Judith Bowen - The Wild Child

The sudden sound of a mechanical doorbell clanging, a horrible rusted sound that blended with a loud series of barks from Bruno, made Eva jump. Doorbell? She didn’t even know there was one.

“Yikes!” The child’s eyes were huge. “I bet that’s Uncle Matthew.” She tore through the French doors that stood open to the back garden. Her dog bounded after her.

“Anybody here?” An angry male voice preceded another insistent buzz, followed by the hammering of fists on the door. “Open up!”

Fanny—

Eva ran to the door, putting her hand on the knob just as it burst open.

“You see a little girl around here?” A man stood in the doorway. His eyes, blue-green as the sea, blazed into hers.

“Yes! I mean—no!” Eva swallowed. She hadn’t heard the entire story from Fanny yet. She didn’t have a good feeling about any of this. If this was the uncle who was in charge, why did he allow the child to wander—

“Which is it?” His eyes darted around the kitchen and he took a step forward. Eva grabbed his arm and he stared down at her. “Yes or no?”

“I haven’t invited you in, sir,” she managed to say through clenched teeth. His arm was rock hard. He was tall and strong and looked to be in his mid-thirties, handsome in a careless way, with several days’ growth on his face and unruly sunbleached brown hair. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

He shook off her hand. “Where’s Fanny?”

“She’s not here,” Eva burst out, truthfully, adding, not so truthfully, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Then she yelped as he pushed past her and strode into the parlor. Outraged, Eva was right on his heels, relieved to glance out into the sunny overgrown garden behind the house and see neither girl nor dog.

“I swear I heard the damn dog bark,” the man muttered, almost to himself. He stepped to the open French doors. “Fanny! Where are you?”

Eva held her breath. There was no answer. She didn’t think there would be.

Without a backward glance, the man stepped into the yard and purposefully set off toward the tumbledown fence that surrounded the yard and garden, Doris’s pitiful attempt to keep out rabbits and other marauders. “Fanny!” He vaulted the fence and continued toward the creek.

Eva was torn. On the one hand, if this was Fanny’s Uncle Matthew, everything must be okay. He was just searching for the child, who had obviously strayed without telling anyone where she was going. Eva couldn’t blame him for being a little angry.

On the other hand, she didn’t like his attitude, charging into her house the way he had….

Making up her mind, she ran after him. He had several minutes’ head start and she saw him break into a lope thirty yards beyond the fence and veer toward one of the shallower creek crossings. He was fit and he clearly knew where he was going. And he had shoes on.

Eva didn’t. Ouch! She stumbled on a rocky patch of ground, wishing she’d taken the time to retrieve her sneakers, which were still standing by the kitchen door. Too late now. If she didn’t hurry she’d lose him—she’d lose them both—and, just in case the little girl needed her, Eva wanted to be on the scene when the man caught up.

If he did.

Secretly, Eva was rooting one hundred per cent for Fanny and the Newfoundland dog….

BY THE TIME Eva crossed the creek, stepping from rocks at the Bonhomme side, onto a slippery half-buried log festooned with algae, then onto several water-polished stones on the Lord side, Fanny’s uncle had disappeared into the woods. She hurried along a faintly visible path etched into the stony soil.

“Excuse me?” she called, realizing how hopelessly ineffective her query was. “Yoo-hoo! Hello?”

All she heard back, faintly, was the sound of the man’s voice calling the girl’s name again, then whistling, presumably for the dog.

Eva was hot and her feet hurt. Why hadn’t she just stayed home? She heard a crash behind her— My God!

She wheeled. Andy appeared at the end of the path behind her, bobbing his head and breaking into a trot as he spotted her. Oh, for goodness sake. Eva’s heart was pounding.

The uncle was chasing Fanny and the dog, she was chasing the uncle and now Doris’s donkey was chasing her!

She let Andy catch up. He nuzzled the pocket of her shorts and she scratched his soft whiskery nose. “No snacks today, Mr. Andy.”

This was ridiculous. She’d turn around and go back to the house and change into some jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, grab a hat, put on some socks and proper shoes. Then she’d thoroughly search the Lord half of the island. She wouldn’t be able to sleep another night on this island not knowing what was going on with the little girl.

Okay. That was a plan. Accompanied by the donkey, Eva began to limp toward the creek again. She’d stepped on a thorn, probably from a rosebush or a blackberry thicket somewhere, blown onto the path. She leaned against a tree and inspected her heel, balancing on one leg. Her foot was so dirty she couldn’t see where the thorn had gone in her foot.

“Hey!”

She turned. The man who’d burst into her kitchen was standing at the bend in the path she’d abandoned. Eva straightened and faced him. “Did you find her?”

“No.” He shrugged, apparently not that worried. “She’s probably home already.”

“Home?”

“She knows these woods better than I do,” he said, ignoring her question. He gave her a cursory glance, from her toes to still-damp hair hanging in ropes. “Something wrong with your foot?”

“Nothing serious,” she said, instinctively rubbing her heel against her leg. “Just a rose briar. I’ll be fine.”

He surveyed her again, his eyes icy. “Shouldn’t run around the woods without shoes on.”

“I didn’t know I’d be leaving so quickly!” She felt a trickle of perspiration inch toward her nose and wiped it with the back of her hand. “What do you mean by bursting into my house like that?”

“I thought Fanny might’ve gone in there alone, to play. You weren’t answering the door—”

“I would have! If you’d had the courtesy to give me a few seconds!”

He shrugged again. “Sorry. Look, can I accompany you back to the house?”

“I’ll be fine. I think you should take better care of that child. Today isn’t the first time I’ve seen her. She can’t be more than five or six. What kind of uncle are you, letting her run around by herself like that? She could get lost or hurt….”

“Uncle?” He frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Aren’t you her uncle Matthew?”

“Uncle Matthew?” He grimaced, an attempt at a smile. “Hell, no! I’m her father.”

THUMP!

Agnes Klassen winced as she smacked the lump of pastry with the side of her rolling pin. She didn’t usually treat pie dough like this. “So what’s your daddy going to say when he hears all that?”

The child’s eyes were big and brown. “You going to tell him, Auntie Aggie?”

The housekeeper’s glance slid sideways. “You think I should?” She wasn’t sure what to make of Fanny’s news. The girl had spent the past half hour chattering about her new friend at the other end of the island, the woman Aggie’s husband, Matthew, caretaker of the Lord estate, had mentioned shortly after her arrival ten days ago. Matthew had said the visitor was harmless, just someone using the old woman’s house for a holiday, and Aggie believed him.

Fanny was thrilled about the lipstick she’d tried, the magazines she’d looked at, even the contents of the visitor’s fridge. Poor child! All alone and no playmates her own age. Was it any wonder she was starved for anything new?