Chapter 3.2…
Luke didn’t know who to strangle first – the blonde who looked like she could level him with one straight hard glare or Greg, the cousin who just couldn’t seem to leave him alone. RH: Can we find a balance between her glare and Greg’s … something. Greg not leaving him alone doesn’t balance the blonde who could level him with one glance.
Or, just write, “the blonde or his cousin Greg, neither of whom could mind their own business and leave him alone.”
“I was just trying to help,” Mackenzie said. “I just hate the fact that they think they can rule the world.”
“It really wasn’t any of your business, Miss Grace.”
“It’s Kenzie. And…I know.” She sighed, looking away. “Reporters just…get under my skin. A job hazard, I guess.” RH: Her job or their job? Sugg: A hazard of my job, I guess.
“A hazard of your job?” Luke glanced at brace on her wrist. He had to admit, he hadn’t the faintest idea who Hayes O’Brien, 006 might be, or why she wore the brace, but judging by Cooper’s expression – full out admiration – Hayes O’Brien was clearly someone.
Enough of a someone enough to be the subject of a stalker, according to Greg. Just keep an eye on her, look out for anyone or anything out of the ordinary. She’s mostly spooked, and just needs a place to relax.
Luke looked away, back to the road, barely missing a pothole that suddenly gaped in the road. “Be glad she didn’t recognize you. Greg said you’re supposed to stay under the radar.”
MacKenzie had to brace her hand on the dash, lurching toward him as the truck jolted.
“Sorry.”
She glanced at him, her expression soft. “I really am sorry I butted in. And you’re right. The last thing I need is some reporter recognizing me. We’d have the national media on our trail in a second. You just looked…”
(DELETE: She shook her head, as if self-editing. )
“What – how did I look?”
She pulled in a breath through her teeth. RH: “through her teeth” makes me think she’s gritting, with her lips curled up, showing those teeth. Sugg she just inhales long and slow or something before saying… “Can we just…start over?”
They’d turned off the main highway, and even the winding side road, and now trekked a dirt trail that led to his cabin – or he should say the Alexander family cabin, as Greg’s side of the family technically owned it also. But most of his clan had moved on – further west, others (delete:some of them) down to Georgia. He’d thought the place free and clear for his use…
(DELETE: Until today.) Don’t think we need this. Kenzie is only there for a few weeks. And “until” is used in the next line.
“Not until you answer my question – What did you see in my expression (delete: how did I look)?”
“LOOK, LUKE, I am around actors way too much, probably. I PROBABLY see things that aren’t there. And, really it isn’t any of my business, like you – “
“Stop stalling, Grace?” Luke glanced at her, RH: I don’t see him as having a sickt feeling here. Maybe a slight twinge at the idea of being confronted, or having his feelings exposed, but not sick. Besides, she might be completely wrong. (DELETE: a sick feeling needling his chest. He’d thought he’d done a masterful job of packing down his feelings, his guilt, his –)
“Tortured. YOU LOOKED TORTURED. THERE, HAPPY?”
OKAY, SHE WAS RIGHT. HOW DID SHE SEE THROUGH HIS ARMOR?
“The reporter mentioned A NAME, and you got a look on your face that made me THINK SHE TOUCHED A DARK PLACE.” SUGG: Have her be forthright here because Luke pushed her. Gives us some stronger banter and they can stop dancing in sway around each other and take a step forward. (DELETE: just…oh nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve been around some dark places lately. I’m probably over sensitive.” )
Luke (DELETE: swallowed past the burr lodged in his throat,) hatED that, in an instant, this stranger had seen everything he’d been trying to hide. RH: DID she really see everything, or just a piece of him. I think she glimpsed beyond his armor into his soul and it bothered him. Because if this “actress” could do it, how much more others? He realizes he hasn’t been fooling anyone. (DELETE: Or perhaps run from. Or both, depending on the day. )
(Delete: And) He’d simply frozen when Candy had mentioned HIS FRIEND’S WIFE (WHAT THE GUY’S NAME?) Patsy Gerard. And the fact she’d written a book RH: ABOUT WHAT? RECAP IT HERE. In part, about him.
Or, at least about what she BELIEVED (DELETE: supposed) happened. WHAT WAS IT SHE SAID. SOMETHING ABOUT Dark Secrets? (DELETE: Yeah,) That was an understatement.
“Why did you say that to me?”
Luke cut his eyes her direction. “Say what?”
“About not being a hero? About being a murderer.” The rain bulleted the windshield and he turned the wipers up higher.
RH: THIS CONFUSES ME A BIT. CAN YOU LINK SHORT EXCHANGE INTO WHAT WAS SAID IN LAST CHAPTER. WHHEN DID HE SAY SOMETHING TO HER ABOUT BEING A MURDERER? JUST CLARIFY.
“I think now is a good time to start over.”
She considered him for a moment. “Okay. Sorry. It’s the actress in me. I see something in a person, and I like to know where it came from. It’s a part of getting inside someone’s skin to understand them, and perhaps, eventually, emulate that emotion for the screen.”
RH: THIS CONVERSATION FEELS A BIT STILTED, I’M NOT SURE WHERE WE’RE AT HERE. WE WENT FROM HER SEEING SOMETHING IN HIM, TO HER ASKING WHY HE CALLED HER A MURDERER AND NOW WE’RE BACK TO STARTING OVER AND HER INSIGHT BECAUSE SHE’S AN ACTRESS. I LIKE THE ACTRESS-INSIGH ANGLE, BUT JUST WORK ON SHARPENING THIS LINE OF CONVERSATION. 🙂
(This is Luke thinking here:) MAYBE SHE COULD EMULATE EMOTION FOR THE BIG SCREEN, OR PRETEND TO BE A SUPER WOMAN, BUT SHE COULDN’T EMULATE HIS PARTICULAR BRAND OF TORTURE. LIKE HOW IT FELT TO WATCH AN INNOCENT, BUT BRAVE BOY DIE BECAUSE OF SOMETHING SHE’D DONE. OR THE PAIN OF HER BEST FRIENDS BLOOD BURNING HER HANDS. (DELETE: She couldn’t emulate watching a child die in front of her eyes. Or seeing your best friend shot down, his blood warm on your hands. But Luke nodded, searching for a topic change. )
Like…the fact that while she could read someone at a glance, apparently he had the sensitivity of a moose. “I can’t believe I said…well, what I said to you.” Even as he thought it, one eye closed in a half-wince. He’d practically called her a tramp. “I’m sorry about that.”
MORE DIALOG CLEAN UP. SEEMS THEY ARE TALKING CIRCULAR. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” “CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT.” FEELS FAMILIAR. I THINK WE ARE WELL PAST THE POINT OF JUST STARTING OVER WHICH SHE ASKED TO DO OVER A PAGE AGO. 🙂
She must be trying as hard as he because she offered a laugh. “Yeah, I had to admit, it threw me. But I’ve been called worse…recently.” Her voice ended with a sigh.
“CARE TO SHARE?” He slowed the truck as he came to a narrow bridge. Under it, an offshoot of the Doe River rushed in a white, angry swirl over rocks and downed logs through the woods. Sometimes, after a hard day’s work, he’d come down here, find a notch in the rocks and let the rapids pour over his aching muscles. But after a rain like today, it could sweep him right over, slam his head against a boulder, drown him in three feet of water.
“NO.” The wooden bridge creaked as he eased over it. KENZIE GLANCED DOWN, OUT HER WINDOW. “Is this thing safe?”
“THEY TELL ME IT IS.” he said.
She SNAPPED HER GAZE TOWARD HIM, TAKING her hand off her brace and GRIPPED THE door WHITE KNUCKLED.
“Really, we’ll be fine. It’s sturdy enough.”
“WHY DON’T I TRUST YOU?” SHE EASED HER BRACED WRIST ONTO HER LAP. “Where are we going?”
“My cabin.”
“YOUR CABIN?” She shot him a look. “Greg CALLED IT A VACATION HOME.”
Luke shook his head. (DELETE: THIS DOESN’T FEEL REAL TO THE MOMENT Yep, it was decided – he’d strangle Greg first.) “IT IS, to me. It’s a two room cabin with outdoor plumbing and a wood fireplace useful for hunting and hiding out. Of which, I think you’ll be doing the latter.”
She glanced at him with wide green* eyes. “Did you say outdoor plumbing?”
“YES, BUT WE HAVE (DELETE: What the over use of “uh” and hesitation. By now I feel like they should be talking clearly. The pauses don’t give us a good feel for their character. Uh…) We have a hand pump over the sink, but the facilities are behind the house…”
“FACILITIES? OUTSIDE?” She closed her mouth, and by the angle of her jaw, he guessed that he’d have to stand in line for dibs on Greg.
She shook her head. “I guess it’s a good place to hide.”
“Greg said you’d been in some sort of trouble.” He kept his words casual, light. No need to spook her more. RH; HMMM, ME THINKS THIS FEELS LIKE TELLING. THE READER ALREADY KNOWS SHE WAS IN SOME SORT OF TROUBLE. WE KNOW LUKE KNOWS IT FROM THE FIRST PAGE, SO HOW ABOUT HIM JUST ASKING HER STRAIGHT OUT, “WANT TO TELL ME WHY YOU’RE HIDING SO I CAN PROTECT YOU?”
She lifted a shoulder. “DELETE: (Greg thinks) Someone tried to kill me.” Her voice WAS light, easy, AS IF SHE WASN’T SURE OF ANYTHING. “I THINK IT WAS MY EX PLAYING A JOKE ON ME.” (Delete: As if hoping not to spook him, either.)
“IS THAT HOW YOU HURT YOUR WRIST?” He nodded to her brace. “SOUNDS LIKE YOUR EX WAS A REAL LOSER.”
“VERY REAL LOSER.” SHE HELD UP HER ARM, “IT HURTS, BUT I’VE DONE WORSE. LIKE the time I jumped out of a moving car and missed the WHAT KIND OF pad.”
“Jumped out of a moving. . . YOU’RE a stunt WOMAN?”
She laughed. “NO, JUST A DUMB OLE ACTRESS WHO STARTED OUT WANTING TO DO HER OWN TRICKS. BROKE MY LEG AND ARM IN THREE PLACES DURING MY First movie. (DELETE: Overzealous. I thought I should do all my own stunts. Not anymore.) NOW I JUST WATCH THE PROFESSIONALS JUMP OUT OF BURNING BUILDINGS.”
“How long have you been in the movie business?”
“About six years. I got a lucky break out of college – found Greg, and he landed me a bit part in an action adventure movie – maybe you saw it? – it was called Lethal Chase. From there, they cast me as Haley O’Brien, 006.”
“I’VE HEARD OF IT… COOP IS A BIG FAN. YOU’RE SOME KIND OF FEMALE BOND OR SOMETHING.” (DELETE: Is that like James Bond’s partner or something?)”
She gave him a long, (Delete: almost disbelieving) look. “SOMETHING LIKE THAT, YEAH.”
“Sorry, I don’t watch movies.”
(DELETE: “Oh. Well, no, she’s a….take off of Bond, only she’s American…whatever. I’ve done three of them now.”
Silence pulsed between them. Then,)
NEED A BIT OF THE SCENSES HERE. WHERE ARE THEY ON THE ROAD TO THE CABIN?
KENZIE SWERVED IN HER SEAT TO FACE HIM. “Why not?”
“Why not…what?”
“Why don’t you watch movies?”
“I prefer quiet. Reading THE CABIN DOESN’T have electricity.”
She (DELETE: WHY DOES SHE CLOSE HER EYES?closed her eyes) SHOOK her head. “That’s just awesome.” IS IT AWESOME OR AWFUL. I THINK SHE GIVES HIM A DEEP, MORE REVEALING RESPONSE HERE. CAN SHE RELATE TO THIS GROWING UP POOR? MAYBE SHE SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT READING BY KEROSENE LAMP LIGHT OR SOMETHING.
He smiled. “You’ll get used to it. I live off the grid, so I still have lights – via the river we passed. And gas lights if I need them. But you learn to go to bed early and get up with the sun.”
“Get up with the sun—that’s usually when I’m going to bed.” But she said it with a tone that suggested she might be stretching the truth. And, underneath that glitz and sparkle – and especially since she still wore Cooper’s raincoat – he suspected that she was a read-a-book-in-bed, get-up-early-and-run kind of girl.
“Umhmm,” he said. They rolled into a clearing and stopped before the Alexander family cabin. Luke sat in the seat, watching Kenzie out of his periphery as she surveyed her…vacation home.
A low-hanging porch with smooth-as-tanned leather, polished wood beams holding up the roof disguised much of the cabin’s beauty – the leaded glass windows, the hand-carved door, the Riverstone fireplace that cut through the center of the cabin for heat, as well as cooking. GOOD!
“How old is this cabin?”
“About…maybe, a few…decades.”
She slowly turned in her seat. “Guess for me – how many…decades?”
“Eight?”
“Nice. And I suppose those logs are hand hewn?”
HMM, NOT SURE THIS FEEL LIKE REAL CONVO. SHE REALLY WANTS TO KNOW FOR SURE HOW OLD THE CABIN IS? WOULDN’T HE JUST SAY? I THINK LIKE: THEY PULL UP TO THE CABIN AND LUKE SHIFTS TO PARK:
“THERE SHE BLOWS. BUILT IN 1930 BUT MY GREAT, GREAT GRANDFATHER. CUT ALL THE LOGS HIMSELF, ETC.”
“Cut right there, from the property.” In fact, the Alexander family passed down a sort of superstition about great, great grandpa still lurching about the eighty acres of Cherokee forest, putting tar in the gaps in the logs, or fixing the roof, especially on cold nights when the wood moaned. It made for a delicious ghost story for Trevor. WEAVE THIS INTO HIS INTRO TO THE CABIN DIALOG.
And yes, it might have something to do with the fact that Luke had never installed electricity. Or plumbing.
Besides, he also had the silver stream, parked on the other side of the house, if he got desperate.
“Ready?”
But her gaze stuck on a small building down a thin trail toward the back of the house. “Is that the…”
“Biffy. We call it a biffy. Or throne, depending on your mood.”
She winced. “Right. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” RH: READY FOR WHAT?
He hid a grin. “Stay put – I’ll come around and—“
But she’d already hopped out, made a dash for the porch. Ho-kay.
He caught up just as she eased open the door and stepped inside.
Calling it two rooms veered on the side of generous – no one really considered the loft a second room since it didn’t have a door. Or walls. As he peered over her shoulder, he shot a small prayer of gratitude to the army for teaching him how to make his bed and keep his room clean. In front of the fireplace – on one side of the two-sided hearth, an overstuffed denim sofa faced the heat, flanked on either side by homemade hickory furniture. Books stacked beside the chair balanced a cold cup of coffee.
His gaze whisked across the Hudson Bay blanket over his double bed in the corner, the duffle of clean clothing he had yet to fold and put in the trunk at the end of his bed. A bowl of hardened oatmeal remains sat on the sink – he hadn’t pumped water yet into the kitchen sink – although now his rain-barrel on top of the cabin would surely be filled to overflowing. A red picnic table he’d rescued from a park cleanup crew filled most of the space on the other side of the hearth.
The pungent odor of kerosene mixed with creosote and wood polish, and for the first time he realized how backwoods the place smelled. Like he really might be Daniel Boone. IS THIS HER POV? LIKE HE REALLY MIGHT BE DANIEL BOONE WOULD BE A GOOD LINE FROM KENZIE.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TWO UNMARRIED PEOPLE STAYING IN THE SAME SMALL CABIN TOGETHER?
“You have a big family,” Kenzie said, stopping at the wall near the door, surveying the generations of photos taken. She peered close to a group of teenagers. “Is that Greg?”
“He was A redneck. Don’t let him ever forget that.”
She tapped the photo, then sighed and turned, surveying the place in silence. He watched her face. Yes, she did have freckles, and underneath all that bling, a solidness about her that intrigued him. Did her own stunts, huh?
And, despite his annoyance, okay, it did feel just a smidge good to have someone take up for him. As if she might be on his side.
MacKenzie Grace. Maybe it was time for him to watch a movie. GOOD.
What if someone really did want to hurt her? HE SHOULD KNOW THE DETAILS BY NOW. LET HIM RETHINK WHAT SHE TOLD HIM HERE. Clearly, they’d gotten away with it the first time. But Greg had seemed just enough worried to ask Luke to babysit. Which meant this stalker just might find a map and head east, to Tennessee.
And that scenario could only be slightly better than the one flashing through his mind since Candy had dropped the little bomb about Cindy’s book.
Luke pushed away the image of reporters stalking him through town…
And then there was the people he’d left behind. The ones who would love to track him down, right here to this cabin, and finish what they started in Columbia.
He blew out a long breath, leaned against the doorjamb, folding his arms. Yes, maybe he should be doing the hiding, right along with Kenzie. Because if his whereabouts really got out – not in Tennessee, but into the world at large, she wouldn’t be the only one HIDING FROM someone trying to kill her.
GREAT ENDING HOOK!