Discovering Duncan

The pavement was made of cobbled stones, leading up to a lit gatehouse with a security guard standing by, watching the road. Behind him were six-foot-high carved wooden gates hung on massive stone pillars. Carriage lights lit the way and showed just a portion of the stone wall that ran off to the right and left. A rock arch swept over the top of the gates and, illuminated by hidden lights, brass letters spelled out The Inn at Silver Creek.

The place was completely blocked by gates, fences and the guard who looked in her direction when he heard her car approaching. When he saw she was in a cheap import, he lost interest and went back to looking at a pad of paper he had in his hand. Lauren drove a bit farther, never finding the end of the high stone fence, and never finding any life outside of it, either. She finally turned and retraced her route. When she got to the resort’s entry it was dark, and she watched as a low black sports car cut in front of her to get to the gates.

She slowed, watching the guard walk up to the driver’s window, glance inside, then wave the car through. The gates opened slowly, and for a moment Lauren could see beyond the barriers. She caught a glimpse of a lit road heading into the compound, going toward a series of sprawling buildings. Beyond, ski slopes glowed in the darkness.

She didn’t have any idea why Duncan Bishop was holed up at the Silver Creek Hotel, and not here. But she’d find out. She drove on until she was at the hotel and saw the phone number under the vacancy sign. She memorized it, then pulled into a parking spot a few buildings down and took out her cell phone. It only had one bar of signal, but she punched in the number and the call went through.

A woman answered and Lauren reserved a room for Thursday night, with an open end for departure. The woman asked if she knew there was no snow in Silver Creek, and when she assured her she did, the reservation was made. She put away her phone, then pulled back onto the street.

She went past Rusty’s Diner and the SUV was gone. But that was fine because she’d found a chink in Duncan Bishop’s facade of power and control, a very unexpected chink. It didn’t fit the image in the newspaper clips and stories that she’d read about him. Or from what his father said, or anyone else she’d asked about him. It didn’t fit at all, but she’d seen it with her own eyes.

Duncan Bishop was a rescuer. He’d rescued that girl from the gang of obnoxious punks. He hadn’t hesitated. Maybe he was more a controller than a rescuer, but whatever it was, it could work for her. If he liked being in control and rescuing maidens in distress, she’d be a maiden, she’d be in distress and she’d let him have control.

Thursday:

“SO, YOU WENT TO LAS VEGAS, not to gamble, not to have a good time, but to…”

“Business,” Duncan said to his passenger in the SUV as he drove into the mountains.

“Business,” Annie Logan repeated. “Business?”

Annie owned and ran the Silver Creek Hotel, where he stayed, and he liked her and her husband, Rick. They were nice, uncomplicated people who were generous and kind to a complete stranger. But they never stopped asking questions. That and his overwhelming need for solitude had been why he’d hesitated to let her ride along on his trip to Las Vegas.

But he’d finally agreed to take her so that she could visit with her sister while he took care of business. He hadn’t elaborated on what he was doing there, and wasn’t going to go into what he’d accomplished in Las Vegas. He’d go over that with Rusty when he got back. The meeting with a restaurant supplier he’d known for years, Colin Webb of Webb Food Services, had gone very well.

Colin was one of the few business acquaintances he’d had over the years who neither feared nor kowtowed to D. R. Bishop. That fact alone had earned him Duncan’s respect. On top of that, Colin was a fair man. When Duncan had contacted him last week about helping Rusty get a better deal on his supplies, the only thing Colin had said about him leaving Bishop International was “What took you so long?”

After meeting in Las Vegas to talk, they’d struck a deal for Rusty’s Diner. Colin’s company supplied the inn, and it wouldn’t take much more to make a stop at Rusty’s to take him supplies. The deal was struck, and Duncan was going back to Silver Creek with the good news that deliveries would start the week of Thanksgiving.

“You are not a talker, are you?” Annie asked as she reached for the newspaper on the seat between them.

He shrugged. “It depends.” He glanced at the woman in the next seat. Annie was in her early thirties, with dark hair she wore short and curly, little to no makeup, and a woman who wore sensible clothes and shoes. She had a terrific smile and a natural maternal instinct that, without having children, was directed at the people who stayed at the hotel.

“Well, you’re an enigma,” she said. “I told Rick that there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

“No, there isn’t,” he murmured.

He heard the newspaper Annie brought with her rustle, and she read, “Crisis in the national forests. Seems that people are killing the forests. I can’t imagine what Silver Creek would be without the forest.”

Neither could Duncan. The few days he’d thought he’d spend in Silver Creek had stretched out into three months, and he found he was starting to feel more and more comfortable in the town. He liked the pace, the people, especially the old-timers who were a far cry from the people who had surrounded him in Los Angeles. And he liked the land around him.

He flipped on the headlights of the SUV as he climbed higher into the mountains. It was barely four-thirty, but dusk was lying heavily all around. “Do you think there’s snow coming?” he asked for something to say.

“We always have snow by Thanksgiving,” Annie said. “And the weather report says we might get some activity. I sure hope so.”

He’d guess the temperature outside had dropped ten degrees, but the sky was painfully clear. Annie read more headlines, and he wasn’t particularly paying any attention until she said, “Business seems to be as depressing as the conditions in the forest.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, asking no questions.

But that didn’t stop Annie from reading more, and everything he’d avoided for six months hit him in the face. And it hit hard. “Tellgare files for bankruptcy. Stocks plummet. Rivals move in. Sounds like some sharks circling the dead or dying.”

That was closer than she thought, and he looked over at her as she refolded the paper. Sickness hit him hard. His father had destroyed Tellgare. He turned his attention back to the road and realized that he’d wandered onto the shoulder. The tires beat on gravel, the three-foot-high wooden safety rail was close and was the only thing to stop a fifty-foot plunge into a rough ravine below.

He tried not to overcorrect, but to ease his way back onto the road. But he didn’t have time to do it properly. At the same time as Annie said, “Look out!” he saw a disabled car on the shoulder, right in his path. Its hood was up and its taillights on.

He had no choice but to jerk the wheel to the left, back toward the pavement. He felt his wheels spin, then grind in the gravel, shooting rocks everywhere as he slipped past the parked car, barely missing impact. But his relief was short-lived when he felt the back end of the SUV start to fishtail wildly, pushing him into a spin. He steered into it, the world outside a blur and Annie’s screams ringing in his ears. The SUV rammed the safety rail, then an explosion and the sound of tearing metal, acrid smoke everywhere, and with a shuddering finality, everything stopped.

Chapter Three

Lauren saw the SUV come out of nowhere, headed right for her, then, in a surreal moment, it passed by her. Before she could blink, the SUV started to spin, throwing gravel back at her car. Dust rose and the SUV slammed into the safety rail sideways, skidded along the barrier, then stopped in a cloud of dust. In that moment she realized the black SUV belonged to Duncan Bishop.

She was out of her car in an instant, running toward the SUV, coughing from the dust and the smell of burning rubber. She reached the driver’s side, grabbed the door handle and pulled, but it was locked. She pounded on the window, calling out, “Open it, open it, open it!” The door flew back suddenly, almost hitting her before she could jump out of the way.

Then she saw Duncan Bishop. The air bag had ruptured from the center of the steering wheel and the smell of chemicals all but choked her. She grabbed his jacket sleeve, the idea that she nearly got him killed too unbelievable to absorb. “Oh, my gosh, are you okay?” she said, the words spilling out over each other. She let go of his arm. “My gosh, I thought you were going to go over the edge.”

“Me, too,” he muttered as he twisted toward her to get out of the SUV. His feet hit the ground, and she backed up to give him space. He towered over her.

“You just skidded, I mean, the SUV was going all over and I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” he said, straightening in the cold air. “And it’s my fault.”

“Oh, no, if I hadn’t parked my car there, you never would have—”

“I got distracted,” he said.

“I can’t open the door.” A voice came from the car and the next thing Lauren knew, a woman had slid across the driver’s seat and gotten out.

She was of medium height, slender, almost plain. Certainly not an Adrianna Barr type. The woman pressed a hand to her chest and gasped, “Oh, my goodness, now that was a ride.”

Duncan asked if she was okay then headed to the hood of the SUV. Lauren followed. Together they stared at the damage. The front tire on the passenger side was torn to bits and the rim had dug into the gravel. The SUV was butted up against the guardrail. Deep ruts were embedded in the body thanks to the large metal bolts that held the wooden rails in place.

“Holy cow,” she whispered and Duncan turned, almost hitting her in the chin with his arm. She moved back quickly. This was not how the plan was supposed to go. “You really did wreck your car, didn’t you?”

“That about sums it up,” he said. “That tire’s history and we’re stuck.”

“No, no, we’ll put on your spare, and we’ll be fine.”

“No, the spare’s gone.”

The SUV was so new it didn’t even have its regular plates on yet. Lauren had to crook her neck slightly to look up at him. “You don’t have a spare?”

“I tore up a tire a week ago on a strip of metal in the road, and I haven’t picked up the replacement yet.”

The mystery woman appeared, pressing herself between Duncan and Lauren to take a long look at the damage. Then she drew back and looked up at Duncan. “And you don’t have a spare?”

“Ladies, there is no spare tire,” he said with a touch of exasperation. He glanced back down the road where Lauren had parked. “What’s wrong with your car?”

She stuck with the words she’d rehearsed while she’d been waiting for him to show up, when she’d hoped he’d stop to rescue another damsel in distress. “It stalled and I can’t get it started, and my cell phone has no signal.”