Page 27 of I Dream of Danger
She could face anything right now. Even a bare kitchen. Because Nick was back.
She threw back the covers and shot into the shower, remembering how the last time they’d made love had been in the steamy confines of the shower cabin. Hot, heated sex under hot water. Mmmm. Oh man, she was going to forge a good and sexy memory with Nick in every room in the house, to replace the sad ones.
It was cold in the house, unfortunately. She felt it academically because she was molten hot herself though it was freezing. She didn’t even choose a heavy sweater because, well…Nick downstairs would certainly see to keeping her warm today.
She hugged herself briefly, glad he wasn’t seeing this excess of childish enthusiasm because she was totally incapable of suppressing it.
She nearly flew down the stairs, expecting to find him rooting around uselessly in the kitchen, ready to suggest going out for breakfast and food shopping and a walk around town and maybe even a movie in the afternoon.
She hadn’t been to the movies in…forever.
The movies, walks in the park, fabulous sex. All those things were in her future. Yes, they were.
She wasn’t so relentlessly alone any more, she was part of a couple. One by one her girlfriends had fallen away. It seemed like getting a boyfriend in high school entailed ditching your friends.
And then, of course, all her high school friends went off to college and were lost forever.
Well, every single bit of it—including college, eventually—was now open to her. She wasn’t alone anymore, and the world was full of people to befriend and movies to see and things to do and places to go.
She was poor, but she was young and strong, and above all, she wasn’t alone any more. Nick was with her.
She hugged herself again and went into the kitchen to say good morning to Nick.
Only…Nick wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the kitchen and he wasn’t in the living room. He wasn’t anywhere in the house. That huge anticipatory feeling, like a balloon in her heart, deflated. She had so many things to tell him but above all she wanted to just see him, touch him. And, well—since they’d started—she wanted to have sex with him again. Soon and as often as possible.
She peeked out the living room window, looking left and right. Nick’s SUV was gone. Had he parked it in the garage? But it wasn’t in the garage, either.
Oh. So he’d gone into town without her to do the shopping. Which was nice but…she’d rather have gone with him. It was nice of him to let her sleep in, but she’d have infinitely preferred driving into town with Nick and doing some shopping, even if she had to pretend she wasn’t using up the last of the reserves in the bank.
She paced the ground floor—kitchen, living room, dining room, study, den, spare bedroom—over and over again, restlessly waiting for Nick. It was a stupid thing to do, of course, but there was no stopping her. She had all this energy to burn off, this sense of anticipation, as if life wasn’t going to begin until it began in his presence. Everything else was fake time, time to be counted off, minute by painful minute, until Nick returned.
Time went back to being so painfully slow, as it had in the endless days of her father’s illness. The grandfather clock struck every hour, but it felt as if days went by between the hours. Time did that stretchy thing again as she paced the rooms, unable in any way to read or watch TV or listen to the radio or troll the net for entertainment.
Why hadn’t she taken Nick’s cell phone number? It hadn’t even occurred to her. Oh God, what she’d give to punch in a number and hear his voice again, so deep she sometimes felt it in her diaphragm. He’d be in the supermarket or even on his way back here and they could talk of inconsequential things, but she’d have heard his voice and he’d give her some estimate of when he would be back so she could stop pacing and checking her watch and pacing some more.
Time crawled on, one painful second at a time. There was absolutely nothing for her to do. Life with Father had been filled with duty, minute to minute. But now all she had to do was wait for Nick and it was excruciating.
She paced and checked her watch and waited, slowly becoming worried. Had he had an accident? The roads were icy and treacherous still. Was he in the hospital right now, bleeding and unconscious? Should she call the police?
But Nick’s driving was almost preternaturally good. Calling the police was over the top, potentially hugely embarrassing if he came in to find her talking to the police.
Because that would be crazy, right?
Over the years of isolation with only a demented shell of a man for company, she’d lost sight of what was normal and what wasn’t. Lost her touchstones of normality. But even to her, calling the police when someone was a little late in coming home from shopping seemed nutso. Over the top anxious, even possessive. Not the kind of person any man could possibly want.
No, Nick would come back when he’d finished…whatever it was he was doing.
At noon, the doorbell rang and she ran to the front door, smoothing her hair, wiping her palms on her jeans.
Normal, Elle, normal she chanted to herself under her breath. No throwing herself on him in relief. No asking where he’d been. Just smile and say hello.
But when she flung the door open it was only a pimpled teen in some kind of uniform. She blinked, stepped back.
He was consulting a clipboard, looking at her, leaning back to look at the pewter street numbers on the lintel. “Ms. Elle Thomason? Of 1124 Linden Drive?” Behind him was a delivery truck, with some supermarket logo on the side.
“Yes?” He had the right address, he just had the wrong house.
But apparently he did have the right house, because the kid signaled someone behind him. “Okay—bring them in!”
