Riding the Thunder - Deborah MacGillivray [137]
Not for one minute did she accept his surface behavior. The more normal he tried to make the situation, the louder her warning bells chimed.
“Any tree limbs down? I fear losing electric in winds like this. Such a pain when that happens. Damn lobby fills up with the customers bitching and moaning—like I can do something about it by twitching my nose.” She stressed that someone might come at any moment, not wanting him to see she was alone, vulnerable. Her inner voice warned her not to ask Monty for help. Feeling panic, she didn’t take time to reason out why, simply trusted her instincts. To cover her deep unease, she kept prattling, as if she found nothing disquieting about his presence.
“Some of these trees are hundreds-years old. Notice how there aren’t many elm trees any more? Dutch Elm disease, they say.”
As she blethered on, she made a show of straightening stuff on the motel front desk, mindlessly chattering as if it were natural for them to stand around gossiping about trees. Yet, at the back of her mind, she kept recalling all the hearsay, how they whispered this man had raped a child when he was in his teens. Also, something she couldn’t define—a sense of Laura being with her—cautioned Monty was dangerous and here for a purpose. She wanted to maneuver him to where she could make a clear dash to the restaurant, and to her gun in her pocketbook.
“The poplars have been hit by a nasty bore beetle that gets between the bark and slowly kills the tree. A shame, since they have those beautiful yellow tulip blooms come spring. Guess that’s why they call them tulip poplars, eh? They’re huge, and with the poor things in bad shape, we keep losing power when limbs snap off.”
Her prattle seemed to confuse him, but with the fine edge of panic rising within her, it was hard to keep up. Too many things were just now becoming clear. Delbert hadn’t cracked his head in a fall: Monty had hit him. A falling limb hadn’t knocked out phone service. Monty also had been the one to leave the letter on the refrigerator. He’d wanted her to get mad at Jago and send him away. Carefully, he’d chosen a time when Colin, Sam and Liam were not about. Only poor Delbert.
And her.
Quickly running through her options, Asha considered making a break to the office and locking herself in with Clint. Only, there was nothing to defend herself with, and the door was flimsy at best. She’d trap herself in the small, windowless room with no recourse.
Picking up the feather duster Delbert had left on the chair, she pretended to clean as she babbled on. Reaching the office door, she fluttered it over the top of the frame, muttering about grime, then quickly pulled the door shut to keep Clint in there out of the way; she needed to concentrate on getting herself out of this situation, and wasn’t about to hand this creep a weapon to use against her.
Monty took a step toward her as she touched the doorknob, but eased his stance when he saw she merely pulled it closed. Those gold eyes watched her without blinking, once again causing a flashback to that damn crocodile in the Cincinnati Zoo. Only there was no glass wall between them here. Deep in the pit of her stomach, she comprehended she faced a man capable of killing—this she felt from Laura—with only her cleverness to save her. Right now, she could barely think.
Funny, she’d berated Jago for lying to her. Now, lies were all she had to save herself from evil.
“Excuse me, while I keep working. There’s so much to do around this damn place. So little help. I’ll be glad when Tri-dent Ventures buys me out. I’m hoping to get big bucks from that. Then, I can get rid of this crazy place, go some place where it’s warm and sunny.”
His brow crinkled at her statement. “I thought you were hanging on to the businesses? Everyone said you refused that big company wanting the land.”
She forced a chuckle, prayed her lies sounded believable.“Well, I had to convince Trident of that to get the price up! They’ve already tripled their offer. Now that they’ve purchased the horse farm,