Moonlight on Butternut Lake (10 page)

“Well, in any case, there's been no major incident yet that I know of,” Walker said. “And that's a personal best for you, Reid. The last two aides only got a few days into this before we all had to have a little sit-down discussion about your behavior.”

Reid nodded distractedly, thinking again about how afraid Mila had been that night at his bedside. And that wasn't the only time he'd sensed her fear, he realized. It was always there, right beneath the surface. It was in her guardedness. Her watchfulness. It was in the way she'd flinch, almost imperceptibly, if the phone rang or a car pulled up outside.

“Walker, what do we know about her?” he asked suddenly.

“Mila?” Walker said. “I don't know. The basics, I guess. And whatever else you've been able to learn. The agency, obviously, has its own screening process.”

But Reid shook his head. He wasn't talking about the basics. He was talking about something else. Something that was hard to put into words. “No, Walker, I mean what do we
really
know about her?”

Walker looked nonplussed. “What do
any
of us really know about each other, Reid?”

But Reid shook his head. That wasn't an answer.

“Look,” Walker said, after a moment. “I don't know what kind of information you want about Mila. But I can tell you that the agency did a criminal background check on her. And she passed it. With flying colors. They ran a check on her driving record, too. And Reid, she's never even had a speeding ticket before. Which, by the way, is more than you can say.”

“No, I'm not saying I think she's a criminal,” Reid said. “I'm saying that I think she's . . . she's scared. She's afraid of someone.
Or something. It's like she's in danger. Or she
thinks
she is, anyway. And Walker, another thing, I think she's hiding here, at this cabin. I really do.”

Walker stared at him. “Reid, she's a home health care worker,” he said, “not a member of the witness protection program.”

Reid waved this away, though.

Walker leaned closer to him then and studied him carefully. “Reid, you're not still doubling up on your pain medication, are you?”

“What? No,” Reid said irritably. “Mila keeps that stuff under lock and key.”

“Good,” Walker said. “Because, honestly, you're acting kind of strange.”

“Is it strange to have questions about someone who's living in your house?” Reid countered.

“It's not your house,” Walker reminded him, not unkindly.

“Whatever,” Reid said. “I just think she has a past, that's all. I mean, I was watching her hands the other day, and I could have sworn that her ring finger has a slightly paler strip of skin around it where a wedding ring used to be.”

“Maybe it does,” Walker said, finally exasperated by the direction this conversation was taking. “And maybe she did have a wedding ring on it, and she took it off because she's divorced. Or separated. Or whatever. But so what? It's not a crime, is it, to have a marriage fail? We all have a past, Reid. Even you.”

“I guess so,” Reid said, feeling suddenly tired. “But I still have unanswered questions about her.”

“So
ask
her those questions,” Walker said. “Ask her if she was married. Ask her anything you want, within reason, that is. I mean, that is what people do, Reid. They talk to each other. They ask each other questions. They answer each other's questions.
They get to know each other. You should try it sometime. You might actually enjoy it.”

“I can't ask her questions,” Reid said. “And she wouldn't answer them, anyway. It's like she's got this protective wall around her or something.”

“Well, that makes two of you then,” Walker said.

But Reid only looked at the closed window shade. Something about Mila troubled him. But he wouldn't say any more to Walker about it.

“Look, Reid,” his brother said now. “Answer this for me, okay? Has Mila done anything since she got here that's endangered you, or compromised your well-being?

Reid shook his head.

“Has she done anything since she got here that's made you think she's anything less than competent? Or well qualified?”

“No,” Reid said. And now it was his turn to be exasperated. He hadn't said Mila was incompetent. She wasn't. Even he could see that. All he'd said was that he had some questions about her.

“Good,” Walker said, getting up from the armchair and stretching lazily. “Because that's all I really need to know. And it's all you really need to know too, Reid.” He gave Reid a brotherly pat on his way to the door, then paused. “Any chance I could get you to look at something later?”

“What something?”

“We need to sign a new lease on the Two Harbors Boatyard and—” But Reid was already shaking his head. Walker should know better, he thought, than to try to get him involved in running their company again. But to Walker his lack of interest in it remained a mystery. The only mystery to Reid, though, was why their company had ever interested him in the first place.

“Okay, forget I brought that up,” Walker said. “If you need
more time, take it. But what about a haircut and a shave, then? There's still a very good barber in Butternut, and, Reid, I have to be honest, this whole look”—he pantomimed a huge beard on himself—“it's not really working for you. Maybe some guys can pull it off, but you're not one of them.”

But again, Reid wasn't interested. The whole idea of shaving seemed to him now a colossal waste of time, even when you had as much time on your hands as he did.

“Suit yourself,” Walker said, imperturbable in his defeat. He started to leave then, but stopped and turned back. “By the way, don't forget that Mila's taking you to your doctor's appointment on Friday. I've already discussed it with her, all right?”

“Okay,” Reid said. But he wasn't really listening. He was just relieved that Walker was leaving. He wasn't used to all this talking. Not since the accident. And not before the accident either. But at least
before
the accident he could always cut a conversation short by hanging up the phone, or by leaving the room. Now, of course, he was stuck. There was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. “Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide,” he said out loud, his thoughts returning now to Mila. Because his intuition told him that this phrase might describe her situation better than his own.

T
hat Friday morning, Mila found herself once again confronting Reid's closed bedroom door. The sight of it never failed to inspire dread in her, and today was no exception. She tried to shrug it off, though. She'd told Walker she'd do this for him, and she was determined to follow through with it. Besides, while she might not be looking forward to spending time with Reid, she
was
looking forward to leaving the cabin. She hadn't left it yet, even on her days off, and she was starting to feel claustrophobic. Once, she'd thought “cabin fever” was just an expression. Now, she knew better.

Here goes nothing,
she told herself, knocking firmly on Reid's door. And that was exactly what she got in response: nothing.

“Reid,” she said, when her third knock had gone unanswered. “It's Mila. May I come in, please?”

“I'm busy” was his muffled reply.

“Well, can you finish what you're doing later?” she asked the closed door.
Especially since we both know that what you're doing is absolutely nothing.

She heard Reid sigh loudly, then heard him wheel himself
over to the door. He opened it, a crack. “What is it?” he asked, and Mila hesitated. Even by Reid's standards, he seemed irritable today.

He noticed her hesitation. “Can't this wait?”

She wavered again and thought about retreating to her room for the rest of the day. Hell, for the rest of the
summer
. But she stood firm.

“No, Reid, this can't wait,” she said calmly. “Now, may I please come in?”

He glared at her, but he opened the door. Then he turned his wheelchair around and wheeled himself farther into the room. She hovered on the threshold, trying to resist the by now familiar urge to raise his shade and open his window. Outside, it was a postcard perfect summer day, but inside his dark and stuffy room you would never know it.

“Reid,” she said, to the back of his wheelchair. “I'm going to be taking you to your doctor's appointment this morning, remember?”

There was a pause. Then he said, “No, I don't remember.”

“Walker told me he spoke to you about it.”

Another pause. “Well, he didn't.”

She frowned. Of course Walker had spoken to him about it, and she almost said so now, but, sensing a long negotiation, she tried a different tack. “All right, well, as you know,” she said, working hard to sound casual, “Allie and Walker left yesterday for Michigan. A friend of Allie's is getting married there tomorrow, and they decided to make a long weekend of it. So I'll be taking you to your ten o'clock orthopedist's appointment this morning. But Walker's shown me how to use the wheelchair lift in the van, and he's given me directions to your doctor's office in Ely, so I'm not anticipating any problems.”
Any problems other than you, that is.

At first, Reid said nothing. He just kept looking out the window. No, not
out t
he window, because the shade was drawn. He kept looking
at
the window. “I don't think so,” he said, finally.

“What do you mean ‘you don't think so'?”

“I mean, I don't think you'll be driving me to my appointment today.”

“And who would be driving you then?”

“Nobody. I won't be going.”

“And why is that, Reid?” she asked, surprised by her own persistence.

He shrugged. “I just don't feel like going.”

“Well, I'm sorry to hear that,” she said, trying still to keep her tone light. Relaxed. “Because it's too late to cancel the appointment.”

He looked disinterested.

“Reid, you can't miss a doctor's appointment,” she objected.

“I won't miss it,” he said. “I'll just reschedule it.”

You mean somebody else will just reschedule it,
Mila thought, but didn't say. She wasn't ready to give up yet. She needed this outing. Needed it almost more than she was willing to admit to herself. Because while leaving the cabin meant running the risk, however small, of Brandon finding her, it also meant a welcome return to the outside world, something that had begun to feel very far away. After all, in the little over two weeks since she'd arrived, she'd seen more deer than she had people. So she decided to take a page from Reid's book and pretend she hadn't heard him when he'd said he wasn't going.

“Okay then,” she said, briskly. “We don't need to leave for another fifteen minutes. So why don't you do whatever it is you need to do before we go, and I'll come back then and—”

“I
said
I'm not going,” Reid interrupted her, directing his
words not at her but at the window shade. “Now
please
leave,” he added, managing to make even the word
please
sound rude. “And close the door behind you.”

But Mila didn't leave. Not today. Because today, for some reason, she was reminded of something Ms. Thompson had said about Reid after she'd read his file.
He's not abusive, Mila. He's just a jerk. A garden-variety jerk.
And it was true. He
was
a jerk. But he wasn't dangerous. Not like Brandon. Even Mila could see that, at least in her more rational moments. So why, she wondered now, was she so afraid of him? No, not
afraid
, she amended.
Intimidated
. Why was she so intimidated by him?
Because he made her feel incompetent,
she realized. Worse than incompetent, really. He made her feel totally inept. And inane. And annoying. And dim-witted. And a lot of other things, too. None of them good. But did she actually believe she was any of those things? No, she didn't. And the strange thing was, she didn't actually think Reid believed she was any of those things either. He just . . .
he just wants you to go away,
she realized.
He just wants you to leave him alone.
And the best way to do that, from his perspective, anyway, was to be a jerk.

The trouble was, they couldn't keep doing this, couldn't keep going in circles like this. Reid being a jerk, and Mila letting him be a jerk. Or at least letting the fact that he was being a jerk stand in the way of her doing her job. She could handle him, she told herself. She'd handled people like him before, arrogant, dismissive, rude people. During the years she'd waitressed, for instance, she'd met her share of jerks. Or people who were acting like jerks, anyway. She'd just learned not to take them personally. The frazzled mother with the cranky children. The sleep-deprived cabbie coming off an all-night shift. The lonely old man who was perfectly happy to take his loneliness out on
a stranger like Mila. She'd met them all, and she'd dealt with them all, and she'd done it by trying to see through their behavior to the person behind it. But she hadn't done that with Reid, had she? She hadn't seen him as a real person. Hadn't spoken to him like a real person, either. Instead, she'd tiptoed around him, forgetting that behind all his condescension, and rudeness, and sarcasm, he was just a man. A man who was hurting. Inside and out.

“Are you still here?” Reid asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.

“I'm still here,” Mila said from the doorway where she'd been standing. But now she came back into the room, and, determined to start over again, she sat down in the armchair in the corner. He glanced over at her, warily, and angled his wheelchair farther away from her.

“Look, Reid,” she said patiently. “I know you don't want me to take you to your doctor's appointment. I know you'd rather Walker or Allie take you when they get back. I understand that. And I'm sorry. I really am. But I'm it for today. The good news, though, is that you're only going to have to put up with me for a couple of hours. And I can promise you I'll make those hours as painless as possible.”

He turned his wheelchair, fractionally, toward her. “Can we not do this?”

“Not do what?”

“Whatever it is you're doing,” he said, exasperated. “First you come in here pretending to be my friend, and then, when that didn't work, you were my psychologist, and now, apparently, you're my first-grade teacher, getting me ready to go on a field trip. But it's not working. Any of it. All you've done is waste my time and yours. And you know what, Mila? Sometimes, the truth
is easier. Like right now, for instance, I'd actually prefer it if you didn't try to hide the fact that you dislike me.”

“But I . . . I don't dislike you,” she said, caught off guard. “And I don't think you dislike me, either.” She said this last part, though, without any real conviction.

He only shrugged. “It doesn't matter,” he said. “Because the upshot's the same. I'm not going with you today. And that's all I have to say on the subject. If you want to discuss this further, it won't be with me. You can call my brother on his cell.”

“No, I
can't
call your brother on his cell,” she said, surprising herself with the sharpness of her tone, and surprising him with it too, judging by the way he looked over at her. “I can't call him because I'm not interrupting the one weekend he's had off since your accident to tell him that I can't do my job.”

“Not my problem,” he muttered.

“You're right, Reid, it's not your problem,” she shot back. “But only because you make it everyone
else's
problem. The way it'll be your doctor's office's problem when I cancel your appointment at the last minute today. And Walker and Allie's problem when one of them has to take you to your rescheduled appointment next week. And—”

“Are you done?” he muttered, angling his wheelchair farther away from her.

“No, I'm
not
done,” she said, feeling her face flush hotly. He was more than a garden-variety jerk, she decided. And more than rude, too. He was ungrateful. And ungratefulness was something Mila had very little patience for. “And I know, Reid,” she said now, “that Walker and Allie won't complain about taking you to your rescheduled appointment. I know because, as far as I can tell, they never complain about
any
of the things they do for you. But I wonder, sometimes, if it would be easier for them to
do all those things if you showed them just a
little
appreciation. Just an
infinitesimal
amount of gratitude. Just a simple ‘thank you,' maybe.” Her voice sounded loud in the quiet room, and her heart, she realized, was beating faster, her blood thrumming in her ears. Still, she rushed on. “But gratitude isn't your specialty, is it, Reid? Because if it were, you'd already know you have a lot to be grateful for.
A lot
to give thanks for.” She stopped finally. She had Reid's attention now, she saw. His full attention. She'd cut through the fog, the torpor, that usually surrounded him. And in its place was an almost electric anger.

“Grateful? Are you serious? What in God's name do you think I have to be grateful for?” he asked, making a gesture that included himself, the wheelchair, and the hospital bed.

“You're alive, aren't you?” Mila said simply. Her heart was still beating too fast, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and to speak more slowly. “Against all odds, you survived that accident.
And
the three days you spent trapped in your car. And everything that followed. I'd say you were pretty lucky, wouldn't you?”

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I don't feel very lucky right now,” he said sarcastically.

“I know you don't, Reid. But maybe you
should
. Have you ever stopped to consider that? That even though you were unlucky to have gotten into that accident, you've been lucky ever since.”

He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The incredulous expression on his face said it all.

“No, it's true,” she said, undaunted. “You're lucky, Reid. Lucky to have a family who cares about you as much as yours obviously does. Lucky to be able to recover here, in this beautiful cabin, on this beautiful lake, instead of in some depressing hospital or crowded rehab center. And lucky, too, to not have to worry about
the things most people have to worry about after being in an accident. Like whether or not they'll still have a job to go back to, or still be able to pay their bills, or still have a roof over their heads. But all you have to do is focus on your recovery, knowing that as soon as you're ready, your life will be waiting for you to come back to it. I'd say that qualifies as being pretty damn lucky, wouldn't you?”

Stop talking, Mila,
she told herself.
Please stop
. But she couldn't. She didn't want to. She felt strangely exhilarated. And strangely liberated. It had been so long since she'd done this. So long since she'd told anyone exactly what she was thinking, or feeling, and to hell with the consequences of telling them. “And I would think that you could see how lucky you are, Reid,” she continued now, “given how much time you obviously spend thinking about yourself. Given that, at least as far as I can tell, you
never
think about anyone
but
yourself. No, you're too busy drowning in self-pity. Too busy thinking that you're the only person in the world who's ever suffered any kind of setback or ever had any kind of obstacle they've had to overcome. The only person in the world whose life hasn't gone
exactly
the way they wanted it to.” She paused, a little breathless. He was looking at her now, steadily, an inscrutable expression on his face, but he didn't say anything. Which was fine, really, since it was in that moment that she decided that Reid wasn't going to miss that appointment after all. He was going to it. And she would be the one taking him to it.

She had no idea what she expected him to do as she came up behind him, took hold of the wheelchair's handles, and maneuvered him out of his bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen, but she expected him to do something, or to say something. To offer
some
form of protest. But he didn't. And neither
did Lonnie, who, as they turned into the kitchen, had a stunned expression on her face.