Two days later, Tara headed for the cabin’s front porch, clutching the mushroom binder before her like a shield. Even though she had a legitimate reason for visiting, she felt about as welcome as a door-to-door salesman singing the praises of vacuum cleaners and kitchen storage products. As she approached, she eyed the shed and trees, afraid the wolf would charge out from behind a woodpile, ready to defend its turf. She had come up the driveway this time, and the armada of no-trespassing signs had made the trail-side warnings seem like an afterthought.
She knocked tentatively on the door. Nobody answered. She risked a firmer knock. Nothing.
The jeep was in the driveway, so where was Malcolm? Inside and ignoring her summons? Or perhaps jogging shirtless on the beach again. That image distracted her for a few minutes, but she eventually sidled over to a window and peered inside. She didn’t spot anyone hiding under the bed or table to avoid answering the door.
“I am a snoop, aren’t I?” she whispered, drawing back.
“Yes,” came the unexpected reply from behind.
Tara whirled, her binder-shield held out before her. Malcolm and the wolf stood at the bottom of the porch steps, double witnesses to her prying eyes. He wasn’t topless and sweaty this time, though mud spattered his boots and jeans, and his hair was wet. Dampness about his shoulders and chest made his black T-shirt stick to his torso, nicely outlining what lay beneath. Fortunately, a curious sight at his side drew her attention away before it became overly obvious she had been staring at his chest.
“Is that... a picnic basket?” Tara asked. It looked like something Yogi Bear would stroll through Jellystone Park with, right down to the checkered cloth covering up the goods. “I wasn’t expecting you to have lunch for us, but I accept if that’s an invitation.”
“Do you,” he said, his dry, flat tone not making it a question.
Malcolm walked up the steps and she slid aside to let him pass. He walked inside and set the basket down on the table without making any move to lift the cover and reveal the contents.
“You’re done with my grandmother’s binder?” he asked.
“Yes. Ah, what’s in the basket?” Her curiosity had the best of her, and she knew she would struggle to pay attention to work until she knew what he had in there. Fried chicken seemed an unlikely guess.
“If I don’t tell you, can I assume you’ll poke in there and find out for yourself as soon as my back is turned?”
“No.” Tara lifted her chin defiantly. Under his unrelenting gaze and quirked eyebrows, she relented. “Not as soon as anyway. I would wait until you’re out of the room.”
“I see.” She couldn’t tell whether he was amused or not, but he did lift the checkered cloth.
Tara eased forward and peered inside. Oh, of course. Mushrooms. After typing up so much of the information in the journal, she could identify these by their caps, which reminded her vaguely of corrugated cardboard. Morels.
“I’m not showing you my picking spot or telling you who I sell them to,” Malcolm said, his voice still dry.
Information that was, she understood from the journal, rarely shared by pickers. “Not a problem.” She thought about telling him she was a city girl and couldn’t be tempted to tramp around in the mud for anything less than an obscene amount of money, but decided that wouldn’t impress him. “I was hoping for fried chicken, frankly.”
He carried the basket to the refrigerator. “If you’d had my grandmother’s pasta and creamy morel sauce dish, you’d change your mind.”
“I suppose I would be game to try it. Does that mean you cook?” Tara considered the open kitchen. It wasn’t filled with high-end pots and utensils, but it was well stocked.
“I can cook, yes.”
“Well, aren’t you every girl’s dream? Next you’ll be telling me you can sew too.”
Malcolm returned to the table. “Did you work on my project, or have you decided against it?”
Tara tried to guess if he cared one way or another what her answer was; she couldn’t tell. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and laid it on the table. “That’s the address and password for a folder on my Dropbox account. You can take a look at it whenever it’s convenient and grab the files. I typed up your grandmother’s work into two short ebooks, one on identifying and picking mushrooms, and one on doing it for fun and profit—that’ll be your moneymaker. You might give away the first for free as a way to lure folks into purchasing the other one. Oh, and if you can take some pictures, that would be great. I scanned your grandmother’s drawings where appropriate, but given the emphasis she put on the dangers of misidentifying mushrooms, full-color photos would be appropriate. In addition to transcribing her notes for the ebooks, I took the liberty of doing some keyword research for you and buying a couple of domain names. I started a blog, too, though I’ll leave it to you to write the articles.”
She stopped because he was staring at her. She didn’t know if it signified a lack of understanding, a lack of interest, or that she had a booger hanging from her nose. None of the options were promising.
“You did all that?” Malcolm finally asked. “In—it’s only been two days.”
“I know, but I’ve done all that for my boss many times. It wasn’t that big a deal.” Hm, maybe she shouldn’t be playing it down since she wanted to use her work as a bargaining chip.
“How much do I owe you, then?” Malcolm asked.
Ah, a perfect leading question. “Actually, I was hoping for a favor instead.”
His eyelids drooped. “Oh?”
“It might end up being a favor for both of us.”
He looked her up and down, and she blushed, realizing he might be thinking... well, she had no idea what he might be thinking.
“Can you come over to the village and investigate? Somebody was on the property the night before last, looking at the old trees. I thought you might have some knowledge of why the grove would be interesting. Or ideas about who was there. There might still be some tracks.” She had no idea if he had tracked anything in his life, but hunting was more popular on the other side of the mountains, and given his college studies, he must be an outdoorsy type. “Also, if we could prove it wasn’t you there, molesting the livestock, maybe Sam wouldn’t be so eager to send the authorities to your door. In lieu of that, I would like to know what this person wants, if it would explain why there was a chicken head on my stoop my first night visiting.”
“I doubt Jackson would let me wander around her property,” Malcolm said.
“I doubt she’d invite you into her visitor center, either, but that didn’t stop you from barging in the other day.”
Malcolm snorted.
“We can go via the beach trail,” Tara said. “The trees aren’t next to the main work areas. You could probably look around a lot before anyone noticed. I’ll vouch for you if you are noticed.”
“You’ll vouch for me? You bought a share of the property over there?”
“No, I was invited to visit and write some articles for the web.”
“You might be uninvited if you show up with me.”
Tara propped a fist on her hip. “What happened to start this feud anyway? Sam Jackson is damned sure you’re behind those dead animals.”
“You’re not?”
“Do you think I’d be over here if I thought you were some crazed porcine murderer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. I might peer in your windows and poke through your garbage, but I certainly wouldn’t be standing in your cabin, three feet away from you, and having a nice chat.” Probably, she amended silently.
“Hm.” Malcolm walked out the door.
Tara spread her hands. “Does that mean you’ll come, or what?”
He didn’t answer.
She headed outside and found that he hadn’t gone far. He stood on the porch, his gaze toward the woodpile where the wolf sniffed about, zeroing in on some mouse or rat.
Malcolm tilted his chin in that direction. “He happened.”
“The wolf?”
“When I first moved out here last fall, I was camping and fishing in the hills when an early ice storm came in. The winds were gusting, and branches were snapping off trees. I heard a pitiful whimper coming from beneath a log, and I found him, just a pup then, maybe three or four months old, all huddled in a hollow. He was skin and bones, and I didn’t see any sign of his mother. I fed him some of my trout and brought him back here. Figured I’d fatten him up a bit, then take him into the wilderness and let him go when he got big enough to take care of himself. Well, they came a couple of months after that. I went from having no neighbors—that land had been vacant since I used to come out here as a kid—to having sixty neighbors and just as many livestock animals. Saber killed a few of their chickens before they got better coops built, and Jackson was over here with animal control, trying to get me in trouble for not having a dog license. I explained to her and the authorities that I wasn’t keeping the wolf as a pet.” He waved toward the woodpile again. “I just feed him once in a while, and he comes and goes of his own accord. I admit it’s a fine line, but we’re surrounded by wilderness. There are wolves in the rainforest and coyotes in the woods. Anything could have killed her chickens. I pointed this out, but she’s been trying to get the law to do something to me for months. I swear she’s letting her pigs out on purpose to come over here and eat all the Oregon truffles I’m lucky enough to have on this land.”
Ah, so that was why the pigs were in love with the place. Tara mulled over a proper response. He’d said more in that two minutes than he had in all their previous conversations combined, and she hated to say anything that would make him clam up.
“Has either of you tried talking to each other without... vitriol?” she asked.
“You mean tactfully?” Malcolm asked. “That’s never been my strong suit. Even before... never mind.”
Tara could guess what the “before” applied to and let him drop it. Even if he had already figured out she had a snooping proclivity, she wasn’t about to admit she had been Googling him. “Perhaps if you were to help find the true perpetrator of the livestock hate crimes going on around here, Sam would be more kindly inclined toward you.”
“I’d settle for being left alone.”
She wanted to tell him that he was far too young to retreat to the hermit lifestyle—it saddened her to imagine him spending his whole life in this cabin, alone and bitter—but sensed she was close to winning her request, so merely gazed in his direction, letting him feel her expectant eyes upon him.
It must have worked, for he glanced at her. “I’ll come. Not now. I have to sell the morels while they’re fresh. Tomorrow.”
Tara smiled and jogged down the steps. “I’ll be waiting.”
“By the way,” Malcolm called after her, “I can sew.”