Northwest: Deep Freeze Part 13

Jenna was left staring at Harrison Brennan. "Listen, I'm sorry if I flipped out. I know you're just trying to help, but I'm really trying to make it on my own. You're right-sometimes I do have to call in the reserves, and I appreciate everything you did for me."

"But," he said, a vein starting to throb in his forehead. "I sense a 'but' coming along."

She shoved an errant hair out of her eyes. "But I can't have you running my life or paying my bills, or-"

"The guy owed me," Harrison cut in. The remnants of his smile disappeared completely. He was suddenly stern. All business. Contained fury evident in his rigid stance. The muscles of his jaw worked involuntarily, and she sensed that she'd insulted his manhood. Which was ridiculous.

Men!

"If you want to pay Whitaker yourself, hire him another time," Harrison said. "But for today, we're even. All of us. That was the deal I had with him. Let's keep it neat and tidy. In the future, you can work out anything you want with him or me, but I'll never take any money from you for helping out."

"Fair enough," she said, surrendering. For the moment. She glanced at the counter and the half-made sandwiches her kids had rejected. She motioned to the cutting board. "Soooo...how about a roast beef on sourdough for all your trouble?"

"Deal," he said, and brightened as she finished placing slices of beef, dill pickles, and onion on the bread. An image of June Cleaver in pearls and a full skirt flitted through her mind, but she pushed it aside. For the moment there was peace in the house, and the promise of running water. Who could ask for anything more?

CHAPTER 11.

Half an hour later, Harrison was setting his plate in the sink when he looked out the window. His silvery eyebrows slammed together, his face muscles tightened even more. "Looks like you've got company," he said.

"Oh, right," Jenna said. "Allie's having a girlfriend spend the night."

Harrison's lips compressed as he watched Travis Settler hop to the snow-crusted ground. A second later, his daughter, Dani, landed beside him.

"I'd better shove off." He was already slipping his arms into his jacket and making his way to the back door.

"Oh, well, thanks again," she said, as Harrison slid into his boots and started off to Seth Whitaker's truck. Jenna saw him nod curtly to Travis just as feet clattered on the stairs and Allie ran pell-mell out the back door. Without a coat.

Jenna snagged her ski jacket from the back of the kitchen chair just as Dani and Allie burst into the room. They were laughing and giggling and racing each other up the stairs. "Can we have nachos?" Allie called over her shoulder, but didn't wait for a response.

A second later, Travis slid through the open door. "You can tell that they're all broken up about not going to school tomorrow."

Jenna grinned. "I used to love it, too."

"You had snow days in L.A.?"

"No." She shook her head and laughed. "I grew up just outside of Seattle. I remember getting together with my girlfriends and sending up group prayers for snow."

"Did it work?"

"Rarely, and never when a major a.s.signment that I'd forgotten was due." She heard the rumble of a truck's engine and saw Seth Whitaker's rig backing up.

"Did I chase away your company?"

"Nah," she said, but wondered if she were lying. The pa.s.senger side of the big rig was visible, and Harrison Brennan was sitting stiffly inside while staring straight ahead. Or was he? He was too far away to tell, but she thought she caught him watching the house from the side-view mirror. Stop it! You're imagining things! He's just a nice neighbor trying to help out.

"Something wrong?" Travis asked, and Jenna was suddenly aware that he was standing near the table and staring at her.

"No...sorry...I guess I've been caught up in my problems."

"Something I can help you with?" He seemed earnest, his blue eyes tinged with worry.

"Sure. How about conjuring up hot sand, aquamarine surf, lots of palm trees...and oh, yeah, don't forget it should be ninety degrees in the shade."

"Can I throw in a couple of margaritas?" he asked.

"Only if they're blended and doubles."

"Man, your fantasies are pretty d.a.m.ned specific."

"Why dream if you don't know what you want?" she tossed back and felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.

"Do you? Know what you want?"

"Mmm." She nodded. "Most of the time. You?"

"I thought I did...a long time ago." He lifted a shoulder. "Now I'm not so sure." He seemed about to say more, but thought better of it, his smile fading and the warmth in his eyes suddenly chased by something cold and secret. "I'd better shove off," he said. "Dani told me I shouldn't overstay my welcome. Something about 'letting her have her s.p.a.ce.' Call me if she's a problem."

"She won't be."

"Or if you feel stranded out here." He looked out the window to the rolling acres edged in old-growth timber. "You're a little isolated."

"We'll be fine," she a.s.sured him, though his last words gave her pause. She'd chosen this place precisely for its remote location, but now, watching him walk to his rig, the snow slanting from the sky, the wind blowing wildly down the gorge, she wondered if she'd made a mistake. As he climbed into the cab she resisted the urge to run outside, flag him down, and beg him to stay, to admit that she wasn't as strong as she appeared, that she liked the thought of another adult, a man, around when the forces of nature were so raw and threatening.

But she didn't.

Wouldn't admit that she couldn't handle things on her own.

She felt a chill and rubbed her arms as he drove down the lane, his tires spinning in the rapidly piling snow, his headlights cutting across the white expanse of drifts.

The phone rang and she reached for the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said, but no one answered. "h.e.l.lo?" She heard the crackle of static, as if there were a bad cell connection, and something muted, something soft and melodic, like a song she should remember. "h.e.l.lo? If you're there I can't hear you," she said strongly. "Call back."

She hung up and waited.

But no call came through.

The telephone remained silent and the house, too, seemed unnaturally quiet. The usual sounds-the hum of the refrigerator, the rumble of the furnace, the faint whisper from a television upstairs, were muted by the shriek of the wind that rattled the loose panes in an attic window. The lights quivered once more and Jenna swallowed hard as she realized what she'd heard on the phone. Not only had someone definitely been on the line, but the nearly indistinct melody she'd heard was the theme song from White Out, the last film she'd made, the film that had never been released. Though the theme song had become a hit, White Out had become a disaster of a project that had destroyed her marriage and killed her sister.

Now, she took a step backward. She caught sight of her ghost-like image in the windowpane and for a second she saw Jill. Beautiful, innocent Jill, whose physical appearance had been so much like Jenna's they'd sometimes been mistaken for twins. Now dead.

Because of you.

She felt her eyes burn with the memory of thousands of tons of snow cascading in a deadly roar down the mountainside.

You should have died, not your sister.

The recriminations reverberated through her brain, just as they had for years. "Oh, G.o.d," Jenna whispered, stumbling backward against a chair in the nook. The chair screeched against the hardwood floor, and Jenna managed to catch herself, though the strains from White Out's theme song whispered through her mind. Who had called her and why had they played that music?

You're not sure they did. You really couldn't hear. It might have been some other song altogether. Or crossed wires. Look at the storm! There could be a glitch in the phone system. You're imagining things, Jenna.

Quickly she picked up the receiver and read the caller ID message-private number. "d.a.m.n." She dialed *69, hoping to hear the name of the last caller, but the recorded message repeated what caller ID had told her. Whoever had phoned remained anonymous.

Intentionally?

Or because he was hiding?

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h," she hissed, slamming down the receiver and trembling inside.

She tried to tell herself she was overreacting. That nothing was wrong. That her all-too-vivid imagination was running away with her.

But, of course, she knew she was lying to herself.

Again.

"Get a grip," she ordered, but knew that tonight, holding on to her frazzled emotions would prove impossible.

She was there, just on the other side of the frigid gla.s.s. Not as beautiful as Jenna Hughes, but enough like her that as he stared past the red and blue neon of a sizzling beer sign, he imagined she would do. Her body was about the same size, pet.i.te, though her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were smaller and her hips not quite rounded the same way. But close enough...for now. She was a blonde, but her hair color was unnatural, darker roots indicating that she'd been born brunette, but her hair was not as dark as Jenna's black waves. Not that it mattered, he told himself, watching as she bussed her own tables, wiped her hands nervously on her ap.r.o.n, and glanced often to the windows and the raging storm.

As if she knew he was there.

As if she understood that her destiny lay in the dark, frigid night.

He smiled and felt a thrill zing through his bloodstream, an impulse so cold it reminded him of other times...of a faraway youth and an ice-crusted lake, of freezing water was.h.i.+ng over his skin, of a s.h.i.+vering girl and dark, deadly water...images of long ago. For the briefest of seconds he closed his eyes and thought not of the past but to the future. His imagination ran with him, called to him, painted vividly erotic images of the woman inside the diner...Faye...yes, Faye Tyler of Bystander-that's who she was, hiding out here under an a.s.sumed name...

Beautiful.

s.e.xy.

Perfect.

Like Jenna.

Her name rang with the clarity of church bells through his mind and he licked his lips, feeling the cold upon his skin as he imagined her. Ached for her.

Jenna.

She was the one.

Like no other.

And tonight, through this other woman, this pale replica, she would be his.

CHAPTER 12.

You should never drink alone.

Isn't that what they say? Whoever they are.

Too bad. Jenna had just had one h.e.l.luva day and she decided a cup of decaf coffee laced with a bit of Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream wouldn't kill her. She spied the aerosol whipped cream in the refrigerator and couldn't resist. "In for a penny," she told herself as she added a dollop of cream to her cup, then topped it all off with a dash of chocolate sprinkles. If her trainer Ron ever found out, he'd punish her with extra minutes on the treadmill, but so what? He was, after all, only twenty-six and certainly didn't know about the soothing effects of chocolate and alcohol when it came to times of stress. Which this definitely was.

"Right?" she said to the dog, who had settled into his favorite spot under the table. Critter, if nothing else, was optimistic when it came to the thought of sc.r.a.ps being surrept.i.tiously slipped in his direction. His tail thumped loudly on the floor as Jenna sat on a chair and pawed through her bag for the mail she'd picked up earlier. With everything else that had happened in her life today, she'd forgotten about the mail until just this moment. The girls had devoured pizza, salad, and ice cream and were upstairs in their rooms while Jenna contemplated a long, hot bath in the Jacuzzi.

As she sipped her drink, she sorted through the magazines, bills, and advertis.e.m.e.nts that had collected in her post office box during the last week. Until she came to the hand-addressed envelope. Her name was written in precise block letters and there was no return address. Using a letter opener, she slit the envelope open and noted that the postmark was Portland.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

A unique, single sheet of paper upon which was a short love poem, the words superimposed over a pale image of Jenna wearing a black sheath with a beaded neckline, a picture taken of her on the set of Resurrection. It had been a publicity shot taken of her in the role of the coolly seductive and psychotic killer, Anne Parks.

You are every woman.

Sensual. Strong. Erotic

You are one woman.

Searching. Wanting. Waiting.