Leah turned over beneath the down comforter and opened her eyes. It was past dawn, the light outside the window was glowing from either side of the shade that had been pulled all the way down before they’d gone to bed the night before. She wished that Ethan was still there with her, to love her into this new day. Leah stretched her arms over her head, then sat up.
The room wasn’t as chilled this morning as it had been over the past week. Maybe spring was coming to Maine, after all.
She all but laughed out loud remembering having jumped nearly out of her skin their first night back, when she’d heard the deep cracking sound from somewhere beyond the trees. Ethan assured her that no natural disaster was about to occur, nor were they under siege. It was just the ice cracking in the lake, he’d told her. The surest sign of spring in their neck of the woods.
Later in the day they’d walked down to the lake, and she’d seen for herself that the ice had begun to melt and to move. By the end of the week, he’d promised, most of it would be gone, and at least on this side of the lake, where no dense line of trees shaded the ice from the warming sun as on the far side, he had been right.
Ethan had taken the opportunity to inspect the docks for repairs that might be necessary, while Leah explored the boathouse that stood just off the lake. Made of logs, it was one of the original buildings, and it housed the rowboats and canoes used by the campers in the summer. Holly had come down later and stood on the end of the dock and said that by Thursday, she’d be able to take a rowboat out for what she called her first float of the year. Leah had watched her maneuver the small craft as far as she could go before she reached the area where the ice still stood firm. When she’d rowed back to the dock, Holly had announced that by the following week there’d be little ice left to impede her progress to the other side of the lake. The ice was thinner than she’d expected, she told Leah, and it would melt quickly if the temperatures stayed in the forties as they’d been that week.
And the temperatures had remained surprisingly benign. If winter defined life in the Maine woods, then the first days of spring had to be more welcome here than in other, more temperate parts of the country. The ground was beginning its thaw, and the days were growing longer, slowly but certainly, though the trees had yet to show any signs of budding. The streams had started to swell, a sure sign that the snow in the hills above and beyond the camp had started to melt. Leah had noticed the sure green spikes around the front porch of the lodge, the promise of daffodils to come in May. Yesterday, she’d noticed that the snow on the hillside overlooking the lake had melted and that hundreds of snowdrops and crocuses had emerged as if overnight. She’d asked Tom if he’d planted them, and he’d shaken his head.
“That was the wife that planted them there,” Tom had told her. “That hill is the first place at camp where the snow melts completely, every year. The hill on the opposite side, that’s the last. The wife wanted to be able to watch the new season come to camp each year, so she planted the earliest blooming plants there, every year adding more. Seems they spread themselves.”
“It’s a beautiful sight,” Leah had said.
“More beautiful, still, once you’d spent a whole winter or two up here,” Tom chuckled. “That bit of color on the landscape is more welcome than you could imagine.”
Leah tugged on the bottom of the shade to raise it, opening to view the lake and the hillside on the other side. From here, the colorful crocuses looked like confetti sprinkled over the hill. Leah raised the other shades to welcome the new season, then pulled the comforter down to straighten the sheets. She’d just finished making the bed when Holly knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Leah told her.
“Oh, I’m glad you’re up.” Holly, in a red, white, and blue plaid robe, peeked into the room before entering it. “It’s such a gorgeous day, the weather report said it might go up to fifty today.”
“A true heat wave,” Leah laughed.
“It is,” Holly told her. “And it makes me feel like doing things.”
“Like what?”
“Like hiking and playing with my goats and going for a row on the lake.”
“You’ve been doing all those things all week,” Leah reminded her.
“Yes, but today I won’t have to wear as many clothes, because it won’t be so cold. It’s a nice change, to put away the parka and be able to go outside in only a sweater.”
“Well, fifty is still chilly.”
“Not so much when the sun is out.” Holly looked out the window. “This room has one of my favorite views. From here you can see both sides of the lake and the hillside and the old logging road, though that still has a lot of snow left to melt off. The trees keep it from melting early. Don’t you love the hill over there? I always thought it was magical, the way the flowers seem to come from nowhere. When I was little, I used to pretend that mischievous fairies had danced in the moonlight the night before, and the flowers had sprung up in all the places where their little feet had touched the earth.”
Leah laughed. “Mischievous fairies dancing on the hillside in the moonlight, eh? Sounds like you have the makings of a fine children’s story.”
Holly draped herself across Leah’s bed and, lying on her stomach, seemed to be considering this.
“It would make a fun story, wouldn’t it? I think I’ll work on that. I like to make up stories. I do it all the time.” She colored slightly at the admission she’d obviously not intended to make. “It helps pass the time, sometimes.”
“I guess it can get a little lonely here at times for a young girl.”
Holly nodded, then added, “But it’s been more fun with you here.”
She traced the pattern on a square of the quilt that lay across the bottom of Leah’s bed.
“Do you think you’ll stay for a while?” Holly asked, without looking up.
“A little while.”
“How long is a little while?”
“It all depends.”
“On whether or not they catch the killer?” Holly’s finger trailed from one square to the next. “I hope they don’t catch him for a long time. Then you’ll stay longer.”
“Well, as much as I’d like to stay, I do have a job, back in New York. I’m going to have to get back to it soon.” Leah sat down behind Holly and tucked a few loose strands of hair that had come loose back into the braid. “And remember that this is a very dangerous man. The longer it takes for him to be captured, the greater the risk that he’ll hurt someone. Maybe a lot of someones.”
“You mean kill them.”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to get killed. I just want you to stay.” Holly turned around to face Leah. “Didn’t you have fun at the dance last night?”
“Yes, I did.”
“My dad did, too. I could tell. I never saw him dance before last night. He’s different now that you’re here. He doesn’t seem so … so …” Holly searched for a word. “So somber.”
She paused and, her face brightening, said, “Isn’t that a great word? Somber? It was one of my vocabulary words last week. Grampa gives me a list of words to learn every week and I have to use them during the week. Somber is one of the last words I had to use. It just occurred to me that it was a good word to describe my dad. Before you came, anyway. He laughs a lot more now than he did before. He likes you a lot. I can tell. And you like him, too, don’t you?”
Leah smiled. “Yes. I do like your dad a lot, too. And I like your granddad, and I like you. Very much.”
“Then you should think about staying for a long time,” Holly said, smiling back. “It’s nicer here with you than it is without you.”
“Thank you, Holly. That’s a lovely thing to say. I actually feel … well, a little less somber myself, now that I’ve been here for a week or so.”
“There you go,” Holly repeated one of Tom’s favorite phrases. “That proves that you should stay.”
“Well, I’ll stay for a while. A few more days, I would suspect.” Leah stood up. “Now, how about if you and I go downstairs and make breakfast? I heard about that maple syrup that you and your dad made a few months ago, and it seems to me that we should try it out with some waffles or French toast or something equally good.”
“Oh, yum! I love French toast!”
“Why don’t you go on down and get the ingredients out for me, and I’ll be down in a few minutes and we’ll get started.”
“We can surprise Dad and Grampa.” Holly slid her feet back into her slippers, which she’d left on the floor when she’d climbed onto Leah’s bed. “I’ll run down right now and put the coffee on.”
“Good idea.”
Leah closed the door behind Holly and leaned on it.
She did feel less somber here at White Bear Springs. She also laughed more and found herself humming at odd times.
She pulled her nightgown over her head and began to get dressed. The day had begun in so lovely a fashion that she had to remind herself that there was a killer out there somewhere, maybe wondering where she was, even as she wondered about him.
A sobering thought, if not a somber one.
Maybe if I was in New York or Connecticut, I’d be more frightened, she rationalized as she dressed. That’s where they say Briggs is. Regardless, I can’t ignore the other things that are happening in my life because of Briggs.
Leah went to the window and looked out, knowing she was in no hurry to leave White Bear Springs. In spite of the threat, she felt safe here in a way she’d never felt safe before. Here, there was sanctuary, there was strength. Here, there was a man who loved her, a man who had made a place in her life that no man had occupied before. A man who would fight for her life if he had to.
If Briggs came for her here, she thought she could survive. Because she would not be alone. Because Ethan would be there to protect her. And because she knew how to defend herself if she had to.
Mischievous fairies dancing in the moonlight, she mused as she looked out the window onto a tranquil morning. With luck, that will be the only mischief we’ll have to worry about.
Leah finished dressing and whistled as she closed the door behind her, leaving the dark thoughts behind.
It was easy enough to believe that all could be well, while making breakfast for people you care about, there in the Maine woods, wrapped in the peace of an early spring morning. Easy enough to believe it could always be so.
“Do you realize that there’s a hockey game on television this afternoon?” Ethan said as he and Holly finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes.
“Oh, be still my heart,” Leah murmured.
“Who’s playing?” Tom asked.
“The Bruins and the Flyers.”
“That should be a great game. Both teams have been tough this year.” Tom nodded. “Might be worth watchin’.”
“That’s what I thought,” Ethan agreed. “I thought I’d maybe finish fixing that dock, then call it an early day so I could watch the game.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me, son. I’ll be needin’ to spend a little time looking over the résumés I received from would-be counselors for the new season. I can’t believe that we’ll be opening in another six weeks. And Mrs. Beaumont has already sent me her suggested menus and her shopping list.”
“Who’s Mrs. Beaumont?” Leah asked.
“She’s the lady who comes here to cook for camp. She has the hots for Grampa.”
“Holly …” Tom grumbled.
“Well, she does, Grampa. ‘Oh, Tom, were you able to try one of my potpies? No? Lucky for you I saved one,’” Holly mimicked.
“That’ll be enough, miss.” Tom tried to appear stern but laughed in spite of himself. “Mrs. Beaumont is a fine lady and a very fine cook. We’re lucky to have her here at White Bear Springs every year.”
“Oh, she is a great cook. And she does make great potpies, Leah,” Holly assured her. “And wild blueberry buckle, and blackberry pies. Of course, the kids have to pick the berries, because the bugs get too fierce for the grown-ups to go outside,” she added dramatically.
“A budding thespian.” Tom nodded in Holly’s direction.
“I think I will let my goats out into their pen today,” Holly announced as she dried the last plate.
“I think we should check those side rails first,” Ethan told her. “You don’t want to take the chance of them getting out and getting lost in the woods.”
“No, I would not.” Holly shook her head, then looked at Leah and said with a shiver, “The bears are usually waking up around this time.”
“I’ll take a look at the pen before I do anything else today,” Ethan promised, “and then you can let the goats out for a while this afternoon.”
“And don’t forget you have a history test tomorrow,” Tom reminded Holly. “I heard it was going to be a tough one.”
Holly rolled her eyes.
“Grampa! Why do I have to have a test on a Monday morning?”
“Because you have more time to study over the weekend. And because if you’re going to go to high school next year down in Arlenville, you’d better get used to spending Sunday afternoons doing something other than floating around the lake, daydreaming.”
“I’m not daydreaming. I’m being contemplative,” Holly told him smugly, then grinned at Leah. “Also a vocabulary word for the week.”
“And a good word it is,” Tom laughed. “Leah, thank you for taking over the breakfast chores today. That was a fine surprise, first thing in the morning.”
“My pleasure.” Leah smiled.
“I’m going to run up and change and then we can check the goat pen, okay, Dad?” Holly asked as she folded her dish towel and hung it over the oven door to dry.
“Okay.” Ethan nodded.
“And I’m going to go look over those resumes,” Tom said as he followed Holly through the swinging door into the hallway.
“Well, I guess that leaves just the two of us,” Leah mused.
“I guess it does.” Ethan took her in his arms and nuzzled the side of her face. “How shall we spend the few minutes we’ve been allotted?”
Leah took his face in her hands and brought it down to hers, reaching her lips to his and kissing him soundly, tasting both the sweetness of the maple syrup and the last trace of strong coffee.
“Breakfast was great, by the way. That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Well, I figured you needed some nourishment to rebuild your strength after being up most of the night,” she said with a grin. “And since there’s a good chance you’ll be up half the night again tonight—”
“There’s a very good chance of that.” Ethan pulled her closer, savoring the sense of normalcy that had pervaded the morning.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
“Now, tell me what you’re going to do today.”
“Maybe I’ll give you and Holly a hand with the goat pen.”
“It’s not that much of a project.”
“Then maybe I’ll be a bit of a contemplative myself and take one of the rowboats out on the lake.” The thought appealed to her. Just an hour or so of floating along, as she had watched Holly do the day before, might be just the thing.
“Just don’t go too close to the shore on the west side there,” Ethan cautioned. “You don’t want to run into a momma moose with a baby. Mommas tend to be protective.”
“I’ve never seen a moose.”
“You will if you spend enough time up here,” Ethan told her. “Henry David Thoreau once described moose as ‘great frightened rabbits, with their long ears and half-inquisitive, half frightened looks.’ Sooner or later, you’re likely to cross paths with one.”
And later that day, she had.
Leah had watched Ethan and Holly repair a small patch of fence around the goat pen, then had watched Holly frolic with her goats. Later, she’d watched the opening few minutes of the hockey game with Ethan and Tom, then, spying Holly out on the lake in a rowboat, decided to walk down to the lake and sit on the dock in the sun. Trading her parka—too heavy for so warm a day—for an old red sweatshirt of Ethan’s, Leah walked the well-worn path from the lodge to the boathouse.
The sun had melted almost all of the snow on this side of the lake, making the ground oozy and slick. Leah was glad she’d opted for heavy rubber hiking boots that kept her from landing butt first in the mud. As she approached the lake, a clatter overhead caught her attention, and she stopped to watch as a dozen or so large crows swooped down angrily on a nest at the top of a nearby tree. A large dark head poked out of the nest, and Leah raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun to watch.
“It’s a great horned owl,” Holly called from the lake where she sat in the rowboat, oars resting on her knees. “The crows know it will raid their nests and steal their young, so they don’t want it moving into their neighborhood.”
“Doesn’t it already live close by?” Leah called back.
“Yes, but probably back in the woods someplace. That nest that it’s in, the ospreys nested there last year. The owl would like to take up residence closer to its prey. Which is just about anything it can get ahold of.” Holly rowed a little closer to the shore. “Want to come out with me? I can row over to the dock and pick you up.”
“No, that’s okay. I think I’ll just sit out there,” Leah pointed to the end of the dock, “and just watch the lake for a while.”
Holly nodded, understanding. She liked to just sit and watch the lake sometimes, too.
Leah walked to the end of the short dock and sat down, dangling her legs over the side. The lake was a rich, true blue in color, brought to life by the dazzling sun that reflected off it in sparkling gold rays. She leaned back against one of the pilings and stretched her legs out before her and let the sun sparkle on her, too. Closing her eyes, she relaxed, letting the warmth seep through her, welcoming its tranquilizing power. A splashing sound close by startled her, and she sat up and leaned over the side of the dock. Below, in the water, fish darted through the grass on the lake’s bottom. A little farther out from the dock, a fish broke the plane of the water and danced upon it for a second or two before disappearing beneath the surface again. Leah sat, content to watch and to listen, until Holly drifted toward her.
“I’m going to have to go put my goats back into the barn,” Holly was saying. “And then I have to study for my history test. Do you want to take the boat out on the lake for a while?”
“Sure,” Leah responded without hesitation. “That would be fun.”
Holly rowed closer and tossed a line to Leah, who caught it and held it taut while Holly got out of the boat and pulled herself up to the dock. Then she held on to the rope while Leah dropped down into the boat.
“When you come back, and you’re by yourself, just tie the rope onto one of the pilings. There’s a wooden ladder on the other side, too, if you’d rather use that.”
“Thanks.” Leah caught the rope that Holly tossed to her. “I probably won’t be out here very long.”
“There’s no hurry. Dad and Grampa will be watching the hockey game for a while longer, and I’ll be studying most of the afternoon. Take your time. It’s real nice out there today. Not windy or anything.”
Leah held the oars and stroked smoothly, if not exactly gliding, then at the very least making her way from the dock toward the middle of the lake in a fairly straight line. Once there, she did as Holly had done, drew the oars in to rest on her knees, and sat back and let the sun soak into her winter-weary skin. It was lovely to be alone, to be adrift on a placid lake in the middle of nowhere and welcome spring under open skies, to let your thoughts drift as aimlessly as the clouds overhead. If the lake—indeed the entire camp—was this peaceful in April, how beautiful, how wonderful it must be in the summer, when the trees had filled out and greened up, when the windowboxes and flower beds up at the lodge would spill over with color. And in autumn, when those same leaves would turn red and orange and yellow to ring the lake with fire.
So hard to believe that only two months ago, she’d never even heard of White Bear Springs or Ethan Sanger, that in so short a time the camp had come to feel like home, that Ethan had become the most important person in her life.
Then again, she reminded herself, two months ago, she hadn’t heard of Billy Briggs, either. And right now he was a pretty important person in her life, too.
A whoosh from off to one side drew Leah out of her reverie, and she found that she’d not only drifted to one side of the lake, but that the whoosh was the sound of the head of a large moose emerging from the lake with a mouthful of vegetation it had pulled loose from the lake floor.
“Ohmigod,” Leah whispered, eyes wide, and hearing her, the moose stopped chewing and looked directly at her.
His nostrils flared, and he snorted at her from less than twelve feet away.
That was all it took for Leah to grab onto the oars and row like crazy toward deeper waters. She glanced back to shore and, seeing that the great beast had immediately dismissed her, began to laugh. What had Thoreau called moose? Great frightened rabbits?
We know who the real frightened rabbit is here, don’t we? Leah grinned as she sat at a safe distance and watched the moose as it continued to chomp away, never bothering to look up at her again. It was a surprisingly tall animal, maybe seven feet at the shoulder, and had a handsome rack of antlers that bobbed as it moved along the shoreline. And it seemed docile enough, at least now that she was far enough away from his dining table.
Leah laughed out loud again, this time laughing at herself. What a sight she must have made, scurrying to grab the oars, floundering around in the water, trying to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible, while the moose had decided that she was worthy of absolutely no notice. She couldn’t wait to get back to camp and tell Ethan she’d had her first moose sighting.
Rowing evenly back to the dock, she opted for the side where Holly had told her the steps could be found. Maneuvering the small craft, she was pleased to see how neatly she came alongside the wooden pilings. She stood carefully in the boat, sliding the rope through one of the metal rings attached to the side of the dock, to keep the boat steady until she could secure it.
The last things Leah would recall would be climbing the ladder.
Leaning over to tie the boat to the ring.
Hearing the hushed and hurried footsteps behind her.
Trying to rise.
And the colors.
The red pain that shot through the back of her head. The black darkness that swallowed her whole.