Robards, Karen (34 page)

It was a beautiful fall day, sunny and crisp. The leaves on the big oak in the center of the fi7ont yard were a vivid burnt orange. The other trees in the yard and along the street were shaded in all variations of red and bronze and gold. By the garage, the trio of burning bushes blazed scarlet. As the car pulled in, the dogs jumped up fi7om where they had been lying and rushed forward, barking excitedly and wagging their tails.

Breathing deeply of the smoke-tinged air, Grace got out of the car to the accompaniment of the slapping sound of the basketball against the pavement and the insistent woof of the dogs. Both animals jumped on her, big hairy paws waist-high on her navy-blue hopsack blazer and little hairy paws just above the hem of her matching skirt. Rather gingerly, Grace patted Kramer,

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then Puppy, on the head. Puppy licked her wrist again as both dogs dropped to the ground.

Still not sure how she felt about being licked, Grace wiped the damp spot on her sleeve.

“Good dogs,” she said. In almost comical unison, they rolled over on their backs in the grass, their feet waving in the air in a nonverbal but eloquent request for tummy rubs.

“Hey, Mom!” Jessica greeted her, taking advantage of Tony’s momentary distraction to sneak in a dunk. “Not fair!” he yelled, his attention forcibly recalled

by the swish of the ball through the net and Jessica’s triumphant yes-s! complete with fist pump as she scored.

Walking toward thern, Grace caught the runaway ball, holding it as Tony jogged to claim it.

“Hi,” he said, taking the ball in both hands and smiling at her. He was wearingj’eans and a ratty, shortsleeved gray T-shirt with a hole just above his navel, and he looked so good that it was all she could do not to fall into his arms there and then.

. “Hi.” She smiled back at him. With a start she realized that several seconds had passed and they were simply standing there looking into each other’s eyes and smiling without speaking. She quickly turned away in confusion, not wanting Jessica—or Penick, for that matter-to notice any change in their relationship.

What was between them was so new, so tenuous, that Grace was wary of letting anyone else find out until it had had at least a little time to grow.

“Homework, Jessica?” she called over the rhythm of

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the bouncing ball, trying to sound like business as usual, as Tony dribbled back into the game.

“Study for an algebra test tomorrow. Social studies. Spanish.” Jessica flung her arms up in the air, waving them, trying to stop Tony in his drive toward the basket ‘.’How much have you done?” Grace skirted the game and turned down the sidewalk, heading toward the front door. She knew the answer but asked the question anyway, which illustrated the triumph of hope over experience, she supposed.

Jessica grinned without answering. That meant none, which was exactly what Grace had known before she asked.

As a young mother with a daughterjust starting kindergarten, one of the vows she had made was that her child would do her homework every day immediately after school. Now, as an older, pretty well worn-down version of that same mother, she was just thankful homework got done at all.

“I’m going to change my clothes and start supper,” she called. Tony had stopped playing for a moment and was talking to Penick, rather earnestly Grace thought. No fool he, this time he held the basketball in his hands. Jessica’s protection officer was nowhere in evidence, and Grace assumed she had left when Tony had arrived.

The thought of the circled horoscopes intruded again, sending a chill racing down her spine, as Grace walked along the sidewalk. She needed to ask Tony his birth date… . Maybe he had done it, and she was worrying for nothing.

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“Two points! I am skunking you!” Jessica’s whoop told the story about which way the game wind was blowing and made Grace smile. Jessica was never so fully herself as when she was playing basketball.

Still smiling, trying to shake off her almost certainly unfounded worry over the horoscopes, Grace climbed the steps to the porch, crossed the porch to the door, turned the knob, and .discovered that the door was locked. Her smile turning to a frown, she put her key in the lock. Or at least she tried to. Her key wouldn’t fit.

Of course, the locks had been changed. And the security system had been installed, too. Pat had come today instead of Wednesday and let the workmen in.

There was no way to put this stalker thing out of her mind. It had taken over every aspect of their lives. She could no longer go to the bathroom alone, read a newspaper in peace, or even get into her own house.

Grace took a deep, cahri-ing breath. She was not going to allow one sick individual to poison her life. And she was not going to dwell on circled horoscopes that were almost certainly of no significance. It was just her own guilty conscience that made them loom so large in her mind.

“Hey, I’m locked out,” she called plaintively to the group on the driveway.

All three of them looked at her. The ball was in Jessica’s hands now. With a word to the other two, Tony came jogging to Grace’s rescue. Reaching the porch, he grinned at her and produced a key from his pocket. As he inserted the key into the lock and

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opened the door, a tinny little siren went off inside the house.

“Your code number is 3227, and you have forty-five seconds to punch it in before all hell breaks lose,” Tony told her as he stood back so that she could precede him into the house. “The box is in the dining room closet. Come on, I’ll show you how to do it.”

“I’m going to feel like I’m living in a prison,” Grace groaned, following him into the dining room through the mahogany pocket doors that matched the ones leading into the living room opposite. Both reception rooms opened off the front hall, the dining room to the left and the living room to the right.

“Lots of people around here have them. Between the security system, the new locks, the dogs, and me, I think we’ve pretty much got your stalker beat.”

“I hope so,” Grace said fervently, watching while he punched out the code number on a keypad mounted on the closet wall. With an acknowledging little beep, the tinny noise was blessedly silenced. The tiny red light on the top left went off, and a tiny green light on the top right came on. There were two square buttons at the bottom of the keypad. One was blue with a picture of a fire truck. The other was red, with a big E

on it.

“What’s your code number?” he asked her. “3-2-2-7.”

“Good. Remember, you’ve got forty-five seconds to punch it in before the alarm goes off. See these buttons here?” He pointed to the buttons Grace had been studying. “The blue one’s a direct line to the fire

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department. The red one’s a direct line to the police. All you have to do is hit either one for instant help. Got it?”

Grace nodded. The question about his birth date almost popped out of her mouth of its own volition there and then. But, she scolded herself, she needed to be a little more subtle… .

“Good.” Then Tony turned to her, his mouth quirking into a little smile. Before Grace knew what was happening, he had her pinned against the dining room wall, his body weight holding her there, his hands on either side of her waist. His eyes were a twinkling golden brown as he looked down at her. Meeting his gaze, Grace was easily able to put the horoscopes out of her mind.

Her hands went automatically to his shoulders. She smiled up at him.

“Miss me?” he asked, and kissed her before she could answer. Grace wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, which, she supposed, was answer enough.

She was still kissing him when the front door flew open with a bang. immediately they jumped apart. “Aunt Grace! Are you here?” The voice belonged

to Paul. He was stomping through the front hall. With a single speaking look at Tony, Grace turned and fled through the second dining room door, the smaller swinging one that led into the kitchen.

“Hi, Paul! Where’ve you guys been?” Grace greeted her nephew as he arrived in the kitchen scant seconds after she did, via the entry hall route. His hair was

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standing on end, and he was wearing jeans and a Cincinnati Reds T-shirt. Trying not to look or act flustered, Grace resisted the urge to lift her hands to her overwarm cheeks or smooth her hair and hoped that Tony’s kiss hadn’t left a mark. Her lipstick was gone, of course, but it was the end of the day and that could have occurred quite naturally. And Paul was only six, after all. He was unlikely to notice anything different about his aunt’s appearance short of the sudden appearance of ffarming-red hair or the growth of an elephant’s trunk where her nose usually was.

With a quick ruffle of Paul’s hair, she headed for the refrigerator. Supper on short notice he hadn’t had time to put anything into the Crock-Pot that morning-usually consisted of chicken breasts and rice, with a salad and possibly another vegetable and bread.

Maybe she should try to do something more. After all, Tony would be eating with them tonight. Remembering his mother’s and grandmother’s

cooking, Grace gave up on the thought. As far as cooks went, she could not compete.

He was going to have to take her as she was, or not at all.

Maybe she could somehow work the topic of astrological signs into the dinner-table conversation. Grace pictured herself leaning toward Tony over their plates of chicken and rice, fluttering her eyelashes, and cooing that bar pickup classic, “I’m a Virgo. What’s your sign?”

The picture thus conjured up was irresistible. Grace had to smile.

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“We’ve been to see Mamaw. Aunt Grace, Jessica won’t let me play with her dogs! She threw a basketball at me! It just missed hitting me, too! It went right over my head.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I think Jessica can be forgiven. He was trying to teach the little one to stand on its head. Forcibly.” Jackie walked into the kitchen with a purple sweat suit-clad Courtney at her heels and a sack from Kentucky Fried Chicken in her hand. Dressed in an oversized black T-shirt with multicolored buttons sewn onto it, and matching black stirrup pants, she looked very pretty, Grace thought.

“Hi, Jax. You’ve been to Cincinnati?” That was where Stan’s parents lived. “You should have let me know. I’ve been trying to call you all weekend.”

“I left a message withJessica on Friday.”

Trying to remember everything that had happened on Friday was too much. Grace shook her head. “She didn’t tell me. We’ve had a lot going on.”

Jackie looked at her. Then, instead of saying any more, she jiggled the bag in her hand so that it rattled enticingly, with the obvious intention of attracting her children’s attention.

“Anyone who wants chicken tenders and fries, follow me,” she said, heading into the TV room. Whooping, Paul and Courtney followed her.

By the time Jackie got back, Grace was already brushing barbecue sauce on chicken breasts preparatory to putting them under the broiler.

“I guess you have had a lot going on,” Jackie said

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with meaning, leaning back against the counter and regarding her older sister with a fascinated gaze. “Fill me in. I find it hard to believe, but from something Jessica said-is the handsome cop living with you now?”

IS NAME IS TONY. Tony Marino. And yes, iChe is staying with us for a while, but it’s not what you think.” As she spoke Grace fifled a pan with water and set it on the stove, turning the burner on high.

“You’ve got a hunky guy living with you, and it’s not what I think? What are you doing, then, running a shelter for homeless cops and their dogs?”

“Fla, ha,” Grace said, opening the freezer and extracting two small boxes of frozen broccoli casserole. After looking at the packages for a reflective moment, she took out a third. She didn’t have any real knowledge of the amount of food Tony generally consumed for supper, but from the size of him she guessed it was substantial and the amount of food he had consumed at his mother’s house was truly phenomenal.

“Grace, tell me.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Setting the icy boxes on the counter, Grace started to rip one open. Then, with a glance at Jackie, she scooted them toward her sister.

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“Here, make yourself useful. Put these in the microwave while I make the salad, would you, please?”

“Sure.” Jackie began prying at one of the boxes. “Grace …”

Grace sighed. As she made salad and put rice on to boil and slid chicken under the broiler, she told Jackie an abbreviated version of what was happening with the stalker. She left out a few things, like the exact nature of her relationship with Tony and any mention of Rachel, and she glossed over a few others, such as the true extent ofJessica’s rmisbehavior. But by the time she was done, Jackie had a fairly accurate picture of the situation.

“Oh, my God!” Jackie was appalled. At Grace’s direction, she was transferring nuked broccoli casserole to a baking dish so that it would look a little more appetizing as a single unit. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Grace was adding shredded carrots from a supermarket packet to the salad. “You already have so much to worry about, with Stan out of work and all. I didn’t want you to have to add Jess and me to the list.”

“You know, sisterhood is a two-way street. You’re always worrying about me. Why shouldn’t I worry about you for a change?” Jackie frowned down at the shapeless green mass in the casserole dish. “Do you have any shredded cheese or something I could put over this to make it look better?”

Without Grace saying a word-which she wouldn’t have done for any amount of money-Jackie seemed totally in sync with the goal of making the meal as presentable as possible since Tony would be joining them.

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“In the refrigerator.” Grace tossed the salad and judiciously added a few drops of lemon juice. “I know it’s a two-way street, but there wasn’t anything you could have done to make the situation better, so I didn’t see any point in upsetting you. I just told you now so you would understand why Tony’s staying here. “