Indigo Lake. Jodi Thomas

no golf course or gym. She asked twice how far the nearest mall was.”

      “What did you show them?”

      “Not much. They hated the row of new garden homes going up by the museum—too small. The houses over by the school were bigger but too old, too many stairs, too plain. I showed them one three miles from town and he said it was ‘too far out.’ In the end, I think they were just daydreaming.”

      Maria smiled as she worked. “I know, it’s not fair,” she said. “You try so hard, but not everyone is serious.”

      “Right. I told them to think about building. Good news is they said they’d consider it. Bad news is I won’t make much money off the sale of a lot.”

      “Anyone else?”

      Dakota felt a little of the day’s tension leave her shoulders. “The mothers of a bride and groom were trying to pick out their newly married children’s home while the kids were on their honeymoon. I showed them everything in town and the mothers couldn’t agree. My guess is I’ll be showing the newlyweds the same houses next week.”

      They talked as they ate: Dakota about her work in town and what needed to be done on the farm every weekend before spring, and Maria about what fruit she planned to can tomorrow. Her business was growing, but another ten jars of jam sold next week wouldn’t be enough to pay the bills this month.

      As they finished supper, the rain finally stopped. Maria cleaned up and began setting her ingredients out for tomorrow. Dakota knew if the rain started again during the night, her sister would get up and create her delicious jams and jellies without the light. Since the accident that took her sight five years ago, Maria couldn’t sleep if it rained or stormed, so she worked at what she loved: cooking.

      Collecting her laptop, Dakota headed for the barn. Her day job might be over, but her studies were just beginning. If she ever planned to do what she loved, she had to work—rain or shine.

       CHAPTER SIX

      BLADE HAMILTON WORKED half the night trying to pull his bike out of the Texas mud. Indigo Lake seemed determined to keep it. Finally, with the help of an old rusty winch from the shack of a barn on his land, he managed to drag the Harley out of the lake and get it on solid ground.

      The night seemed to fight him as well, first with a chilling mist against his already wet clothes, and finally with shadows from the low clouds moving over the midnight land like creatures crawling toward him. Once, he looked up and swore he saw a figure, round as he was tall, glaring at him from behind a bare elm as if the intruder thought invisible leaves might hide him.

      Blade thought he could make out white teeth smiling. Then the wind whipped up and the stout body turned, as if rolling into the night. Blade kept glancing toward the lone elm, but the figure didn’t appear again. After cussing and yelling at it a few times, Blade calmed down and examined the damage to his bike.

      Forget the round figure. If he didn’t get this bike fixed he’d be here forever, and tonight it was far too dark to even predict how many hours or days it would take him. The way his luck was running, he’d probably have plenty of time to visit with the ghost.

      Exhausted, he climbed into the pickup he’d borrowed and drove back to Dakota’s place. Her house wasn’t far; he’d seen the lights there go out hours ago. But, thanks to the lake, the road circled around, making it seem miles away.

      When he crossed onto her property, he noticed a few buildings besides the main house scattered over the rocky, uneven land. Barns, sheds, a short house that looked like it might have been the original dugout when the place was homesteaded.

      Like she told him to, he parked the pickup at the beginning of the drive. Maybe she didn’t want it getting stuck in the mud, or maybe she’d planned to park it in one of the little barns scattered around the house. Only, he’d kept it so long she must have gone on to bed. He was too tired to care as he cut the engine and climbed out.

      If he had a pen, he would have left a thank-you note. He’d probably run her battery down using the headlights as his only light source, and the driver’s seat was muddy, not to mention the bed where he’d climbed in and out of the truck several times.

      Half the papers she had scattered across her front seat were now floating on the lake. He’d tried to collect them, but his efforts looked more like a first-grade art project than anything she might want to read.

      He’d apologize for that also, he decided.

      He was too tired to even bother trying to scrape off the mud tonight. He’d say he was sorry, or better yet offer to pay for a wash tomorrow, but tonight he’d promised to bring the old piece of junk back and he had. The ten minutes he’d said he wanted to borrow it had turned into three or four hours. She probably needed it in the morning to do whatever she did for a living.

      From the way she was dressed he’d guess it wasn’t farming. Wool skirt six inches too long to be fashionable, navy blazer a bit too big for her tiny frame, and shoes practical but so ugly he wouldn’t suggest even giving them away. No clue what her job was, but one thing was obvious, she was making herself look older.

      He grinned, thinking of how she’d ordered him to ride in the back. She could be the role model for the kind of woman he hated being around. Bossy, quick-tempered, superstitious, and short. But, he had to admit, she was kind of cute for an elf.

      He decided to walk up to the house and leave the keys. No lights were on at her place or in the yard, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

      He’d just put the keys on the porch where she’d stacked the boxes.

      Bad luck found him about the time he was within twenty feet of her house. The rain started again. The slow steady plopping around him sounded like a thousand tiny drummers. He’d been soaked for so long, Blade barely noticed he was dripping as he walked. Maybe this slow drizzle would wash the pickup off a little. If it didn’t, his only neighbor probably wouldn’t be speaking to him come dawn.

      Ten feet from the house he saw the shadow of a woman appear on the porch. The watery moon didn’t show her clearly at first and he thought it was Dakota. Small build, hair tied back away from her face, a crochet shawl wrapped around her shoulders. He almost yelled a greeting, but something wasn’t right.

      The woman let the shawl slip. She wore a white nightgown that gave the impression that she was floating.

      Blade frowned. No wonder people around here believed in curses and spirits. He’d only been here one night and he’d already seen two.

      He moved a few feet closer and the woman took shape. She was taller than he remembered Dakota being, and so thin she reminded him of a willow swaying in the night breeze. Only she was flesh and blood.

      He studied her. She wasn’t Dakota. He could see that now, but the resemblance was there. A sister, maybe. This woman was a few years older and beautiful in a no-makeup, freshly scrubbed kind of way.

      Six feet away. Five. The wet grass silenced his steps. She was looking right at him. Even in the night he couldn’t understand why he didn’t startle her.

      Blade stopped. He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to frighten her, but if she hadn’t seen him yet, one word would surely do just that.

      She closed her eyes and leaned her face out so the gentle rain could tap against her skin. Then she smiled and he knew...she was blind. She might not have seen him, but he had the feeling she observed more than most. She saw the night, the softness of the rain, the caress of the damp wind, the silent world after a storm. Tapping her fingers along the porch railing, she moved inside and disappeared as though she’d been nothing more than a vision, a will-o’-the-wisp, impossible to catch.

      Blade couldn’t move. He felt like he’d seen a ghost, though his life had always been ordered by reason and logic. This whole part of the country made him feel like he’d stepped into another world, or maybe another dimension.