Spirit Lake by Christine DeSmet Read Free Book Online

harkened to something familiar within her, yet she couldn't put her finger on the odd feeling.
    He looked away, but a bit of electricity remained behind. Something felt terribly wrong, enticing her, yet warning her. Her legs begged her to flee, but she couldn't run before getting a good look at that wounded leg. Or this man. She'd only seen him in the dark or from a distance in the fog. His sleight-of-face routine was beginning to grate on her.
    Setting the towels and first-aid kit in the grass, she opened the kit. Her stomach knotted. “Damn. I forgot how low I was on gauze and smaller needles—"
    “Stay the hell away from my leg with needles."
    His voice had risen and the pitch haunted her. Maybe he just sounded like someone she knew in town. She decided she needed to hurry with this. She extracted the snub-nosed scissors and stared at the back of his head. “At least let me cut those burrs out of your hair before I leave."
    “I said get—"
    “I muzzle some of my animals to work on them safely."
    He snorted. She took that as an assent and stood over him from behind with her scissors. The breeze picked up strands of his blackish hair, the sunlight mining coppery highlights in it. A chill trundled down her spine. She remembered another time, another sunlit day. She shunted the thought aside. The man was spooking her out! Where was Jim Swenson or the sheriff? She snipped under a burr with shaky scissors.
    With only the robins chirping for sound, she grew uneasy. “You have a name?"
    “A handle, as they say on the rails. Atlas."
    “The Greek Titan, holding up the heavens?"
    “No. My buddies on the rail lines found my using maps and atlases amusing."
    Maps? It triggered a warning and a memory inside her.
    Laurel stepped back, staring at his jet hair fluttering above the broad shoulders under his thin jacket. She didn't recognize any of it. Or did she? That voice, in its lighter tones, niggled her again.
    “What did you say?” she asked, ready to listen hard, fear and anger trembling below the surface.
    “My hobo buddies—"
    “Stop there.” Suddenly, his tone hit its mark. Queasiness rocked her.
    She managed a hoarse whisper. “People use maps because they want to get somewhere. Find more adventure.” Her memory dredged up an ancient globe, and a young man showing her all the places he'd lived ... and would live. “People use maps to help them run away!"
    Watching his back stiffen, she eased away, paralysis climbing over her heart. Ancient rages roiled about in her soul, spilling acidic adrenaline across raw nerve endings.
    Between clenched teeth, she railed to the back of his head, “It is you!"
    She flung herself at his shoulders, shoving him hard. “I never wanted to see you again! Get away from me, Cole Wescott!"
    He toppled sideways in the grass to escape her blows, his jacket flying open and papers dumping from his shirt pocket.
    Dropping to her knees to pummel him more, she screamed, “You bastard! Why'd you come back? Maybe ‘cause you forgot something when you ran out of town fifteen years ago? Like me? Your wife?"
    He snagged her wrists, and with strength that surprised her, he rolled over, stilling her on top of his heaving chest.
    They lay on the ground, alone in the grass, a prelude they'd danced many times long ago one summer, but now his dark eyes were even darker than she remembered, more mesmerizing. They flung her soul back in agonizing leaps across the years, to hollowed-out nights when all she could do was wonder why he'd been able to leave her and get on with his life so easily.
    Her head pounded. She wanted to spit at him. Instead, she forced out, “You're hurting me. But then you're good at that."
    When his fingers loosened, she got up, backing several feet away, trying to control her shaky breathing and the palpitations of her stomach.
    He got up in a slow fashion that pleased her immeasurably now, and he stayed planted where he was. “I didn't come here to find you, believe me.