The Missing Maitland

Pushing herself upright, she gnawed fretfully at her bottom lip while staring at the cabin. Was there water and a bathroom inside? she wondered. Food and a place to lie down? If there was and he was enjoying those luxuries without her, she’d make him suffer.

Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she grabbed her purse and climbed out of the truck. Carefully choosing her steps over the rough ground, she stopped now and then to glance around her. There were no lights connected with other human inhabitants, no sounds except for a choir of frogs and katydids and the occasional call of a whippoorwill. She’d never been in such an isolated place in her life.

When Blossom finally gathered the nerve to open the door and step inside the cabin, Larkin was standing with his back to her at a crude counter made of wooden crates. He didn’t bother to acknowledge her presence with words or even throw a glance her way, and Blossom realized that he’d been expecting her, as though he’d known what she would do long before she knew herself. The idea was unsettling. Even more so than being stranded here alone with the man.

“There’s a bathroom on the back porch to the right,” he said. “It’s supplied with gravity-flow water. I’m sure you’ll want to use it before we eat.”

Relieved by this bit of good news, Blossom scurried across the room and out a narrow screen door. As he’d stated, there was a tiny bathroom built on one end of the porch, complete with sink, shower closet, towels, washcloths and bar soap with the tangy scent of pine.

After using the basic facilities, she washed her face and hands, then brushed her hair and secured it into a ponytail with a rubber band she found in the bottom of her purse. Blossom didn’t bother fishing out her compact. She didn’t need a mirror to tell her she looked awful, but in this bizarre situation, comfort was more important than her appearance.

Back inside the cabin, she found Larkin scraping the contents of a large can into a black iron skillet. She watched as he placed it on a narrow cookstove with four gas burners, then touched a lighted match to the burner beneath the skillet.

“What is that?” she asked, inclining her head toward the heating food. “It looks like someone has already eaten it.”

“Hash. It might not be gourmet food, but it will keep you from going hungry.”

He stirred the blob with a wooden spoon, and as Blossom continued to watch him, she got the impression that he knew his way around a kitchen, even one as rustic as this.

The idea quickly spawned more questions in her mind, and she realized for the first time since the two of them had spun away from the clinic that she’d been so busy worrying about him having harmful intentions toward her that she hadn’t stopped to consider his personal identity.

“You seem pretty good at handling that spoon. Do you know how to cook things from scratch instead of emptying a can?”

“When it’s necessary.”

“Is that often?”

He turned away from the stove and began to fill a graniteware coffeepot with water. “Whenever I want to eat something other than fast or frozen food.”

“So—you don’t have a wife who cooks for you.”

“No wife. And even if I did have one, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’d want to cook for me.” He glanced at her as he spooned coffee grounds straight into the water. “Are you good in the kitchen?”

She had the naughty urge to tell him she was good anywhere. But she quickly bit back the words, shocked at her own brazen thoughts. Those bullets whizzing past her head must have done something to her. She wasn’t behaving like herself tonight. Especially when she looked at Larkin.

“Not really. I manage to do canned soup or sandwiches.”

His lips twisted into a mocking line. “Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that you’re not the domestic sort.”

His barb shouldn’t bother her. After all, she’d never cared about winning a Martha Stewart contest. She had other things on her mind, like getting the scoop on an adulterous city official before some other television station or newspaper caught wind of it. But for some ridiculous reason, Larkin’s remark had left her feeling properly insulted.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t the domestic sort,” she corrected him. “I just don’t know much about cooking. There was never anyone around to teach me.”

She was twenty-one, he knew that much. He’d also managed to garner other information about her. Such as the fact that she had no siblings. He’d learned she did have parents, but neither lived in Austin. Yet those were only outward facts about the woman. He knew nothing of who she was on the inside. Or why she’d been searching for a man called Luke Maitland.

“What about your mother?” He plopped the lid down on the coffeepot, then turned and placed it on the burner alongside the heating hash. “Or did your family have a hired cook?”

In spite of herself, Blossom let out a caustic laugh. “Hardly. We weren’t poor, but hired help of that sort was beyond our means. Although Mother would have loved it. She hated everything about domesticity.”

He turned and, for the first time since she’d entered the cabin, allowed himself a leisurely look at her. She’d swept her long hair up into a ponytail on the crown of her head. The exposure of her dainty ears and long, lovely neck made her look absurdly young. Even vulnerable. An adjective he’d never expected to associate with Blossom Woodward.

“In other words, you didn’t drag up a chair to the kitchen counter to stand in and watch while she baked cookies.”

To his surprise she didn’t come back at him with a flip retort. In fact, he was sure he saw a dark flash of regret in her eyes just before she glanced away from him.

“Not all little girls are lucky enough to have a mother like that,” she said, then after a moment she slanted a pointed glance back at him. “What about you?”

Nothing registered on his face as he shifted back to the hash. Picking up the wooden spoon, he pushed it slowly through the warming food. “My mother is dead now. But…while she was around, she tried.”

It hadn’t been Veronica’s fault that she’d had little more than roach traps to live in or barely enough money to put food on the table for four hungry kids, he thought. In her own way, she’d tried to make as much of a home as she could for them. Her untimely death and the brutal circumstances surrounding it had left a hole in him that he figured would never heal.

A few steps away, Blossom studied the distant, preoccupied expression on his face. At this moment he was far away from her, and she could only surmise that thoughts of his mother had tugged him to some other place in his past.

Larkin was a young man. Even if the woman had given birth to him in the latter part of her childbearing years and she’d died only recently, she couldn’t have been old. The notion filled Blossom with curiosity. Yet she didn’t ask him to elaborate about his mother. From his earlier comments, she’d gathered that he thought of her as a prying reporter. He wouldn’t believe that her questions could ever be strictly from a human interest.

“My mother is in Florida now,” she said as she made a quick survey of the cabin’s interior. “With her fourth husband. She’s been married to him for a year now. Much longer than I ever expected.”

The small room contained a living, dining and cooking area. Along the front wall was a plaid couch, the green and orange colors faded and worn from years of use. To the right of the couch, in the far corner, was a small square table constructed of mismatched pine boards. Huge trunks of hardwood trees about a foot in diameter and twice that much in height passed for chairs. The area where she and Larkin stood was the cooking area, complete with a single iron sink covered with chipped and stained porcelain, a relic of a cookstove. Wooden crates covered with dusty white curtains served as cabinets.

Next to the table, across the back wall of the room, was a small doorway. Another dingy curtain partially covered the open space. From where she was standing, it was impossible to see what was beyond the curtain. She could only surmise that it was a bedroom.

“Are you saying your mother and marriage don’t mix?” he asked.

She grimaced. “My mother likes men too much to stay married to one for very long. Her motto is too many men, not enough time.”

He wrapped a dish towel around the skillet handle and picked it up from the burner. “This stuff is ready,” he said. “Get some plates out of the cabinet while I carry it over to the table.”

He hadn’t asked her; he’d told her. But Blossom wasn’t going to point that out to the man. She was hungry, and so far he’d done all the meal preparation. Besides, she was the type of person who could bend. Up to a certain point.

After a quick search of the cabinet shelves, Blossom found a stack of chipped and mismatched plates, cups and bowls. To one side of the dishes, stored in a plastic jug, was a handful of silverware. She dug out two forks and spoons and, after wiping everything off with a damp dishcloth, carried the dining equipment to the table.

Larkin dished the food equally onto their plates, and by the light of a coal oil lamp they began to eat the simple meal. Even if the globe had been washed of dust and soot, the primitive lighting would have still been dim. Across the table, she was barely able to discern the lines of his face.

“I’ve had candlelit dinners brighter than this,” she said in an attempt to make light of their intimate predicament.

“I’m sure.”

With each bite, she could feel herself growing more weary. Her shoulders and eyes were both beginning to droop, making her reach for the camp coffee he’d brewed.

“What does that mean?” she asked, while pouring the dark liquid into one of the cracked cups.

“Nothing. Just that I’m sure you’ve had lots of…dining out.”

He made the word dining sound like a sexual romp, and she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be insulted or flattered. Blossom realized she wasn’t necessarily a raving beauty. Yet she was aware that the combination of her blue eyes, blond hair and lush curves were an attractive package to men. Even so, she’d never been overwhelmed with offers for dates.

It’s that air of independence you have, Blossom. Men like to think they’re needed and they don’t feel that way with you.

Dena Woodward had often spoken those words of warning to Blossom. Even so, it wasn’t in her to pretend to be something she wasn’t. And anyway, she’d be crazy to take her mother’s advice. Dena might know how to attract men, but keeping them around as a family member was another story altogether.