Wylde Read online

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  4760 Preston Road

  Suite 244-149

  Frisco, TX 75034

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Wylde

  Copyright © 2009 by Jan Irving

  Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-61581-374-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  December, 2009

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-375-9

  Thanks to Carolyn, Laurie, Armandyouidiot,

  Vikingprincess, Kim, Gabrielle, Missus Grace,

  Lyn, Camjakefan, Habemus.

  And Sedonia for meditation lessons.

  In order to discover new lands, one must be willing

  to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

  —Anonymous

  JOSH MATTHEWS undid his safety belt and shoved open the passenger door of their Toyota Tundra truck, his eyes rounding as he took in the house surrounded by tall Western red cedars and Douglas firs, the moss-hung, impenetrable woods. “Dad!” he exclaimed, glancing at Noah with just a trace of the smile Noah treasured in the serious gray eyes he’d inherited from his father.

  It was not an expression Noah had seen a lot of lately, so he took it as a good sign.

  “Yeah,” Noah said, smiling back. It would be okay. He was still shaky, but he was doing his best to hide it from Josh. And pretty soon he wouldn’t just be acting the part of someone who was okay, he’d actually feel it. “Not bad, huh? Your old man found us, uh, a place with potential.”

  Josh, who was twelve now and growing so fast Noah got a pang in his gut at the thought of one day losing his little boy to the full-fledged teen years, walked up the cracked driveway to the gray rectangular box cradled between spurs of raw granite on Sullivan’s Mountain.

  Noah had purchased the house on a crazy impulse one day when he just needed to get out of Seattle. He hoped being surrounded by mists, bald eagles, olive-plumed trees and rare blue skies would do the trick. Built in the 1960s, the house was situated on the level part of a circular drive where the two nearest neighbors lived in dips in the road, naturally caused by free-running creeks.

  He followed his son around the side of the house to the purple cement swimming pool with green rocks and a dicey hot tub.

  Despite the strange color, he thought maybe if it were landscaped in a less jarring shade and repaired, it might be a jewel. Anyway, he’d dreamed as soon as his realtor had faxed him photos of it. The tub could be used all winter even higher on the mountain, since the climate in Washington State usually ran more to rain than piles of snow.

  Josh bent down and checked the water temperature, his forehead creased. “Nice. Dad, it’s swim temperature! Even if the color…. Uh.”

  Noah shook his head. “I know. Can you bear it for a while? I had Jade Moreton warm it up for us since I thought even if it’s ugly, we could use it,” Noah said, referring to the local girl he’d hired to take care of the house. He was pleased Josh had noticed that the water was inviting, at least. He very much wanted his son to like their new life. And he’d worried about him for weeks, since moving a kid from established friends and schooling wasn’t to be taken lightly. “There should even be a hot meal waiting inside—along with pie and coffee.”

  Like his Dad, Josh had a thing for berry pies, hot and fresh from the oven or microwaved so the juices sizzled. That and coffee made with dark, oily beans was pure heaven.

  Josh grinned at his father. “Organic, right? Yeah, I could eat. Hey, can I back the truck closer to the house? We’ll need to unload all those files you insisted on bringing….” His son rolled his eyes at how many home office supplies they’d carted on the drive down from Seattle, although Noah had pointed out that they had no idea when they’d be back at one of the big box stores.

  Noah laughed, shaking his head. Josh’s latest thing was working on his Dad to allow him to drive as often as possible. His kid couldn’t wait to be sixteen—but Noah could. “Nuh uh. You’re a few years short of doing any driving.”

  “But we’re up in the wilderness, Dad! What if there was an emergency or something and you were injured and couldn’t drive?”

  Josh followed Noah to the single peeling white door with a horseshoe hanging upside-down above it. So far Noah didn’t think the house had been lucky, but he hoped to change that.

  Josh bit his lip and hesitated before asking in a tiny voice, “And what if what happened to the family that used to live here happened to us?”

  “What? Josh!” Noah rubbed the back of his neck. Okay, his son was smart and technically savvy; he must have Googled their new home and neighborhood. “Nothing happened to that family. I was told they needed to move closer to the city to make a living.”

  “I know the realtor told you that.” Josh had a stubborn set to his chin. “But one of their kids posted on his blog that he was scared to live here….”

  “Josh.” Noah took a deep breath, his pride and excitement clouded. He didn’t want to talk about their home’s previous owners.

  He wanted to show off their brand new perfect life to his son. This was where Noah intended to regain his independence, where he intended to make his stand.

  Josh studied his father, gray eyes grave. “Sorry, Dad. I’m really happy to be here. Can I open the door with the new key?”

  Noah handed him the shiny gold key, which was in better repair than their front door. “Keep it; that one’s yours. And as for the driving… we’ll discuss it sometime.” Noah threw Josh a bone to thank him for dropping the topic. Much as he hated to admit it, his son had a point about driving anyway. This wasn’t the busy ’burbs of Seattle. Josh might need a few survival skills in this more remote part of the country. “Just promise me one thing, ’kay?”

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Josh breezed through the foyer and made a beeline for the oak- and brass-appointed kitchen with its stone hearth and hanging copper pots. Noah had already had someone working in the kitchen, even before they moved in. It would be the first room they’d renovate.

  “Don’t go into the woods without me and a really good map,”

  Noah commanded. He glanced out the long kitchen windows and swallowed, since the one thing that made him uneasy sometimes about his new home was that thick forest. It was stupid, but he guessed it was because he was an urban man. “You could get lost out there.”

  Josh looked out at the tall cedar and fir trees that towered over their new home. “No worries. It looks cold and wet and I’d hate to be lost out there.”

  Noah sighed. Would Josh like where they had moved or not?

  HE WAS hungry. And cold. And shivering.

  From the bluff above the small gray box, he watched the boy and man walk around the house. Watched the man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder at one point, squeezing with what looked like affection.

  He made a soft sound, remembering his grandpa. He’d cared about him. Long… long time ago. And thinking about him made his head hurt and his heart race and tears sting his eyes.

  He could smell the hot food inside that house.

  IT WAS late, and Jade Moreton knew she had to get home soon. She had night school the next evening right after a double shift at the diner, which felt kind of shitty since sometimes it seemed like all she did was work.

  And what she wanted was to get laid.

  Trouble was, she’d had all the eligible men in town. Well, all but two.

  Right now she was bent over the john, scrubbing Thomas Anderson’s en suite. The inquisitive rich teen was lucky enough to live in this posh house, renovated out of the shell of an old bungalow, up on Sullivan’s Mountain. He was leaning against the doorway, watching her work, probably staring at her ass, but he was all right. She was firm with him that she didn’t play around with kids, but since he’d been to all kinds of fancy places like Paris and Rome, he was fun to talk to.

  Jade had always wanted to travel, leave this mudball boring town behind. She loved looking at Thomas’s computer photo albums of places he’d visited, listening to his stories of Bangladesh or Sydney, Australia. She knew someone else who had traveled, though it had been in the army, not as a pampered kid. Actually, nothing about Deputy Alec Danvers looked pampered, and she would know, since they shared the same gym—the only gym in small-town Sullivan.

  And why was she thinking about him again? Despite how he had come back and was almost a celebrity at their foothills village, he was nothing to Jade, just another man. She’d lived in this hick town with a higher boys-to-girls ratio all her life, so she’d learned a thing or two, and one of them was she didn’t want to end up like her foster mother, a single parent working in a crap-ass diner all her life.

  She studied hard, and she played hard, but on her terms.

  She’d lost her
virginity at sixteen and never regretted it, but she’d been careful even then to make sure the boy wore a condom.

  She was not getting knocked up and knocked down. No, sir!

  “You heading up for a swim?” Thomas asked, smiling hopefully. “You don’t need to use that old pool at the empty house. Ours is pretty cool. And new.”

  Jade shook her head, figuring that seventeen-year-old Thomas wanted to see her in her suit. Well, forget that.

  She watched him take another hit of the very fine grass he no doubt got from Morley Orris, the local pot farmer. No way could she afford that shit, and she didn’t take it when he offered, since she was fairly sure she might lose her job if she got too cozy with the favored son. She was the twice-a-week maid, pure and simple, and Thomas’s mom was not a lady you’d want to tangle with. His father was even worse, cold with Jade, spending his free time when he was home fishing or hunting. “I wish I could, Thomas. Nice of you to ask,” Jade said with some regret. She didn’t have long before she had to head back and cover her friend Marcie Hollis for an hour down at the diner. Just enough time to visit the pool belonging to the new Seattle folks, which was a quick walk through the woods.

  She unfolded her six-foot frame from the bathroom floor, finished for the day, catching her reflection in Thomas’s newly polished mirror. She liked what she saw, sun-streaked brown hair and toned body.

  “That place gives me the creeps,” Thomas observed.

  “Why do you say that?” Jade poured her pail of dirty water into his toilet and then flushed it while Thomas took another lazy hit.

  “It was weird, the family just disappearing one night, as if they were scared off or something, though I guess since Ralph Hindle got hurt and died in the woods, they probably didn’t like it here much anymore. He was a cool guy, used to come around here all the time….” Thomas shrugged. “Before they lived there, the place was empty since the old man who built it keeled over from a heart attack. So yeah, the house seems like bad luck.”

  Jade shrugged, already anticipating a cool dip to get rid of the miasma of cleaning for other people and to ease her sore back muscles. “Well, pool. And I remember the first owner. He wasn’t creepy, just old.” She was amused. “He was really into gardening, that’s for sure, even had his grandson help him out sometimes, though the place has grown all wild now.”

  “I better walk with you as far as the house,” Thomas offered, butting out his grass. “Don’t want the ghost of Sullivan’s Mountain to get you.”

  Jade held his gaze, making sure he knew there would be nothing more than walking involved. “Okay.” She didn’t want to hurt his manly pride by pointing out she could take care of herself.

  BUT when they broke through the meadow, which was full of buttercups, foxglove, and wild daisies this time of year, Jade and Thomas spotted some lights on and a big Toyota truck taking possession of the uneven old driveway.

  “Should you ring their bell or something?” Thomas asked, hesitating.

  Jade shook her head, having only spoken to Noah Matthews on the phone. He had said she could use the pool whenever she wanted, but she didn’t want to interrupt his first day in a new home.

  “There’s a road through the woods they used when they were cutting out the lots,” Thomas suggested, as if reading her disappointment. “It’s not paved and it’s a bit rough, overgrown, but it’ll take us around the house. We can hike through the trees ’til we get to the pool.”

  Jade wanted to give him a queenly pat on the cheek, happy to be catered to. It was something she intended to get used to, something she intended to live for real one day. A vision of Alec Danvers, tall and tanned with floppy brown hair, rose in her mind’s eye. He seemed perfectly content in this small corner. But something like this would never be enough for Jade. She’d make her way somehow.

  NOAH watched Josh looking around his room. The movers had brought everything a couple of weeks back, and Noah had driven out to the country to supervise the unpacking. He’d spent particular time in this room, hoping it would mean the closeness he’d once enjoyed with his son would return. Of course, he knew why they weren’t close, and it wasn’t Josh who had pulled away. It was Noah.

  He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

  As Noah watched, Josh passed a reverent hand over the handsome walnut desk and Dell laptop he’d treated him with. Noah hoped it made up for the chilly, cracked granite-tiled floor and dark, unknown scrap wood that made up the walls. Josh’s bedroom was on the bottom level, near the kitchen, but it was cold and, when Noah had first seen it, full of cobwebs and wolf spiders. The ugly things freaked him out a little. “Not bad,” Josh noted, amusement in his eyes. “Dad, a new computer and not a stupid desktop!”

  “Not bad? Hell of a lot better than I had growing up!” Noah pointed out, shaking his head. But he’d never wanted hard times for his kid. He was grateful that the money his wife had left them, supplemented by his work writing technical manuals for software engineers, meant he’d been able to provide better.

  “Yeah, yeah. Poor boy makes good.” Josh rolled his eyes.

  Then he bit his lip. His face looked very young to Noah as he continued, “I wish… Mom could see it. Do you think she can, maybe?”

  Josh was very grown-up for his age, but the topic of his mother could sometimes leave him grasping for extra reassurance.

  Noah didn’t believe in traditional religion, so he sat down, giving himself a moment. He always wanted to say the right thing, the weight of being a single parent heavy. “I think that wherever she is, she’d like to know we’re happy, that’s what I think, Joshua.”

  Josh nodded, satisfied for the moment. “But who are you going to date out here, Dad? I mean, you’re still pretty young.”

  Noah felt a blush coming on at his son’s frankness. That was one topic he wanted to stay away from! Until recently, he’d lived like a monk since Margaret’s death from cancer all those years ago.

  Raising his son and working like a demon to lose himself in his job and bury his loneliness had taken all his time—well, until a few months ago.

  Uneasiness tightened his shoulders. Don’t think about it.

  He cleared his throat, embarrassed that his heartbeat accelerated. He paused before continuing, again aching to be truthful with his son about so many things… but was Josh ready to know who his father truly was? Noah was too shaky to confide in him— yet. But he hoped some time out here in their new life would change that. “Maybe I’ll meet someone right at the church social,” he teased with forced lightness.

  “Ha ha, yeah, right. Do they still do those things out in the country?” Josh asked, eyes wide, as if he were an anthropologist studying a strange culture.

  That look made Noah smile. Shit, he was glad that when Margaret got pregnant from a one-nighter, they’d decided to have Josh, to be married. She’d never been what he’d wanted, but they’d created this amazing person.

  Noah shook his head full of carefully styled ash-blond hair. “I don’t know. All I know about the country I learned from watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman with you when you were younger.”

  THOMAS shone his small flashlight into the deep woods off the tiny, rugged road. “I think if we head through there it shouldn’t be too far.”

  “Okay,” Jade agreed. “But you can go back if you want; your Mom might want you.”

  Thomas’s face tightened. He and his mother didn’t get on well, Jade guessed. Well, the woman was a real dragon with an icy temper, although not as chilly as her husband. “Doubt it. You know this is a total cliché, don’t you?”

  “It is?” Jade paused to study Thomas, thinking he wasn’t such a bad kid, just bored and unhappy. She could certainly remember feeling that way herself.

  “I mean, two hot young people heading into the scary abandoned old house or the haunted woods….” Thomas lifted some dry hanging moss in one hand, which was suspended from a dead, bleached branch, reaching out like a skeletal hand. “Every horror movie I ever saw, the kids who have sex wind up dead.”

  “Okay, one, Thomas,” Jade scoffed. “There will be no sex. Second, that’s probably a cliché based on prudish Judeo-Christian ideas that being hot was a bad thing.”