Indigo Lake - Jodi Thomas Ransom Canyon

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up the house almost to the second floor. They were thorny and bare. When he twisted one branch to see if it was alive, a thorn sliced into his finger. It was indeed alive, and he felt like the plant was drinking his blood. Dropping the branch, he closed the door, thinking the roses could have the house for all he cared but would get no more of his blood.

      As nightfall crept in, he moved out onto the old porch of the house. Boards creaked beneath his boots, but the place must have solid bones to still be standing.

      He was tired and bothered that he had no memories of the man who’d fathered him. He should have pushed his mother for answers, but when he’d asked about the past, she always said that the time would come for talking.

      Only, he had a feeling it never would. She’d married three times since he’d been born and each time, like a chameleon, she shifted and changed into someone he barely knew. She’d been a preacher’s wife in Kansas, married to an oil field worker who moved all over Oklahoma, and, for a few months, the wife of an out-of-work actor in California. Between marriages she’d waitressed some, sold cars once in Houston, and finally settled into selling homes in Denver. He doubted she even remembered what she was like thirty years ago when she’d given birth to him at eighteen.

      Blade told himself he didn’t care. She had her life and it hadn’t included him for years. It hadn’t mattered to her if he dropped by once a month or once a year.

      He moved out to the lake. It was time to get out of here. This wasn’t where he wanted to be after dark. Maybe he’d go back to town and find a hotel. Tomorrow, he’d take another look around, not searching for a thing to take away, but maybe he’d get a feeling about the man he’d been named after. Henry must have grown up here.

      Blade could feel change in the air like he had a dozen times before in his life. His mother had wanted no roots and she’d raised a son without any until now.

      Roots he didn’t want, he reminded himself again. He didn’t know anything about this land, these relatives. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He had a feeling whatever stories this house held were sad ones.

      Lightning flashed to the east and he saw another house across the lake. It was built low to the ground, almost blending into the landscape. Probably another abandoned home. More land that the next generation didn’t want.

      He zipped up his leather jacket and walked to his bike. Let the coyotes and hawks have this place. Maybe one more circling of the land tomorrow and then he was leaving. When he got to Denver, he’d call the lawyer who contacted him about this inheritance and ask for a Realtor who’d sell the place. Land, house, and heritage. They could buy it all.

       CHAPTER TWO

      DAKOTA DAVIS TURNED OFF the county road, driving way faster than the speed limit. In five minutes the dirt road would be a river of mud. If she wanted to get home without all her supplies soaked, she’d better make the farm pickup fly.

      A few minutes later, as she passed the old Hamilton place, she thought she was hallucinating. A man dressed in black was standing knee-deep in the muddy lake, looking like he was swearing at heaven.

      For just a moment he reminded her of something her shichu, her grandmother, had said about a legend of the lake. Shichu said the last man to die in a battle over this land was a strong warrior, but he’d simply walked out to the middle of Indigo Lake until the water was over his head because he’d lost his will to live. Apache legends, tales of her people who fought and died over this land, were common, but this story was about the Hamiltons.

      Shichu knew them all. Ancient tales and stories of battles fought near this quiet lake between neighbors who’d settled here over a hundred years ago. The Davis family and the Hamilton clan. Curses once screamed across the water now simply whispered in the trees lining its banks.

      Grandmother said the land was damned and all who fought to keep it would die in water. Maybe that was why the last one, Henry Hamilton, stayed away, Dakota thought as she stared at the vision before her.

      When the man in black turned to stare at her pickup, she had to remind herself she didn’t believe in ghosts. But the stranger looked exactly like the Hamilton men she’d seen in pictures at the museum near Crossroads. Tall, broad-shouldered, slim.

      Only, all the Hamilton men were dead, even Henry, who she’d never seen. Folks in town said he was killed six months ago in a car crash somewhere in Louisiana. As far as anyone knew he hadn’t been back to the place for forty years, but the Franklin sisters whispered that the crash had pushed both his car and him off the highway into water.

      The man standing in the lake looked very much alive and was waving for help. Curiosity got the better of her, and Dakota turned away from her farm and toward Hamilton Acres.

      A heartbeat later she slammed on her brakes.

      The bridge that usually stretched across a stream that fed the lake was now halfway in the water. There must have been an accident: what looked like the back wheel of a motorcycle spun in the lake as if trying to tread water.

      Jumping from the truck, she yelled to the man, “You need help?”

      “No,” he yelled back. “I’m fine. My bike just wanted to go for a swim.”

      Dakota frowned, then turned around. “Oh, all right. Sorry to bother you.” She climbed back into the truck.

      “Wait.” The man stormed out of the water. “I’m sorry. The bridge gave way as I was leaving. I just watched a classic 1948 Harley drown.”

      “I can see that.” She thought of asking what he was doing on Hamilton Acres in the first place, but she had a feeling he belonged here. Black hair. Angry. Too noisy to be a ghost. “Why don’t you pull it out and dry it off?”

      “It doesn’t work that way. I’d have to take it apart and rebuild. It will no longer be original, and parts cost more than the bike, if I can find them.”

      Too much information. She didn’t have time to visit or cry over the loss of a motorcycle.

      Her grandmother had told her once that the men of this ranch only had two possible traits: stubborn or crazy.

      This one had both, plus he had the look of a Hamilton. She’d bet his eyes were that funny color gray of a wolf. “Anything else you want to educate me about motorcycles? I need to get these supplies home.”

      “You wouldn’t want to help me pull my bike out?” he asked in a calmer tone.

      “Nope. I don’t go on Hamilton land. There’s a curse. Anyone named Davis who steps foot on that land dies a violent death.” She didn’t add by a Hamilton bullet. Never give ideas to the insane.

      “We all die sometime, lady.”

      She stepped into her truck. “I’ll have to test the curse later. Good luck with your bike.” Thunder rolled over the land as if pushing her away. “I’m in a hurry.”

      “Wait. I’m sorry. Let me try again. I’m Blade Hamilton and I’ve just lost a sixty-thousand-dollar bike in the mud. Forgive me for not caring about an old curse or your groceries.”

      “You’re forgiven, Hamilton, but I’m not stepping on your land. The good news is that bike isn’t going anywhere. It will still be right there in the mud tomorrow, but if I get these supplies wet, we’ll lose a week’s income.”

      Lightning flashed as if on cue. The blink of light showed off the skeleton trees dancing in the wind near the water. Dakota fought the urge to gun the engine. For as long as she could remember she’d always feared this land. It felt like Halloween night without a light.

      The man didn’t seem to notice the weather or the creepiness of the place. Who knew—maybe Hamiltons were used to scary nights.

      “Fine,” he said. “Any chance you’d rent me your truck? I just need it for ten minutes and I’ll pay you fifty.”

      “Nope,”

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