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Angel gasped in outrage. “What did Annie do?”
“She made Henry up the most delicious pie—golden and juicy, full of all the wild berries that she could find around these parts.”
“Let me guess… some of those berries weren’t that good.”
“You bet they weren’t.” Now Porter had to work this out so that it wasn’t too violent. Angel could only handle so much, judging by all her gasps and startled jumps. “So, Henry had a horrible stomachache,” he said.
She chortled. “That’s all?”
“Yup.” It had better be, or Little Orphan Annie was a murderess. “And Henry went to this waterfall where we’re going, and he must not have been watching his steps very closely because he was feeling so under the weather, that… no one ever saw him again…” That was nice and vague and bland. “… until years later, they did.”
“What?” she sounded disturbed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, people hear odd noises around these parts sometimes.” He tried to think of the usual sounds of nature and started to name them off. “Snapping branches when there’s nothing there, birds turning quiet, the wind picking up then falling still. We could be sitting on the banks on a perfectly sunny day and a cloud will suddenly cover the sky and make things go dark… almost black.”
How nature didallthe time, but she didn’t have to know that. He had to think of something more. “But that isn’t the worst of it,” he said.
“What?” she prodded.
“Henry’s pretty sensitive about what happened to him all those years ago, and so if he suspects—even a little bit—that a couple isn’t getting along, he’s going to try to jump out and warn them not to repeat his same mistakes.”
She tipped her head with a smile. “You really believe this?”
“You know me, I’d laugh at anyone who tried to say it was true, but then one night…”
She cut him off. “What girl did you bring up here that you weren’t getting along with?”
Dang it.
“My brother brought Kylee…” Uh… why did he use names? “And um, they were fighting. Nash can really be a jerk sometimes. He pretty much deserved it, but it wasn’t serious or anything, only that Henry’s sensitive. I used to make fun of it, believe me, but that night, we all felt it, and saw it, and… well, none of us really told anyone what happened, until now.”
That was a pretty good setup.
“How?” she asked tensely. “What exactly did you see?”
“I don’t know.” He listened to the crash of falls in the distance. These were the smaller ones. They could go further on to get the bigger ones, but these would do, plus it was only a short hike away to the stream that ran to Southern Run River where he could take her to see the fireworks. He and Nash had a raft stashed up near the trees there.
Meanwhile, Angel was begging him for answers. “You’d know it if you saw it,” he said, “but… we’re not going to fight anyway.” He winked at her. “Right? Let’s show that ghost how lovey dovey we can be.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “You are such a brat! You know that? Telling me that story so that we–we, uh… well, I’m definitely on to your game now!”
He shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, you got me.” He tried to sound unconvincing.
Those luscious lips of hers curved up. Now he was tempted to show ol’ Ghost Henry exactly what a great couple they made. They broke free from the thick of trees onto the banks of the spread of waterfalls. She let out a gasp that had nothing to do with his story as she stared around her. From this view, they could see three waterfalls side by side carved into the lush greenery of the mountains.
“Why do you have so many waterfalls and hot springs?” Angel asked. “Harvest Ranch is–is an undiscovered treasure. This would be worth a fortune if anyone knew about it.”
She turned silent.
“That’s why we can’t tell anyone about it,” he said. She worried at her lip as he pulled open the big wicker picnic basket and found the old patchwork quilt that he’d tucked inside.
“That’s so gorgeous!” Angel slid her fingers over it, admiring the different colors of patches that his mother had sewn in when they were children. “Did Lily quilt this?”
He set the tattered blanket on the dirty ground. “Yeah, it’s an old family heirloom,” he teased. At her answering cry, he winked. “Nah, it’s just an old filthy thing that we throw in the back of the pickup when we go out. It used to be nice until the dogs got into it, but that was twenty years ago. Old Yeller had to sew us a new one or he was out in the streets.”
She rolled her eyes. “And you wonder why I can’t take anything you say seriously.”
Probably best.
