The Haunting of Autumn Lake (14 page)

“But you don’t hardly know me, Ransom,” Gentry reminded Autumn’s father.

But Ransom Lake grinned. “Oh, I got my ways of knowin’ folks, Gentry,” he said. “I do have my ways. And though I don’t know where you’ve come from or what life has spit at and hit ya with…I can see you’re a good, strong man, with a hero’s soul.”

Gentry felt the unfamiliar warmth of pride swelling in his chest. It was something he hadn’t felt for a long, long time. And in that moment, with Ransom Lake looking at him with nothing but approval in his expression, Gentry James began to think that maybe he wasn’t the worthless soul all the old ladies at the orphanage had always told him he was. Maybe the good man he’d always tried to be really was who he was. If a man like Ransom was sending him off to fetch home his only daughter, then maybe Gentry ought to stop thinking she was out of his reach and start reaching out for her. Maybe.

“So you run on and fetch Autumn home for me now, all right?” Ransom added. “We wouldn’t want her gettin’ soaked to the skin in the rain and takin’ sick, now would we?”

Gentry smiled, chuckling, “No, sir. We certainly wouldn’t want that.”

Ransom grinned and sighed. He nodded in the direction of the pumpkin fields. “Then go on, Gentry. Fetch that little pumpkin pie slinger home before these clouds let go.”

“Yes, sir,” Gentry said. And he didn’t wait to be told again.

Ransom watched Gentry hurry off toward the pumpkin fields. He chuckled and shook his head, thinking Vaden was a bad influence on him. She’d wanted Gentry to sweep Autumn up in his arms and carry her away to romance and wedded bliss from the moment Ransom had brought the boy home from Doc Sullivan’s place. And now Ransom was (in a roundabout way) giving the cowboy permission to try for his daughter’s heart. In truth, it caused a deep, aching wound in his own. But Vaden had explained long ago that the day would eventually come when Ransom would step down as the hero in his daughter’s eyes—that some handsome young man would come along to be Autumn’s dream prince, and Ransom would have to accept that he was the old king then and no longer the only man in Autumn’s life.

Yep, Vaden had warned him long ago—and several times since. But Ransom found it was a difficult reality to swallow all the same. Autumn was his precious baby girl, and the idea of handing her care over to another man was downright frightening. But it had to be done. Baby birds were meant to leave the nest—and that included daughters.

With a heavy sigh, Ransom returned to mending the fence. His thoughts were melancholy and slathered with anxiety. But when he looked up and saw Vaden making her way across the field toward him—as he watched her long dark hair dancing in the breeze and saw the way she smiled as she looked at him—suddenly all was well in his heart once more.

Ransom and Vaden had lingered in a perpetual love affair like no one else had ever known. And all at once, Handsome Ransom Lake could see that there just might be some benefits to having all their baby birds out of the nest.

Ransom chuckled, swooped Vaden into the cradle of his strong arms, and mumbled, “Yes, ma’am,” as his mouth captured hers in a kiss that intimated the passion to come.

“Oh, how I love you, Handsome Ransom,” Vaden breathed as Ransom carried her toward the apple storage barn nearby. “You’re every dream I ever had come true.”

Ransom kissed Vaden again, and as he kicked open the barn door with one foot and carried Vaden inside, intent on spending a rainy afternoon comfortable on a bed of straw with his beautiful lover locked in arms, he thought that it was just fine—it was just fine to be the old king in Autumn’s life. He was the handsome prince in Vaden’s—and that’s all he’d ever wanted.

❦

The clouds that had gathered in the afternoon sky were ominous in their gray gloom. As Autumn hurried toward home, she hoped she’d at least make it to the old covered bridge before the rain began. The low-hanging clouds promised a heavy rain—perhaps not a long, long rain, but a heavy one. Furthermore, the cooler autumn air would make the rain frigid rather than warm as it was in summer.

“I’ve got to hurry today, darlings,” Autumn told the cattails as she stepped up onto the road leading to the bridge. “I don’t want to get all wet.”

As she stepped into the shelter of the old covered bridge, ample drops of autumn rain began to knock on the bridge’s roof. The first few drops of the storm sounded more like hail on the roof of the bridge than rain. Autumn watched as the rain increased, until large droplets of water were springing upward as they hit the ground with their weighty force. A moment later, the downpour began, and Autumn shivered, even for her shelter under the roof of the bridge.

“That was close,” Autumn breathed, glad she’d made it to the bridge. She hoped Gentry and her daddy were safe inside somewhere—and that Abner was under the little lean-to in his yard.

Though she was glad to have made it to shelter, she wasn’t so glad about what the shelter was. The bridge was even darker than usual. The storm clouds had completely blocked out the sun, making it as black as midnight inside the bridge. Thinking at once of the Specter (for several other folks in town had claimed to have seen the Specter riding out in the distance of late), Autumn shivered and peered into dark expanse between where she stood at the mouth of the old bridge and where a faint, gray light marked the exit on the other side.

She didn’t see anything that looked like a ghost adorned in bloody sheet shreds. But her anxiety heightened all the same. Gazing out into the rain, she hoped it didn’t take long for the storm to move on. Yet her instinct told her that the clouds had settled in to stay—at least until they’d rid themselves of some of the heavy moisture slowing their passage.

Autumn tried to concentrate on the cattails. She could see some of them from where she stood and fancied they looked happy and refreshed by the moisture they were drinking up.

Exhaling a sigh of reconciliation in knowing she would be lingering in the bowels of the spooky old bridge for some time, Autumn let her mind wander to the humiliating incident earlier in the day concerning Gentry and her silly pumpkin pie.

“How could I have done that?” she scolded herself aloud. It seemed sketching Jethro, as well as Clarence and Clementine, had only eased her mind for a little while. Now—now that she had nothing to do but wait out the rain—the entire event flashed in her mind as if it had only just happened moments ago.

There he was—Autumn could see him in her mind—Gentry James, standing before her, covered in pumpkin pie. Granted, he hadn’t appeared to be upset at all—not angry, not the least bit irritated even. He’d smiled and tasted the pie—that was all he’d done. Well, that and caught Autumn in his arms, of course. Goose bumps sprang up over Autumn’s arms at the memory of his strong, capable hands at her shoulders and waist. She smiled, thinking she’d like to see what Riley Wimber and the others would look like
now
if they went up against a Gentry James. For Gentry’s strength had returned since he’d been at the Lake home, and Autumn knew Riley Wimber wouldn’t stand a chance against Gentry now.

The thought of Riley Wimber poisoned Autumn’s thoughts, however—as it always did. All at once, her anxiety and hurt, humiliation, and anger over what Riley had done to her gripped her heart and caused nausea to churn in her stomach. Over and over Autumn had cried concerning the incident. Over and over she’d been comforted by her mother and father, but somehow the horror of it kept bursting to the forefront of her thoughts.

“Gentry,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Gentry,” she repeated, summoning Gentry’s image in her mind’s eye. “Handsome, heroic, kind, strong, and powerful Gentry,” she whispered even more softly. “Dimples and whiskers, a strong jaw…and that hair of yours!” Autumn felt the corners of her mouth curve upward slightly, for she could see him clearly in her imagination—every handsome, desirable inch of him. If Riley Wimber were poison, then Gentry James was ambrosia.

Autumn gasped, her eyes popping open as she heard something other than rain then. As the hair on the back of her neck began to prickle, Autumn turned and stared into the dark expanse of the bridge. She held her breath—for indeed she heard footsteps—heavy footsteps on the bridge planks—growing louder, closer in the darkness. But there was nothing there! She couldn’t see anything in the dark—at least at first. And then—then her heart nearly stopped as she saw a white figure approaching. It moved in rhythm with the echoing footsteps.

She couldn’t breathe! Fear paralyzed her limbs, making her unable to move. The Specter was upon her! Autumn knew it was! All her fears were being realized.

“Autumn?” came his voice then.

Autumn nearly burst into tears of relief. Her hands went to her bosom to try and still the frightened racing of her heart.

“Gentry James!” she scolded as the soaking wet cowboy stepped from the shadows of the bridge to stand before her. “Gentry James!” she exclaimed again, lightly slapping him on one shoulder. “I thought sure you were the Specter comin’ to take me away.”

Gentry shook his hair, sending water droplets flying every which way. He chuckled and raked a strong hand through his wet, shaggy mane to brush it back from his face.

“Do I look like the Specter to you?” he asked as he studied the rain-soaked condition of his shirt.

Autumn’s breath was still labored, for residual panic still lingered in her.

But she didn’t want Gentry to know just how scared she had been, so she teased, “You look more like a drownin’ puppy who managed to crawl out of the creek.”

She studied him for a moment, smiling and then giggling. Oh, he was too handsome for his own good—and far too adorable all wet and disheveled as he was for her to stay miffed with him. She sighed as he ran a hand through his hair again, wishing she could run her fingers through it.

“A puppy?” he asked, frowning.

Autumn bit her lip to suppress a broader smile, for the way his voice had broken with feigned offense was entirely too charming.

“I ain’t no puppy, Miss Autumn Lake,” he continued as he began to unbutton his shirt. “Wet I may be…but I ain’t no pup.”

“It was a compliment, Gentry,” she said, watching as he finished unfastening his shirt. It was obvious he was soaked clean through to the skin—clean through to his bronze skin, his muscular chest, shoulders, and stomach. “P-puppies are cute,” she managed to spit out as he stripped off his shirt and began wringing the water from it.

Again he frowned and looked at her. “Cute?” he asked. “Oh, heaven help me, I’m cute,” he mumbled, continuing to twist his shirt. “I don’t really know which is worse…the fact that you thought I might be the Specter comin’ to suck away your soul…or the fact that you’re comparin’ me to a runt puppy when it oughta be plain obvious I’m as full-grown as a man gets.”

It
was
plainly obvious that he was as full-grown as a man could get—but Autumn was trying not to linger on the fact. “What are you doin’ out here in this rain anyway?” she asked.

“Your daddy sent me out to find you,” he answered, shaking out his shirt and hanging it from a nail that was protruding from the bridge wall. He chuckled. “He wanted me to get you home before the rain hit. I guess I failed miserably at that. He thought you’d be out sketchin’ ol’ Jethro…but apparently you’d started on home already. I guess I shoulda known you’d take the long way too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Autumn apologized. “I always like to walk past the cattails this time of year.”

“But I thought you hated this old bridge,” he said.

“I do,” she admitted. “Especially since everyone has been seein’ the Specter of late.” She shrugged, however, adding, “But I guess I like the cattails more than I’m afraid of the bridge.” She reached out, playfully slapping Gentry on one arm. “But you did nearly scare me to death, Gentry James! I thought you were
him
. For a second, I really did think you were him.”

“Well, have you ever considered that maybe I
am
the Specter, Autumn?” he asked.

“What?” she squeaked.

“Maybe I am the Specter. Maybe I ride around at night all dressed in bloody sheet rags…but maybe in the daytime, I look just like a regular cowboy,” he explained.

For one split second, Autumn’s imagination went to the ridiculous side of things. For one tiny moment, the thought did enter her mind that maybe Gentry James
was
too good to be true—too good to be truly alive, that is.

“After all,” he continued, “ol’ Doc Sullivan said I quit breathin’ there for a time when he first was tendin’ to me. Maybe the ghost of Ritter Houston took me over in that moment some kinda way. Maybe he slipped into my skin and bones, and at night, he rules me, and I go ridin’ out as the Specter…while by the light of day, I’m just Gentry James…your daddy’s hired hand.”

“You are playin’ on my fears, Gentry James!” Autumn accused, pushing at his chest. “You’re just makin’ fun of me because I like to think the Specter is real.”

But Gentry shook his head. “Think about it, Autumn,” he said, undeterred. “It makes sense, don’t it? That the Specter would want himself a new body…so he could really go after some purty little thing like you…you know…replace that old saloon harlot he’d taken up with before he died.”