I braked at a rusted mailbox at the end of a rock driveway flanked by wooden fences. New fencing, I noted, and wondered who’d built it. Then I wondered why I immediately assumed she hadn’t. The woman was capable of holding me off in a physical altercation. Building a fence was something she could likely do in her sleep.
I squinted at the house a hundred feet from the mailbox.
I’d expected a sprawling “Harper Construction” mansion, or given its location, maybe fancy ranch house of sorts. What I got was a small, weathered, A-frame cabin with a wraparound porch and picnic table out front. The cabin was a freshly-painted evergreen color, with deep red shutters. I thought of Sunny’s lips. The paint color matched the soaring cedar trees that enclosed it. Barely a yard. All trees.
It was cute. Quaint. No way in hell an heiress to a real estate fortune’s house.
Hesitating, I glanced in my rearview mirror, then back at the little house. The underbrush had been trimmed, but much like the drive to it, endless woods surrounded the cabin. No fields, no rolling hills. Just trees that sloped down to Shadow River somewhere behind the house.
I flicked my turn single, then laughed at myself and flicked it off, then turned into the driveway. As I inched closer to the house, a blazing red caught my eye, where my dream car from the night before, a 1972 Chevy Cheyenne, was parked under the cedars.
Yep, the old A-frame, teeny-tiny cabin belonged to Sunny Harper.
Add it to my list of shockers.
I parked next to a blooming lilac bush, careful not to graze the purple petals. Always liked lilac bushes. The sweet scent carried like a perfume as I climbed out of my Jeep. The woods were vibrant with energy. Birds singing overhead, grasshoppers chirping, and in the distance, the sound of river water rushing over rocks. A magnificent blue butterfly flittered past my face. I couldn’t explain why, but a sudden feeling of warmth ran over me, more than the beams of sun shooting through the cedars.
It was peaceful.
Real country.
Then, I noticed the lack of human noise. No voices, televisions, radios, microwaves buzzing in the background. Nothing.
A warm breeze whispered through the trees as I crossed the driveway and stepped onto the porch. A scent of vanilla wafted out of the open windows and screen door. My brow cocked. The woman jogged with a nine millimeter in her pants but left her windows and door open in the middle of the woods.
The porch was small, enclosing the cabin, with a few slats recently replaced. Two rocking chairs sat to the side and based on the wearing beneath the legs, were used frequently.
Two chairs.
Two.
I skimmed the ground for cigarette butts, ashtrays, pipes, empty beer or soda cans. None.
Potted begonias lined the porch, their red and pink petals overflowing in a hodgepodge of brightly-painted clay vases that seemed to go together despite their obvious mismatch. Enormous citronella plants sat at the edges of the porch, and hanging from the corner, the biggest electric bug zapper I had ever seen. Thing could fry a squirrel.
Now that’s the girl I knew.
I glanced into the trees, lingering a moment on the wind chimes.
I looked in the front window. Lights off. Dark inside. I knocked on the door. The screen wobbled on its hinges. No answer. I searched for a doorbell with no luck.
“Hello?” My voice sounded deep and gruff against the stillness of nature. Old. Like I didn’t belong there. Like no one did.
“Miss Harper?” My tone raised an octave, now sounding like a high school kid calling out for approval.
When she didn’t grace me with her presence, I did another quick rapping on the door before pulling it open.
Vanilla enveloped me. Vanilla—and leather.
The place could have been a post card for ‘cozy log cabins,’ or ‘smallest houses on the planet.’ It was one, large room with a loft overhead. The A-frame ceiling had gleaming, exposed beams running along the top. A rustic chandelier hung from the center. Box fans hummed in the windows, pulling in the fresh summer air, which somehow felt cool under the shade of the house. Did the rich kid not have air-conditioning? Or did she choose to keep it off? A night without air-conditioning in the dead of a southern summer was almost unbearable, so I assumed the latter. Either way, my Jeep was in good company.
The main living room—otherwise known as the only room—was separated by a U-shaped brown leather couch over a Navajo rug facing a rock fireplace. At least a dozen plants—real, not fake—lined the walls, their leaves turned to the sweeping windows that overlooked a deck with more blooming flowers.
I noticed a few handcrafted wooden statues that I’d seen in Mystic Maven’s, making me wonder if the two were closer than Hazel had led me to believe. One was kneeling in prayer, another in some sort of meditation position, and the third had a distended belly and was holding a small child that kind of looked like an alien.
Weird.
The kitchen was to the right. Tiny and spotless as if it were never used. Sunny didn’t cook. One strike against her.
To the left, a small door that I guessed led to the only bathroom/laundry room. I lifted my gaze to the loft, where a four-poster king bed centered the small space, a deep crimson comforter against the dark wood walls. The bed was made, and based on the immaculate cleanliness of the rest of the house, I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck on hospital corners.
The decor was minimal, bordering on masculine if not for the oil diffusers, candles, and stack of Cosmopolitans on the coffee table. You know, the sex advice magazines.
Interesting.
Once I pushed away the image of Sunny rolling around naked in those crimson sheets, I stepped back outside and made my way to the back of the house. Nothing interesting to note back there. No lawn care equipment, tools, shed, no sign of a man. I began down a narrow, pebbled trail that led through the woods. The path wasn’t manicured, but someone had done the arduous, back-breaking task of cutting through the underbrush and leveling the trail, and hauling up river gravel.
Sunny?
Beams of early morning sunlight shot through the thick canopy of trees where birds took notice of my presence, squawking loudly as if announcing the unannounced visitor. Happy or annoyed, I wasn’t sure.
The sound of rushing water grew closer. I was halfway through a bend in the trail when I stopped cold. Call it that finely tuned instinct from decades running special ops, but I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. As my hand drifted to the gun on my belt, a growl so low vibrated behind me—inches, if I had to guess—that every hair on the back of my neck stood up. A list of wild animals flashed through my head. Bear? Mountain lion? Rabid coyote?
I froze and weighed my options, my hand inches from my gun. The animal had gotten the drop on me, no doubt about that. The next move was my own. The growl intensified, along with a scraping against the dirt floor. Definitely not a bear. I ran down my Boy Scouts list of what to do when you cross paths with a mountain lion. Number one, do not run. Running from a mountain lion is like playing hard to get. It triggers the mountain lion’s instinct to chase and attack. Two, do not crouch or bend over. No problem there as I wasn’t in the habit of bending over for anyone. And three, hold your ground.
“Whoa, there now, buddy, calm down,” I said emphasizing my southern drawl as if that somehow made me less of a threat. Holding my breath, I decided to face my fate, the snarling now accompanied by a viciously snapping jaw.