He looked down at me again, but not into my eyes. Instead he seemed to search my entire face, as if wanting to say something, but holding back, not willing to trust himself or me.
I took one tiny step closer, still waiting for him to meet my eyes. When he did, finally, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. We stayed like that, in each other's arms, for only a few minutes, and then he pulled back.
"I need to go," he said, and in a brief instant was gone.
I closed the back door, turned the dead bolt, and leaned against it. Then, when I thought he wouldn't see, I peeked through the little cut-out windowpane at the top of the door. He was sitting in his car, staring up at the house.
"All right," I said, turning away from the door. "Let's show him we're serious. We can take care of ourselves." My voice echoed through the empty house.
I forced myself to march back into the living room. An antique sideboard sat against one wall. If I pushed it in front of the door and loaded it with books, no one could come through the front door. I grabbed at it and tried to pull, but it wouldn't budge. I pushed and it moved slowly, its heavy wooden legs groaning and leaving deep gouges in the floor. I didn't care. I pushed as hard as I could until at last it rested across the front door.
I rewarded myself by walking through the house to the back and peeping out my back window. He was gone.
"I'm fine," I said loudly. That's when I began hearing things.
At first it was a thud on my front porch. Then something hit the side of the house. I froze, listening. I hit the light switch by the back door and plunged the bedroom into total darkness. I didn't want anyone to see me moving around, a silhouette against the shades, a moving target. My skin was crawling. Someone was out there. I knew someone was out there, watching, waiting.
I moved across the room and picked up the cordless phone on my bedstand. I clicked it on and listened to the reassuring dial tone. I peeked through the curtains. Still nothing. It was all my imagination.
"You're being ridiculous," I said. "You need sleep." I fumbled through my dresser drawers, hunting for the blue-and-white-striped flannel pajamas that I'd inherited from my brother Larry one Christmas. Every year Mama gave him new pajamas and every year he tossed them to me when she wasn't looking. Larry was too manly to wear pajamas.
I started to undress, but stopped, listening, my heart pounding in my throat. The bedroom was too exposed, too open to prying eyes peering in through little chinks in the curtains. I went into the bathroom, but left the door open, just in case. I took the phone with me, too. As quickly as I could, I undressed and put on the pajamas, carefully rolling up the too-long sleeves and leg cuffs.
I darted from the bathroom, through the brightly lit kitchen and back into my darkened bedroom. I couldn't make myself turn out the lights in the rest of the house. They could stay on all night. I listened, my ears straining to catch every sound. A car door swung shut outside and I jumped. Was it next door? Down the street?
I grabbed the remote and switched on country music videos. Clint Black wandered across the screen, staring at me with his soulful black eyes, crooning his heart out. I fixed on him for all of two seconds and then had to hit the MUTE button. What if someone was outside and I couldn't hear them coming? I checked the phone again. I jumped out of bed and peered through the back door window. The yard glowed in the fight from the back door.
The phone rang. I jerked it from its stand.
"Hello?"
Nothing, then a click.
The hairs stood up on my arms and the fingers that still clutched the phone began to tingle and sweat. "It was a wrong number," I muttered dully. The phone rang again and without thinking, I answered.
"Hello?"
"What are you doing there?" Jack demanded.
"Did you just call me?"
"No, and don't dodge the question. Why are you there?" I sank down on the edge of my bed, my knees too weak to hold me.
"Jack, it was time. I couldn't keep staying with you. Sooner or later, I had to come home. I'm fine." As I talked, I wandered out into the kitchen and grabbed the knife holder that sat out on the counter, clutching it with one arm and walking back into the bedroom. It looked good on my bedside table.
"I don't like you being there by yourself," he said.
"Hey, I don't particularly love it either, but like I said, it's home and I needed to come back. Besides," I said, working to keep the panic out of my voice, "think of Evelyn. It couldn't look good for you to have another woman staying at your place."
"What makes you think I told her?" he said, laughing.
"Well, I guess in your shoes, I would figure the less said the better. But see, Jack, that's what I mean." I looked at the bedside clock. It was almost four in the morning. "Jack, what are you doing calling me at this hour anyway?"
"I just got in," he said. "I was worried." There was a slight pause. "Hey, you don't sound too sleepy. I mean, it doesn't sound like I woke you up."
"Guess that's why we're night owls," I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move outside.
"Yeah, hard to go to bed early on your night off. It'd only screw up the schedule." I was wandering over to the window and lifting a slat in the blinds while he talked. The backyard seemed empty, but who knew?
"Well, if you're sure this is what you want, I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing." Jack sounded a little lonely. "I'm gonna miss having you around. Kinda got used to another body in the bed."
"Thanks, Jack. I really appreciate all you did."
"You got a place in my bed anytime." He laughed. "Take it easy."
I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the dead phone, listening to the dial tone humming out into the still room.
"It's four in the morning," I said aloud. "People don't break into houses at four in the morning. Too close to dawn." I stretched and stood. Might as well turn out some of the lights. I walked back through the house one more time, turning out all but one light in each room. In the living room, I hit the overhead light, forgetting I'd unplugged the lamp when I moved the table against the door. The room was completely dark.
Outside a streetlight glittered off the parked cars, and I stared through the front window curtains. The street looked deserted. No cars moved. My college student neighbors had finally called it a night. In another hour or two, it would begin all over again. People would walk out of their houses and start off for work or class, and no one would think twice about the night behind them.
I started to drop the curtain and stopped. Someone was outside. A shadow had passed around the side of the house. I was certain this time. I dropped the curtain and listened in the darkness. Something banged up against the trash cans I kept in the narrow pathway between my house and my neighbor's. A dog started to bark, and then another, until there was a chorus of howls and bays. The neighborhood alarm system had gone off.
I jumped off the couch and ran back for the bedroom. The phone. I had to get to the phone and call 911 before he got inside or cut the wires. I tripped coming into the bedroom, hitting the leg of my bedside table. As I reached to steady myself, the tiny table toppled, sending the lamp, the phone, and the knife holder crashing to the floor.
The lamp crashed and broke. The phone skidded across the floor, into a dark corner, and the knives flipped out of their holder, dropping in all directions.
"Damn it!" I said, trying to find the phone and coming up empty-handed.
My fingers closed on the heavy butcher knife just as a shadow crossed the back deck. He was out there, moving toward the back door.
I jumped up, the butcher knife clutched in my hand, and began to walk softly toward the door.