11. Our Patch

Nadia

Iwoke to the sound of two things.

One was thunder rumbling in the distance.

The other was scratching at the reading nook window.

My nose was cold, the covers up to my neck because it got super chilly at night, so much so, I considered turning on the furnace, and I was a girl who not only grew up in Chicago, but also liked being cold at night so I could cozy into covers to sleep.

And slept I did, mostly well, except the first night and Riggs's party night.

But that night, the thunder rolling woke me because my sleep had been fitful after Riggs's declaration about the animal tracks.

Even if he'd forced his way up the last step to get into my space, and he'd wrapped both his hands warm and firm around my neck, not to mention dropped his head so far his forehead was nearly touching mine (and I could see the impossibility of counting his eyelashes, they were so profuse), he gave me a litany of plausible explanations.

Even with all of that, I wasn't having it.

He was right. He could see better in the daylight.

But he hadn't heard the sound.

It wasn't stones rolling. Or dislodging.

It was stones cracking together.

And in the end, that noise was headed my way.

Now this.

I lay there, wondering if I should call Riggs, or the police, or get up and turn on all the lights before I packed my bags and the boxes I'd kept for my stuff's return journey to Chicago, and get the hell out of there.

I did this along with listening to that infernal scratching.

And the thunder rumbled again.

The scratching stopped.

I lay tense.

The scratching came back.

I went back to my terrified indecision.

Eventually, the heavens opened, and I heard the rain hit the roof.

More thunder came, much closer, and along with it, a flash of lightning, but the scratching stopped entirely.

Holy cow.

That was when I knew.

I didn't believe in ghosts.

But if I did, one thing I suspected, they weren't all that fussed with a thunderstorm.

But a human being?

Whole other story.

This meant someone was messing with me.

Some asshole was messing with me.

That was when I lay in bed, fuming.

But that night I learned one thing about nature living.

As mad as you were, it was impossible to be in the forest with rain hitting a tin roof and not fall fast asleep.

I learned this because this was exactly what I did.

It was stillcold and drizzling the next morning when I sat cross legged in my love seat on the back porch wearing heavy socks, pajama bottoms, another tight cami, my cashmere robe, and one of those cute headbands snow bunnies wore to show off their hair while still keeping their ears warm.

I'd seen it in a window in town and couldn't resist, so I bought it the day before, between Kimmy's holiday store and going back to my car and reading disturbing stories about Misted Pines.

I had both hands wrapped around my coffee cup, which I had held to my face as I glared at the soothing sight of light rain hitting a tranquil lake.

I was not surprised this time when I heard noise coming from the north, and I wasn't surprised because, after teeth brushing, face cleaning and moisturizing, even though it was early, I'd texted Riggs that the scratching came back last night but went away when it started raining.

Only then did I make coffee.

And there he came, wearing a dark canvas jacket, slicked with wet, the hood up, his hands in the pockets, jeans on his legs, and on his feet, his ever-present brown boots.

He left the trail and came to a stop opposite where I was, but he didn't alight the porch.

He looked at me.

"Which number is that?" he asked, tipping his head to my coffee cup and taking in my glare with barely concealed humor.

"One," I grunted.

"How far into it are you?" he asked.

"A sip."

"Drink up, honey," he urged, then he took off down the side of my house.

I did as told as he did whatever he was doing at the side of the house. And I kept doing it as I watched him pass in front of me to go to the stable trail.

I continued sipping even as I turned my head and watched him tramp around in the drizzle.

He came back, but this time ascended the steps, shrugged off his jacket to afford me the pleasure of seeing him in a fabulous fisherman's sweater, and he tossed it on one of the wicker chairs.

After he did that, without invitation, he went inside my house.

I was getting to like him a whole lot, but I liked him more when he made sure to wipe his boots thoroughly on the outdoor mat before he went in, because the cabin wasn't all that big, but it was a whole lot of floor to mop.

He came back with a mug of coffee, and I only scooched enough he could squeeze his ass in the seat beside me. This meant he had to lift my knee, but when he was settled in, he dropped it and it rested on his thigh.

His thigh felt warm regardless of the chill, and hard, and I liked it too much, but I was so angry, I was too mad to move.

He took a sip and said to the lake, "If there were tracks, rain washed them away."

"Figures," I grumbled and took my own sip.

"Kids get up to stupid shit," he noted.

"My exact thinking," I replied, and it was, because if Riggs had learned about me, and Kimmy had guessed I was at this cabin, then that meant it was official.

Word had gotten around.

I was now glaring at the lake again, but I knew he'd turned to look at me when he asked, "How pissed are you?"

I turned to look at him. "On a scale of someone running through my yard being a one, and someone keeping me up all night with metal music and lake frolicking a ten, I'm at about a two-hundred-and-seventeen."

He grinned at me, then took another sip.

"This isn't funny, Riggs."

"Nope," he agreed. "And I'm gonna talk to Dave about installing some cameras so we can catch these fuckers, and they better hope I'm in the mood to turn over whatever video we get to Harry instead of acting on my own, because I reckon I'll be more in the mood to knock some goddamn heads together."

At that, I grunted unintelligibly, but even so, it was in accord.

But something he said struck me, so I asked, "Harry?"

"Moran. The county sheriff and a good friend of mine."

Excellent.

It was good to know people in high places.

"Gotta head out soon to get my kid. Rain lets up, me and Ledge are going fishing today. Wanna come with?" he offered.

"Now offer me the alternate option of having my nails pulled out at the roots so I can enjoy your shock and amazement at which one I pick."

He chuckled, looked to the lake and took another sip before asking, "Not a fisherwoman?"

"Any time I even consider how meat in whatever form comes to me, I consider vegetarianism. I've even tried to go that route. Twice. The smell of bacon always foils me. I gave up and just ignore that a creature gave its life to nurture mine."

"I'm taking that as a no."

"Good take."

"Ledge sucks hard at fishing, and so he won't feel like a loser, I go that route. So I'll be frying up some brats tonight. Wanna come for dinner?"

That was an invitation I could accept, so I did.

"Sure, I'd love that."

"I'll call Dave sometime during the day and install those cameras as soon as I can source them."

"Awesome."

"Honey?"

I turned to him.

He pointed at the lake. "That's our lake." He aimed his finger down. "This is our home. No one fucks with us on our patch. You with me?"

I was suddenly lamenting him not being a dick. No one wanted to live close to a dick. But I was finding it was worse living next to a really great guy who was beautiful, could be protective, and tramped over to your cabin to wander around in the drizzle, looking for the footprints of some probably high school punks who were playing a prank.

With all that, and what he just said, and the power behind the words when he said them, which told me he meant them, I knew my dedulya, who had liked Trevor, would love this guy.

"I'm with you."

"People around here, we take our privacy seriously," he informed me. "So much, recently, the town council hiked up fines and even added jail time for trespassers. It's minimal, but it's still a strong deterrent. I don't have fences up, but got signs all over the property, and you can't miss them. We catch someone doing this shit, they're gonna pay, honey. Literally."

He watched me nod before he threw back more coffee, came in, slid his rough, yet sweet whiskers along my cheek in what he clearly had no idea was a cruel tease, pulled away and urged, "Keep the faith."

"Right."

He put his coffee mug down, got up, went to his wet jacket, shrugged it on, and with a chin lift to me, he tramped into the woods.

The rain didn't letup all day.

Sometimes it came harder than others, but even if it was just a trickle, it came.

I felt bad the Riggs boys weren't going to get to go fishing.

But I felt kind of excited that afternoon that I could don the cute, pink slicker I'd bought before I came there, the hiking boots I already had, but had used minimally, and I headed out.

I looked where Riggs looked earlier, at the side of the cabin, on the stable trail and around the stable area, but I saw what he probably saw.

A bunch of earth that was smooth, wet through, and I knew that because, in some parts the water on top of it gently washed down toward the lake.

I then took the trail that Roosevelt probably cut, but it was Riggs running it that kept it clear, and for the first time, began to make my way around the lake.

The trail didn't stay clear the deeper I got into the forest. It was there, but the stone edge ran out about a hundred yards deep, and sometimes I went off it altogether because it disappeared, but I'd eventually find a swatch of it again.

It took a while for me to see them. In fact, I was nearly to the north end of the lake by the time I did (and I noted, to my surprise, the lake was bigger than I expected, curling around the trees and opening wide, which made me pause to reflect, if Riggs owned this whole lake, and a good fifty yards up it, if the signs I spied were anything to go by, he owned a ton of land).

I trudged through the trees to the signs, the back of which I saw were painted a bright, Don't Miss This! orange.

When I made it to them, nailed to the tree, I saw they weren't rinky-dink plastic signs bought at a hardware store, but steel ones that were full-on orange at the front, with black words.

And there were three tacked one on top of the other.

Private Property

Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted

No Hunting

The warning wasn't vague.

As I returned to move along the trail, I didn't miss the others. They weren't copious, but they were hard to avoid. If you were traversing the area, you'd definitely run into a set of them, eventually.

I finally made it all around the lake and saw Riggs's crazy house from a different point of view.

I could see how the living room was built into the earth, as was the arm of the house that spread down the other side, with the lower floor (that being the kitchen level) naturally being shorter because the lay of the land made it that way.

As such, I could further see the kitchen rising above it before that level fed into the slope.

I could also see it looked like there was a circular room that jutted out, and from what I could tell, was a dining room off the kitchen.

Above it was another floor that meandered deep into the trees, the option we didn't take when Riggs was leading me to privacy the day before.

And topping it all was Riggs's bedroom, which was a lot bigger than what I experienced, because it undoubtedly had a bathroom and closet I wasn't invited to peruse.

The winding staircases were visible outside, looking like truncated turrets built into the structure.

I also saw how it was all stabilized with beams built into the ground and buried posts that were hidden with trees, shrubbery and paint purposefully chosen to meld with the earth around it.

It was totally nutty, and totally Riggs. Imposing and inviting. Earthy and otherworldly. Understandable and contradictory.

And it gave me pause for more reflection, making me wonder what hand Lincoln Whitaker had in designing it. And if he had a heavy hand, just what it said (because it was big, I hadn't taken much in, but I also hadn't missed the sheer size of his kitchen, living room and bedroom) about Lincoln and what the cabin said about Roosevelt.

Last, what it all said about Sarah.

Sure, a man would want room for his family, but Lincoln's family didn't actually live there.

Roosevelt, year-round, lived in only the space he needed.

As wild as that house was, it was interesting, and I liked it.

I also liked my cabin.

Did Sarah somehow love both men?

Or did she yearn for a simple, uncomplicated man, and the life he led, in a one-room cabin twenty minutes from anywhere?

I would never know.

And something else I was learning about being an outdoorsy girl, when it was cold, you didn't stop moving.

It was faster to walk through the Riggs space to get to my place.

But I figured they were home, and I didn't want to disturb them, so I turned back and retraced my steps.

Halfway home, my phone vibrated in my back pocket.

I pulled it out of my jeans and saw a text from Riggs.

Brats. 5:00.

See you then, I returned, and I did it smiling, because I had plans that night, and that made me happy. Because those plans were with Riggs and Ledger, and that made me happier. And because a great idea struck me, and I was excited about it.

Then I shoved my phone back in my pocket, and with determined strides, trekked through the drizzle the rest of the way home.