He’d looked at her with keen insight, as though he knew the first time they locked eyes that she’d had a chemical reaction to him, that she’d felt a frisson low and deep. That sizzle had both thrilled and frightened her. It still did.
She acknowledged that a large part of his appeal was his elusiveness. He wore an aura of aloneness like a second skin. He was the kind of man women wanted to tame, save, heal. The kind of man that broke women’s hearts.
She lay thinking of all the reasons he was wrong for her, listening to light raindrops ping against the tin roof until she’d fallen into a dreamless sleep.
It was now daylight, but the bedroom was dim. Through the window she saw leaden gray clouds hovering low above the treetops. Last night’s gentle rainfall had turned heavy and sullen. The room was chilly. She was grateful for the socks.
She flashed back to John’s wry smile as he’d handed them to her and said they’d be too big.
Considering the volatile nature of their evening together, and the tuning-fork sexual note on which it had ended, she didn’t know what to expect from her next face-to-face with him. There was sure to be awkwardness.
But delaying the inevitable only heightened her dread. Better to get it over with. She got up, used the bathroom and cleaned her teeth again, then went to the bedroom door and eased it open.
She almost stepped on Mutt before she saw him. He’d been lying on the threshold and immediately jumped to his feet. “Hey, boy.” Tail wagging and quivering with gladness, he nuzzled her palm when she extended it to him.
She saw that John’s bedroom door stood open, but there was no sign of him, and no lights were on. “Where’s your master?” With Mutt at her side, she ventured into the main room, switching on lamps to alleviate the gloom as well as her mounting apprehension.
On the dining table was a scrawled note anchored down by his pistol.
Gone to get your things. Mutt’s been fed, but he may want to go out again. P.S. All you have to do is point the gun and pull the trigger. Don’t hesitate.
He’d written his departure time at the top of the sheet. He’d been gone for more than an hour. She looked down at the dog. “Did he say how long he planned to be gone?” Mutt gazed up at her with a moonstruck smile, tongue lolling.
A pot of coffee had been left on the hot plate. She filled a mug and added her fixin’s. As she stood sipping it, she looked toward the open door to John’s bedroom. “Promise not to tell,” she said to Mutt as she walked over and peeped in.
The room had its fair share of clutter, but it was better organized than the other rooms. The clothes he’d been wearing yesterday had been folded and placed in the seat of a rocking chair, his dress shoes underneath it. He’d made the bed, and that was disappointing. She wouldn’t have minded seeing the rumpled sheets he’d slept between, although it shamed her to admit it.
A low chest, painted matte black, served as a nightstand on the left side of the bed. On it were a digital clock and a framed photograph. The latter drew her like a magnet. She made her way over and bent down to get a better look.
In the picture was John, dressed only in swim trunks and a baseball cap turned backward. From beneath the cap, his hair curled around his ears and the back of his neck. He had the calves of a habitual runner. His pecs were lightly covered with a fan of hair. And he was ripped. Biceps, abs, everything was altogether yummy.
But the most startling thing in the photograph was his broad smile. She’d never seen that smile. She wouldn’t have believed his stern features capable of producing one of such unmitigated happiness. She reasoned that it had a lot to do with the preteen girl beside him.
She was wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit. She was coltishly thin, all arms and legs, knees and elbows. Her smile revealed twin rows of braces. Her dark hair was in pigtails, although a few rebellious, curly sprigs had escaped the braids.
Her slender left arm was around John’s waist. His right was draped over her shoulders. They stood ankle deep in a body of water that extended to the horizon, leaning into each other.
A day at the beach? Who was this girl? Who was this man?
Beth had never met the John Bowie in the picture, and that was a pity, because she thought she would like to know him.
Made despondent by the thought, she returned to her bedroom. “Stay,” she told Mutt when he would have followed her in. He dropped down onto the threshold again. She commended him with a “Good boy” and a pat. She was about to close the door, then hesitated and left it open a crack. “Growl again if you hear anything suspicious.”
In the bathroom, she undressed, showered, and shampooed. It felt wonderful, but she didn’t linger. Loath to put on yesterday’s clothes, which were mud-spattered and worse for wear, she considered the flannel robe that hung from a hook on the back of the door. It had seen better days, better years, but it smelled of dryer sheets. She pulled it on, then wrapped a towel around her head. Back in the bedroom, she saw that Mutt had nosed open the door just wide enough for him to squeeze through. He was curled up in the center of the bed, dozing. She said, “I’m not sure that’s allowed.”
“It’s not and he knows it.”
Startled, she turned. John, holding a shotgun at his side, used only the tip of his index finger to push open the door the rest of the way. She’d come around so quickly, the towel on her head came unwound. She caught it as it fell.
John took her in, the ugly bathrobe, the unruly wet hair.
She did the same with him, the black rain slicker, the unruly wet hair.
Arrested by the sight of each other, both stood stock-still.
Mutt leaped off the bed to give John an enthusiastic welcome back. He danced around John’s wet pants legs until John acknowledged the greeting by scrubbing his knuckles across his head.
He did so absently, never taking his eyes off Beth. Nor she did look away from him. When she realized she was nervously twisting the damp towel between her hands, she forced herself to stop.
John finally broke the spell and ducked out of sight for a moment. When he reappeared, he no longer had the shotgun. “Everything all right here?”
“Yes. Fine.”
“Sleep okay?”
“Like a baby.”
“Good, good. There’s coffee if—”
“I found it. Thank you.”
“Was it still hot?”
She bobbed her head.
“Good.” An awkward silence stretched out. Mutt jumped back onto the bed but John seemed not to notice.
She indicated the robe. “I found it in the bathroom.”