Holding Off for a Hero Read online

  She stepped back into the room, closed the door, and looked up at Frasier. “Not a bad kid, really. But lately he’s been keeping company with one student who’s been trouble from the get-go. I’m trying to win him back, keep him on my side, but sometimes I think I’m fighting a losing battle.” She heaved a sigh.

  “Don’t give up. It’s a fight well worth winning.”

  “Thanks for the vote of support. Now to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  “I was in town and thought maybe we could have lunch…if you’re free.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She reached for her purse and jacket hanging on a canted wooden coat rack behind the door. “But what did that last bit mean…’if you’re free’? Seemed to hold a hint of sarcasm.”

  “Sorry. I overheard the school secretary and a friend commenting on the trail of broken hearts you’ve left behind.”

  “By Gail’s friend, I assume you mean Mildred Carter…stocky, dark, formidable? She doesn’t seem to like me for some reason I’ve never fathomed.”

  “Maybe jealousy?” He opened the door for her, then followed her outside and waited while she took a collection of keys from her purse and selected one to fit into the lock.

  “You think?” She looked up at him, astonishment widening her eyes.

  “Yeah, I think. Come on.” A grin quirking up a corner of his mouth, he took her arm and headed her down a corridor that smelled of cafeteria lunch and gym sneakers.

  ****

  At the junction where two corridors intersected, they nearly collided with a tall, muscular, blond man striding around the corner. His face looked as if it had been chiseled from granite. There could be no mistaking the anger in his expression.

  “Emma.” He halted, glanced at her, then glared at Frasier. “Mildred said you had a visitor.”

  “Brock, I’d like you to meet Frasier MacKenzie, my neighbor up at the lake.” Emma smiled benignly. “Frasier, this is Brock Kelly, our gym teacher.”

  “Mr. Kelly.” Frasier extended his hand.

  “The legendary hermit of Loon Lake?” The man’s tone filled with sarcasm. “You must be getting hard up to take on a backwoods recluse, Emma.” He ignored Frasier’s hand. With a slight shrug, Frasier let it drop to his side.

  “Brock, there’s no need to be rude.” Emma glanced about at the corridor crowded with students on their lunch break and lowered her voice. “And definitely no reason to cause a scene.”

  “No, I suppose there isn’t.” He let a sneer distort his features. “You’re free to hook up with whoever you choose. But watch it, man.” He turned on Frasier, and anger again took over. “She’ll dump you like yesterday’s garbage the minute she finds something she thinks is better.”

  Brock Kelly swung about and strode away, narrowly avoiding knocking several students out of his way.

  “Former boyfriend?” Frasier took Emma’s arm again and began to steer her toward the front entrance.

  “We dated for a while, nothing serious…at least on my part.” Emma avoided his gaze. “But Brock read a whole lot more into it. Sorry you had to get the brunt of his unwarranted jealousy.” When she paused while he shoved open the door for her, she tilted her head and continued, “By the way, I had no idea you were a.k.a. the hermit of Loon Lake.”

  “Yeah, well, hardly something to brag about.” He herded her down the steps and up the street toward his vehicle. “Local joke. Where should we eat? We hermits seldom frequent the restaurant scene. I’m up for anything but the sandwich shop. I prefer not to share a table with Roc Hard a.k.a. Nigel.”

  “Afraid you might suffer by comparison?” She cast him a teasing glance.

  “Yeah, right.” He opened the passenger door.

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you’d make a great stripper. So there.” Green eyes twinkled as she took her seat and fluttered her eyelashes.

  He guffawed and strode around to the driver’s side.

  ****

  On Emma’s suggestion, they drove a few miles out of town to a small restaurant overlooking the Northern Passage River that flowed past Carleton. Surrounded by lofty, soughing pines, the rustic eatery had few customers on an off-season weekday noon hour. Frasier was glad. Shown to a table overlooking the river through a stand of lofty pines, they ordered, on Emma’s suggestion, clam chowder in a bread bowl.

  “You’re familiar with the menu,” Frasier said, settling back in his chair.

  “I’ve been here a few times.” Emma took a sip of the ice water the waitress poured. “Too bad it’s midday and we’re both going back to work. They have a terrific wine list.”

  “So you’re familiar with that, too. Did you come here with Brock the Rock?” The words erupted harsh and suggestive. Kick yourself, MacKenzie…hard.

  “Frasier MacKenzie.” She pulled herself up straight, crossed her arms, and looked directly into his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

  “Jealous! Don’t be ridiculous! We’re neighbors… friends, nothing more. I’m just curious.”

  “Well, let me set you straight.” She relaxed in her chair, green eyes narrowing to wickedly twinkling slits. “Sure, I’ve had a few men in my life—most of them nice guys—but I’ve never found what I’m looking for…yet.”

  “And, pray tell, what might that be?”

  She paused, looked down at her hands clasped on the table in front of her, then said softly, a tad embarrassedly, he was surprised to observe, “A hero.”

  “A hero?” Astonishment raised his tone, and he struggled to moderate it as he repeated, “A hero?”

  “Yes, a hero.” She raised her gaze to meet his defiantly.

  “Not many of them around these days.” He toyed with the silverware.

  “No, not many.”

  Her tone had suddenly softened, and when he glanced up, she was looking at him with a gaze that rattled the cage around his heart. He remembered she’d called him her hero on the day he’d rescued Bruiser from the lake and again when he’d de-skunked the little pest.

  Sunlight filtering through the pines beyond the window cast gently swaying shadows over the snowy tablecloth, and he saw her hand sliding slowly through them to come to rest over his.

  He stared down at her fingers covering his in the sensuously changing light, feeling the warm tingle filter up his arm and then race through his entire body. Emma, Emma. Her name pounded a tattoo.

  “Frasier?” She moved her hand carefully over his, and when he managed to look up, to meet her gaze, he saw the question there. Sweet Jesus! How much was a man supposed to sacrifice for his work?

  “This isn’t a good idea, Emma.” The words came from somewhere deep inside. They ripped and hurt as they came out. “I’ve got a job to do, and…”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Frasier!” She wrenched her hand back and glowered over at him. He’d never seen her so angry. “Your job! Ghost chasing!”

  “Yeah, well, at least it doesn’t involve giving wads of cash to tough-looking students!” Frustration made him uncharacteristically cruel.

  “That money is to purchase sports equipment!” She was on her feet facing him, outrage spilling over. “Trusting Jesse to buy it is a step on his road back. If you had even a pinch of logic in that suspicious brain of yours, you’d know the only way to gain trust is to give it!”

  She grabbed her purse and jacket from the back of her chair and strode out of the restaurant, head held high, back defiantly straight. He scraped back his chair to follow her, then felt the weight of keys in his pocket. A grin began to kink his lips and he slid back into his seat.

  When she stepped back into the dining room a couple of minutes later, he saw a lot of her anger had drained away. As she approached their table, he got up and pulled out her chair.

  “I forgot,” she said sheepishly. “Your vehicle. And I’m not angry enough to walk eight miles back to school. Anyway—” she drew a deep breath as she sat down and folded her hands on the table— “I’m hung
ry.”

  Green gaze met blue. Slowly they both began to grin.

  “Sorry,” she said softly.

  “No, I’m sorry. Damn sorry. If you only knew how much I wanted…” He stumbled over the explanation and couldn’t finish.

  “I think I do.” The words, gentle and laced with understanding, nearly blew him away. “But the timing isn’t right. Let’s just leave it there. Friends?”

  She extended her right hand across the table. He hesitated, then folded it into his. “Friends.”

  The waitress arrived with their lunch. Frasier could only hope clams didn’t have the same effect as oysters. He’d had about all he could handle in the way of sexual frustration for one day.

  “Tell me about your work.”

  “What’s this? An effort at polite lunch conversation?”

  “Don’t be snide. No, I really would like to know more about what you do.”

  “Okay.” Frasier settled back in his chair. “I’ll give you a bit of the history of the Eastern Panther. That should prove boring enough to put you to sleep.”

  “I doubt it, but go ahead.”

  “Well, perhaps the first sighting of what we’ve come to call the Eastern Panther was made by Cabeza de Vaca in 1513. He reported seeing some type of lion in the Florida Everglades. Several years later, the English sea captain Sir John Hawkins reported a similar sighting. Over the years these cats were reported farther and farther north. By the mid-1800s, Pennsylvania had become home to a few. Later still, there were reported sightings in Vermont and Maine.”

  “Were these animals that had migrated north from Florida?” Her eyes were bright with interest. Inspired, he continued.

  “That we don’t know. If I’m able to get a DNA sample for a cat in these woods, we’ll have proof, but until I do, all we have is speculation.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Fear and bounty hunting were largely responsible for destroying whatever specimens might have existed in the Appalachians around that period. Then, of course, there were those we now call consumptive users of wildlife. Collecting species by killing them was an accepted practice by these individuals. They saw themselves as naturalists and conservationists, but they were among the most destructive forces to a species as rare and teetering on the brink of extinction as the Eastern Panther. Fortunately, these days we can use tranquillizers, not bullets, as a means of examining an animal.”

  “Fascinating and more than a bit sad.”

  “Unfortunately, during the mid-eighteen hundreds, when the Eastern Panther would have been fighting for its existence, they became trophy animals with a bounty on their heads. Accused of devastating young farm animals for food, the cats were hunted down and slaughtered.

  “In actual fact, pigs and calves weren’t their natural prey. Their main food source was the white-tailed deer. They only resorted to raiding farms after settlers had killed off a lot of their normal nourishment or driven it out of the area with towns and agriculture. I don’t like to think how many kittens must have been left to die motherless in their dens when their foraging mothers were killed by farmers or bounty hunters. There are mounted specimens in several New England museums that bear witness to this slaughter.”

  “But did they attack people? I’ve heard horror stories.” Emma spooned into the chowder.

  “I haven’t found any confirmed accounts of cats we can identify as Eastern Panthers attacking human beings, although there are many attributed to similar big felines in the western section of North America,” he continued. “They’re known as mountain lions, much bigger than the cats I’m out to document. Some of those out there reach two hundred pounds, while the Eastern Panther, to the best of our knowledge, averages around one hundred.”

  “So what you’re saying is that, according to historical data, we have little to fear from an Eastern Panther?”

  “No, not at all. These are big, unpredictable cats with the strength and temperament to attack and kill a human being if they feel threatened. What I am saying is that they’re reticent creatures who avoid people. It’s only when we press them into untenable situations that we can come into serious danger.”

  ****

  Driving back to the lake that afternoon, Frasier mulled over what he’d learned about Emma Prescott that day. First—and what should have been least important—he had learned she’d had men in her past. Probably a goodly number, and probably most were as good-looking and muscle-bound as that gym teacher. Second, he’d seen her giving a large roll of bills to a student who had drug connections written all over him.

  He knew it was wrong to judge from appearances, but he’d been around long enough and seen enough to be able to form a pretty accurate conclusion. Sure, she’d said it was for gym equipment, but that was only after she’d seen him, been aware that he’d witnessed the transaction. Afterwards she’d tried to seduce him over lunch. Damn, he hoped he was wrong, but the entire situation had begun to gnaw at his gut.

  ****

  “Emma.” Brock Kelly stopped her as she was locking her office door at the end of the school day. “I’d like a word with you.”

  “I’m not sure I want one with you, Brock.” Emma turned to face him and dropped her keys into her purse. “After the way you behaved in front of my friend Frasier today, I think it’s best we keep our relationship strictly on a professional level.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry about that.” He looked abashed for a moment before he picked up again and continued. “But I thought you and I had something going, something pretty good. Now Mildred tells me you’re living up in the wilds with nature boy as your next door and only neighbor. What’s the story, Emma? Are you enjoying more than the lake?”

  “Okay, Brock, that’s enough!” Emma started down the deserted corridor toward the main entrance, but he caught up to her and seized her by the arm.

  “Emma, I’m warning you. People are talking about you and that guy living up at Loon Lake. As a guidance counselor, you’ve got a reputation to protect. I suggest you move out of that cabin and get yourself back to town tonight!”

  “And I suggest you release my arm.” She glared up at him, green eyes snapping. “I’m over twenty-one and unattached. If I choose to have a relationship with Frasier MacKenzie, it’s my affair and certainly of no concern to you. We dated, you played around, and that was the end of it. I don’t want to waste my life on two-faced creatures such as yourself. Now, are you going to let me go, or will I have to yell for the custodian? I warn you, you don’t want me to do that. We both know what a gossip Mr. Higgins is. He’ll have the story all over school by 9:15 tomorrow morning.”

  He hesitated a moment longer. Then with a powerful guffaw, he let her go, shoving her aside as he headed for the front door.

  “But don’t say I didn’t warn you, Emma Prescott.” He paused when he reached it and turned back. “It’s not safe for you to stay up at Loon Lake with that man. I’ve warned you. That’s all I can do.”

  He went out into the autumn afternoon, the door closing slowly on its air hinge after him.

  Emma waited until she felt he’d had time to get to the car park and drive away. Then she adjusted her purse on its shoulder strap, hefted her briefcase more firmly in her hand, and followed him outside.

  What could he possibly have meant, she wondered, as she got into her car and headed off to Doggie Day Care to pick up Bruiser. The very idea that she had something to fear from Frasier MacKenzie was ludicrous. He was just what he appeared to be…an associate professor from the provincial university, with the single-minded purpose of finding the mythical Eastern Panther.

  ****

  Friday night again. Frasier straightened from poring over the maps spread out on the table in front of him and tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. Searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack would have been an easier assignment.

  He glanced at his watch. 8:00 p.m. Huh. 8:00 p.m. and Emma wasn’t home. Jolted back to the moment, he knew he h
adn’t heard her overworked, under-serviced car. He couldn’t have missed its arrival. The vehicle needed a new muffler, along with shocks, springs, tires, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff a professional mechanic would spot in a minute.

  He crossed the room to peer out at her cabin. It formed a black silhouette against the backdrop of mountains and forest in the autumn darkness.

  “Damn it, where are they?” he asked Scout, including the Pug in his concern. “They’re always home no later than 6:30.”

  He opened the door and crossed the verandah to stand on the top step. Loon Lake and its surrounding mountains lay encased in darkness. Overcast hid the moon and stars. A cold dampness suggested rain wasn’t far off.

  A coyote yelped and howled, the cry echoing in the frosty silence. Not an environment for a woman alone with a small dog.

  And then he heard it. A scream. The unmistakable, hair-raising scream of an Eastern Panther.

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  For a moment he stood riveted in place. A second scream sent him bursting back into the cabin and over to the drawer by the sink. He yanked it open and grabbed the .38 inside.

  “We’re going to look for them,” he told the dog as he checked its load.

  He shoved the weapon into his belt. Cold sweat began to trickle from his armpits.

  Then a car, an old car, came within earshot, bumping and roaring up the trail toward the cabin.

  “Thank God!” He thrust the gun back into the drawer, grabbed a flashlight from the counter, and strode outside.

  ****

  “What kept you?” The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. He sounded way too concerned.

  He shone the flashlight on her as she emerged from the car.

  “Good God, what happened?” All the annoyance left his tone as he breathed the question in a gigantic exhale.

  Her jeans were coated with mud, her hands and face smeared with grime, and there was a tear in her faux suede jacket.

  “I had a flat tire a couple of miles from here.” She stared up at him like a deer caught in headlights. Suddenly she began to sob, great wrenching sobs that shook her slender body and sent fat tears coursing down her dirty cheeks. “I just got it changed when I saw eyes, big glowing yellow eyes staring at me from the trees. And then it screamed. Oh, Frasier, you can’t imagine that scream! Far worse than anything in the bloodiest horror movie!”