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“It’s about all the upheaval in your life lately. It’s about your mother moving away, and Thomas going into the service, and losing Bluto after so many years, and then Gary leaving. All within a couple of months.” He heaved a great sigh, understanding. “It wasn’t that you
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were worried about the end of the world. It’s that you were worried about the end of your world.”

“Maybe so.” Her eyes glistened, trapping the dim light from the house. “Maybe you have become an alien, of sorts, to me. Why’d you have to go and mess things up?”

He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand to cause her pain. “Iris, change doesn’t have to mean an ending. It can also mean a beginning. People will walk out of your life, and new ones will find a place. They’ll grow old, they’ll die; some will live with you forever, some will walk away. This isn’t a still photograph, like that tintype of my Grandfather. It’s a motion picture, and it lives and breathes.” His breath escaped as a thick puff of smoke in the night air. “Babe, if you want me to stop, I’ll stop. If you want to pretend that none of this ever happened, I’ll make it so. And if you want me to go away…” He broke into a heartening grin. “If you want me to go away, I’m on the next flying saucer outta here.”

Her breathing was irregular with the effort of holding back tears. “Everything is so cut and dry with you. Black and white. It always has been. But there are things that you don’t understand, Russell Carr.” She placed her hand over the one he’d wrapped around
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her waist. Her fingers were ice-cold. “I was only seven years old when I was forced to understand that my father had simply left us without notice, without caring. My mother never spoke a bad word about him. It was her way of preserving the good memory of him for us. But all I understood was that you can’t hold on to them. Men leave you. They stop loving you, and they just walk away. I think I carried that with me for a long time. And then I took a chance on Gary. And he proved I was right. And it seemed to me that most of the men I’ve ever known were the same. They weren’t what I thought men should be. But they were what I expected men to be.”

He felt the puppy wiggle into her warmth as she paused. “There was only one man I knew I could always depend on, always trust, always lean on. And I never had to worry about the silly complications of romance and jealousy and expectations, because we were beyond all of that. We were the best of friends.”

“Iris…”

“Don’t you see?” She swallowed a sob. “You have been the one real man in my life. If something should go wrong, or if I lose my faith in you, I could never open myself up to anyone else. So you are,
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in a way, the last man on earth to me. And I’m just not sure I want to take a chance on spoiling that relationship.”

He nearly laughed. Nearly. “So you won’t give me a chance because I’m exactly what you’ve wanted all along.”

She nodded. “Pretty sick, I know.” She turned to him, but he couldn’t read her eyes in the dark. “I think we’d better go inside. I think the baby’s cold. And I think we’d better find something to do.

Something distracting. How about a game of Monogamy?”

He grinned, carefully tracing her lips with his forefinger. “You mean Monopoly.”

Iris wrapped her small hand around his, lightly kissing his knuckles. “Yes. Of course.”

*

*

*

The problem with being stranded in an old house alone with a sexy man who’s dying to get in your pants is that there’s no place to hide.

Iris absently combed the hair of the woman in the mirror, staring at the large, vacant eyes in concern. If she thought she was having trouble recognizing the new Russell Carr, she was even more confused by the behavior of the old Iris Foley.

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It was unimaginable to her usually logical mind that she was going to such lengths to avoid having sex with a man she wanted so much. Anger was an effective excuse, but a cowardly way out. Her reasons were as piss-poor as Gary’s had been.

And she’d never thought of herself as a coward.

Russell was everything, absolutely everything, she’d ever imagined wanting in a man. Handsome, desirable, dependable, thoughtful; and he wanted her.

What was the question she’d asked when she’d first gathered the nerve to proposition him? ‘If you really thought this might be your last day to live…’

Would she be worried about some future disappointment in love? Would she waste time blaming him for being protective, or for not telling her that he’d had sexual feelings for her all along?

And who could ever tell, after all? Semi-hysterical reactions to storms and newscasts aside—this could be her last day. Or his. Any day, at any given time, could be the final one. Did she want to waste it protecting herself from injuries that might never come, or spend the rest of her life dwelling on ‘what-ifs’ or ‘should-haves’?

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He’d told her he was going into the basement to clean up the puppy’s mess, and she’d silently sought the refuge of the intimate little sanctuary he’d established for them in his bedroom. Her picture had been retrieved from the trash and restored to the nightstand, and the bed still lay smooth, undisturbed, and inviting. An intimate, tiny little corner of the world he’d set aside, just for them. The thought of it made her heart bleed with love for him.

She firmly set the comb aside and took a deep breath, happy to see the spark of decisiveness return to her eyes. Seizing her stunted candle, she carried it to the bedside and placed it beside her photo.

Iris caressed the triangular tongue of the ice-blue satin sheet as she slipped onto the bed and sat with legs crossed, gathering her courage. He would come looking for her, and she’d be ready and willing this time. No more hiding behind anger and excuses. Already her heartbeat was tripping in anticipation.

The hell with tomorrow. She was ready to live this day.

The footsteps on the stairs were nearly silent; but she heard them, and felt the welcoming smile blossom on her face. If only the champagne was still chilled, if only she had been honest with herself
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from the beginning, if only she had something silky and slinky to wear…

She saw his shadow fall, flickering, across the open door before he entered. He was carrying something in his hand—another gift of some kind, no doubt. Her grin broadened as she turned to greet him.

“Hello, Iris.”

Her smile quickly faded to fear as the shadow pointed the snub-nose .38 directly at her and cocked the hammer.

“Nice to see you again, Foley. What say you and I get reacquainted?”

*

*

*

“Iris! Did you catch it? Did you??” Russ’ voice was raspy with excitement. “It came on! The power came on for just a few seconds!

Iris, you were right. It is the end of the world! We’ve got less than twenty-four hours to live! We really shouldn’t waste that time, now, should we?”

The puppy stared up at him with sad eyes, fidgeting nervously.

“You’re right. Waste of time,” he muttered. “Even you don’t believe me, do you, little…hmmph. We’ve gotta get you a name, don’t we?”

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The dog whined nervously, making circles in and out of his legs.

“Don’t worry, little man. She’ll give you a good home. And at least one of us will have somebody to cuddle up to tonight.”

Russell stepped carefully, trying not to tread of the feet of the puppy as it charged back and forth before him. “Yeah, I know. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.” Swinging the flashlight before him, he made his way back toward the utility room. “And cleaning up your mess is gonna be a lot easier than cleaning up my own.”

He was a beaten man. Dangled, dented, deflated and defeated.

And rather than proving himself a capable lover, or a heroic figure to his worried lady-in-distress, he was reduced to picking up dog poop.

No sex, no matter how jaw-droppin’, back-hunchin’, hip-poppin’, or head-rollin’, was worth all this. Yeah, she was beautiful, and yeah, he wanted her, and yeah, he had a special feeling for her—okay, okay he probably loved her; but nothing was worth all this trouble. There were millions of other women in the world.

That is, if they were all still alive.

“Take this as a lesson, kid,” he grumbled, pointing a stern finger at the animal. “See, this is what you get for trying to be a gentleman.

For trying to help and protect people; for being a man. If you don’t
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take women seriously, and figure you can get over just talking smack, and behaving like a dog…oh. Sorry. No offense.”

The weather was definitely turning. Instead of the frigid cold he’d encountered in the basement before, the room actually seemed to be sweating now, as if the house was a frosted cake, and all of the icing had run off and pooled at the bottom.

Russell jammed his hands into the large rubber gloves, setting the flashlight on the washer to light the room. Wrinkling his nose, he deposited the soiled newspaper into a huge trash bag, determined to toss it outside as soon as he went upstairs. Retrieving the mop from the main room, he thoroughly cleaned the floor, using as little water as possible, finishing off the job with a liberal spritz of air deodorizer.

He stood there, puzzled, for several minutes afterward, absently scratching his beard. Something was screwy here. He placed the trash bag by the steps and returned to the utility room. It didn’t make sense. The odor should’ve been at least slightly diminished.

And still the room smelled of urine.

There was one other possible explanation. The sewers might have begun to back up. On an impulse he lifted the seat of the small, rust-soiled toilet.

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It had been well-used. Not flushed, but used. And recently.

Cocking his head in confusion, he stared suspiciously at the puppy. “And what’s this about, little man?” he whispered, petting the pooch as it pawed his legs. “You learn a trick or two down here all by yourself?”

Slamming the lid down, he peeled the rubber skin from his hands and pushed the lever on the toilet. It flushed slowly, doggedly, but effectively.

If the dog had done his business on the floor, then somebody else had used the head. Somebody who didn’t want to flush, or make noise.

Somebody who didn’t want to be detected.

Somebody else had been in the house.

His thoughts tumbled over themselves in haste as he urgently tried to remember. When? How? That demonic wind would certainly have betrayed any open windows. And Iris had bolted the door when he’d tried to make it to town. It was still locked when he returned; he’d had to use his key. And the only other time they’d been away from the house in the past two days was when…

Was when they’d taken their walk, just before the storm.

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There’d been the missing Chinese food, and misplaced beer…

Someone had been in the house, hiding in the basement, all along.

“Iris!!”

Russ took the steps three at a time in a mad dash upward, forgetting the flashlight and pausing as he hit the entry to the kitchen at the sound of the puppy’s bark.

The animal was struggling to make its way after him, yipping excitedly until it was happily planted by his side again, tail wagging.

Russell froze, staring at the animal, understanding searing its way into his brain.

The dog. The dog had not barked. Even when Iris descended the stairs, the dog hadn’t barked. And the pup always barked at strangers, unless it was in the company of…

“Iris!” He ran for the living room at top speed. “Babe, I’ve been an idiot! You were right. There was somebody else in the house! And I think it was…Iris?”

The flame in the fireplace wavered uncertainly, dampened by the cold, stiff wind that blew freely through the living room door, the
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door that would swing open if not locked from inside; the door that stood wide open now in terrifying welcome.

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“My feet are cold.”

He cackled as he firmly tightened the knot around her wrists, shaking his head. “You people crack me up. The Apocalypse, alien invaders, celibacy, Ouija boards. And here you are, kidnapped, threatened, and trussed up like a turkey—and all you can say is ‘my feet are cold’.” He stood before her, inspecting his work, satisfied.

“Aintcha ever heard of an old-fashioned power failure?”

She immediately tested her bonds. Damn him. She’d never known him to do anything well in his life. He would be good at tying knots. “You must be out of your mind, Milton Edwards. Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Unlike you and your lover there, I know exactly what I’m doing. Good to see you too, Iris. How ya been?”

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He knelt before her, grinning for all he was worth as she gave him her most venomous glare. He hadn’t changed much since high school, she noted. He was solid and slightly stocky, his skin pocked with scars from teenage acne; and he seemed to have developed a penchant for large, flashy jewelry. He’d been forced to remove at least seven large rings from his hands just to tie her up.

“You look good, girl. But then, I always knew you were a zircon in the rough.”

“Diamond.”

“Whatever. Sorry our first meeting after all this time has to be like this. I’m afraid I’ve gone astray. Maybe if a good woman had given me the time of day—”