Page 45 of Threat of Danger
What made a woman fall back in love with a man?
Derek felt a lot less sure about that now than he had a few weeks ago when the plot had first occurred to him.
He typed and deleted, then typed again, his attention straying to the door. When were Jess and Eliot coming back?
Zelda puttered around in the kitchen, making batches of pizza dough to freeze for later. Chuck and his granddaughter, Kaylee, usually came over once every week or so for a pizza dinner. Derek too had been invited a couple of times. He never said no. Anything Zelda made, he ate.
“She grew up beautiful, didn’t she?” the woman asked when she caught Derek looking at the door once again.
God, he had it bad. He glanced at his watch. They’d only been gone an hour.
He nodded to Zelda. “She sure did.”
“She grew up strong. Both of you did.”
He agreed with that too, yet he didn’t feel strong enough. He wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d been in the service. He’d lost some muscle during his six months of captivity, to inaction and to being sick. And then there was his damaged leg.
A while back, when lying in the hospital with a butchered leg and having nothing but time, he’d realized that by going into the navy, by becoming a SEAL, he’d subconsciously wanted to make himself into an invincible supersoldier so what happened in the camper in the woods could never happen again.
He never wanted to be in a position where someone he cared about was being hurt and he was too weak to defend them. And hehadbeen that supersoldier, the toughest of the tough, for years and years. But he wasn’t one now. He was a gimp novelist, dammit. And Jess was back.
He tipped his head back and rested his gaze on the ceiling for a couple of seconds. He couldn’t focus on the book worth shit. He closed his laptop and got up. “Jess told me you might move down to the dining room.”
“I talked to Rose on the phone yesterday,” Zelda said from the kitchen. “She said it’d be OK.”
“You want me to take you in to see her?”
“Not today. I keep having dizzy spells.” She gave an annoyed shrug. “Blood pressure. I’ll call her tonight.” She paused for a moment before saying, “Jess has been in to see her every day.”
“I took my mom in too. They had a good talk. Principal Crane was there. He says he’s ready to break ground for that cottage of his as soon as the ground thaws. A few more weeks, he figures.”
Zelda made some sounds of agreement as she cleaned the last of the flour off the table.
“Is something going on with the two of them?” Derek went to help. “I swear I caught a vibe.”
Zelda raised a thin eyebrow.
Right.He had to get out more. He was getting too deep into the small-town stuff. Another year and he’d turn into a gossip.
“He does come around a lot.” Zelda wiped her hands on her apron, her eyes twinkling. “Used to, before Rose went into the hospital, I mean. Not now.”
“More than the sale of a plot of land would warrant?”
Zelda nodded, her smile alight with mischief.
“Good for them,” Derek said.
His parents too were acting the lovebirds ever since his father had given up the booze. Chuck and Zelda had always been a couple, no matter what Zelda said. Now Rose and Principal Crane were hooking up. And Jess was out with Eliot ...
Derek cut off that thought. So what if it was Cupid Island around here suddenly? He wasnotlonely. He closed his eyes for a second and shook off the lie. He wasn’t lonely in the general sense, but hewaslonely for Jess.
There, he could admit that and still resist doing something about it. Because doing something about his wayward impulses wouldn’t be right. For either of them. He just had to remember that.
“How about I take the dining room furniture out into the garage?”
“Wait till Eliot and Jess get back to help.”
“Don’t need no help from no city boy,” he said in his best lumberjack accent and made Zelda laugh.
