Perilous Refuge. Kathleen Tailer
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eyes locked for a moment, neither one willing to give up any information. She looked away first and opened the car door. She didn’t care about winning this battle of wills. All she really had to do was keep Alex Sullivan from discovering her past. Not only would she probably lose her job with Miss Abigail if he found out, but he would also undoubtedly make her go to the police. She wasn’t ready to do that without more proof. Besides, trying to stay away from the man with the cap and worrying about the note were stressful enough. She didn’t need to engage in a verbal sparring event with Alex Sullivan just because he seemed suspicious of her for whatever reason.
“Alex! I’m so glad you’re joining us!” Miss Abigail gushed as she approached, giving him a big kiss. “Let’s hit the road, folks. I’m not getting any younger and the sun will be up before you know it.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at Chelsea, then released the door and leaned over to give Miss Abigail a quick kiss on the cheek. “Your wish is my command. Shall we go?”
Chelsea got in the backseat, the anxiety pulsing through her. Whatever Alex’s reason for coming to Hawaii, it seemed he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. And that meant she’d have to put up with his probing stares and persistent questions for at least a while longer.
An hour and a half later, Alex, Chelsea and Miss Abigail got out of their car and made their way over to the observation look-out deck. The trip up had been uneventful, with little conversation since neither Chelsea nor Miss Abigail had wanted to distract Alex as he negotiated the narrow roadway on the way up the mountain. Although it was only twenty-two miles from the base of the mountain to the overlook at the top, the trip had taken much longer than they’d expected because of the winding roads and hairpin turns.
Once at the park, Alex unfolded the portable chairs they had borrowed from the hotel and the three of them sat and faced the east, waiting for the show to begin. By the time they were situated a faint light was already beginning to brighten the sky on the horizon. For the next twenty minutes they sat in awestruck wonder as God painted the heavens with beautiful colors and lit up the valley below with reflections of the morning light. Pale pinks and purples colored the lava beds and mirrored the pastels from the sky. It was truly spectacular.
Chelsea took several photos with her 35 mm digital camera, then stood and checked on Miss Abigail. So far she hadn’t seen any signs of danger on their trip, but she constantly scanned the other tourists at the park, keeping her eyes open for the man with the Braves cap just in case he’d managed to discover her location. And what if he wasn’t alone? What if the man with the cap was working with others that she couldn’t recognize? Suddenly her apprehension was too much to handle and she knew she had to move around before the stress consumed her.
“Would you mind if I walked around and took a few more pictures, Miss Abigail?”
“Not at all, dear,” the older lady said sweetly as she patted Chelsea’s hand. “You take all the time you want. I’m just going to sit here and enjoy this marvelous view.”
Chelsea smiled, then stood and started walking along the ridge to capture different angles. She was an avid amateur photographer and tried to let herself get lost in composing her photographs and enjoying the beauty around her. It didn’t work—she was too tense. She heard the crunch of rock and peeked back quickly. Just Alex—not a threat to her safety, just a threat to her peace of mind. A knot tightened in her stomach as she prepared for the battle. She turned and looked at him, but instead of antagonism she saw a question in his eyes.
“Are you going to take a whole roll up here?” His voice was tinged with disbelief as he put his hands in his pockets and watched her with the camera.
Chelsea shrugged, determined that he wasn’t going to rattle her today, despite his constant questions and barely veiled suspicion of her. She crouched and took another shot, getting one of the sun just as it was breaking over the horizon. “Hardly anyone uses film anymore, Mr. Sullivan. This is a digital camera, so I can take hundreds of photos and just delete the ones I don’t want. Sometimes I need to take a whole slew of shots to get that one special photograph.” She adjusted the focus on her Canon and peered through the viewfinder. “Do you have a hobby?”
Alex grimaced. “I don’t have time for hobbies. I have a law practice to run.”
“You’re missing out,” Chelsea said quietly. She stood and their eyes locked. Despite the frustration she saw in his gray depths, an emptiness she hadn’t expected reached out to her.
Miss Abigail had told her that Alex Sullivan basically lived at his office and worked seventy-hour work weeks. Maybe she could help him enjoy a small part of Maui before he returned to that single-minded existence. She took the strap off of her neck and handed him the camera. “Pictures tell a story, Mr. Sullivan, just like an attorney giving an opening statement. Take a look.”
Alex paused a moment as if considering her analogy, then shrugged and took the camera. He pointed the viewfinder toward the valley and turned slowly, looking around at the different landscape that surrounded him. “It all looks the same to me.” He shrugged. “Everything is a fuzzy blur.”
Chelsea laughed and gently reached over to adjust a setting on the top of the camera, then guided his index finger to the button on the top right of the body. His skin was warm and to her own surprise, she enjoyed the touch. “Okay, it’s on automatic focus now. Just push this button halfway down. Yes, that’s it. Now it will focus for you. When you’re ready to take a shot, push the button all the way down until you hear a click.”
Alex played with the focus for a while, slowly pointing the lens at different views of the valley and snapping a few pictures. Then, to her amazement, he turned the camera toward her and took a few shots. She laughed and covered her face with her hands and waved him away, but he took a few more anyway, ignoring her protests. Finally he pulled the camera away from his eye.
“So you take a hundred photos of the same thing. Then what?”
She turned the camera over and showed him how to scroll through the pictures he had taken and delete the ones he didn’t want. “The best ones I print and put in albums. Occasionally, I frame one and put it on my wall. I don’t buy very many souvenirs when I travel. My pictures are great reminders of my trips.”
“Do you travel a lot?”
The question was asked in a casual way, but Chelsea raised any eyebrow to show that she understood that he was again probing for more information about her background.
“Not as much as I’d like. I usually enjoy exploring new places and meeting new people.” She grinned pointedly at him. “Usually, that is.”
Alex continued to scroll through the pictures, ignoring her subtle gibe. “So where have you visited?”
Chelsea reached for the camera, but Alex moved slightly, keeping it just out of her reach, and continued to peruse her photographs. “Several different states. A few countries. This is my first trip to Hawaii. Have you been here before?”
“No, I don’t have time to travel much.” He paused and then slowly looked away from her camera and captured her eyes with his own. “You’ve got some really pretty photos on here, and also a lot of pictures of various men—all of whom look kind of rough.” He showed her one of the pictures. “Is this a friend of yours?”
Chelsea felt her pulse accelerate. Why hadn’t she deleted those pictures? There had been several times since she had escaped from Carver that she had worried that someone was following her, so she had taken pictures of the suspicious men to help her remember their faces, just in case. So far, each had been a false alarm, but she’d kept up her surveillance, regardless. In her book, it couldn’t hurt to be too careful. But how could she explain that to Alex? She crinkled her nose and rubbed her arms, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for the photos and warm up at the same time. The altitude was 7,000 feet above sea level and it was definitely cooler here than it was at the beaches below.
She bit her bottom lip. Struggle as she might for a plausible reason for the photos, her mind drew a blank. She chose to evade the subject