The Virgin Mistress (21 page)

Squeezing his rental car into the public lot rather than letting the lodge's valet take care of the parking, Austin came around the car to open the door for Rebecca. Already searching for Bryan Walker, he studied the lodge and its landscaped grounds with a frown. “Walker may have come here looking for work, but I doubt that he was hired. He's just not the right type.”

“How can you say that?” she asked as they started up the stone walkway to the lodge entrance. “You've never seen him.”

“No, but you have, and according to you, he's got long red hair and an earring.” Nodding toward the side veranda, where white-coated waiters were solicitously serving afternoon tea, he said, “There's not a hippie in sight.”

Rebecca's gaze followed his, and she had to admit, he had a point. Both the waiters and the guests all wore their hair conservatively cut. Regardless of how good a waiter he was, Bryan Walker would never fit in at the Golden Eagle. “Okay, maybe we need to rethink this.”

Not one to leave any stone unturned, Austin still checked with the restaurant manager to make sure no one fitting Bryan Walker's description had been hired recently. He wasn't surprised when he learned that Walker had inquired about a job, but had been turned away.

“Well, at least we know he's here, just like Bongo Jim said. Now all we've got to do is find him.”

That turned out to be more time-consuming than either Austin or Rebecca had anticipated. Because of its proximity to the city, Big Bear was a very popular weekend getaway for the L.A. crowd, and there were a number of large resorts in the area that employed a surprising number
of people. Trying to find one lone redheaded waiter was like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Frustrated, Austin was about to pull his hair out when he and Rebecca walked into the restaurant at the Redwood Inn and there he was. Stopping dead in his tracks, he said, “My God, it's him. It's gotta be. Look at that hair.”

“Where?” Her gaze following his across the restaurant, Rebecca sighed in relief at the sight of the tall, thin young man taking an order at a table for six. Bright red hair, confined in a ponytail, trailed down his back. “Thank God! I was beginning to wonder if I'd imagined him.”

“You gave a hell of a good description of him,” he said with a grin. “He does look like a hippie. All he needs is a tie-dyed T-shirt and sandals, and he'd look like he just stepped out of a commune. C'mon. Let's go see what he knows.”

U
nfortunately, there wasn't a lot that Bryan Walker could tell them. “Yeah, man, I worked that party. It was radical. I got combat pay!”

“But did you see where the shot came from?” Austin urged, suppressing a smile. Young and brash, Walker didn't seem to take much in life seriously. “You were seen at the back of the crowd, serving champagne right before the toasts began. Did you see anyone acting suspicious or angry? Was there anyone who looked like they weren't in the partying mood?”

Bryan gave the question serious consideration, only to shrug. “You gotta remember there were a lot of people there. And that Roberts dude, the caterer, he really cracked the whip on us waiters. At the end, right before the toasts, he was all over our backs to get the champagne out, so all I was really looking for was people with empty glasses.”

“What about before then?” Rebecca asked quietly. “Earlier in the evening? Did you notice anyone who looked moody or mad? Anyone who didn't mingle with the other guests and just stuck to themselves?”

His brow wrinkled in a frown, he thought back. “I don't know. Maybe. There were a lot of people that didn't look like they were thrilled to be there. I remember this one tall dude—he sort of favored the old man—didn't look like he was very happy about something. And some people didn't want to join in the toast. But maybe they just didn't like champagne. And then there was Mrs. Colton. Geez, she was nearly as bad as Roberts, hounding us to make sure everybody's glass was full for the toast. That bunch doesn't lighten up much, do they?”

“I wasn't there that night,” Austin said, “but it sounds like it was a pretty tense party. After the shooting, did you notice anyone rushing to leave?”

“Yeah,” he retorted with a crooked grin. “Everybody. Can you blame them? There was a nut running around with a gun and no one knew who it was. If the cops hadn't come when they had, the whole crowd would have run out and I'd have been right behind them.”

Austin had to smile at the image of three hundred people running out of Joe's house with Walker right on their tail. “That would have been something to see.”

The grandfather clock in the foyer of the inn struck the hour, signalling the end of the younger man's break. Grimacing, he said, “Sorry I couldn't be much help, but that's all I know.”

“No problem,” Austin said, offering him his hand. “Thanks.”

“Well, at least it wasn't a complete bust,” Rebecca said as the younger man hurried back to work. “Who do you think the tall man was he mentioned? He said he
looked like Joe. Do you think he was talking about someone in the family?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There were a lot of people there that night. It could have been anyone from Rand to Jackson to one of the guests who just happened to have the same coloring and build. And just because somebody didn't look very happy doesn't mean they were the shooter. From what everyone's said, Meredith didn't have a good night that night, but we know she wasn't the shooter.”

So once again they were at a dead end. Austin didn't exactly say that, but Rebecca could see that frustrated look in his eyes, and she couldn't blame him. He'd worked so hard over the last few weeks, tracking down every lead, and he had little to show for it.

“Why don't we forget the investigation for now and get something to eat?” she suggested. “It's been a long time since breakfast.”

They had, in fact, skipped lunch because they hadn't wanted to take the time to eat until after they found Walker. They hadn't realized the search was going to take most of the afternoon. “There's a great seafood place down the road,” she said as they stepped out on the front porch of the inn. “Or we could get a hamburger somewhere. What sounds good to you?”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when there was a sudden crack of thunder from above. Startled, they both looked up and realized that while they'd been hunting all over Big Bear for Bryan Walker, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. The wind had shifted, bringing in storm clouds that had been gathering overhead all afternoon, and suddenly, the day had turned dark and ominous. A cold wind slapped them in the face, and an in
stant later, the skies opened up. In the time it took to blink, it was pouring.

“Well, I guess that answers that question,” Austin said wryly, over another rumble of thunder. “Looks like we're eating here.”

Turning, they hurried back inside to the inn restaurant, and within minutes, found themselves seated at a window table that overlooked the lake. When Bryan Walker waited on them, they couldn't help but laugh over the ironies of fate. They should have come there for lunch and they wouldn't have had to spend the whole afternoon looking for him.

Casting an eye at the dark, stormy skies, Austin frowned as streetlights came on outside. It wasn't that late, but evening was already upon them. “It looks like it's going to be a nasty night.”

“It's just a summer storm,” Rebecca replied, watching the wind whip through the trees. “It'll probably blow itself out while we're eating.”

That sounded good, but as Bryan brought the ribeye Austin had ordered and Rebecca's blackened walleye, the storm showed no sign of lessening. If anything, it worsened. Lightning streaked across the dark sky, while the rain came down in blowing sheets. Once or twice, the lights even flickered.

His face grim, Austin finished his steak and scowled out at the wild night. “I'm not looking forward to driving in this.”

Rebecca could well understand that. They had to take a narrow, winding road down the side of a mountain to get back home. She didn't relish the idea of making that drive in a thunderstorm, herself.

“We could stay the night,” she suggested, “and go back in the morning. Joe's got a cabin here and as far as
I know, no one's using it this weekend. He wouldn't mind if we spent the night.”

“Won't it be locked?”

“There's a key under a rock by the back door,” she replied. “I haven't been there in years, but I think I can find it—if I can remember where the cabin is.”

“If?”

Grinning, she said, “I think it's over somewhere by the fire department. I'll know it when I see it.”

He groaned at that, but they really didn't have much choice. All the lake resorts were booked solid for the weekend, and there wouldn't be any hotel rooms available in the nearby towns, not when the weather was so bad. If they couldn't find the cabin, they'd have to drive all the way home in the storm.

“Then I guess we'd better go look for it before it gets any later,” he said, reaching for the check. “We may still have to drive home.”

 

The storm was fiercer than ever when they ran to the car a few minutes later. Thunder boomed overhead like exploding bombs, and any second, Rebecca expected to be struck dead by lightning. Still, she couldn't help but laugh as she and Austin ran through puddles in the parking lot, splashing water up to their knees, while the rain pelted down on them. She felt like a six-year-old.

“Silly,” he said fondly, ruffling her dripping hair as they finally tumbled into his rental car. “This is crazy!”

“But it's a fun crazy,” she laughed. “Who would have thought when we left town this morning that we'd be running in the rain this evening?”

“Not me,” he said with a grin, starting the car with a flick of his wrist. “Otherwise, I'd have brought some dry
clothes to put on. I hope Joe has something at the cabin I can wear.”

“If we can find the cabin.” Her eyes twinkling in the glare of a brilliant flash of lightning, she said, “Turn right…I think.”

She wasn't kidding when she'd said she wasn't exactly sure where the cabin was. She'd only been there a couple of times, and the last was years ago. She had a vague recollection of the place being near the water and surrounded by trees, but what cabin on the lake wasn't?

“Okay,” she said after they'd made three wrong turns and ended up in the driveways of three different houses that didn't look anything like the small log cabin she remembered, “just sit here a second and let me think. The sun sets across the lake from the cabin.”

“Then we're on the right side of the lake, at least,” Austin said, checking the compass directly over the car's rearview mirrors. “You must have gone swimming when you were here. Could you see the marina from the shore?”

“Yes, you could!” she said excitedly, only just remembering. “It was to the right!”

“Now, we're getting somewhere,” Austin said, and turned at the next corner.

With the windshield wipers beating out a steady rhythm and the rain pounding on the roof, they slowly drove down the winding streets, searching in the darkness for the right cabin. Set back on its lot and surrounded by trees, they would have missed it completely if lightning hadn't chosen that exact moment to light up the sky.

“That's it!”

“Where?”

Pointing to the trees off to the right ahead of them, she
said, “There. I remember now. There's a big rock by the driveway. See it?”

The headlights picked the large boulder out of the darkness, and just beyond it was the narrow drive that wound through the trees to where the dark cabin sat huddled in the rainy night. “Thank God,” Rebecca sighed. “I was beginning to think we'd never find it.”

It may have taken a few wrong turns to find the place, but she wasn't mistaken about the key. Dodging raindrops, she sprinted around to the back porch and quickly found the rock at the foot of the steps. It was right where she remembered it had been, and the key was safely tucked underneath it.

“Ta-da!” she crowed, holding up the key for Austin to see in the flash of lightning overhead. “Told you.”

If they hadn't both been soaking wet and chilled, Austin would have liked nothing more than to grab her and kiss her. Her hair was dripping in her eyes, her clothes were plastered to her body, and her makeup had worn off hours ago. But she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life. And she didn't even know it. That never ceased to amaze him.

“Yes, you did,” he said, grinning, and found that he couldn't resist her, after all. Leaning over, he kissed her full on the mouth and caught her completely off guard. She sighed softly and leaned into him and the kiss. In the next instant, he had the key. “Last one in gets to carry in the firewood.” And before she could get her wits about her, he turned and bolted up the stairs to the back door.

“Hey, that's not fair!” she cried, laughing as she ran after him. “You didn't say ready, set, go.”

“Ready, set, go,” he rattled off quickly as he unlocked the door and flipped on the lights in the kitchen.

They were both still laughing when thunder boomed overhead and the lights went out.

“Oh!”

In the dark, Austin immediately found her hand and tangled his fingers with hers. “It's okay,” he said huskily. “Lightning must have hit the transformer. Do you know where Joe and Meredith keep the candles?”

“Not here, no. But at home, they keep them in the drawer next to the refrigerator.”

“Then they probably do the same thing here,” he said. “Let's look.”

Outside, lightning flashed again, lighting their way to the cabinet next to the refrigerator. “All right,” he said in satisfaction as his fingers closed on not only candles, but matches as well. “Let's shed a little light on the subject.” And with a strike of a match, they once again had light, albeit a small one.

Over the flickering flame, Rebecca's dancing eyes met his. “My hero.”

“Just call me Superman,” he chuckled. “You can call me Super for short, if you like.”

Grinning, Rebecca knew it was crazy—they were both cold and wet and looked like a couple of drowned rats—but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been so happy. “C'mon, Super, I'll give you a candlelit tour.”

The cabin consisted of two bedrooms, a living room, and kitchen, and was furnished with sturdy furniture that had withstood time and the Colton clan. There'd been a time when Joe and Meredith had loved to come there to fish and relax and just get away from the pressures of life, but that was years ago, when they were younger and both happier. Finding their old fishing clothes hanging in the closet, Rebecca couldn't help but be saddened by that.

“Hey, why the long face?” Austin said when her smile
faded. “It's not the Hilton, but the roof doesn't leak and there's a stack of dry wood by the fireplace in the living room that should last us all night. We've got it made.”

“I know,” she said, forcing a smile. “Don't pay any attention to me. I was just thinking about Joe and Meredith and the way things were when I first came to live at the ranch.”

“They were closer.”

She nodded. “They've grown so far apart, and I just think that's so sad. What happened?”

“It's just life,” he said with a shrug. “People change as they get older. That doesn't mean they don't love each other. They just have different interests than they once did, and sometimes that takes them in opposite directions for a while. Give them some time. They'll find their way back to each other.”

She hoped so, but it just seemed like they'd been unhappy for so long. “I'm afraid it's too late.”

Outside, the wind howled around the house, sending chill bumps racing over Rebecca's bare arms. Seeing her shiver, Austin frowned. “Why don't you change out of those wet clothes while I light a fire? You're freezing.”

She couldn't deny it. Suddenly, she was practically shaking with cold. “While I'm at it, I think I'll take a hot bath.”

“Good idea. Let me put a couple of candles in there for you.”

Within seconds, he had the bathroom all ready for her. Two squat candles sat on the vanity, their twin flames emitting a soft glow that filled the room with just enough light, while hot, steaming water filled the tub. Sending up a silent prayer of thanks that the hot water heater was gas and not electric, Rebecca grabbed some clothes from Meredith's closet, thanked Austin for his help, and shut the
bathroom door in his face. Within seconds, she was up to her neck in hot water.