LITMIR.BIZ

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course. Of course.” She closed her eyes and consciously tried to relax, at least a bit. It didn’t happen easily anymore, that whole relaxing thing. “Everything’s okay. Gage … called.” But what could she tell him about the call? Even a few words might be too much.

      He waited, and it was clear to her that he wasn’t satisfied. But he didn’t ask, he just waited. And somehow his willingness to wait reassured her. She couldn’t even understand it herself.

      “I got a nasty phone call earlier,” she said slowly.

      He nodded. “I didn’t think it was a funny one.”

      “No.” Of course not. And now she was sounding like an idiot, she supposed. She gathered herself, trying to organize her words carefully. “Gage just wanted me to know that several other women received similar calls.”

      One of his eyebrows lifted. “Really.”

      “Probably just kids.”

      “Maybe.”

      His response didn’t seem to make sense. “Maybe?”

      “Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it?”

      “On what?”

      “On what has you so scared, and who else received the calls.”

      “What in the world do you mean?”

      He shrugged. “Life has made me suspicious.”

      “Oh.” She bit her lower lip, realizing that nothing in her life had prepared her for dealing with a man like this. He seemed to come at things from a unique direction, unlike anything she was familiar with.

      He started to turn away. “Well, as long as you’re okay …”

      He didn’t ask a single question. She found that intriguing, given what little he had figured out about her in the short time since he moved in. Any other person would have been asking dozens of question, but this man just seemed to accept that she was afraid, she must have good reason for it and that it was none of his business.

      In that moment she thought it possible that she might come to like him.

      “Wade?”

      He stopped and turned back to her. He didn’t say a word, simply looked at her.

      “I, uh …” How could she say that she didn’t want to be alone? That she was tired of being locked in the prison of her own thoughts? That even though solitude had provided her only safety for a year now, she was sick of it, and sick of her own company. Tired enough of it all to feel an impulse toward risk. Just a small risk.

      “Should I make coffee?” he asked.

      He had understood, though how she couldn’t imagine. She might have been about to ask him anything, tell him anything.

      All she said was, “Thanks.” Because there was nothing else she could say.

      She switched the TV off so she could listen to his movements in the kitchen. Everything he needed was beside the drip coffeemaker, so he wouldn’t have trouble finding it. And finally she could afford to have more than one cup each day. Imagine that, being reduced to one cup of coffee and a can of soup each day.

      Sure, there were plenty of people in the world who had less, but her life had never before been restricted in such a way. She’d always been luckier than that. Always. Until recently.

      Wade returned finally with two mugs, hers with exactly the right milkiness. The man missed nothing. Nothing.

      He sat across from her on the easy chair, sipping his own coffee, watchful but silent. Maybe this wasn’t going to work at all. How did you converse with a block of stone? But she needed something, anything, to break the cycle of her own thoughts.

      Man, she didn’t even know how to start a conversation anymore! Once it had come as naturally as breathing to her, but now, after a year of guarding every word that issued from her mouth, she had lost the ability it seemed.

      Wade sipped his coffee again. He, at least, seemed comfortable with silence. After a couple of awkward minutes, however, he surprised her by speaking.

      “Do you know Seth Hardin?”

      She shook her head. “I know his father, but I’ve never met Seth.”

      “He’s a great guy. I worked with him a lot over the years. He’s the one who recommended I come here.”

      Positively voluble all of a sudden. “Why?”

      He gave a small shrug. “He thought it would be peaceful for me.”

      At that a laugh escaped her, almost hysterical, and she broke it off sharply. “Sorry. Then you walk into this, a crazy widow who collapses over a prank phone call. Some peace.”

      His obsidian eyes regarded her steadily, but not judgmentally. “Fear like yours doesn’t happen without a good reason.”

      It could have been a question, but clearly it was not. This man wouldn’t push her in any way. Not even one so obvious and natural. She sought for a way to continue. “Gage said you were in the navy.”

      He nodded. “For more than half my life.”

      “Wow.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

      “Yeah.” Short, brief. After another moment he stirred. “You need to talk.”

      She tensed immediately. Was he trying to get her to explain? But then he spoke again, easing her concern.

      “I’m not a talker.” Another small shrug. “Never was. Making conversation is one of the many things I’m not good at.”

      “Me, either, anymore. I wasn’t always that way.”

      He nodded. “Some things in life make it harder. I’m not sure I ever had the gift.”

      “Maybe it’s not a gift,” she said impulsively. “Maybe most of what we say is pointless, just background noise.”

      “Maybe. Or maybe it’s how we start making connections. I stopped making them a long time ago.”

      “Why?”

      He looked down into his mug, and she waited while he decided what he wanted to say, and probably what he didn’t.

      “Connections,” he said finally, “can have a high price.”

      Man, didn’t she know that. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d kept so much to herself over the past year, not simply because she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Maybe it was because she feared caring ever again.

      “I can understand that,” she agreed, her lips feeling oddly numb. As if she were falling away again, from now into memory. But her memory had become a Pandora’s box, and she struggled to cling to the moment. To now.

      The phone rang again. She jumped and stared at it. Gage had already called. Work? Maybe. Maybe not.

      Wade spoke. “Want me to answer it?”

      A kind offer, but one that wouldn’t help her deal with reality. She’d been protected almost into nonexistence, she realized. Protected and frightened. At some point she had to start living again, not just existing.

      So she reached for the phone, even as her heart hammered and her hand shook. “Hello?”

      “Cory!” A familiar woman’s voice filled her ear. “It’s Marsha.” Marsha from work, a woman she occasionally spent a little time with because they had some similarities, some points of connection they could talk about. But they’d never really gotten to the point of random, friendly phone calls.

      “Hi, Marsha. What’s up?” Her heart slowed, her hand steadied.

      “I got a phone call. I think Jack has found me!”

      Cory

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