Page 7 of Deacon

“How much of it you want gone?” He reached up and grabbed the branch, pulling it down where he could easily get to it with the clippers that she’d given him.

“A few inches should be enough to keep it from making noise, unless the wind gets really bad.”

Deacon looked at the window again before clipping nearly a foot off the branch and releasing it. He checked all the other nearby branches, making sure none of them would hit the glass or the house.

“There, that should do it.”

“I can’t thank you enough. I didn’t mean for you to come out. I just needed help and Cowboy was the first person I thought to call.”

“No worries.” He handed Lisa back her clippers and followed her back to the door. “You can call me if you need anything else, especially if Cowboy isn’t helpful.” He didn’t know where those words had come from, but it was too late to call them back now.

“Come on in, let me at least give you a beer for your help.”

Deacon knew he should refuse, but couldn’t bring himself to say no. Despite his good intentions, he found himself following her inside.

“Have a seat, I’ll bring it to you,” she said as she headed into the kitchen.

Deacon sat on the sofa, noticing she’d been busy. It looked like she’d made good use of the time when she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. There were several homey touches in the living room that hadn’t been there when they’d left the day before. Blankets on the back of the couch, the TV worked, and looked like it had been paused when he pulled into the driveway.

“I was going to watch a little TV.” Lisa carried two bottles of beer as she returned. She sat on the other end of the sofa and handed him one. “Would you like to join me for a little while or do you want to talk instead?”

“You have something you want to talk about?” He watched her from the corner of his eye, half afraid she’d say something she shouldn’t. But she didn’t. Instead, she took a drink and picked up the tv remote.

“Not really. How do you feel about history documentaries?”

“It depends on the subject. What were you watching when I got here?”

“A documentary about the pyramids.” She stood long enough to pull the blanket from the back of the nearby chair, brought it back to the sofa with her, then curled her feet beneath her and covered her lap with the blanket.

“Sounds good to me.” He settled back on the couch as she turned the show back on.

Deacon soon got so interested in the program he lost track of time. When he finished the beer she’d brought him, he set the empty bottle on the table beside the sofa and kept watching.

It wasn’t until the show ended that he realized he hadn’t heard anything from her in a while. He turned to ask where the trash was for his bottle and found Lisa had fallen asleep. Her own drink still clutched in her hand, half full.

Shit. She had to have been exhausted to fall asleep with him sitting there and the TV on. He stared at her for several seconds, wondering what he should do.

First things first, he eased the bottle from her grip then carried it and his into the kitchen. After dumping what was left, he found her recycling bin and disposed of them before going back into the living room. He watched her for several seconds longer before deciding he couldn’t leave her there.

He scooped her and the blanket still draped over her lap and held bundled under her chin into his arms and carried her to her bedroom, thankful he didn’t have to check each room to find the right one.

He couldn’t help the smile that formed as he stepped into the room and found the bed rumpled and the blankets thrown back as if she’d flipped them open and climbed out moments earlier instead of hours ago. He laid her on the open bed, carefully lifted the blanket from the living room off her, then flipped the blankets over her.

Deacon was about to slip from the room and quietly leave the house when her hand clamped around his wrist.

“No. Stay. Please.” Her voice was so soft he barely heard her.

“I can’t, bumblebee. You’re sleeping, you’ll be fine.” He refused to think about how the nickname he’d given her when she was in grade school slipped out.

As a kid she’s been so busy and always seeming to buzz around him and Cowboy, he’d started calling her Bee. Then as she got older, she’d developed a tendency to come up with smart, sometimes stinging remarks, and the nickname had evolved to bumblebee.

Her lips curved in a soft smile. “No one’s called me that in years. Stay. If you leave, I’ll be up all night again. Please? At least until I fall back to sleep?”

He hesitated but looking down at her wide eyes pleading up at him, and found it impossible to deny her.

“I’ll go watch a little more TV. You can sleep. I’ll sleep out there.”

“No. Here.” She reached around and patted the bed behind her.

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