A Dangerous Inheritance

Everything was in the car, probably floating down the river by now! Suitcases. Purse. Keys. Boxes. All gone!

“I’ll scrounge up something for you to put on,” he said quickly as if reading her expression. “I don’t expect you’ll be too picky,” he added, glancing at her soaked summer slacks and top.

“No,” she agreed, fighting the sinking plunge of her stomach.

“I’ll show you the way.”

She still couldn’t see his face clearly, only the lower half. He had a wide, firm mouth and a well-defined jaw. A wide-brimmed western hat still put his eyes in shadow, and his raincoat, tight jeans and cowboy boots only added to the girth of his masculine stature.

He firmly took her arm and propelled her down a hall adjoining the kitchen. One thing was certain, he was just as dominating and commanding in the kitchen as he’d been outside. Under ordinary circumstances she would have bristled at his macho behavior, but she knew better than to challenge his authority until she was warm and dry and had decided how to protect herself if things started to get ugly.

A small bathroom at the end of a short hall looked as if it had been built as an afterthought. The plumbing was old and a large claw-footed tub took up most of the space. There were no feminine toiletries, just a bar of white soap, a man’s hairbrush and some faded, worn towels.

“Wait a minute.” He opened a nearby hall closet and brought out a stuffed plastic bag. “There ought to be some clothes in here that will do.” He handed her the sack. “After I put up the horse, I’ll warm some brandy.” With that, he turned his back on her, and a moment later she heard the back door close with a distant bang.

She stood for a moment, leaning against the closed bathroom door, whispering, “It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right.”

As she began to strip off the drenched clothes, she caught a reflected image of herself in a mirror above the sink. She stared in disbelief. Her ebony hair had become a straggly, frizzled mop framing her pale face and blue lips. Then she looked down. Mud coated her arms, legs, clothes and shoes, and she looked like something that had crawled out from under a rock.

Horrified that anyone had seen her in such a condition, she filled the old bathtub nearly full and sank into the blessed warmth of a hot bath. As her chilled body began to revive, her mind began to dwell on unanswered questions. How was she going to handle this situation with her rescuer? He hadn’t answered her question about a family. How safe was she? She’d never felt so vulnerable in her life.

She stepped out of the tub, dried herself and tried not to let her imagination build a tale of horror about a woman at the mercy of a stranger in a storm like this.

As she opened the plastic bag, the sickening sweet smell of cheap perfume assaulted her. It contained a few women’s clothes, a box of costume jewelry and ribbons. Her mouth went dry as she wondered if this was some feeble collection from other rescued victims? Just the thought made her want to shove them away as far as possible, but standing there naked in the strange bathroom, she didn’t have a choice.

She couldn’t bring herself to put on anything but a horrible purple-and-red flannel robe that offered more concealment and warmth than anything else in the bag. A pair of knitted socks in the same ugly purple were too large for her feet, but gave her some protection from the cold floor.

Once she was dressed, she lingered, drying her naturally curly dark hair with a towel and using the man’s hairbrush to try and subdue it until it fell softly on her shoulders.

A pale face looked back at her as she buttoned the high-necked robe to the top. She was tempted to hide out in the bathroom until daylight, but one glance at the feeble lock on the door warned her that it wouldn’t hold him out for long if he decided to come in after her.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door and went out. Light from the kitchen spilled down the hallway, and she wondered if he’d come back to the house yet. The only sound was a whispering of her stocking feet on the bare wooden floor as she moved down the hall.

When she entered the kitchen, she heard a quick intake of breath that sounded like a growl. Sudden fear lurched through her. For a second she was confused about where the ugly sound was coming from. Then she saw a slight movement and jerked her eyes in that direction.

An old man with rounded shoulders was leaning on a cane in a corner of the room, staring at her. Shocks of white hair framed his leathery wizened face as his biting gaze slowly passed over her hair, down the robe to her purple socks.

She wanted to say something, but the hatred in his eyes and ugly mouth stopped her.

His voice was raw and rough as he lashed out at her. “So ye came back, did ye, Glenda? I didn’t think a grave would hold the likes of you. Even the Devil is particular about his playmates.”

Chapter Two

Josh quickened his steps as he reached the back door of the house and heard his grandfather’s raised voice, ranting and raving. Damn! He’d thought the old man was asleep and wouldn’t be aware of their unexpected houseguest till morning. What in blazes had set him off?

“All right, Gramps! Settle down,” Josh ordered as he came into the kitchen and saw his grandfather waving his cane and cursing. “What’s this all about?”

“Glenda’s come back.” The old man’s bushy gray eyebrows matted over wrinkled eyelids. “Glenda’s come back. Climbed out of her own deceitful grave, she did.”

“Nonsense,” Josh said firmly, but with an edge of impatience.

“See for yerself,” Gramps growled, and pointed his cane.

Josh turned around, and his stomach took a sickening plunge. For a mesmerizing moment, his tormented sister stood there, materialized in front of his eyes. The familiar gaudy robe and dark curly hair assaulted his senses, and he half expected her to break out into her rough laughter. He just stared at her.

Stacy didn’t know who the dead Glenda was, but she was very much aware of angry hostility filling the room. Both men were staring at her as if she had indeed come back from the grave to haunt them. Why?

Stacy’s mind suddenly filled with terrifying scenarios. Had they killed this Glenda? What if they really believed her murdered soul had come back from the grave to haunt them?

As evenly as her rapid breath would allow, Stacy said quickly, “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you and your grandfather in some way. My name is Stacy Ashford. I’m from L.A.” Then she added a lie. “My family will be expecting me in Timberlane and they are probably already out looking for me.”

Josh realized that it was the curly black hair and familiar robe and socks that had created the illusion. This woman’s melodious voice, and the soft beauty in her clear sky-blue eyes and gently curved lips had never belonged to Glenda.

Josh quickly explained to his grandfather that she was a woman who had been caught in the storm, and he’d given her some of Glenda’s clothes to wear.

The old man didn’t look convinced, and he continued to glare at her. Stacy saw his gnarled hand tighten on his cane as if ready to strike out at her if she came a step closer.

“I apologize,” Josh said quickly. “My name is Josh Spencer and this is my grandfather, Nate Spencer. Please have a seat, and we’ll have the warm brandy I promised.”

Stacy moved slowly toward one of the kitchen chairs as the old man continued to glare at her. She couldn’t tell from his wizened frown whether he was convinced that he’d made a mistake or still believed it was Glenda playing some kind of evil trick on him. She suppressed a shiver, remembering the venom in his tone. What had this Glenda done to create such bitter anger in him?

“Come on, Gramps. I’ll see you back upstairs,” Josh said briskly, taking his arm and urging him toward the hall door. They left the kitchen, and Stacy heard their steps on the stairs, accompanied by the querulous swearing of the old man.

Outside the wailing of the wind and the relentless peppering of rain warned her that the storm was still full-blown. Any thought of fleeing the house was utter stupidity. She was trapped. She sat stiffly in a kitchen chair, trying to prepare herself for spending the night in a house with two strange men and the lingering, unwelcome presence of someone named Glenda.

When Josh returned to the kitchen, Stacy had her first look at him without his hat. He was ruggedly good-looking with brown eyes, longish dark chestnut hair, and high cheekbones accenting a firm chin. Any producer casting an adventure movie would definitely have given Josh Spencer a second look, she thought. There were plenty of hopefuls running around Hollywood that couldn’t measure up to his robust physique. But would they cast him as a good guy or the villain?

Stacy watched him prepare hot mugs of coffee and brandy with a confident ease that told her he knew his way around the kitchen. Washed dishes were drying in a rack, and there were no signs of feminine or extraneous culinary equipment sitting around on the counters.

“There you are, Miss Ashford,” he said as he handed her the mug of hot liquid.

Miss Ashford? The formal use of her name seemed totally at odds with the present situation, especially since she looked like the refugee she was. Was this macho man secretly enjoying seeing a big-city woman dependent upon a local yokel?

He eased down into a chair across the table from her and apologized again for his grandfather’s behavior. “Sorry about that. When he gets something in his head, nobody can get it out.”

“Who is Glenda?”

His fingers visibly tightened around his mug. As he focused on some unseen point over her shoulder, he answered gruffly, “My younger sister.”

“Glenda is your sister?”

“Was,” he corrected curtly. “As you must have guessed, she’s dead.”

“How did she die?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

His flat refusal sparked Stacy’s indignation. “Obviously, I’ve landed in the middle of something that’s none of my doing. You gave me your dead sister’s clothes to wear, and your grandfather frightened me with accusations of coming back from the dead to haunt him.” She knew that she might regret demanding an explanation, but she hated being in the dark when her very life might be at stake. “What happened to Glenda?”