“I don’t know,” she said. “I was just sitting out here, having tea, when I heard him in the first place.”
“He never said anything to you?”
“No,” she said, shivering with the remembrance. “I’m glad he didn’t,” she said. “Otherwise I’d be hearing his voice in my nightmares.”
He nodded quietly. “Unfortunately it looks like you’ll be in this mess until it is over with anyway.”
“And how do we get it over with?” she asked.
“Well, we have to find out why he’s here and stop him from coming back, and that means capturing him. Would you recognize him?”
She frowned and thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “I didn’t see his face, but I saw his general build. But I don’t really know.”
“So you didn’t see him clearly, but, given the right light and the right angle, you might find a hint of recognition or something like that?”
“Something like that, yes,” she said, “but it’s not like I could sit down with an artist and tell you what he looked like.”
“Right,” he said with a smile. He stepped back, looking at all the walls of the house, and they kept walking all the way around until they were back at the front door. The whole time he was studying the layout of the house. “You haven’t lived here very long?”
“No,” she said, “it’s been about nine months.”
“Before that?”
“I rented a condo,” she said. “I finally scraped enough to pull together for this place. And it was close to Frank’s home, so Jeremy was, of course, delighted.”
“They’re best friends, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said with a gentle smile.
“And Frank’s a good kid?”
“The best. His dad’s another doctor,” she said. “Not that that makes him above reproach, but I do know him, as I’ve worked with him several times.”
“Sometimes that’s all you can hope for,” he said. “Kids have to grow up making their own choices.”
“And even when they’re growing up, they have to make their own choices,” she said. “My sister still doesn’t believe that.”
“Your sister sees you as somebody who was taken advantage of, that she had to help out in a bad situation, and, if you make your own decisions now, maybe you’ll make ones that don’t include her,” he said gently.
“I was thinking of that earlier today. She’s very unhappy that you’re back in town.”
“Of course she is. She’s expecting me to leave you pregnant again and take off.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” she said.
“You can’t blame her either.”
“No,” she said, “but it’s also like my family doesn’t see that I’ve grown up, and that’s a little hard to accept.”
He chuckled. “I wonder if we ever grow up to the rest of our family. I think they always see us as children.”
“I hope not,” she said. “I’d like to think that I can see Jeremy growing up.”
“He’s in an interesting stage of life right now,” he said. “Thirteen.” He shook his head. “Man, that takes me way back.”
“And probably not in a good way,” she said.
“It wasn’t all bad,” he said. “It was pretty tough toward the end though.”
“I’m sorry your childhood was much less than ideal.”
“Everybody’s childhood is much less than ideal,” he said, “but it’s a card you’re dealt. You play the game the best you can. You hope you get a chance to fix things, if you screw up. In my case I did, and I’m forever grateful for that.”
“Good,” she said. “Now what do we do about this guy?”
“I think we should set a trap for him,” he said without hesitation.
She looked at him in shock. “What?”
“Well, think about it,” he said. “We don’t want him to come back, but, if he does, I suggest we make sure that we capture him at the same time.”
“And how will you do that?”
“Well, if it was me breaking in, I would still try this trellis,” he said, “but I would probably use a rope or a hook to throw up and grab the balcony. So we want to trigger that balcony door up there to make sure that, if he does get that far, we can trap him, so he doesn’t get away again.”
“Well, that sounds great,” she said, “as long as you’re sticking around to capture him. I really don’t want to be the one with a caught intruder in the house.”
“Oh, that’s not happening,” he said. “I’m not leaving until we know we’ve got him.”
She felt a bright sense of relief and, at the same time, a shiver of excitement. She avoided the one question that she really wanted to ask, which was, Where was he planning on sleeping? Because, Jesus, they were just rekindling their friendship and were so far away from that level of intimacy. Yet she couldn’t believe that her hormones were ready to drag him into her bed. “Does that mean you are moving in? And what about Sabine here?” she asked, looking down at the dog.
“Sure, certainly will,” he said. “And, yes, Sabine too. She’ll be the biggest and earliest alarm we’ve got.”
“But we don’t know her yet or trust her.”
“Nope, but I trust her instincts, and I trust that she’s already had enough abuse from a lot of assholes,” he said. “She’ll be doing what she can to keep us safe, if only for her own sake.”
“I guess that’s a priority in her world now too, isn’t it? If you’re safe, then she’s safe.”
“Something like that,” he said with a smile.
“Well, that’s great,” she said. “You want to go inside? I’ll put on some tea or coffee.”
“A cup of coffee would be great, but, if it’s too late for you, I’m happy with tea too.”
She smiled. “Remember how we used to make tea from the herbs we found on the side of the road?”
“Yeah, I was into the prepper thing back then too at one time, wasn’t I?”
“You were,” she said. “You were adorable.”
He snorted at that. “I was one messed-up kid. I don’t even know how you saw something to like.”
“I found lots to like,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I understood you better than you understood yourself.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I still don’t quite see what you ever saw on me.”
“All the girls were after you,” she said in the teasing voice. “It wasn’t just me.”
“Yeah, they were.” He sent her that lopsided grin. “That was kind of cool.”
She laughed out loud. “Everybody loves to be a heartthrob.”
“Didn’t matter to me so much,” he said. “You’re the one I wanted to be with.”
“I know,” she said. “We were both obviously young and naive. At least I was,” she said, rolling her eyes.