The Haunting of Autumn Lake Read online

  A vision of what his beloved Vaden had endured when she was just Autumn’s age flashed into his mind. Anger still welled up in his chest when he thought of it—or every dang time he passed Nathaniel Wimber or Toby Bridges on the streets of town. Part of him was glad Randy Lange had been killed in a wagon accident; it was probably the only way Ransom had managed to swallow the fact that Cole had married Randy’s daughter, Ava. Ava was an angel like her mother, and Ransom was thankful for it. As for Frank Hodges—he’d left town long ago. His family had moved away shortly after Jerome Clayton went to the lunatic asylum—and again Ransom was glad of it.

  He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead as he tried to push the memory from his conscious thoughts—as he looked to his beautiful daughter, knowing some boy would probably break her heart soon enough, one way or the other. Oh, how glad he was in that moment that he hadn’t been the one to break Vaden’s heart—that she’d loved him, accepted him, still loved him and doted over him as if there hadn’t been twenty-five years between the day they’d met and the moment he was living in.

  Still, the thought of his little girl enduring anything like what a man could do to a woman’s tender heart caused him to wince with internal, emotive pain. He’d rather die than see Autumn go through anything so awful as heartache and pain. Still, Vaden kept telling him it was part of life—that she and Ransom could protect their daughter only so much—but in the end, life gave people experience, experience to help them grow strong in order to withstand the storms of life.

  Vaden was as wise as she was beautiful—and as amusing. He thought of Autumn’s gift to her mother—the portrait of Jethro she’d been working on for so long already. He knew darn well Vaden would melt into a puddle of tears when she unwrapped it Christmas morning.

  Ransom inadvertently chuckled at the thought of what would transpire when Autumn unveiled her gift to her mother, and Autumn asked, “What’s so funny, Daddy?”

  Autumn watched her father shrug his broad, strong shoulders. Oh, she was his daughter, sure enough, but even she could see why everyone still called her daddy Handsome Ransom.

  “Oh nothin’, darlin’,” he said. “Just thinkin’ on your mama.”

  Autumn smiled. “Thinkin’ on her about what?”

  “Thinkin’ on how I can’t wait to get home and taste that sweet kiss of hers,” Ransom answered with a wink.

  Autumn giggled. Oh, how she loved the romance between her mother and father! She’d never seen another one like it—not ever! Even when a new young couple married up in town, it was never so romantic a kiss at the altar as her father and mother shared several times a day! It was her greatest wish—to have a love like the love Ransom and Vaden Lake had. Autumn knew it was rare—the perpetually romantic love her parents owned—but she still hoped God would see his way clear to bless her with such a gift.

  Still, she doubted there were any man on earth that could rival not only her father’s good looks but his profound strength of character and body. She couldn’t imagine there was a man walking around anywhere that was so heroic as her father was—so filled with integrity, pure power, and goodness. Even if there were a man who might attempt to match her father, chances were Autumn would never meet him. And even if she did, Autumn was not Vaden Lake! She didn’t have her mother’s strength and endurance.

  In that moment she recalled the story of how the crazy old Jerome Clayton hired some boys in town to bury her mother alive when she’d been just Autumn’s own age. At the thought, goose pimples of horror and fear broke over her arms—an empathetic sensation of nausea rolled in her stomach. Autumn didn’t know how her mother had survived the terror she must have experienced!

  Autumn pushed the thought from her mind and looked up to her father once more. She always felt safer, stronger, and well protected when she looked at her father—when she was with him as she was now. Autumn Lake knew no harm could ever befall her as long as her own daddy, Handsome Ransom, was near. Nope—there would never be another man born that could even attempt to be the man her father was.

  Thus Autumn knew she would have to settle for less—even though her mother constantly assured her she would not. Everyone had pressed her mother to settle for less when she was Autumn’s age—tried to convince her to settle for that crazy Jerome Clayton—and look what had happened! Jerome Clayton had tried to kill Autumn’s father and then her mother. And then he’d ended up in the lunatic asylum! So it was that Autumn’s mother, Vaden Lake, was ever reminding her not to settle for less than the man she dreamt of.

  “And what are you thinkin’ about, sugar?” Ransom asked with a knowing grin.

  “Oh, nothin’,” Autumn fibbed. “I’m just so glad we own the pumpkin patch, Daddy. It’s my favorite place in all the world! I’m already missin’ this year’s crop, and it’s not even time to harvest it yet!”

  Her father laughed. “You’re so much like your mother, Autumn.” He winked at her and added, “And I’m so glad.”

  “Me too,” Autumn said, snuggling up against her father’s strong arm once more.

  She was glad that Ransom Lake had managed to purchase the vast pumpkin fields that had once belonged to a man named Vaughn Wimber. Mr. Wimber had passed away nearly ten years before, and Ransom had purchased the fields from Mr. Wimber’s wife—as an anniversary gift to Autumn’s mother.

  The pumpkin fields, combined with the apple and pear orchards the Lakes already owned, kept the family in a comfortable state. But more than that, it allowed Autumn to wander among her favorite places—orchards and pumpkin fields.

  She loved the scent of the ripened apples and pears—loved the way it perfumed the air as it did now. She could smell them—the sweet, crisp scent of ripened fruit. No doubt Autumn’s mother would have something warm and apple-sweet baked as a treat for Ransom and Autumn after supper.

  Autumn sighed. Home! There was no place like it. In that moment, she almost decided that it would be okay if her dream-lover never appeared, for she could not imagine leaving her home—could not imagine a house that didn’t smell of apples, nutmeg, and cinnamon. She couldn’t imagine a front porch that was not piled high with pumpkins and cornstalks in October and November. She couldn’t imagine not seeing her mother and father standing before the hearth, a crackling fire lighting the night, as they shared such kisses. No doubt Ransom and Vaden Lake would be mortified if they knew how often their daughter crept downstairs to peek around the corner into the parlor and watch her father make love to her mother by kissing her as she was sure no other man had ever kissed a woman—particularly his wife.

  And so, in those moments, Autumn was content, for there was no man like her father, and she would miss her parents and her home if a miracle ever produced one.

  Ransom’s heartbeat began to increase as he pulled the wagon to a halt in front of the house. Vaden was inside; he could feel her very essence radiating through the walls and out into the early autumn air. It was astounding—the way she still made his heart race, made his mouth water, made him never want to leave home again.

  “Run on in and tell your mama I’ll be there directly,” he told Autumn as he watched her leap down from the wagon. Oh, he knew the way his daughter leapt down wasn’t the way a lady should disembark from a conveyance, but he figured Autumn would have plenty of years to be stifled by propriety, so he didn’t say a word. “I’ll unhitch the team and get ’em fed. You can brush down later, all right?”

  “All right, Daddy,” Autumn said as she hurried toward the house.

  Ransom smiled as he watched her go. It didn’t seem so long ago that she was in braids and short skirts. He pushed the wave of melancholy to the back of his mind and slapped the lines at the backs of the team—smiling at the understanding of how truly blessed he was.

  “I’m home, Mama!” Autumn called as she entered the house. “Daddy’s unhitchin’ the team, and he’ll be right in.”

  Autumn paused, closed her eyes, and inhaled the soothing perfume of home. She smiled as the aroma of a
pples, nutmeg, cinnamon, and even cloves filled her nostrils, lungs, and being. It was warm inside the house, and even the light seemed sunset-orange already. Turning to glance out the window, she saw that indeed the sun had begun its descent, adding comfort and a restfulness to the closing of the day.

  “Oh, honey!” Vaden Lake said as she hurried to the front of the house and gathered her daughter in her arms. “I was getting worried! You know I don’t like you walking home by yourself this late.”

  Autumn hugged her mother—inhaled the scent of vanilla and spices, freshly washed hair, flour, and sugar. “I’m fine, Mama. Daddy was comin’ over the bridge just as I was.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re both home,” Vaden said. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too, Mama,” Autumn said.

  Vaden Lake smiled at her beautiful daughter—gazed at her sweetness of character and the adorable smudge of soil on her left cheek. How like her father she looked, and Vaden was resplendent in the knowledge. She didn’t know what she would do when, like Cole and Sawyer, Autumn found a lover, married, and left home. The thought caused emotion to rise in her throat, and tears threatened to well in her eyes. Yet she thought of Ava and Cole’s baby, due to arrive before Halloween. The baby would help her accept the fact that her own children were leaving home. At least, she hoped it would.

  “I’ve made an apple dessert for your father,” Vaden said, taking Autumn’s hand and leading her toward the kitchen. “Aunt Myra ordered the cinnamon candies I needed, and I tell you, this dessert will taste divine, Autumn. Simply divine!”

  Oh, Vaden was certain the dessert she’d made for Ransom would be divine, but it was to distract herself from Autumn’s maturing—that was the true reason she was determined to have Autumn inspect the dessert. Though she wanted nothing more than to hold her daughter in her mother’s embrace forever, she knew it was not God’s plan. Vaden did not doubt that her own mother had been heartbroken to let Vaden and her sister Yvonne leave to spend a year helping their Uncle Dan and Aunt Myra in the general store in town. Yet how grateful Vaden was that her mother had let them go—else she might not have met the man of her every sleeping and waking dream, Ransom Lake.

  At the very thought of Ransom, Vaden’s arms and legs rippled with goose bumps—the wild goose bumps of delightful anticipation. Her mouth began to water with desire as well—and not from the delicious scent of the apple dessert she’d made.

  Vaden glanced up to the kitchen door, hoping Ransom would walk in at any moment. But she knew it took time to care for the team. She would have to be patient.

  “Oooo! They’re pink!” Autumn exclaimed upon seeing the dessert her mother had made. And it was true. There, lying in a large baking dish, were twelve wonderful-looking and ambrosial-smelling cinnamon roll–type desserts. Autumn’s mouth watered as she bent and inhaled deeply of the cinnamon-nutmeg scent of the rolls.

  “Apple fruit rolls, they’re called,” Vaden explained. “It’s the recipe Yvonne wrote to me about. Don’t they look simply delectable? And it’s the cinnamon candy that makes them pink. It’s part of the recipe…a sweet syrup made from the cinnamon candy, sugar, water—”

  “Oh, Mama!” Autumn sighed as she inhaled once more. “They smell scrumptious! Daddy will love them!”

  Autumn watched her mother’s eyes twinkle with overpowering admiration and love for her husband. “I hope so.”

  Autumn grinned. She could not resist the temptation to tease her mother—for Vaden Lake owned a young heart, even for the few gray hairs on her head and the soft wrinkles at the corners of her mouth.

  “Oooo! Maybe Daddy will sweep you away on the wings of temptation’s seductive bliss over these apple fruit rolls,” Autumn giggled.

  She smiled as her mother blushed and placed one hand on a hip. “Autumn Lake! Where ever did you hear such talk?”

  Autumn shrugged. “I read it somewhere…in that poetry book Daddy gave you last Christmas, I think.” And as her mother opened her mouth to lovingly scold her, Autumn added, “And don’t pretend you’re astonished, Mama. I’ve seen the way you and Daddy carry on.”

  Vaden smiled. Autumn knew her mother wasn’t insipid. Vaden Lake was too smart to pretend she didn’t know what her daughter was talking about.

  “I’m a lucky woman, Autumn,” Vaden said. “It’s not every woman who enjoys a passionate love affair through the course of her entire life. Your father and I…we—”

  “Kiss the way no one else in this town ever does. Of that I’m certain,” Autumn interrupted as she tentatively dipped a finger in the sticky fuchsia syrup surrounding the fruit rolls.

  “I’m certain of it too,” Vaden agreed, plunging her own index finger into the syrup.

  “Mmmmm!” both women exclaimed in unison.

  “You’ll have Daddy entirely bewitched tonight with these in his tummy, Mama,” Autumn giggled.

  Her mother winked at her. “I certainly hope so, baby girl. I certainly hope so.”

  Autumn glanced to the kitchen door then as her father entered through it. Instantly her mother’s face lit up as brightly as any electricity bulb Mr. Edison had invented.

  “It smells so good in here, Mrs. Lake,” Ransom said, kissing Autumn on the cheek and then moving to Vaden. “Good enough to eat somethin’ up.”

  Vaden giggled as Ransom took her in his arms, kissing her squarely on the mouth. “Well, I hope so, Mr. Lake,” Vaden said. “I’ve worked all day just to—”

  But her words were lost as her husband’s open mouth captured hers.

  Autumn bit her lip to stifle a delighted giggle as she watched her father kiss her mother. There was no timidity about the way Ransom Lake kissed his wife—no concern with propriety. Autumn stood in awe as she watched her parents kissing, open-mouthed and wildly passionate, in the kitchen.

  “Mmmm. Cinnamon, huh?” Ransom said as he ended the kiss and studied his wife. “Apples too?”

  “Daddy!” Autumn teasingly scolded. “Are you tasting Mama’s mouth again? And right in front of your innocent daughter?”

  “You bet,” Ransom said, gathering Vaden into his arms and grinding his mouth to hers.

  “For cryin’ in the bucket, Daddy!” Autumn squeaked. “Wash your hands for supper! Let’s eat before you two disappear into the parlor for your sparkin’ session. I’m starvin’ near to death.”

  Autumn felt warm and safe inside as she watched her father release her mother, slapping her square on the bum as she smiled up at him.

  “Your daddy still turns my knees to pumpkin guts,” Vaden giggled as she kissed her index finger and pressed it to the manly cleft in Ransom Lake’s strong chin. Looking to Autumn, she added, “You wash up too, sweetie. Supper’s ready.”

  Following her father to the pump at the sink, Autumn smiled as her father winked at her.

  “You like all that lickery kissin’ between me and your mama…so quit playin’ like ya don’t,” he teased her.

  Autumn giggled. “You’re scandalous, Daddy. And it’s one reason I love you so much,” she told him.

  As they washed their hands for supper and her mother set the table, Ransom said, “Someone saw the Specter out in Nate Wimber’s cornfield last night.”

  “Really?” Autumn gasped. “Daddy…really?”

  Ransom chuckled. “Yes, darlin’, really. Or at least that’s what Tawny Johnson claims.”

  Autumn wrinkled her nose as her mother said, “Tawny Johnson? Ransom, you know you can’t trust a thing that girl says. She’s just like her mother. Belva Tibbits always was a…a….”

  “A liar,” Ransom finished.

  But Vaden softened her expression. “That seems a little harsh…but yes. Belva always embellishes…so I’m sure Tawny does too. The apple never falls far from the tree.”

  Autumn wrinkled her brow. “How do you think Mrs. Johnson managed to land Mr. Johnson as her husband?” she asked. “You and Daddy always say she was such a troublemaker as a girl. How did she manage to—”

  “She coaxe
d him into takin’ her out to the meadow and—” Ransom began. But Vaden’s hand over his mouth hushed him.

  “It’s not nice to spread gossip, Ransom,” Vaden said. “No one knows for sure that anything happened out there in the—”

  “Everyone knows what happened, baby!” Ransom exclaimed, pushing Vaden’s hand from his mouth. “Rolland Johnson wasn’t born too early. Hell, he weighed nine pounds.”

  Autumn’s eyes widened, and Vaden waved a hand of dismissal. “Everyone makes mistakes, I suppose. And stop cussing, honey.” Nodding to Autumn, Vaden added, “Not that Rolland was a mistake. He’s a lovely boy. He’s a gift to the world.”

  “That’s because he takes after his father,” Ransom mumbled.

  Autumn bit her lip to stifle a giggle. She loved the way her parents interacted—the way they bantered and were always so affectionate. Oh, how she longed for such a marriage as theirs.

  “So Tawny is the one who saw the Specter then?” Autumn asked, for her delightfully chilling curiosity concerning the legend of the Specter knew no bounds.