Rainbow's End. Irene Hannon

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СКАЧАТЬ Orcas Island, had never shown any sign of habitation. Unless, of course, you counted the occasional black-tailed deer that wandered onto her property to see if she’d replaced any of her deer-resistant plants with something more suited to their tastes, or the raccoons that came to forage in her trash bin. But Mary Lynn, at the tiny grocery store a few miles down the road, had mentioned once that an old hermit lived there. If so, he’d earned that label, because Jill had never seen any evidence of his existence. So who was the little boy? Could he be lost? Hungry? Injured? Did he need help?

      Her nurturing instincts kicked in, and she set the basket on the ground, then slid her clippers into the back pocket of her jeans. After dropping to one knee, she adjusted the brim of her hat to better shade her face, then turned toward the boy.

      His eyes, blue as the summer sky, widened in alarm when they met hers. For a second he froze, much like the deer she often startled on her twilight walks to the shore, a quarter of a mile away. Then he half rose from his crouched stance, prepared to run. When Jill remained motionless, however, he held his position and stared back at her.

      “Hello there. My name is Jill. What’s yours?”

      Sometimes the husky quality of her once-soprano voice still surprised her—especially after she hadn’t used it for a few days. It occurred to her as she spoke that she hadn’t had any contact with another human being since her once-a-month shopping trip into Eastsound to stock up on essentials, and that had been…how long ago now? Five days, maybe?

      Instead of responding, the boy stood and, with one more fearful glance in her direction, took off at a run into the deep woods behind him, where the shadows of the firs and cedars quickly swallowed him up.

      Sighing, Jill reached for her basket and rose. It seemed the skittish little boy didn’t need her, after all. Perhaps he’d just been shocked—and curious—about her appearance. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d drawn that kind of unwelcome attention.

      Nor, unfortunately, would it be the last.

      The lashing rain slammed against the windshield of Keith Michaels’s older-model compact car with enough force to render the wipers almost useless despite their valiant effort to keep up. And the waves pounding the jagged shore just a few feet below the narrow, dark road did nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders. With each mile that passed, he was sorrier that he hadn’t thought ahead and realized how difficult it would be to find a place to stay over the Fourth of July weekend. Except the imminent holiday hadn’t even registered in his consciousness. For the past year, the days and weeks had blended together in one long, gray blur. Weary now after months on the road, he’d hoped the San Juan Islands would offer him a quiet, out-of-the-way spot in which to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

      Well, Orcas Island might be about as far away from Ohio as he could get in the contiguous—more or less—forty-eight states, but this remote speck of land was way more populous than he’d expected. When he’d seen the congestion in tiny Orcas Village as he’d driven off the ferry, he’d been tempted to turn around and get back on. Except his had been the last boat of the day. Meaning he was stuck here overnight.

      And now he was driving the back roads on what could very well turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Still, it was his best hope of finding a place to sleep tonight. He wasn’t about to try and set up his tent in this torrential downpour. And every single inn and bed-and-breakfast he’d passed had displayed No Vacancy signs. Considering the pricey tabs and the sad state of his finances, he supposed that was a blessing in disguise.

      In any case, a garrulous checker at the grocery store in Eastsound, where he’d stopped to buy a deli sandwich, had picked up on his plight in no time. She’d suggested that a “widow lady” she knew of might be willing to give him the use of a small cottage on her property for one night.

      “I live down her way, and I try to chat with her a bit when she comes in here every few weeks,” the woman explained. “She doesn’t rent the cottage out as a rule, and mostly keeps to herself. But I expect she might give you shelter from this storm that’s brewing. She’s always taking in stray critters.” The woman had laughed and planted her hands on her ample hips. “She’s got an account here, so we have her number. Shall I give her a call?”

      A widow lady who took in strays. She was probably one of those eccentric old women who had forty cats on the property and kept newspapers from ten years ago piled up in a spare room, Keith mused. But what choice did he have? “Sure. Why not?” he’d responded.

      “Hey, Beth, cover for me a minute, will you? I need to call out to the Whelan place.”

      A perky young woman with long blond hair, wearing a cropped shirt that skimmed the waistband of her low-cut jeans, came up behind the woman. “Sure thing.” She gave Keith a smile that could be just friendly…or inviting. He didn’t trust himself to make that judgment anymore. But he figured it must be the former. After all, he hadn’t shaved in several days, his own jeans were threadbare and faded, and his black leather jacket was scuffed and worn. He didn’t see how any woman could find him attractive. Then again, considering the current Hollywood heartthrobs, maybe the dangerous, bad-boy image was a turn-on.

      Best not to take chances. He stepped back and turned away to stare out of the store’s plate glass window. Large drops of rain were already darkening the pavement, and lightning slashed across the sky, branding an angry streak onto the inky blackness and outlining the looming profile of a nearby mountain. The mood could only be described as ominous—and depressing. Which somehow seemed fitting for this last stop on his year-long journey. A journey he’d hoped would lead him to answers, to healing, to resolution—even back to God.

      Instead, he felt just as lost, just as empty, just as broken as he had twelve months before when he’d set out on his quest. All he had to show for his travels was a bunch of photographs stuffed in a box in the back of his car. At first, he’d snapped dozens of images a week. But as the months had worn on, he’d taken fewer and fewer pictures. He’d stopped developing even those three months ago. The film from his recent efforts was still wound in tight coils, hidden inside a handful of dark spools he’d tossed into an empty fast-food bag.

      Where did he go from here? he wondered. The answer was elusive, and despair swamped him, much as the sudden torrent of rain was flooding the streets. He’d reached the end of the line. Literally. There was nowhere else to run.

      “Looks like the phone’s out over at the Whelan place.” The older woman’s voice intruded on his thoughts and he turned, grateful for the interruption that gave him an excuse to delay the tough questions for another day. “But you could ride on out there. She’ll be home.”

      “How far is it?”

      “Twelve, fourteen miles.”

      His spirits took another dive. The last thing he wanted to do was drive more than a dozen miles in this storm. “You’re sure there’s nothing closer?”

      “Sorry. Every place is full. A lot of mainlanders come for the Fourth. Make their reservations months ahead. There’s not a camping site or room to be had anywhere this weekend on the San Juan Islands. You can trust me on that.”

      He didn’t need to trust her. He’d seen the No Vacancy signs himself. He supposed he should be grateful the woman had come up with the “widow lady’s” cottage. Except gratitude wasn’t something that came easily to him anymore. Or at all.

      “Okay. Thanks.” He dredged up the words from somewhere. “Can you tell me how to get there?”

      A few minutes later, СКАЧАТЬ