All Night Long

fashionable high-heeled black leather boots.
    Luke wore running shoes. She couldn’t even hear his footsteps although he was right beside her.
    Through the trees she caught glimpses of silver on the broad black mirror that was the lake. But the glow of the moon did not penetrate the tall stands of pine and fir that loomed over the grounds of Sunrise on the Lake Lodge. She could hear ghosts whispering in the boughs overhead. Her hand tightened convulsively around the grip of the penlight.
    She would never admit it to him, she thought, but she was glad that Luke was with her. Night was neve good time. It would be worse than usual tonight because she was spending it in the town that haunted her dreams. She knew she probably would not sleep until dawn.
    The gravel crunching and the eerie sounds of the wind in the trees feathered her nerves. She suddenly wanted to talk; to make casual, reassuring conversation. She needed the comfort of the company of another person. But judging from his earlier silence while they watched the news together, she had a hunch that polite, meaningless, social chitchat was not Luke Danner’s thing. Dinner dates were probabl major ordeal for him.
    She glanced at the first cabin, the one Luke evidently used as his personal residence.
    The porch light was on in front but the windows were dark. There were no lights on in any of the other cabins with the glaring exception of the one she had been assigned. Lights blazed in every window of Cabin Number Five as well as on the front and back porches. She had left the place fully illuminated earlier when she decided to make the trek to the lobby and the only available TV.
    “It looks like I’m your only guest tonight,” she said.
    “Off-season.”
    She reminded herself that the tiny resort communities that ringed Ventana Lake acknowledged only two seasons, off and high. Still it seemed strange that the lodge was so empty.
    “Mind if I ask why you turned on the No Vacancy sign?” she asked.
    “Don’t like to be bothered in the evening,” Luke said. “Bad enough having people turn up at all hours during the day wanting to rent a room. A real pain.”
    “I see.” She cleared her throat. “Are you new to the hospitality business?”
    “I don’t think of it as selling hospitality,” he said. “More like a necessity. Someone needs a room for the night, fine, I’ll rent one to him. But if the customer can’t be bothered to arrive at a reasonable hour, he can damn well drive on around the lake to Kirbyville and find himself a motel there.”
    “That’s certainly one way to run a lodging establishment,” she said. “Although maybe not the most profitable approach. When did you take over the lodge?”
    “About five months ago.”
    “What happened to the man who used to run this place?”
    She sensed immediately that the question had aroused Luke’s curiosity.
    “You knew Charlie Gibbs?” he asked neutrally.
    She regretted the query. True, she wanted to talk tonight, but the last thing she intended to discuss was her past in this town. Still, she was the one who had invited him down this particular conversational byway.
    “I knew Charlie,” she said carefully. “But it’s been several years since I last saw him.
    How is he, by the way?”
    “Real estate agent who sold the lodge to me said he died last year.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    And she was, she realized. Charlie had been getting on in years when she lived here in town. She was not surprised to learn that he was gone. But the news elicited another of the small, unsettling twinges of loss that she had been experiencing since she arrived a few hours ago.
    She had not known Charlie Gibbs well, but, like the monument of a library in the park, he and the dilapidated old lodge had been a feature of the landscape of her youth.
    “I’m told business will pick up around here right after Memorial Day” Luke said in a tone that lacked any semblance of enthusiasm. “I hear it runs pretty hot and heavy through Labor Day.”
    “That’s the way it is in summer resort towns.” She paused briefly. “You don’t sound overly thrilled with the prospect of increased business.”
    He shrugged. “I like it nice and quiet. Main reason I bought the place. That and the fact that I figured I couldn’t go wrong with waterfront property.”
    “Isn’t it a little difficult to make a living with your approach to the business?”
    “I get by. Come summer, I’ll jack up the rates.