Sleeping Beauty (28 page)

***

"Looking for someone?"

Neill turned away from the garage door and frowned at David, who had just finished changing the oil in a sedan of indistinct vintage and was now rubbing waterless hand cleaner into the grease stains on his palms. The sharp scent of it warred with deeper, heavier scents of motor oil and axle grease.

"What?"

"That's the fifth or sixth time you've gone to the door," David pointed out. "I just wondered if you were looking for someone."

"No," Neill said shortly. It was ridiculous to think that Anne's "time to think" had meant a matter of hours. He'd already decided that he would have to school himself to wait a day or two. Unless he went stark, raving mad before then.

Aware of David's light blue eyes watching him, he moved restlessly over to the workbench and picked up a wrench, studying it for a moment before putting it down again. What was she thinking? Maybe he should have pushed her to talk to him about what she was feeling. Maybe he should have offered more explanations, a more profound apology.

He glanced at the clock on the back wall of the garage and wondered how it was possible that so little time had passed since the last time he looked at it. It wasn't even four o'clock yet. There were still several hours of daylight, then an endless night, to get through. He'd already tried working, but the words on the screen had looked like gibberish. If he had a muse, she couldn't make herself heard through the chattering fear in his head.

"You figure you can bend that bare-handed?" David asked amiably, making Neill realize that he'd picked up the wrench again and was twisting it between his hands. He dropped it and shoved his hands in his pockets. His eyes fell on the motorcycle, still sitting near the back wall of the garage.

"Do you have any idea when the parts for that damned thing are going to get here?" he asked, seizing on the distraction.

David picked up a rag and began wiping the cleaner from his hands. "Got here ten days or so ago," he said, without looking up. "I put it back together and took it out for a run last week. Seems to be working fine."

"lt's fixed?" Neill gaped at him.

"Seems to be," David said calmly.

"I—why didn't you tell me?" Neill looked from David to the bike and back again. "I thought you were still waiting for parts, but you must have gotten them within a couple of days."

"Friend of mine in California specializes in Indian motorcycles," David admitted. "I called him the day after you brought it in, and he sent everything I needed right out!" He finished cleaning his hands and tossed the rag in the general direction of the plastic basket that served as a hamper. Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, he gave Neill a considering look. "I was going to tell you, and then I saw you and Anne having lunch at Luanne's. You remember?''

Bewildered, Neill nodded. "I remember."

"I walked in, and she was laughing." David shook his head. "I've known her all her life, and I've never heard her laugh like that. Never saw her look so...young. And the way you were smiling at her, I figured the attraction was mutual."

"So you told me it was going to take a couple of weeks to fix the bike so I'd stay in town?" Neill arched one brow in question and considered the idea of David playing matchmaker. "You don't look much like a fairy godmother."

"I don't feel much like one." David rubbed one finger along the side of his nose. "Actually, it was sort of an impulse, and then I felt like an idiot."

He slanted Neill a questioning look. "I figure you know all about Brooke by now?"

"Yeah. I know what happened to her. And I know what it meant to Anne—some of it at least."

"I dated Brooke. We even talked about getting married," David said, narrowing his eyes reminiscently for a moment. "I don't know if we'd actually have gotten that far." He shrugged the memories aside. "I was pretty shook up after she was killed. It hit the whole town really hard. Things like that don't happen here. They don't happen to people you know."

"I know," Neill murmured, thinking of a young girl with pretty brown hair in her first real grownup dress. "It's tough to deal with."

"Everyone wanted to do something, to help somehow. Mrs. Moore was too cold to be approachable, and Doc Moore just kind of went away somewhere. Jack left town a month after it happened, went back to college. But there was Anne. She was just a kid, all big eyes and skinny legs. I guess there were quite a few who sort of felt like, if they took care of Anne, it would make up for not taking care of Brooke. So everyone looked out for her. By the time she got to high school, I don't think there was a boy within thirty miles who would have even thought to get fresh with her. She didn't date, didn't go away to college. It was like she was—"

"Sleeping Beauty," Neill murmured, remembering his initial impression.

"Yeah." David bounced the toe of his boot off the side of a tire. "Like Sleeping Beauty. It wasn't like she was unhappy. She was just not really awake. And then I saw her laughing with you, and I just thought—hell, I don't know what I thought." Acutely uncomfortable, he jammed his hands in his pockets. "So I didn't tell you the bike was fixed and—"

"Hoped I'd hang around long enough to wake her up?" Neill suggested. Any minute now, he would realize how angry he was. Just as soon as he got over feeling grateful.

He started to say as much when he saw David's eyes shift to something past his shoulder. Neill knew who it was even before he turned and saw her standing there, just inside the garage door. It was almost exactly like the first time he'd seen her—the white glare of the sun behind her, her face in shadow.

David said something about making a phone call and disappeared into the office, leaving them alone. Neill barely noticed his disappearance. She was wearing another of those simple little dresses that drove him crazy. This one was raspberry pink, with a flared skirt that left her long legs bare. She'd left her hair down, and he had to curl his fingers into his palm against the urge to touch it. To touch her.

"I was going to the motel, but then I saw your car—David's car—out front and thought you might be here." She took a shallow step forward and then stopped, linking her hands together in front of her. "I...ah...read part of your book. You really made me see them—your friend Lacey and her family, I mean. I could see what you did for them, how you made them real and maybe kept people from forgetting them. I don't know that I'm entirely... comfortable with the idea of it, of digging all that pain out, but maybe it's a good thing in some ways."

"I don't know that I'm planning on writing any more books like that," Neill said, feeling the knot start to loosen in his chest. It was going to be all right. It struck him as oddly fitting that it should end here, where he'd first seen her. Not end, he corrected himself. It was just beginning. "I seem to have shifted gears since coming here—in a lot of ways."

Anne nodded. There had been so many changes in her life that it had taken her awhile to realize that there had been changes in his, too. She stole a glance at his face and then looked away. She wished he would just grab her and tell her he loved her, but she'd asked him for time, and she knew he wasn't going to rash her. She was going to have to take this step on her own.

"I went to see my mother." She cleared her throat and brought her eyes to his. "I told her I was leaving. With you. Did I lie?"

There was a moment of dead silence, and then Neill gave a shaky laugh, and suddenly he had her in his arms, holding her so tight that she could hardly breathe.

"I just happen to have the modern-day equivalent of a white charger standing ready," he told her. "But it's too hot for a suit of armor."

"Armor?" Anne asked, puzzled.

"Never mind." He laughed again and lifted his hands to bury them in her hair, tilting her face back so that he could look down at her. "No handsome prince ever got this lucky."