Just A Little Bit Married?. Eileen Wilks
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had never had a house all to herself before, not even a little house like this one. When she moved down here she’d gone a bit crazy in decorating her bedroom, which was the largest room in the cottage. She’d used scarves and gauze and lace in dreamy colors. Her bed was much too big for one person and mounded with pillows. She sat on her ridiculously big bed now and clutched a mint green pillow to her chest.
No way would she suggest he open that door. “Yes?”
“I understand you’re used to sleeping days since you work nights, and that will work out fine with me. I’ve worked nights more than days myself. But I have to leave for a little while.”
Her relief was enormous. “Oh?”
“I need to bring some of my things over here.”
Oh. Bring his things over here. That sounded so...definite. Her voice was thin when she answered. “I’ll see you later, then.” At least he’d be gone long enough for her to put some cat food down for the tomcat she’d been trying to befriend the past three weeks.
She did not want this man to learn what she’d named that ungrateful cat.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuring her for the wrong thing. “Officer Palmer will be right outside until I get back, and I won’t be gone more than an hour. Stay inside until then, okay?”
An hour was a pathetically short time for a woman like her to adjust to living with a man like him. Sara sighed. “I seldom leave the apartment when I’m asleep.”
He chuckled. “I guess not. Later, when you’re awake, we’ll need to go over some ground rules.”
Ground rules?
She straightened. Maybe he thought he was going to be the one making those rules, but she had her own ideas about that “That sounds like a very good idea, Sergeant.”
“Raz,” he corrected her. “See you soon, Sara.”
When Raz pulled out of the long driveway that led past the big, colonial-style house, he was satisfied that things were going to go his way.
First, of course, he had to persuade her not to go in to work until Javiero was found and locked up. Sara Grace had shown herself to be surprisingly stubborn about going to a safe house, but then, she was a dedicated woman. A saint.
A susceptible saint. Susceptible to him, anyway. Raz acknowledged it without ego or pleasure as he headed for his apartment. It had been obvious, once he’d set out to charm her into agreeing to hire him, that he would succeed.
The pretty little mouse wanted him. Poor baby.
He would use that. He was guilty of so much worse that using Sara Grace’s unwilling attraction to him to help him prolong her life wouldn’t bother him at all.
Sara didn’t try to sleep. As soon as Raz left she went to the kitchen, filled a plastic bowl with dry cat food and carried it to the front porch.
Standing on her own porch wasn’t exactly leaving the house, she assured herself. Technically speaking she was still beneath her own roof, which extended out over the porch, and she had walls on two sides, so she wasn’t really exposed. And she could see the police officer standing guard at the gate. He obviously hadn’t seen Javiero creeping up on her. So she was safe enough.
Because she didn’t want the policeman to hear, she called very softly, “MacReady? Breakfast time.” She set the bowl down, looked around and called a bit louder. “Mac? Here, kitty-kitty!”
There was no sign of the ornery cat she’d named for her new bodyguard’s alter ego. Sara sighed. So far Houston had proved a bit lonely. She’d expected that when she’d made the decision to move here. After all, her social skills were barely up to befriending a starving alley cat. Making human friends was going to take time.
Unconsciously Sara began to toy with the hair at the back of her neck, a habit she had when she was troubled. Maybe it was the nearness of the holiday that made her feel the loneliness more keenly. Sometimes lately she even missed her aunt.
How ridiculous. In most of the ways that counted, Aunt Julia was no more distant now than she had been for years. They talked on the phone once a month, just as they had when they lived thirty miles apart instead of a thousand. Even if Sara had still been living in Connecticut, she could only have counted on receiving a box through the mail with a Christmas present or two in it, rather than an invitation to spend the holiday together. Aunt Julia craved solitude the way most people craved the company of their fellows.
Sara shook her head to dispel the maudlin mood. Hadn’t she learned to value her aunt for what she was instead of fretting over all that she wasn’t? The box with the present or two hadn’t arrived yet, but she knew it would. Her aunt might be distant, but she was as dependable, in her way, as the seasons.
Back inside, she went straight to the stereo and put on a couple of Christmas CDs, cranking the volume up before she headed for the kitchen. She hummed along with the London Boys’ Choir while she assembled ingredients. It was only Tuesday, but she wasn’t waiting for her usual baking day. She needed the exertion of kneading, the lusty scent of yeast and the satisfaction of creation to settle her mind.
Raz heard the music before he stepped onto the porch. He’d made a circuit of the outside of the little house, checking for ease of access, before talking with the cop on duty. Officer Palmer had informed him that the subject had stepped out onto the porch for a while.
Apparently she wasn’t taking her situation seriously. Raz used the key she’d given him and walked into a room that all but shook from the chorus to Handel’s Messiah.
Good Lord, didn’t the woman have any sense? All forty or so of Javiero’s old gang could break in and she’d never notice until they shot her down. He shook his head. People never failed to surprise him. Handel, now—that was just the sort of music he’d expect the little mouse to enjoy. But not at these decibels.
Her living room fit his image of her, though, and added to the impression the cottage gave of being a dollhouse. It was a tidy, feminine room, maybe ten feet square. The end table, bookcase and armchair were white wicker, and the print on the chair cushions and love seat was a dainty floral. A multitude of ornaments all but buried the small flocked Christmas tree in one comer.
Christmas again. He grimaced and studied the love seat pessimistically. It didn’t look like it made out into a bed. They were going to have to have a talk about the sleeping arrangements. Among other things.
He set his garment bag down on the love seat but kept his shoulder holster in his hand when he went to her bookshelf. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see it stuffed with medical books and back issues from magazines like the New England Medical Journal, but the grim realism of her reading material seemed incongruous in the dainty setting.
The bottom shelf of the bookcase held her stereo and one of those cordless phones that had an answering machine in the base unit and caller ID in the receiver. The caller ID was a sensible idea for a woman who lived alone. Yes, he thought, kneeling, Dr. Grace was a very sensible woman. In most ways.
He shut the stereo off, and silence dropped like a stone.
In the kitchen Sara froze. Someone is here. Here, in the house.
Fear swept through her, a cold fire that lit every cell, sending her heart rate skidding crazily. A series of images exploded in her head—images of bodies jerking with the peculiar rhythm of gunfire. She saw liquid red blossoms flowering around entry holes in chests, abdomens, elsewhere. She saw the surprised eyes of the security guard who’d shown her pictures of his grandchildren one evening. He’d slid to the floor so slowly, leaving a shiny red smear on the wall behind him.
And the noise. She heard it again, the terrible thunder of gunfire, a sound she heard often in her dreams and tried to drown out when awake.
Trembling, she pulled her hands out of the sticky bread dough she’d been kneading.