Karen Leabo - Twilight Man

It wasn’t so bad? He couldn’t think of anything worse than watching someone you love die by slow, painful degrees.

“What about your folks?” Faith asked. “Are they still living?”

He should have expected it, he realized. For a while he’d let down his barriers and engaged Faith in normal, getting-to-know-you questions and answers. Now she was reciprocating. It was only natural.

So how did he answer her? Earlier, he would simply have told her to mind her own business. But that was before he knew she liked to fish and that she’d loved her father—and had gone through hell for him. That knowledge made it hard for Jones to be nasty to her.

“I don’t have any family,” he said offhandedly. “I’m, uh, an orphan.” Why did he find it so hard to lie? He used to routinely twist the truth in a courtroom without an ounce of remorse. What was happening to him?

“Okay, I get the message,” she said.

Obviously she didn’t believe him. Not only was he a reluctant liar, he was a bad one. He felt as if he was cheating her, refusing to talk about himself after she’d opened up to him. But those were the breaks.

He pushed the throttle forward, and the boat surged ahead. He made sure they went fast enough that the engine noise would make further conversation impossible.

At the marina Jones ordered a cheeseburger and fries for Faith and a chef salad with whole-wheat Texas toast for himself, then paid for it with the ten-dollar bill Faith had obstinately stuffed into his hand. When he brought the tray to their outdoor table, she gave the salad a questioning look.

“I thought you wanted a cheeseburger,” she said.

He shrugged. “When I was placing the order, suddenly a salad sounded better.” It must be Hildy’s influence, he decided. All that scolding about eating his greens was bound to have an effect on him.

Faith still thought his choice was odd. Most men she knew just didn’t like salads. Certainly Jones didn’t need to lose any weight. No, his body was about as lean and fit as any she’d seen. The more she observed him, the more puzzling he became.

His wallet, which he’d casually laid on the table, was a perfect example of his perplexing nature. It was made of eelskin, a finely crafted, expensive piece if she’d ever seen one. And it was monogrammed. A tiny gold plate bore the initials L. J. Not J. L.

Holy— The man was living under an assumed name, she realized with a jolt. What was he hiding from? Was he a fugitive from the law? Avoiding child support payments? A federal witness, relocated through the witness protection program? Or just a burned-out business executive who ran away?

At that point she should have shoved down that cheeseburger, thanked him for the fishing and gotten the hell out of there. He could be an ax murderer, for all she knew. But she sat right there, stretching every minute she was given with him. Her curiosity and fascination grew. So did her attraction.

“Who are you?” She didn’t even realize she’d spoken the words aloud until his head snapped around.

The panicky look had returned to his hazel eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a coldness she didn’t like at all. “We had a nice morning,” he said evenly. “Don’t ruin it.”

They finished the meal in silence. When she was done, Faith murmured some inane pleasantry, grabbed her things and went inside to use the pay phone.

Forcing her mind to the problem at hand, Faith flipped through the pages of the slim local phone book until she found the number she wanted. After digging a quarter from her tote bag, she shoved it into the phone and punched in the number, her back turned resolutely toward the plate glass window that faced outside, where she’d left Jones.

“Black Cypress Campgrounds,” Hoady Fromme answered in a bored voice.

Faith explained her predicament to him. He listened patiently until she mentioned just exactly where the dinghy was stranded.

“Missy, you’re nuts if you think I’m going anywheres near Jones Larabee’s place,” he said. “I told you not to go there. I told you there’d be trouble. You broke the pull cord on the motor, now you can figure out how to get the boat back where it belongs. And don’t be thinkin’ you’ll get your deposit back if the boat’s not returned by tonight, either.”

“But it’s not my fault your equipment is faulty,” she argued. “Why should you keep my seventy-five dollars?” That was money she could scarcely afford to spend. Her salary as a teaching assistant at the university was paltry at best, and the accident, though covered by insurance, had cost her quite a bit out of pocket.

“Because that’s the way it works, that’s why,” Hoady said smugly. He hung up more forcefully than was necessary.

Frustrated, Faith considered her options. First, she would ask if this marina could rent her another boat. Next she would navigate back through the swamp, tie up the disabled dinghy behind her, and tow it to the campgrounds. Then she would have to return to the marina with the boat—and she would still be stranded.

Just thinking about all those logistics exhausted her. And when she saw the hourly rates for even the smallest motor boat, she was downright depressed.

* * *

As he waited at the window to pay for the gas he’d pumped, Jones overheard most of Faith’s conversation with Hoady. Then he’d deliberately lingered, listening as she tried to negotiate with the marina for a boat. She wasn’t having much luck.

He wondered why he cared. She’d certainly gotten under his skin in no time flat. Resolutely reminding himself that personal entanglements were not an option for him, he left the marina with only a couple of backward glances, intending to wipe pretty Faith Kimball and her dilemma out of his mind.

He set out toward the Big Lake section of Caddo, far from the swampy muck of the bayou, where he could swim without the fear of sharing his space with some vile swamp creature. He anchored the boat, then dived into the cold water and began to swim.

He’d once considered himself a pretty good swimmer, but it had been years since he’d been in a pool. Now he felt awkward in the water. Gradually, however, his splashy, choppy strokes evened out and he found his rhythm. The exertion felt great.

He swam circles around the boat until he was exhausted, then hoisted himself aboard and rested, letting the sun warm and dry him. And still he couldn’t stop thinking about Faith—how her hair formed a glowing halo around her face, and the way her nose had started to turn pink from the sun, and most especially how she’d smeared that sunscreen lotion on her shapely legs.

But it wasn’t just her looks that drew him. He liked her easy conversation, her passion for her work and the way she’d cheerfully let that big, fat fish swim away in deference to his softheartedness.

He couldn’t stand to kill anything anymore—not even the spiders that constantly got into the cabin. Once, just as he was about to smash one of the creatures out of existence, he’d noticed the huge web it had built in the corner of his living room. After spending a good ten minutes contemplating the complexity and the sheer beauty of the fragile structure, he couldn’t bring himself to destroy its creator. He had caught it in a cup and thrown it outside. He hadn’t killed a spider since.

How could he have so much compassion for fish and spiders, then be so indifferent to Faith Kimball’s plight?

It was a matter of survival, he answered himself. Faith, with her overabundance of curiosity, posed a threat to the path he’d chosen. He headed for home, more determined than ever to put their encounter behind him.

For the rest of the afternoon, as he puttered around the cabin, he kept an eye out the front window, wondering when she would return for her rented dinghy. Storm clouds were moving in. If she didn’t get on with it, she’d be caught in the rain.