybe."

She gazed across the thirty by forty foot plot of sphagnum at the scant pool of open water at its center. Like tea that had steeped too long and been left in the pot to mold over, the dark water mocked her. Had she stayed too long in a place time had passed by? Did she cling to childhood roots she no longer needed? Her father had died here. She’d loved and lost here. Maybe it was best to drain the swamp, turn Killdeer into a thriving resort town and obliterate a place that held the worst memories of her life.

The tremulous call of a loon echoed through the wetlands. The sound pulled at Samantha’s heart. She lifted her chin, listening for the answer from its mate, murmured absently, "They mate for life."

"What’s that?"

"Loons. They mate for life."

"How monogamous of them," Ed muttered. "So, when do we get the engineers in here?"

"This is their home."

"Whose?"

"The loons. They’ll die without their lake."

"They’ll have a bigger lake to live on, that’s all."

"You don’t understand, Ed," she said, sensing a link to the ancient species of birds. "They won’t survive in an environment crowded with people and disturbed by motor boats."

She knew. Cities, people, and all the hustle and bustle they created hadn’t nurtured her. She’d chosen the wrong life goal and been dying a slow death attaining it.

"I’m staying here," she stated. "I’m going to keep the wetlands intact the way my father would have wanted."

"You can’t, Sam."

"Why not?"

Jamming his hands into his pockets, Ed paced the short distance between the edge of the bog and the surrounding black spruce and back again. He stopped in front of her. "Damn it, Sam! This could be the crown jewel in our empire."

"Empire? Is that all we’ve been building these past several years? A personal empire?"

He jabbed a finger in her face. "When you came to me for a job, your goal was to make a million before you turned thirty. You can’t get much more personal and self-centered than that, my dear."

"I was wrong."

Ed shook his head and slipped his hand back into his pocket. "I can’t let you get in the way of this project."

"Get in the way?" Samantha snorted. "You don’t have a say in what happens to this property, Ed. It’s not yours."

"But I’ll bet my life," lifted Archer’s voice behind them, "he’s figured out a way of making it his."

Samantha spun toward Archer, Ed grabbing her by the elbow and turning with her. She didn’t know whether to feel ambushed or rescued by the cavalry of one in form fitting blue jeans facing them, fists clenched at his sides. Barely twenty feet separating them, Archer’s fury rippled through the thermal chill like a heat wave.

"Angel," he said in that low mesmerizing tone of his, "move away from Benet."

She felt her weight shift and realized how automatic was her impulse to obey him. Stubbornly, she planted her feet in the soft ground at bog’s edge and argued. "Why?"

"Because he eliminates anything that gets in the way of what he wants and you just got in the way."

The hair on her scalp prickled. But, was it because Archer spoke the truth or because he’d taken a further step into the darkness of sanity?

Ed tugged on her elbow. "Don’t listen to him. He’s still carrying a grudge over our buying up his folks’ farm."

"Wrong, Benet," Archer growled. "This is no grudge. This is about the lengths you’ll go to get what you want. You burned out my parents to get their land."

"That’s absurd," Ed shot back.

"Three fields of crops burned at one time," Archer leveled, taking a step closer.

Samantha wanted to reach out to Archer—to take him in her arms and sooth the insanity from his mind. She knew what it was not to be there when a parent needed her. She knew that guilt.

Ed’s fingers tightened on her elbow as he countered Archer’s accusation with, "Accident of nature."

"Evidence of an accelerant was found," Archer returned, his eyes looking anything but crazed as he took another step closer.

"Which your own brother was questioned about."

"If there’d been insurance coverage, he’d have been put on trial. Too bad no one looked into who benefited in the end. Ed Benet is prime suspect number two, Angel. Move away from him."

"He’s feeding you a line, Sam."

She looked from man to man, torn between reason and gut feeling.

"He had the most to gain if they failed," Archer pointed out in a voice deadly calm, addressing his argument to her. "Given all his pressuring to sell before the fire, he’s provided motive. All the authorities need to come after him is something linking him to the accelerant used. I’ve found that link."

"The man’s a raving lunatic!" Benet insisted.

Archer’s gaze never wavered from her. "He closed down a tannery shortly before those crops burned. One of the by-products of tanning is ethylene chlorohydrin. Fatal exposure mimics heart attack. There was a faint smell of it in the room when I found your father’s body, Angel."

Samantha felt the blood drain through her body. She looked at Ed, her business partner, her mentor.

Ed’s fingers bit into the soft flesh above her elbow. "Surely you don’t believe that—that bum over me?"

When Ed had hired her, she’d thought him a genius in his field. But, over the years, she’d picked up on his less than upfront methods of acquiring land and businesses. Hell, he’d even taught her some of his tricks. "I don’t know what to believe right now, Ed."

"What possible reason could I have had to harm your father?"

"No reason but a plot of marshy land along a major highway," Archer answered. "Angel, move away from him."

She studied Ed’s face, mottled with a rage she’d never before seen. She saw something else as well. She saw all the land deals that had seemed impossible to close, close on Ed’s terms after some catastrophe edged the former owners to the brink of bankruptcy. She’d always accepted Ed’s "bad luck" take on the events. She’d never suspected he might have had a hand in that bad luck...until now.

Benet glared back at her. "All you had to do is go along with the development idea."

Samantha shook her head, still unwilling to believe that the man she’d intended to take to her bed could be ruthless enough to burn people’s crops...or kill her father.

Ed pulled his right hand from his jacket pocket and all her doubts died at the sight of the snub nose, forty-five caliber pistol being aimed at her. "Move out onto the bog."

"I don’t understand," she murmured.

Archer made a move toward Ed. Ed swung the gun at him. Archer stopped just out of arm’s reach, and muttered through bared teeth, "He’s removing the competition, Angel."

"But he still won’t have the prop—" The words died in Samantha’s throat as she recalled the partnership papers Ed had persuaded her to sign within days of her father’s funeral. He’d said the terms were a precaution...should anything happen to her. She looked at Ed, at the mayhem etching the outer corners of his eyes and tension popping the hinge of his jaw.

Should anything happen to her.

Samantha’s throat constricted and her words came out a strangled whisper. "The survivorship clause. I die, you inherit everything."

"Unless it’s proven he caused your death. Then nothing. Beginning to see the bigger picture, Angel?"

She nodded and murmured, "But it’s got to look like an accident."

"Which means he can’t shoot you, Angel."

Their eyes met at that moment, hers and Archer’s. "I’m sorry for not believing in you, Archer. I’m so sorry."

"Run, Angel."

"I can’t leave you with him."

Benet sniggered. "That soft heart of yours, Sam. I always said it would do you in."

Then Benet leveled the barrel of the pistol at Archer. "Move out onto the bog or I’ll shoot him."

"You wouldn’t—"

The explosion rang in her ears. Archer grabbed his thigh and dropped to his knees. Samantha screamed. Benet smiled demonically at her.

"Given his transient lifestyle, he could die any number of ways without anyone giving it a second thought. Maybe they’ll even figure you shot him in the course of a struggle—that he chased you out onto the bog." Benet sobered. "Now, move out onto the bog or I’ll kill him one inch at a time."

"Don’t do it, Angel," Archer managed through a grimace of pain. "He’ll kill us both. Run."

Benet took aim on Archer. Samantha swung at Ed. He backhanded her hard enough, she landed on her backside at the edge of the bog. Archer scrambled to his feet. Benet fired as Archer lurched backward into a black spruce, slipping through its dark, drooping branches.

Archer’s name echoed off the wall of evergreens back at Samantha on a voice she barely recognized and died in her ears as surely as he was dying beneath the low slung branches of the spruce. Every nerve ending in her body screamed. Every inch of her flesh stung. Every muscle convulsed. If the one man who made her feel alive was dead, she might as well be, too.

She pushed herself onto her feet and faced Benet with a vengeance. "Now you’ve got no way to make me do what you want, you son of a bitch. Not without ruining your plan that my death appear accidental."

He charged her, shoving her backward onto the bog. Like a trampoline the saturated sphagnum heaved beneath her feet. But she sunk no further than the width of her soles, the layers of decomposing plants thickest nearest the edge of the bog.

Benet charged her again. Reflexively, she backed. Moisture oozed over her toes as his added weight rippled across the network of moss, heath, and gale.

He took another step toward her. He’d back her clear into the open hole in the middle of the bog if she let him. She may not want life without Archer, but she’d be damned if she’d let Ed Benet get away scot-free.

She bolted for the shoreline. He intercepted her, caught her in the crook of one arm and flung her toward the center of the bog—toward the open water. She stumbled and landed face down.

Water soaked through the front of her jeans and tee. She held her breath, waiting for the web of roots beneath the sphagnum to give way. She stared at the delicate bloom of a swamp orchid, remembering her father’s teachings. Anything that survived in the bog had to be strong and hardy.

Slowly, she levered herself onto her hands and knees. Behind her, Benet roared. She glanced back just as the pistol in his hand bucked. A mound of moss near her hand exploded as the bullet struck.

Reflexively, she jerked. Another bullet whistled past her head and the orchid exploded in front of her face. She dropped low and began to crawl backward across the thin weave of foliage surround the open water. Two more shots rang out, splattering her legs with sphagnum shrapnel. She pressed her face into the tough waxy leaves of the hardiest bog survivors and waited for more shots.

There were none. Had he fired all six the chamber held? She’d been too frightened to count. Was he reloading?

But, before she could make a move, the ground pitched beneath her and she raised her face from the wooly foliage. Benet was coming at her like a like a linebacker broaching the line of scrimmage.

"You fool," she shrieked. "You outweigh me by sixty pounds. You’ll break through before I do."

No sooner had she warned him when one leg broke through the bog cover. Benet sunk to his knee, tripping. The gun flew from his hand. He lunged after it, the impact of his shoulder rending the moss apart. He struggled, his arms flailing, his fingers clawing for something to grasp. Only his feet held, snagged among the roots upending him.
She didn’t have it in her to let anyone die, not even a murderer. She shimmied toward him. But his fight for life tore at the very plants supporting her. Beneath her hands, layers of peat disintegrated. In horror, she watched Edward Benet drown in the primordial brew of the bog—watched the terrible struggle that he’d intended for her.

****

Archer pushed his way through the prickly Spruce branches and staggered toward the sound of the gunfire. His thigh burned like hell. His head ached like two hells.

But Samantha was in trouble...out there on the bog. Through a blaze of pain and a stinging haze of blood from the graze in his forehead delivered by Benet’s second shot, he saw Samantha on her stomach. Where was Benet?

Archer hunkered down. Lot of good he’d do Samantha if Benet shot him again. He scanned the area through stinging eyes. Nothing. No one in sight...except Samantha out on the bog, arms outreached. What did she reach for?

He blinked, sharpening his focus, and caught the flash of a pale boot sole hung up in the torn moss. And at the edge of that ripped bog cover, Samantha lie half in and half out of an exposed pool of dark, murky water. If he didn’t help her, she’d drown...like Benet...like she had the first time he’d failed her. Drowning. It was the one death he’d escaped. The one death he feared.

"Hang on," he managed to get out of his dry throat.

"Archer! You’re alive!"

"But for how much longer?" he muttered under his breath, testing the edge of the bog with the toe of his boot. Why did it have to come back to water?

He stepped onto the bog. The ground sprung back at him, shooting pain through his wounded thigh. But it was fear that sent the sweat slipping down his sides.

"Don’t come out here," she cried. "It won’t hold you."

"I’d like nothing more than to comply with your wishes, Angel—" he paused and licked his dry lips. "—except you safe in my arms."

"Go back to the house. Get the ladder out of the shed. It should reach me."

Sphagnum moss swallowed him up to the ankles. His head swam. Fear? Or the blood trickling from the graze on his head? How much had he lost already? How much more could he lose before passing out?

"I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time, Angel."

He lowered himself to his hands and knees, spreading out his weight. Murky water seeped over his fingers. His shirt clung to the sweat beading along his spine. He swallowed hard and crawled forward.

"Please, Archer, stay back."

The ground began to break up beneath his hands. He dropped to his stomach. Cold water scored his belly. "I won’t let you down this time, Angel."

"We’ll both drown. What good will that do?"

"I’ll not sit by and watch you die once again." He swallowed back the nausea of his fear and inched forward. "Have faith in me, Angel."

"Faith?"

"Faith that, together, we are going to beat fate." He inched forward. "Together, we are going to change destiny. "Together—" The bog tore beneath him and he paused. "—We sink or swim, Angel."

"Swim," she said, her gaze locking on his. "Together." And she gripped his hand.

Infused by her trust, he backed, pulling her from the dark, dead water. Inch by inch, hand in hand they made their way to shore where they rolled into each other’s arms.

"I love you Michael Archer," she declared against his neck, her breath warm, comforting...eternal. "I’ll never doubt you again."

He cradled her in his arms and gazed into her soft, gray eyes. "Never?"

She frowned at his forehead and gently touched the wound there. "Just promise me you’ll never again do anything as foolhardy as getting yourself shot."

He smiled at her tenderness—her concern. "It’s just a flesh wound."

"And your thigh?" she insisted, wriggling to get out of his arms...which he refused to allow her to do.

"I think the bullet went clean through without touching anything important," he said, his smile widening.

"Nothing important?" she all but shrieked. "Just your hide and some muscle and—" Tears popped into her eyes and her voice turned ragged. "You could have a severed artery."

He hugged her, his smile giving way to concern for the fright he’d caused her. "I wouldn’t have made it this far if I did, Angel."

"How could you possibly know?" she hiccupped against his shoulder.

"This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot. Just the first time in this lifetime."

She strained back in his arms and peered up at him. "I still don’t know if I believe this reincarnation stuff."

He knuckled her chin to an accommodating angle and brushed his lips across hers, whispering, "I guess it’s not important that you do."

"I’ll tell you what’s important, Michael Archer," she said, holding his face in her hands and looking him in the eye. "If you ever risk your life like this again, I’ll kill you myself with my bare hands."

"Now don’t you start going all soft on me, Sammy."

She smiled a strange little smile. "Tell me, Archer, when was the first time you ever said those words to me."

"I said them just about the same time I told you for the first time that I love you, which was in the Scottish Highlands in about the year…"

###

 

 

 

About the Author

 

I’m one of those obsessive writers who’d rather write than breathe. I wrote my first novel at age twelve in retaliation to the lack of female leads in the adventure stories I loved reading. I sailed through high school writing assignments...something I took for granted. I even aced my first college paper in spite of it lacking a thesis sentence. Guess I didn’t always know what I was doing. But I loved playing with words, exploring the human psyche, and telling stories.

TIME OUT OF MIND was one of those rare books that comes through an author instead of from her. It finaled in almost every competition into which it was entered, winning West Houston’s Emily (my first first place), River City Romance Writer’s Duel on the Delta, and East Texas RWA’s Southern Heat. TIME earned me the attention of an agent and more than one editor.

To learn more about my books, visit my web-site: www.BarbaraRaffin.com