She found a heavy spade. Armed with it, Alexi made her way back to the bathroom, where she stopped dead still. The snake had disappeared.
"It couldn't have, it couldn't have," she whispered aloud, leaning against the wall. But it had.
She searched the bathroom, the floor, the shower stall. But there was no snake. She began to wonder if she had imagined the creature. Had the night been so bad that she had gone a little crazy? She didn't like spiders and bugs, but she could tolerate them. She was terrified of snakes, though. She had almost told Rex Morrow so last night after he had killed the spider.
Calm yourself, calm yourself. She tried to think rationally. She had seen the creature. And now it was gone. She drew in a deep breath. Had it been poisonous? What had it looked like? She was going to have to find out. She'd have to ask. She'd have to...
"Argh!" A gasping, desperate sound escaped her as she felt something slither over her foot. She looked down in terror. It was the snake.
She had her spade. She screamed, jumped--and slammed it down.
She dropped the spade, leaving the snake pinned beneath it, and backed away. Nearing the kitchen door, she turned.
Only to see another of the foot-long blackish creatures.
Sweat broke out all over her. Shaking, Alexi wrenched open the kitchen door and ran to the pantry again. She found a pipe wrench and raced back into the hallway. She swung the wrench down with force, careless of what she might do to the fine wooden floor.
She wasn't about to pick up the spade or the pipe wrench. She burst into the parlor instead. With trembling fingers she found Rex Morrow's phone number and dialed it.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon...!" she muttered as the phone rang. When she heard Rex's voice on the other end, she started to speak, then realized it was an answering machine. He didn't identify himself by name; in a deep, pleasant voice said merely, "I can't get to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name and number at the sound of the beep, I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Alexi waited for the beep. "Rex, it's Alexi. Rex--" Her eyes widened, and she broke off with a long scream. There was another one! Another one, coming into the parlor!
She dropped the phone and raced to the fireplace. Grabbing the poker, she went for the snake. She got it. Or at least got it pinned beneath the poker. She had to get out. Just for a minute; just to breathe. Her hair was soaking wet, she was barefoot, and her robe was hardly even belted, but she had to get out.
Tears stinging her eyes, she raced for the front door. By the time she got the stubborn bolt to work, she was crying in great, gulping sobs.
She flung the door open and went running out and down the path, right into a pair of strong arms. "Alexi!"
She screamed in panic at the feel of the strong fingers tight around her shoulders. Everything that touched her had become a snake, and she couldn't see anything, as her face was crunched to his chest.
"Alexi! What is it? Oh, my God, what happened? Is someone in there? Did someone hurt you? Alexi!"
Somehow the fact that it was Rex filtered into her mind.
"Oh, Rex!" She grabbed his shirt, her fingers like talons as they dug in. She moved even closer to him, trembling.
He shook her gently.
"Dammit, Alexi, what the hell happened? Did someone attack you?"
She shook her head, unable to talk.
"Alexi!"
He caught her hands and gently unwound her fingers from their death clutch upon him. He held them between his own, then slipped his hand beneath her chin to raise her eyes to his. She saw the concern in them, the raw anxiety in the hardened twist of his jaw.
"I tried to call you--" she gasped out. "I know, dammit, I know! I was there! I heard you scream, and I ran here as fast as I could. Alexi, what--" "Oh, it was horrible, Rex!" "What, Alexi, for God's sake! What?"
Her eyes were glazed, her lips were trembling, her whole body was shaking. She was deathly pale, terrified.
And she was beautiful. Not even his confusion and fear for her could block that fact. She was scrubbed and damp, and her hair was soaked, but she was beautiful. Her eyes were huge and as green as emeralds with their glazing of moisture. She was pure and glorious beneath the sun. Her scent was soft and dazzling, as soft as the pressure of her body against his. She was a barefoot waif in a white robe, and he was painfully aware that she wore nothing beneath it.
And she called on everything primitive within him. He wanted to go out and do battle for her. He wanted to sweep her into his arms, hold her to his heart and swear that things would be okay. And he wanted, with a throbbing intensity, to take her away with him, away from any horror, and make love to her. To tear away that slim barrier of terry and drown in the soft, feminine scent of her.
"Alexi!"
He shook himself, mentally, physically. There could be some horrible, stark danger at hand, and he was nearly as mesmerized as she, shuddering with the hot pulse that rent a savage path throughout his body.
"Rex! Rex! They--they..."
"They--who?" he shouted.
"Sna--" She had to pause to wet her lips. "Snakes!"
"Snakes?" he queried skeptically, looking at her as if she had lost her mind.
His tone returned some of her sanity to her. "Snakes!" she yelled back. "Slithery, slimy, creeping creatures! Snakes."
"Where?"
"In the house!"
She was still trembling, but much less. He himself was shaking now, with emotion and with a growing anger. He'd half killed himself to reach her, terrified that a murder was afoot, and she was babbling along about snakes.
The glaze was gone from her eyes. They were still a deep emerald green, but she was angry, too. He set her from himself and strode quickly up the path to the house.
Well, Rex quickly discovered, she hadn't been lying. The house looked like a scene from a macabre murder mystery. Pipe wrench, spade, fire poker. A smile curving his lips, Rex walked up to the first of the victims in the hallway.
It was just a little ringneck, not even a foot long. It was still wobbling pathetically. Rex picked it up carefully and decided the creature still had a chance. He returned to the doorway and tossed the snake into a row of that rimmed the front porch. Alexi, standing further down the path, stared at him incredulously.
"Alexi, it's just a ringneck."
"It's a snake!"
Rex frowned. "You shouldn't have tried to kill it; you should have just swept it out."
"It! There's a litter in there!"
He laughed. "Them."
"Don't you dare make fun of me! They could have been poisonous, and I wouldn't have known one way or the other. You do have poisonous snakes in the state, I take it?"
"Yes, we do have poisonous snakes. And I'm sorry. You're right; you wouldn't know. But these guys are harmless. They're actually good. They eat bugs. They till the soil. You should have just swept them all out."
"Fine!" she retorted. "They're welcome to be in the soil! But not in the house!" She was still shaking, he noted. "I'm not going back in! There are more, Rex! I have to get an exterminator. Today!"
He couldn't help it; he started laughing. She drew herself very, very straight and stared at him coldly. He raised his hands in the air.
"All right, all right. I'll see if I can rescue any of your other victims, then we'll go over to my house. It might be a good idea to get an exterminator."
Rex went back into the house, shaking his head at each "scene of the crime." The snakes were still alive--they were tough little creatures. He collected them in the spade and dropped them into the bushes. Alexi was still standing on the path. His brow arched, he waved to her, then went back inside and searched. He couldn't find any more of the ringnecks.
After putting her murder weapons away in the pantry, he paused, noting that her suitcase was on the kitchen table. He probably should take it for her, he thought.