CHAPTER ONE-1
1587 Words
CHAPTER ONE
GODRIC HONEYBUN STRETCHED his long legs and yawned, the damp morning air filling his lungs with clean oxygen and an energy he shouldn’t have had at five in the morning.
His sneaker hit a small pebble and it skipped away, bouncing over the rocky edge of the bank toward the water below.
It hit the deep water of the wide creek with a soft plop that lifted the head of the beautiful creature on the opposite side of the creek. The deer’s dark eyes sparked once in the light of the full moon before it turned and bounded soundlessly away.
Godric smiled as the spotted fawn took one last look in his direction, flipped its tiny tail, and then followed after its mother.
Cheeky little bastard.
He could smell coffee somewhere in the distance, coming from the encampment. Somebody else was an early riser.
Or maybe, like him, they found it hard to sleep on the concrete-like ground, which was embedded with small, sharp rocks.
He thought about heading back to look for the owner of the coffee so he could beg, borrow, or steal some of it. But then something moved on the bank of the creek below, drawing his gaze.
A woman was standing beside the creek. She was lean, probably five foot eight, with narrow hips and long, slimly muscular arms and legs.
Her skin looked milky brown in the skimpy early morning light, and smooth as cream.
Her waist-length hair was thick and straight, the strands flashing blue-black from the light of the moon overhead.
Her feet were bare and she carried what looked like a white towel draped over her hands. She stared at the sparkling water of the creek for a long moment, looking as if she were working up the courage to enter it.
Godric had waded in it the day before and knew just exactly how cold it would be.
Despite, knowing full well that he should leave, he couldn’t look away. He felt like a voyeur watching her. But something about the woman called to him.
Something that felt like magic.
As if she felt the heat of his gaze, her head turned and she focused her gaze in his direction. Her features were partially obscured by darkness. But the moon highlighted high, sharp cheekbones and a long, slightly rounded nose. Her lips looked the color of a fine cabernet in the skimpy light, and her eyes, deep set and wide, looked unfathomable and black.
He stared back, feeling as if she could see him sitting there, despite the tree cover and dense undergrowth surrounding the spot where he sat.
Did she smile?
Was that a nod?
Slowly, careful like the deer he’d been watching across the creek, she reached up to pull the caftan off her shoulders.
The cream colored fabric slid off wide shoulders and down, baring the rounded tops of her breasts.
Godric gasped as the fabric dropped downward, pooling below her tiny waist, on her slim hips.
His need to watch the show she was providing warred with Godric’s upbringing and his thigh muscles tightened as he started to stand.
To walk away.
A soft cloud of creamy material hit the rocky ground at her feet and Godric stilled, groaning.
She was magnificent. Regal, yet somehow wild and untamed. She looked like an Indian Princess, pulled right out of the pages of history and dropped in those woods to taunt and tempt him.
Time and distance slipped away as Godric stood. His gaze never wavered from the dark and unreadable stare of the woman standing thirty feet away on the bank of the wide creek.
Her dark eyes followed him as he stood.
The towel suddenly joined the creamy fabric on the ground and she turned, walking on unhurried, silent feet into the icy water.
Godric forced himself to turn away, and started back toward camp, intending to leave her to bathe in privacy.
He didn’t get far.
The sound of a gun firing split the quiet morning air and the bark of a tree spit outward down by the creek bank. Godric turned as something hit the water hard. He swore.
His Indian princess was floating face down in the dark water of the creek.
He took off running, cognizant all the while of his vulnerability if the shooter was still out there. As if on cue, the wood of a tree just in front of him burst outward with a sharp crack. Godric dove toward the ground, feeling the bite of bark against his cheek.
He rolled, ignoring the pain of rocks and broken branches digging into his skin, and leapt back to his feet.
Ducking his head, he kept a low profile as he covered the last few feet to the water. By the time he’d splashed across the creek and grabbed her, yanking her upward to pull her face out of the water, the early morning woods had grown silent again.
Godric sensed rather than heard the retreat of whoever had been shooting at them.
The woman came up fighting, her deep set black eyes flashing fire as Godric turned her, thinking she’d been badly hurt or had passed out. One deceptively delicate fist hit him in the throat and another headed toward his eye, connecting hard, with the heavy sound of knuckle against bone.
“Ouch! It’s okay, stop, stop.” Godric managed to capture one fist and turn her so that he could pin her arms against her body. “I’m here to help.”
After a long moment, she went limp, her chest heaving from the aftermath of an intense adrenalin rush. Godric risked letting her go.
She turned, her dark eyes wide and unreadable in the early morning light. Something that looked like blood in the near-dark flecked her long neck and was spattered over her chest and arms. “You’ve been shot.” He reached for her, intending to examine the wounds.
She shook her head, stopping his hand before he could touch her. Turning away, she cupped a hand into the water and splashed it over her throat and torso, washing the “blood” away. It was just mud.
“I’m a doctor. Have you been shot? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head and stood, heading toward the bank.
Godric stood too, and followed her. He fought to keep his eyes above her narrow waist as he watched her leave, but he had only limited success. Her heart-shaped buttocks swayed enticingly as she picked her way carefully over the rocky sand at the bottom of the creek.
He joined her on the bank and waited while she scooped up her clothing and towel, quickly drying herself off with the towel before slipping the beaded caftan back on.
Though she made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want his help, Godric provided an unwelcome bodyguard service as she returned to camp. He stayed as close as she’d let him, his head swiveling to monitor the slowly lightening area as best he could. But he couldn’t stop the tingling awareness buzzing between his shoulder blades that told him someone watched them from the near distance. The slight tang of gunpowder in the air was a constant reminder that someone had apparently intended to kill the beautiful woman walking in front of him.
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* * * *
THE POINT OF THE LARGE hunting knife slipped easily through hard rubber, cutting it like butter. As air escaped in a soft hiss from the oversized tire, the figure moved to a second tire. A plastic bag from the local grocery store crinkled softly as the figure opened the hood and reached inside. The bag was nearly full and was tied to a belt loop of the intruder’s pants.
The vandal moved to the truck that was next in line, slicing the tires first, and then opening the hood as silently as possible. He found the plugs quickly, removing two within seconds with his talented fingers.
The next car in line was a minivan.
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* * * *
“WHAT DIRECTION DID the shots come from?” Dolfe Honeybun frowned at the surface of the tree, his long fingers gently probing the holes and skimming across the tattered surface.
Godric glanced over to his cousin, a private detective who worked a lot with the Indianapolis Police department, and swung a hand through the air to illustrate the bullet’s trajectory. “Left to right.”
Dolfe nodded, pointing northeast. “That matches with the scarring on this tree. The shooter was probably standing over there.”
“Looks like musket shot. Can you tell distance?” Godric’s friend, Andy Martin was a heart surgeon, but he loved CSI TV and considered himself kind of a crime connoisseur.
Dolfe shook his head, his bright blond curls wild and kind of flat on one side. He looked like he’d spent the night in a tent, which of course he had. “Up to 200 yards, but probably not more than 125. If it was smoothbore we don’t even know if they were shooting at the girl. Accuracy is horrible with those things.” Dolfe was an experienced re-enactor and had a musket of his own.
Andy’s light brown face split in a grin. “He’d be as likely to shoot his own foot.”
“It could have been a rifled musket.”
Dolfe turned to Godric. “Did you see any smoke?”
Godric shook his head. “I smelled gunpowder but it was dark and I was worried about getting her out of here.”
Dolfe took off, walking in the direction of the shot. He crossed the creek without hesitation, the cold water darkening his leather boots.
Godric and Andy followed close behind. “What are we looking for, Dolfe?”
He glanced at Andy. “Any evidence that someone was in the woods or that a musket was fired.”
“Hunters probably come through here all the time.” Godric added helpfully.
“Yeah. I know. But your average hunter won’t be firing a musket...rifled or not.”
“Good point.”
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- Writer
