Watcher in the Woods: A Rockton Novel Page 3

“Your English is fine, Mathias, but if you’re having trouble comprehending. +Put down the damned dog en francais+”

  “Loup chien. And his name is Raoul.”

  “Did he say . . wolf-dog?” April says.

  “Ah, she does speak French. Excellent.”

  “She understands it,” I say. “She won’t speak it. Now take that damn—”

  He covers the cub’s ears and lays him on a blanket. “I have not yet decided upon a suitable sitter.”

  “I can hold him for you,” Kenny says with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Sadly, that would, I fear be unhygienic. He will stay in his corner and sleep. But when we are finished here, I would like the doctor to take a look at his leg.” Mathias moves to the operating table. “It was caught in a snare. Casey did an excellent nursing job, but I would appreciate your opinion, Casey’s-sister. When surgery is over, of course.”

  “I’m not a veterinarian,” April says.

  “The cub will not mind.”

  “Mathias?” I point to the operating table.

  The cub pitches to his feet and toddles after Mathias.

  Dalton scoops up the canine. “I’ll take him on my rounds.”

  “Excellent idea,” Mathias says. “He requires socialization to enhance his dog nature. Not too much, though. It would not befit my carefully crafted personae to have a friendly wolf-dog.”

  Dalton shakes his head and leaves.

  “Can we start now?” I ask.

  “I will scrub in,” Mathias says.

  April nods at Mathias as he crosses the room. “I take it he’s your psychiatrist.”

  “Non,” Mathias says. “Casey does not require a psychiatrist. An occasional therapist perhaps, but we all do at times. My specialty is psychopathy and sociopathy, with the occasional borderline personality thrown in for good measure, but only if he has committed the requisite number of atrocities. I have very exacting standards.”

  “Mathias?” I say. “Scrub.”

  “Have you ever conducted surgery?” April asks him.

  “Not medically. However, I am the town butcher.”

  “Yeah,” Kenny says. “No offense, doc, but I think we’ll let Casey’s sister do the cutting.”

  “I cut very well,” Mathias says. “And the human anatomy is not so different from—”

  “Mathias?” I say. “Stop freaking out the patient. April is the surgeon. Will is assisting. You’re the gopher.”

  “Gopher? That is rather degrading. What are you doing?”

  “I’ll be playing anesthetist today. Unless you plan want to talk him to sleep. Now go scrub up while I put Kenny down.”

  I catch Kenny’s look.

  “Under,” I say as Anders chuckles. “I mean put you under. Sorry.”

  April sighs, and we begin.

  FOUR

  The bullet is out. And right now, that’s all we can say.

  “The bullet had shifted,” April says as we’re cleaning up. “There is still a possibility of permanent damage, and if that is the case, it is due to the movement of the bullet before I arrived.”

  “No one’s going to blame you if Kenny isn’t up and running tomorrow,” Anders says. “We know how delicate an operation that was, and it went perfectly. Anything after this is because of unavoidable shifts in the bullet’s location.”

  “They were not unavoidable,” she says, and I wince behind Anders.

  She continues. “The patient should have been kept immobile after the bullet struck. I realize that he had to be transported, but proper precautions were not taken.”

  When Anders tenses, I jump in with, “We did what we could, April. And the patient’s name is Kenny.”

  “The fault might also be his own,” she says. “He did not ensure his own immobility.”

  “You’re blaming—?” I begin.

  “April,” Mathias extends his hand. “On behalf of Rockton, we would like to thank you for your fine work. Will you be leaving soon? We can take matters from here, and I am certain you have work—very important work—to continue back home.”

  April blinks, taken aback.

  “Eric will fly her out Monday,” I say. “That gives Kenny time to wake up and, with any luck, the swelling will go down enough for April to evaluate his condition before she leaves.” I turn to my sister. “You’ll be staying in my old house. Will is going to escort you through the woods. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  * * *

  “So your sister’s a bitch,” Dalton says as soon as we get home.

  I laugh at that. A full-blown whoosh of a laugh, as if I’ve been holding myself tight all day and can finally relax. Which is true. Our door closes, and I am home with my guy and my dog. There’s no one I need to pretend for anymore.

  “Now you see where I get it from,” I say as I head for the kitchen.

  “Fuck, no. You’re tough, and you can be . . .” His lips purse as he searches for the word. “Reserved. That’s not a bitch.” He jabs a finger in the direction of the clinic. “That’s a bitch. You might look like sisters, but the resemblance ends there.”

  “She’s smarter than me.”

  He rolls his eyes. “For someone like that, IQ is just a number they hold up to make themselves feel superior. You know how many times residents announce their fucking IQ when I try to give safety instructions on chopping wood?” He shakes his head. “Like intelligence will keep them from cutting off their damned hand.”

  I reach for the fridge, but Dalton stops me. He takes a bag from the counter, one that wasn’t there when we left yesterday. From it, he pulls out a loaf of the bread we bought in Whitehorse. Then he produces something even more magical.

  “Is that butter?” I say. “Real butter?”

  “It is.”

  We get fresh bread from our bakery, but butter is a perishable we can’t afford.

  Dalton waves for me to sit as he saws off four thick slices and slathers them in butter. I may start to drool. He takes out our peanut butter and adds a layer. Then he steps back and eyes the open-faced sandwich.

  “Missing anything?” he says.

  “Gimme.”

  He pulls chocolate chips from the grocery bag. “Are you sure it’s not missing anything?”

  I laugh then and say, “I think I love you.”

  His brows rise. “Think?”

  I stand and put my arms around his neck. Then I kiss him, a deep, long kiss that ends with me on the kitchen table, my legs around him. I’m pushing up his T-shirt when his stomach rumbles.

  “Dinner first,” I say as I pull down his shirt. “Also, this confuses the dog.”

  Sure enough, Storm sits by the table, her head tilted. We’ve trained her to retreat to the kitchen when things heat up elsewhere in the house. So when they heat up in the kitchen, she has no idea where to go. The last time, she hid under the table . . . and then went zooming out when it started rocking.

  Dalton puts chocolate chips on my sandwich and on one corner of his. Then he pours glasses of water, and we sit and eat.

  “I knew your family was fucked up,” he says. “But I thought it was just your parents.”

  “Messed up parents; messed up kids.”

  His lips tighten at that. He chews and then says, “She’s your older sister. If there were problems with your parents, she should have looked out for you. That’s what older siblings do.”

  “It’s what you do with Jacob. But I don’t get the impression there were any serious issues with your birth parents.”

  He shakes his head and take another bite, avoiding the topic of his birth parents altogether, as usual.

  “I’m not sure April ever saw issues with our parents,” I say. “I was the underachiever. The disappointment.”

  “So April piles on and treats you like shit, too?” He shakes his head. “I knew you weren’t close. I didn’t know it was this bad. Otherwise, I’d have found another solution for Kenny.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Ano
ther two bites. Then, “I still wish you’d talk about it more. Your family.”

  “I will when you will.”

  He stops mid-bite and nods, acknowledging the point. That’s all he does, though. Acknowledges it and keeps eating.

  “I don’t talk about it because I don’t want to go back there,” I say. “I’ve moved on. I know I sometimes push myself too hard because I still hear their voices, but you make sure I don’t overdo it. My life isn’t all about my job anymore, and that wasn’t entirely their fault.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not the messed-up kid I used to be. April will see it and . . .” I shrug. “Even thinking that puts me right back there. When I was little, I wanted her attention so badly. More than I ever wanted my parents’. I’d do goofy things to make her smile. I’d find interesting science tidbits to make her listen. It never worked, and instead of backing off, I’d just try harder, make a fool of myself.”

  “You were a kid who wanted her big sister to notice her. That’s normal. Remember what Jacob said, about how he’d follow me to my hideaway, go in after and play with my stuff? I feel bad about that. He wanted my attention, and sometimes I just had to be alone.”

  “Sometimes. That’s the difference. You needed a break from being a big brother, and April . . .” I lean back in my seat. “There was nothing to take a break from. There was no relationship there. I thought I’d accepted that, and then I find myself right back in that old dynamic. I want her to see what I see here. In the Yukon. In Rockton. I’m like that little kid, hoping for a reaction, and ultimately, making a fool of myself.”

  “Pointing out a moose is ‘making a fool of yourself”?”

  I give him a look.

  “I do know what you mean,” he says. “Reminds me of when you first came here. You’d show sparks of interest—in the animals, the landscape, the life—and I’d jump on it . . . and then you’d back off. I’m the one who felt like the over-eager kid, tripping over myself to impress you.”

  “Uh, I don’t remember anything vaguely like tripping over yourself. I do remember that I was worried about seeming too interested in Rockton and maybe . . .” I slant a glance his way. “Too interested in you.”

  “I definitely don’t remember that.”

  “You were fascinating and infuriating and just . . . unique. I couldn’t tell what to make of you. I just knew that I wanted to get to know you better.”

  “I felt the same about you. I also felt like I tripped over myself chasing those sparks of interest.”

  “While I was trying to play it cool. We learn that, don’t we? Hit high school and you need to chill, tone it down, which usually means showing no interest in anything.”

  “Good thing I never went to high school.”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy, huh? But I didn’t come from an exuberant, expressive family to begin with, so I know I can be . . . what’s the word you used? Reserved.”

  “You can.”

  I look up at him. “You do know I’m happy here, right? Even if I’m not screaming it at the top of my lungs?”

  “I do.”

  “And you know how I feel about you.”

  He hesitates, and my heart slams against my ribs.

  “I’m crazy about you,” I say. “I hope you know that. I say I love you, but that always seems weak. This is . . .” I take a deep breath. “It’s miles beyond anything I’ve felt before.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He eases back in his chair and smirks. “I just like to hear you say it.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Not asshole? Pretty sure that deserved an asshole.”

  “I’m being nice to you, because I’m done.”

  I walk over and straddle his lap. “And I was promised dessert.”

  “Pretty sure I never actually . . .” He watches as I shed my shirt and bra. “My mistake. I definitely promised dessert.”

  “Just not in the kitchen.”

  He laughs and then scoops me up and carries me past Storm, out of the kitchen.

  * * *

  We’re out for a walk. Just the two of us, which feels like parents sneaking away on their kid. As much as Storm loves her jaunts, sometimes we need to take one without her, relax and enjoy the night as a couple.

  It’s past midnight, the sun finally dipping below the horizon. It’s warm, too. I haven’t spent a summer here, but I’m told to expect temperatures in the low-to mid-twenties—Celsius, that is—which is damn near perfect for me, having never been fond of hot and humid.

  Despite the romantic stroll, we aren’t completely slacking off. We’re also patrolling the town’s borders. Warmer temperatures mean residents throw off the shackles of the long, cold, dark winter, and they go a little crazy, also throwing off the rules that keep them inside our boundaries. There isn’t a fence around Rockton. The council tried that, but it just made people feel like they were in an armed camp. Better to treat them like adults. Which works better when they act like it. We’ve already had incidents this spring, with people sneaking off for a moonlight walk—or moonlight sex—in the woods.

  When we spot a figure in the woods, Dalton opens his mouth, ready to launch a profanity-laden tirade that’ll send the trespasser tearing back to town like a dog caught off its property. But before he can say a word, I grab his arm, my fingers tightening.

  He looks down at me.

  “Can you tell who that is?” I whisper.

  He squints and then shakes his head. It’s a figure in a dark jacket, hood pulled up. The size looks male, but even that is an educated guess.

  “If you shout, you’ll lose him,” I say.

  Most times, Dalton would be willing to just do that. It’s not worth his time to punish someone for being ten feet outside town. Yet when the town’s under a strict lockdown, a scare isn’t enough.

  Dalton slips off. I count to ten, and then I circle the other way, approaching the figure from the rear.

  The man is just standing there, looking toward Rockton. Which is odd. The point of sneaking out is to put town life behind you for a while. The only reason to be on the edge looking toward it is . . .

  If you’re watching someone inside.

  Did someone spot April? See enough in the shadowy twilight to realize she wasn’t me?

  Yet we aren’t near my old house. Nor are we near the clinic.

  My next guess is, unfortunately, a male resident paying unwelcome attention to a female one. Guys make up three-quarters of our population. At least a third of the women are here to escape a partner—a stalker or abusive ex—which means they aren’t exactly looking to strike up a new relationship. That leaves a serious shortage of available partners for heterosexual men, which can lead to guys having trouble hearing the word “no.”

  I mentally map the town. Two of the border buildings nearby are storage units, and the only house belongs to Anders. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a stalker. Our deputy gets his share of unwanted attention from both sexes.

  I ease to the side for a better look and realize this guy isn’t behind Anders’s house. He’s looking between the two storage buildings. He has one hand raised. I didn’t notice that at first—it’s on the other side of his body—but when I move, I see he’s holding something to his face.

  Binoculars. I’m trying to remember whether we have a compact pair like that when a shadow moves through the trees. A dark figure heading right for the man.

  Dalton.

  I swear under my breath. Of course Dalton is coming. While I’ve been trying to solve this puzzle, he’s been waiting for me to approach the guy. If I don’t, he will.

  “Did you miss the goddamn announcement?” Dalton says, his voice ringing out. “We’re under a fucking cur—”

  He stops. Goes completely still and then says, “Casey!” as his hand flies to his holstered gun. The guy wheels, and I see his face.

  A face I do not recognize.

  FIVE

  I go for my gun. The guy lunges to the side and hits the ground.

&nb
sp; Dalton yells for the guy to stop, stay where he is or we’ll fire. The man scrambles into the underbrush, and even a warning shot from Dalton doesn’t slow him. The guy disappears in the bush, and I’m racing after him, gun in hand, but by the time I get there, he’s on his feet, a distant shadow in the twilight. I don’t aim my gun. From here, there’s no chance of anything except a potentially fatal shot. Instead I run. I get about twenty feet before a hand grabs the back of my jacket, Dalton saying, “No.”

  Adrenaline pumping, I spin to knock his hand off, but I stop myself before I do. I take a deep breath and holster my gun. Dalton’s right. It’s nighttime in the forest. Tearing after a fleeing man is a very stupid idea.

  Dalton holsters his weapon and gives his arm a shake. It’s still weak from last week’s injury, and he’s been too busy to bother with the sling. When I point at his arm, he waves me off and scowls into the forest. Then he looks toward town. Wondering whether we should track the guy ourselves or call out the militia.

  He doesn’t glance over for my opinion, which means there’s no real question in his mind. He gives an abrupt nod and starts circling around the border.

  I don’t ask what he’s doing. “Equal partners” can’t apply to our professional lives. He’s the sheriff. He’s in charge.

  Dalton actually has a harder time with that than I do. I’ve always frowned on supervisor-and-underling relationships. If a guy is your boss at work, isn’t that going to carry over at home? For Dalton, the discomfort goes in the opposite direction—he’d rather be partners across the board. But Rockton requires a leader. One leader.

  Dalton still only gets about twenty steps before he glances over his shoulder and then lowers his voice, saying, “We’ll get Storm and track him. Leave the militia out of this for now.”

  I nod. By not chasing the guy, we let him think he got away. Let him slow down. Let him get careless.

  “He’s definitely not a hostile,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “A settler?” I ask. “Not from the First Settlement—his clothing’s too new for that—but has anyone left recently?”

  Dalton shakes his head.

  Rockton has been around since the fifties. That means thousands of people have passed through, and almost all complete their stint and go home. Some, though, choose the forest instead.