“What? Why? Because you say weird shit and expect me to know what it means?”
“No, I just…need you to go,” I told him, pushing him steadily out the door. Before I lost my godforsaken mind. Again.
He let me shove him out onto the porch, but he turned and grasped the doorjamb with both hands and leaned toward me with a smirk. “Discombobulated, huh? That’s not one of those sex change operations or something, is it?”
Oh, Lord.
Without another word, I shut the door in his face.
Chapter Seven
From the shadows of the living room window, I watched as Cowboy strolled out to his truck, climbed inside, and drove away. My fingers feathered across my lips, still numb from the searing kiss we’d shared minutes before. A moment of closeness that had derailed me mentally, as well as physically…and yet, he’d barely even touched me.
But why had he touched me? And more importantly, why had he stopped?
As his taillights faded into the night, I took a ragged breath, closed my eyes, and wished for… What exactly? For him to come back? For him to have never shown up at all? I wasn’t really sure. Or maybe I was and just wasn’t willing to admit it to myself.
Regardless, I couldn’t rationalize my behavior in a logical manner. Not when it had been nothing more than a self-indulgent whim. A fantasy, really. Clearly, the emotional cocktail of fear, need, wanting, and loneliness had played a giant role in me making such a poor, thoughtless decision.
I released the curtain, letting it fall back in place over the window as I plopped down on the couch and folded my legs under me. A frustrated breath escaped my lips. What the hell was I thinking, allowing him to kiss me, to touch me? It was Cowboy, damn it. I knew better than that.
Sure, ten years ago, I’d longed for him to notice me and look at me the way he did other girls. But he hadn’t, and with good reason. I wasn’t like those other girls. And now he’d undoubtedly seen that for himself.
Obviously, it had been a bad idea from the start, even if I’d seen some hidden layers to Cowboy, which made it harder to dismiss the strong, irrefutable attraction I felt toward him.
But that was one slippery slope I wasn’t willing to climb. He may have kissed me senseless once, but if I had any brain cells left, I’d stay as far away from him as possible.
Then I sighed. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since he’d left. Oh, hell. Who was I kidding? I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since camp ten years ago.
In an effort to shake all lustful thoughts of Cowboy from my mind, I busied myself by cleaning up the kitchen. But as I picked up the teacup from the table, I remembered how tiny it had looked in his large, masculine hands. The same hands he’d gripped my thighs with as he… Holy hell. What was the matter with me?
Figuring I needed a change of scenery to clear my mind, I strolled back to the living room, where I dusted and rearranged my bookshelves. I thought it was working until I caught myself organizing the titles by which male on the cover looked most like Cowboy. Damn him and his perfectly handsome, stupid face.
I needed to find something to keep me from thinking about that man. If it was even possible.
Frustrated, I planted myself at the computer desk and pushed the button to make the monitor light up. Unsure as to what I was doing, I cleared my mind and typed the first name I thought of into a search engine and hit enter. Thousands of returns popped onto the screen for Ned Swanson.
At the very least, it would definitely keep me busy. And help Cowboy in the process. Though he didn’t seem to be the type to ask for help. But research was my thing. I worked in a library for goodness sakes. If I couldn’t find the chief’s brother for…a certain person—one who would remain nameless—then no one could.
It wasn’t going to be an easy feat, that was for sure. But as I sat there clicking and typing my way into an oblivious stupor, my mind settled and focused on the task at hand.
Hours later, I lifted my head off the desk and rubbed my eyes. I must’ve dozed off because it was suddenly three o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t found Ned Swanson, but I had some good leads to follow up on.
I turned off the computer screen and was heading to the bedroom when a clanging noise echoed outside my kitchen window. Raccoons were always trying to get into my trash cans, so I opened the front door, flipped on the flood lights, and stepped out onto the porch, hoping to scare them away.
But what I saw had the opposite effect.
A shadowy figure—a man, judging by the height and bulk—stood within the trees at the edge of my property, staring back at me. Frozen in place, I blinked rapidly as a chill ran up my stiffened spine. It was too dark to make out all of his facial features, but his intense eyes shone bright from the glow of the floodlights, much like a wild animal. No sooner had I laid eyes on him than the man took a large step backward and melted into the darkness.
I strained to search for movement among the woody area while listening for the sounds of snapping twigs or rustling bushes. But there was nothing, no evidence of anyone having been there. It all happened so fast, though. Had I imagined the whole thing?
Still, I stepped back inside, locked the door behind me, and picked up the cordless phone from its cradle. But who would I call? The sheriff? Cowboy? And what if I had imagined the whole thing? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen something that wasn’t really there. Almost nightly I had dreams that made no sense.
But this wasn’t a dream and that wasn’t something I wanted others to know about me. Not the police and especially not Cowboy. Besides, it could easily have been any one of my very few neighbors out on a stroll…on my property…through the woods…at three o’clock in the morning. I sighed and reluctantly set the phone back down. I’d be up all night thinking about a man, all right. Just not the one I had originally thought.
The following day seemed to drag on forever. I left work and headed home, planning to take a very long, well-deserved nap. As expected, the man in the shadows had plagued my thoughts all night, leaving me with an uncomfortable somebody’s-watching-you feeling.
Even now, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. It had actually kept me from thinking about Cowboy, which would’ve been a welcome relief if it hadn’t been so damn creepy.
Before leaving for work, I’d walked the edge of the woods, looking for footprints or some evidence to suggest the visitor had been real. But I found nothing. Based on that alone, I decided that the whole thing had been nothing more than a figment of my overactive imagination.
I parked in my driveway and walked down to the mailbox before strolling inside. I tossed the mail on the kitchen counter, causing it to fan out as I kicked off my shoes. A small envelope with my name handwritten on the outside in big letters caught my eye.
Shifting the other mail aside, I picked up the envelope and flipped it over, searching for a return address. There wasn’t one. No stamp, either, which meant that someone had placed it in my mailbox, rather than mailing it.
I opened it carefully, pulled out a small note card that had been tucked inside, and read the message. As my eyes scanned the words, I gasped and a twinge of dread ran through me. My thoughts went directly back to the supposedly non-existent shadowy man standing outside my home the night before.
Then I realized something.
I shook my head and almost laughed aloud at myself. With the messy scrawl and misspelled words, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who wrote the note. After all, no one else would say, “Play with fire and your gonna get burnt,” except for the two idiots next door.
It all made perfect sense.