over her shoulder, she inhaled a deep breath and forged ahead, concentrating on where she walked as sharp blackberry thorns threatened both eyes and clothes.
As the path entered the woods and shadows soon enveloped her, Catherine stood still for several moments. The flashlight became more hindrance than help because it revealed too small an area to gain her bearings. Switching off the narrow beam, she waited patiently for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Soon the well-trodden path dimly reappeared between the trees.
What am I doing here? Why am I spying on someone who wishes to be left alone? Haven’t I annoyed Daniel enough my first day in his house? But Catherine inched forward until scrub forest gave way to the tall sycamores and willows that grew near water. She paused and listened to the faint but distinctive sound of a rushing river, trying to ignore the chilling cries of a coyote up in the hills. Beyond the line of trees she spotted a black void, warning of the steep drop-off of a riverbed. She gingerly picked her way along the path, illuminated only by the light of a full moon overhead.
As she pushed aside some low tree boughs, she gasped. Yellow light from a kerosene lamp flickered through the wavy glass of a window. She had found the cabin—the residence of Daniel’s reclusive cousin, Isaiah. Though she yearned to peek inside his home, to discover the tastes of a man who lived by his own design, she didn’t dare. She’d already wandered from her sister’s home and had been gone too long. Feeling a shiver of excitement snake up her spine, Catherine watched spellbound for another minute. Then she turned and began the painstaking journey back to her new home.
Creeping along the path, darker now than on her way in, tiny hairs on the back of neck suddenly stood on end. She peered off to her left into the brush, maybe ten or twelve feet. Sitting motionless in the thicket with ears at full alert sat a very large yellow animal. His eyes reflected the moonlight with an evil, netherworld glint. The beast neither barked, nor howled, nor made any menacing approach, yet Catherine’s heart stopped beating within her chest for several seconds.
Was it a fox? Or a coyote? Perhaps a lone wolf that had wandered down from Canada across a frozen lake?
She didn’t stick around to ask questions or gather additional canine details. She picked up her skirt and ran pell-mell for the house. She didn’t stop until the porch loomed before her eyes, and then she doubled over, panting like the species she had encountered.
Despite her best effort, Catherine hadn’t been remotely unobtrusive. Alive to the nuances of the night, Isaiah Graber had sensed her approach from the moment a blackberry briar had first caught the sleeve of her dress and she’d muttered in dismay. Overcome with his own curiosity, he’d circled around in a wide arc to watch the stranger approach his cabin.
He knew she was afraid—he’d caught the scent of fear—but on she’d crept.
He could tell she had little experience in the great outdoors, yet she hadn’t turned back when the path left the sparse orchard and entered the dense, dark woods. Little illumination reached the forest floor until a person reached the clearing for his cabin, but the woman had waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and then kept going. Will she boldly let herself in and sit down on my sofa? Maybe fry up a few eggs for a late night snack? At the spruce tree she had paused and approached no farther. She stood staring at his cabin, watching what he couldn’t fathom. Then she’d tripped over the same rocks and been scratched by the same briars all the way back. Utterly perplexed, Isaiah followed her until she reached the orchard without breaking her neck.
This was the same woman who had arrived this afternoon with a bulging a suitcase. He’d seen a buggy pull up to the house while he’d been repairing fences in the high pasture. Little happened on his cousin’s farm that escaped his notice, unless he was off hunting in the autumn or buried under a blanket of snow during winter. Was she the one who had cooked the delicious fried chicken, buttered noodles, and spinach salad with pieces of bacon? He’d watched Abigail climb into a car with flashing red and blue lights and not come back. Isaiah couldn’t imagine what Daniel would do