Читать книгу A Holiday to Remember - Lynnette Kent - Страница 8

Chris Hammond had never thought of himself as a stalker.

But he needed to get another look at the face of the woman who’d entered the coffee shop just as he was leaving. They’d danced together on the threshold for a few seconds, trying to get out of each other’s way. He’d backed up, finally, and held the door open for her. With a quick smile and a “Happy Holidays,” she’d headed inside as Chris stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Now he turned toward the wide front window to find her again. The service counter ran across the back of the room, so all he could see of his quarry was an auburn ponytail fanned over the back of a heavy gray coat appropriate for the subfreezing mountain weather.

Maybe the hair had triggered his memory. A long time ago he’d known a girl with a mane in that same polished mahogany color, with the same extravagant curls. He’d been a kid then, but coming back to Ridgeville, North Carolina, had brought those days closer to the surface.

That’s why he hadn’t been here in over a decade.

Chris didn’t think the hair was the only resemblance, though. Something about her face had seemed familiar enough to stop his heartbeat for a second or two. He wanted to be sure he was wrong about recognizing those hazel eyes, the lightly freckled cheeks and pointed chin. Then he could finish grocery shopping for his granddad with a clear head.

So he lingered in front of the adjacent hardware store next to the coffee shop, waiting for the woman and hoping like hell she wasn’t meeting a gaggle of friends for an hour’s gossip over coffee. He’d have frozen to death by then, despite his new down-filled jacket. His last assignment, in equatorial Africa, had left him with a poor tolerance for cold.

Every time the bell on the shop door tinkled, he glanced that way from beneath the lowered brim of his baseball cap. Six times he was disappointed, but seven had always been his lucky number and proved so yet again—he saw the gray sleeve of her coat as she pushed the door open.

He tipped his hat back, wanting to get a good look as she approached. The coffee place was the last business at this end of Main Street. Surely she would come his way.

Instead, the woman walked straight to the curb, showing him only her profile. She checked both ways for traffic before stepping into the street, but he missed seeing her full face because that one glimpse of her tip-tilted nose and full lower lip had left him gasping for air, like he’d been sucker punched.

Such a likeness couldn’t be an accident. What the hell was going on?

Using instincts refined by ten years spent in war zones around the world, Chris followed her. Chaos had replaced logic in his brain. He knew only two things. One—dead people did not come back to life. He’d seen enough of them to be absolutely certain of that. So she couldn’t be the person he thought she was. But just in case…

Two—he wouldn’t get a decent night’s sleep until he made damn sure he’d never met this woman before.

WITH EVERY PASSING MINUTE, Jayne Thomas became more convinced. And concerned.

She was being stalked.

She’d noticed him first at Beautiful Beans, when she was going in as he came out. Well, what woman wouldn’t notice him? Big, but not in the least fat, graceful yet at the same time unquestionably male, with piercing blue eyes and light brown hair curling at his temples and the nape of his neck. A respectable stubble of beard shadowed his square chin and sensual mouth. The man was, in the vernacular of her students, seriously hot.

Headmistresses of private schools did not deal in seriously hot men, however, so she’d resisted the impulse to invite him back into the shop for more coffee. Anyway, she had errands to run. She’d just wanted to warm up first.

As she waited her turn to order, though, she’d felt an itching between her shoulder blades. A backward glance had shown her the same man, now standing on the sidewalk, staring inside from underneath the brim of a Yankees baseball cap.

Surely not at her, though. She wasn’t the type to draw attention from a man who could take his pick of the beautiful women in any room he entered. Especially here in Ridgeville, Jayne noted, as one of the young women seated at a table sent him a wink through the window, then pouted when he didn’t notice.

Leaving the coffee shop, Jayne saw the man again, in front of Gibbs’s Hardware. Waiting to take advantage of that flirtatious wink, after all?

No, because he followed her across the street and into Woolgathering. He did not look like the knitting type, but he appeared fascinated by the different wools along every aisle she visited. Though he never addressed her directly, time and time again Jayne felt the burn of his gaze.

Finally, she ducked into the back corner and cowered behind the mohair display, hoping to wait him out. As a result, she spent too much on needles and wool for a sweater she wouldn’t have time to work on over the school’s winter break. At least he’d left when she emerged.

He turned up again in Miller’s Candy Kitchen about five minutes after she walked in. A coincidence, maybe, since the yarn shop was right next door. Then Jayne recrossed Main Street and stepped into Angela’s Art Supplies and Gallery. The blue-eyed stranger appeared in the wide front window only seconds later, apparently consumed with interest in a papier-mâché crèche from Italy.

“He’s waiting for me to come out,” Jayne told Angela, as they pretended to examine the art pencils. “What am I going to do?”

“Leave by the back door,” Angela suggested, in her precise English accent. “Give him the slip, so to speak.”

She nodded. “Of course.” She squeezed Angela’s elbow with gratitude and made her getaway, hurrying along the alley behind the string of businesses to her real destination, Kringle’s Toy Store.

Sitting at his desk in the back room, Mr. Kringle looked up from his account books as she slipped in the rear entrance. “A welcome, if unconventional, arrival,” he said. “What can I do for you today, Miss Thomas?”

“I have five students staying at school over the break, and I want to have some new, enjoyable activities to keep them occupied.”

“Of course.” His German accent and courtly manner soothed her agitation. “I have just what you’re searching for.” He led the way to a shelf filled with bright holiday-themed boxes.

“These are the finest crackers I could order.” He picked up a box with a cellophane window that showed one of the paper-and-cardboard containers called “crackers” in England. “Each contains a selection of candies and a variety of prizes—jewelry, games and so forth.” He made a motion with his hands, as if pulling on the two ends of the cracker. “And a delicious pop! when they are opened.” He leaned closer to whisper, “I tried one myself.”

“They’re lovely. But…” Jayne shook her head. “We don’t make a fuss over the holidays. The girls tend to get homesick, even if they chose to stay at school, and celebrating makes them feel worse. I’ll just look around for a while. We’ll need games to fill the time, maybe some paint-by-number kits and puzzles. I want to keep them too busy to mope.”

Mr. Kringle smoothed his long brown mustache. “It’s a good thing you do. These girls are lucky they have you to care for them.”

Jayne smiled at him, then spent an hour choosing diversions for her winter break boarders. As headmistress of the Hawkridge School, and with no family of her own, she stayed over the vacations with those students who would not be going home. Hawkridge provided a last resort for teenagers with emotional problems that threatened to ruin the rest of their lives through drug addiction, alcoholism, risky sexual involvements and other dangerous behaviors. Given the temptations offered by the holiday season, some parents couldn’t face the prospect of coping with challenges not yet resolved. Less often, a girl would rather remain at school than return to an abusive or uncomfortable home.

Without exception, however, these troubled girls needed the haven. Hawkridge had never had a student fail to come back from the winter break.

With her purchases stowed in two heavy shopping bags, Jayne wished Mr. Kringle a Happy Hanukkah in response to his “Merry Christmas” as he opened the front door for her. Pausing in the sheltered entryway, she shifted one of the bags to her left hand, then turned to head up the sidewalk toward her car.

“Took you long enough.”

Jayne gasped and jerked her head up. The stalker stood in front of her, blocking her way. She’d put him out of her mind in the cheery atmosphere of the toy shop. Now he loomed over her, seeming bigger than before, definitely more threatening. He wasn’t smiling.

“Got a lot of kids to buy presents for, I guess?” His smooth, deep voice held an undercurrent of anger.

Chills shuddered down her spine, spreading fear to the tips of her fingers and the soles of her feet. The wind felt colder than it had earlier this morning. Main Street seemed more deserted.

But when she glanced around, Jayne saw that she erred in her impression of emptiness. There were still plenty of people going in and out of the stores nearby. No one could hurt her with all these folks watching.

The knowledge stiffened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Yes, I do. Why are you following me?”

Instead of answering, he stared at her face. Jayne glared back at him while tightening her grip on the shopping bags. They were heavy enough to serve as weapons if she needed them.

“Jayne Thomas,” he said, finally. “You say that’s your name?”

“Yes. Why are you following me?”

He shook his head once, as if clearing a fly away. “Are you from Ridgeville?”

Her fear was giving way to irritation. “I don’t owe you any information whatsoever. Certainly not until you identify yourself and what you want. Why are you following me?” She raised her voice this time, hoping to get the attention of someone nearby.

The man grabbed her upper arm and jerked her toward him. “Have you always lived here?” The set of his jaw hinted at violence.

Her heart pounded. “I—”

“Trouble, Miz Thomas?” Steve Greeley, one of the county’s deputy sheriffs, came up beside her. “What’s going on?”

The grip on her arm fell away. “Nothing,” the stranger said. “I thought Miss Thomas was an old friend.”

Jayne gazed at him through narrowed eyes. “You were wrong. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

After a moment, one side of his mouth twitched into a half smile. His gaze, however, remained steely. “Sorry. You look just like…well, somebody else.” He glanced at Deputy Greeley. “I’m Chris Hammond, Charlie Hammond’s grandson. I’ll be staying with him for a few days. That’s my bike on the other side of the street. You can watch me out of sight.”

“I’ll do that,” Greeley promised.

Jayne, too, observed as Chris Hammond crossed Main Street and walked down the hill to a huge motorcycle parked at the curb. Black and chrome, the bike seemed to take up as much space as her own Jeep. The roar, as he fired the engine, rolled through her like an earthquake.

The noise died away once the bike topped the hill and headed down the other side. Steve turned to Jayne. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m just fine. He worried me a little, following me around town. But if I looked like someone he knew, I guess that makes sense.” She hunched her shoulders and relaxed them again. “I’d better get these bags to the car. My arms are starting to stretch.”

“Here, let me.” The deputy took the bags, walked with her to the Jeep and stowed them in the backseat. “Do you have anywhere else you need to shop, Jayne? I could go with you, in case that weirdo comes back.”

“No, thanks. I’ve got to head back to the school. Tonight is our official end of term dinner—tomorrow the students leave for winter break.”

“Well, y’all have a good evening, then.” He slapped the hood of the Jeep. “There’s snow coming, you know. Better put chains on your tires.”

Jayne nodded. “A fairly big storm, from what the weather report said. We might get six or eight inches.”

“I heard a foot,” Steve said. “I’ll drive by and check on you over vacation, be sure everybody’s doing well.”

“I appreciate it.” Jayne lied with a smile, then put the Jeep into gear. Steve’s personal interest was getting harder to discourage, though she couldn’t help being grateful he’d stepped in this afternoon. Who knew what might have happened if the stranger had kept hold of her?

But he wasn’t a stranger now. He had a name—Chris Hammond, grandson to Charlie Hammond. Neither name seemed the least bit familiar. But he had asked if she grew up in Ridgeville, which implied that the person she resembled had lived here. No one else in town had ever mentioned that she looked like someone they knew. Maybe Mr. Hammond was mistaken. Delusional. Drunk.

No, he hadn’t been intoxicated. She would have smelled alcohol on his breath, they’d been that close. But Chris Hammond had smelled of soap and fresh air. She’d felt his body heat as she stared up at him for that moment, and sensed the strength in his hand. Strangely, she could still feel his touch, like a band of tender skin around her upper arm.

Though he seemed harsh, with his unruly hair and stubbled cheeks, she’d seen something desperate and sad in his eyes. Bedroom eyes, her grandmother would have called them, with those lazy, drooping lids. He had a beautiful mouth. His smile would be intriguing. Irresistible.

She was so caught up in her thoughts she almost missed the school entrance, braking hard to avoid cruising right by.

“Since when do you spend time daydreaming about men?” she asked herself, slowing down for the drive through the forest surrounding the Hawkridge School. “You don’t have time for romance, even the imaginary kind.”

She’d seen three of her teachers fall deeply in love this past year, which probably accounted for the unusual direction her thoughts had taken. As the headmistress of a school housing three hundred girls, each with her own set of problems, plus the staff and faculty required to deal with those students, Jayne rarely had a spare moment to herself. She didn’t waste time wondering about a different life or a family of her own. As far as she was concerned, Hawkridge gave her plenty of family and numerous children to look after. Getting involved with a man would simply mean another set of needs to meet.

And the one commodity she would not run out of anytime soon was needs to be met.

Her secretary accosted her as she walked in the door from the staff parking lot. “They’ve upgraded that snowstorm—we’re in for eighteen inches, at least. Starting tomorrow night.”

Jayne nodded. “E-mail all the parents and advise them to be here early, so they can be out of the mountains by noon. Ask them to reply at once, and call any you haven’t heard from by midnight or can’t reach via the Web.”

One of the kitchen staff knocked on Jayne’s office door before she’d had a chance to take off her coat. “Cook says the market shorted her on the roast beef order. Even accounting for vegetarians, the portions won’t stretch to cover all the girls and teachers.” The traditional Hawkridge end of term dinner featured roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, so this tragedy assumed immense proportions in the kitchen.

Jayne would have settled for a bowl of soup. But she gave the issue a moment’s consideration. “Does she have chicken?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ask her to serve chicken to the head table, and present a platter of chicken to the girls’ tables along with the beef.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Three girls appeared in the outer office, needing to consult with the headmistress over an incident of name-calling and missing bubble bath. Two teachers wanted to discuss a discipline problem. Her secretary returned with the news that one set of parents and one guardian grandfather had called to say they couldn’t possibly pick up their daughters before the snow started, and they’d decided to wait the storm out at a luxury hotel in Asheville, an hour away.

Jayne dropped back into her chair. “Terrific. Two more girls for the break. Who are they?”

“Monique Law and Taryn Gage.”

“Ah.” Monique, a junior, had waged a private war with beer and cocaine since before arriving at Hawkridge two years ago. She managed well as long as she stayed at school, but when she went home, the local crowd and its addictions consumed her. Maybe a snow-enforced vacation at school would help her break the cycle.

Taryn, one of their new students this year, had already been isolated in the infirmary three times as a result of her temper tantrums. The abusive home environment she’d been rescued from explained her rage, but she would have to learn to handle that anger without violence.

Jayne got to her feet as the warning bell for dinner rang. “I might have more of a challenge on my hands than I realized, staying here alone with seven girls. Do you suppose there’s someone else on staff who has no plans for the holiday and would like to help?”

Her secretary pulled a doubtful frown. Jayne nodded. “Right. I didn’t think so. Well, I’ll worry about that later. First, the faculty procession into dinner.”

Standing at the head of the double line of teachers, she allowed herself an appeal for assistance from a higher power. “I could use some backup, here. I can’t do everything myself.” As she passed between the rows of tables in the dining hall, she saw girls eyeing the platter of chicken with doubt.

“Please,” she murmured, with a harried glance heavenward. “At least make the chicken taste good.”

“DAMN FOOL, that’s what you are, going out in the snow.”

Wrapping a scarf around his neck, Chris smiled to himself. “It’s not snowing yet, Charlie. The weather report says the snow won’t even start till after dark.”

“What do they know? I’ve lived my whole life in these mountains and I tell you it’ll be coming down hard and fast by four at the latest.” Still with a full head of hair, gray now instead of brown, his grandfather scowled at him.

“Well, I should be back here long before the roads get bad. I just want to ask some questions.” He’d told Charlie about yesterday’s encounter.

“You showed me that picture on your phone and, yeah, she does look like Juliet. But don’t you think I would have heard if Juliet Radcliffe had returned? There’s been neither hide nor hair of that girl seen around here since the two of you crashed up on the mountain.” The old man grabbed Chris above the elbow and stared at him through round, rimless glasses. “She died that night, Christopher. You’ve known it for twelve years. Why would you suddenly start doubting?”

Chris patted the chilly fingers. “Because…because I feel it. There’s something in this woman’s face that I know as well as I know my own. And she’s so close to what Juliet might have looked like now. How could that be?”

“They say everybody has a double.” Still as tall as ever but on the thin side, after losing fifty pounds to illness, Charlie looked even older than his seventy-eight years.

“Maybe. But in the same North Carolina mountain town? Not likely.” He grabbed his helmet off the kitchen table and turned to look at his granddad’s worried face. “I’ll be back for dinner. Put that meat loaf I bought at the market in the oven with a couple of potatoes. We’ll have a good meal, a few beers and watch the ball game on TV. Okay?”

Charlie growled low in his throat. “You’re asking for trouble.”

That, Chris thought as he fired up the Harley, was probably true. If this Jayne Thomas wasn’t who he thought, she might call the Ridgeville police on him. Or the sheriff’s department, with Deputy High-and-Mighty. He might end up spending Christmas in jail instead of hanging out with his dying grandfather, storing up memories for when Charlie was gone.

If she was Juliet Radcliffe…well, then he had questions to ask. And he wouldn’t be leaving her alone until he got the answers.

The drive to Hawkridge School took him fifteen miles along winding, two-lane mountain roads bordered by dark evergreens and bare hardwood trees. Heavy, ash-colored clouds blocked the sun, creating an early twilight. True to Charlie’s prediction, snow began to dust the pavement only a couple of miles out of Ridgeville.

Chris grinned as he watched the small white flakes sifting over the surrounding forest. He’d always loved spending Christmas here in the Smoky Mountains with Charlie. Not every Christmas had been a white one, but he recalled streaking down the hill behind Charlie’s cabin on a blue plastic disk sled, hearing Juliet scream as she flew beside him, and then the two of them landing in a tumbled heap in the drifts at the bottom. They’d emerged breathless, crying with laughter, then picked up their sleds and trudged back to the top to do it all over again. Charlie had resorted to bribing them with food to get them inside for even a few minutes.

Chris shook off his memories to realize the snow had picked up and was beginning to coat the road. In the next moment, he saw tall iron gates and a sign flash by—The Hawkridge School.

Damn, he’d missed the entrance.

A set of switchbacks took him farther up the mountain, but then came a long, straight stretch of road suitable for a U-turn. With no traffic in sight, Chris eased the bike around and headed back the way he’d come, slower this time and with his mind on his driving.

The trees along the hairpin curves arched out over the road, blocking most of the snow and also the waning light, until he might as well be driving at night. He’d worn a sweater under his leather jacket, plus a scarf, knit cap and gloves with liners. But even the leather chaps over his jeans didn’t cut the frigid wind. His knees and thighs felt like blocks of ice. Inside heavy boots and wool socks, his toes could have been chipped off with an ice pick.

Because of the cold or the darkness, or both, the entrance again came up faster than he expected. Chris started the turn too late, too sharply, just as the tires slipped on the slick asphalt.

He muttered a single swear word.

The bike tilted, then fell over, sliding sideways with Chris’s leg pinned underneath. Metal screamed, and he got a glimpse of approaching tree trunks on the other side of empty space. He had just enough time to send up a fervent prayer before wood started to splinter. Then the world went black.