“I… well, thank you.” Annie tucked the piece of paper into her pocket. Despite herself, she returned his smile. “No, seriously, thank you. The bed at Sally’s had about thirty embroidered cushions too many.”
“Yeah, well”—Jake came around the desk—“my mom likes to knit so I can’t promise there won’t be afghans stacked up to the ceiling.”
Annie drummed her fingers on the brim of her hat again. Officer Friendly was standing about four inches too close. “I guess I’d better walk back to the bed-and-breakfast to check out, unless there’s anything urgent I need to do here before I go?”
“Call came in yesterday, actually.” Jake reached for a set of keys hanging from a nail on the wall. “You know what, I’ll tell you about it on the way. I better head over there with you and help you find the house, just in case. It’s about time for lunch anyhow, and Mom’s baking a strawberry-rhubarb pie. It’ll be the best thing you’ve ever tasted, I guarantee it.”
Jake strode to the door and held it open with an arm. Annie stepped past him, pulling her hat back down over her hair with a stiff tug. She didn’t want to be prickly, but just about the last thing she needed right now was a man,anyman, sidling up to her like they were best buddies.
Outside, the drizzle had lightened into mist, and Annie turned toward the north end of town where filmy tendrils of fog were scraping the dark pines that topped the foothills. The mountain was cloaked, but she could feel it there, pulling her awareness beyond that last, hazy ridge of firs.
“So, where are you from?” Jake asked as she fell into step beside him.
“Bend.”
Jake’s shoulder brushed hers, and Annie took a sideways step, clearing her throat. “You said a call came in yesterday?”
“Yeah, Austin Smith, buddy of mine. He’s the sheriff up in Landers. He called to let me know about an active cougar up there. It’s working its way south along the mountain, and he figures it’s maybe five miles north of us now. Couple of campers up near Warner Lake lost a blue heeler to it Sunday night. He said they heard the dog scrapping with it, but by the time they got their flashlights on, it was gone. Great big prints left behind though.” Jake held up both index fingers to indicate the size.
“Is it tagged?”
Jake shook his head. “Fish and Wildlife up there tried, but they couldn’t manage to trap it. Austin said it’s south of the 504 now, so if it’s gonna get done, it’s up to us.”
Annie nodded, already running down the mental checklist of preparations she’d need to make for tracking the big cat. This was good. It was something to do. Something to occupy her mind and keep her thoughts here in town and out of the black hole of her memories in Bend.
“No human attacks reported?”
Jake shook his head. “Nothing fatal, but I guess a hunter up there claimed it charged him before he fired his rifle and scared it back into the trees. Given that, Austin said the sooner it’s tracked down and tagged, the better. Hey, how you doing, Mr. Lindgren?”
Jake stopped for a handshake with a white-haired man sitting on a bench outside the Lake Lumin General Store, and Annie stood on the curb, waiting. With growing unease, she tried to ignore the curious eyes sliding in her direction as a few patrons passed in and out of the door.
Thanks to Sally at the bed-and-breakfast, Annie now knew that Lake Lumin had a population of 836, a number that instantly stuck fast in her head due to the absolute absurdity of it. There had been almost double that number of kids in her high school alone, and even then, the school had seemed far too small, a petri dish of students who knew too much about one another. Every embarrassment, every rumor, every secret, had been shared with the collective whole, but this was a town, an entiretownof less than nine hundred, and she, with her five-foot-ten frame, long copper braid, and crisp uniform, was sticking out like a sore thumb. She’d lived in Bend for twenty-eight years, her entire life, and now, for the first time, she was the outsider.
Jake patted the man’s stooped shoulder and started moving down the sidewalk beside her again. When they reached the bed-and-breakfast, he waited at the front desk with Sally while Annie jogged upstairs to gather her things. Even with the door closed, she could hear the cadence of his quick speech and ready laughter, and Sally’s answering chuckles. Annie rolled her eyes. The guy was a cartoon.
Packing didn’t take long. Most of her belongings were still in the Jeep. Actually,mostof her belongings were in a storage facility in Bend, but the bulk of what she’d brought with her—clothes, her pack, some equipment, and a few framed photographs—were still in the Jeep. Annie tucked her nightclothes into her duffel and met Jake downstairs. Together, they walked down the hill to the car.
The morning mist was lifting, and small patches of bold, blue sky shifted in the haze overhead as they drove through town. Annie had to admit, the place had charm. Quaint shops in faded hues of green, brown, and blue squatted beneath towering Douglas firs, and the entire length of Main Street, less than half a mile as she’d measured it by theJeep’s odometer yesterday, looked as though it had grown spontaneously in the forest, popping up like a ring of mushrooms after a rain.
Jake talked so constantly that Annie wondered how he managed to breathe as he pointed toward buildings and people and rattled off a brief history of each. Mountain Fountains and Chimes had several colorful birdbaths for sale out front and was owned by a married pair of bird enthusiasts named Ben and Delores Gannon. The Lake Lumin Zoomin’ Go-Kart Track, which weaved a pretty, kidney-bean-shaped loop through a patch of woods tucked back from the street, seemed to be the popular hangout for high schoolers this spring, though Jake was sure they’d migrate to the community pool when the weather got warmer.
He told Annie that the pool was drained for most of the year, and that his primary duty as the town’s lone police officer was to check it between the hours of midnight and 3:00 a.m. for teenagers huddling over bottles of Olde English or making out. Annie nodded along, following his rambling train of speech, but just barely.
When they reached the end of Main Street, they left the buildings of town behind and turned north onto a thickly wooded two-lane road that snaked toward the mountain. Two miles later, Jake angled a finger at a tilted road marker.
“Lake Lumin Road,” he announced.
Annie was grateful that he’d pointed it out. She would have flown right past the green sign half hidden behind the arm of a leafy maple.
She slowed the Jeep as they jostled over uneven dirt, the motor revving up stairstepping hills that rolled with the land. The higher they rose, the denser the woods that pressed in alongside the road. The forest here seemed older, and it was even lovelier than the wilderness on the drive in. Annie had the sudden sense that she was at the heart of it, the flawless center of the diamond, with the last vines of fog still lingering at the edges of blue shadows, and shafts of sunlight breaking through the canopy.
“Whatisthis place?” she breathed.
Jake turned to her, smiling. “This is the briars, Annie. Most beautiful pocket of land in this corner of the state, if you ask me. I haven’t been awhole lot of places, but I’ve never seen anything to rival this road right here. The whole other side of the mountain used to look like this, too, before it blew. We used to camp over there when I was a kid, but now it’s completely brown and bare. The blast didn’t spare so much as a blade of grass, but it’ll grow back in time. Honestly, though, if she had to blow, that was the direction to do it in. Least amount of damage as far as human life was concerned.”
Annie nodded. Eventually, she’d want to get over to see the ruined side of the mountain, too, but for right now, she was content to just look at the undisturbed beauty around her. It was pristine. Untamed. And already, just bouncing over the potholes on this remote road with the Washington wilderness surrounding her like an embrace, the sharp edges of her broken heart seemed a little less jagged.
“Roll your window down,” Jake instructed, still smiling.
