Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [63]
“Shit,” he muttered.
He was more than a little annoyed that the intruder had slipped away. It never would have happened a few years ago. Another reminder that he was getting older. Who was it? One of those kids Morrow was claiming caused so much trouble? A common burglar, vandal, vagrant? Even as the multitude of possibilities turned in his mind, he knew the answer. This case, which he had at first regarded with skepticism, was starting to take shape like the trees around him when the moon passed from behind the clouds. He had the sense of something sinister, something twisted, something connected to Lydia.
Darkness, solitude; the two places where thoughts turned most often to her. Tonight his thoughts were edged with worry. Who was hiding in those trees? How long had he been there? Had he been waiting there when Lydia had come home alone?
Jeffrey made his way more steadily now, feeling his way in the moonlight, treading carefully toward the gleam of the houselights he now saw in the distance. An anxiety, a fierce need to protect Lydia arose in him. He could see the look in her eyes just a few minutes before, feel her in his arms. He would die for her. If he could have caught his breath enough to break into a run to her, he would have.
A perfect circle of light bounced before him. He was struggling to see what it was, straining his weak eyes in the darkness, when he heard Lydia calling his name.
“I’m here,” he called, “stay still. I’ll come to you.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?” she called.
“No, just old, winded, and blind.”
When she finally saw him, she ran to him but stopped herself from throwing her arms around him. Instead she touched him tenderly on his bad shoulder. He could see she had a .38 in a holster at her waist.
“Did you see who it was?”
“No. He got away. I don’t know how.… He was big and clumsy. But he was ten feet in front of me one minute and then it seemed like seconds later that I heard an ignition struggling a mile away.”
“I called the police.”
“All right.”
She slipped her arm around his waist and he draped his arm across her shoulders in return. She leaned in close to him as they walked. “Who do you think it was?” she asked.
“Who do you think it was?” he answered, knowing from her tone what she suspected but did not say.
“It was him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can feel it.”
“You say that like it’s proof.”
“It is for me.”
They were silent as they walked toward the house, which was visible now through the trees.
“What do you think, Jeffrey?”
“I don’t know.”
But she knew him too well, knowing his heart and his meaning more by what went unsaid than by the words he uttered, understanding more from the protective tightening of his arm around her shoulder. She stopped walking and faced him, put her fingers to the rough stubble on his face.
“Seems like you’re always rushing to my rescue.”
“God knows you’ve come to my rescue a thousand times.”
“You’re always here when things get out of hand.”
“It’s my honor, Lydia.”
“I don’t know what to do, Jeffrey. Give me time.”
“How much more time do you need, Lydia? What are you so afraid of?”
He pushed the hair out of her eyes and tilted her face upward with a featherlight touch under her chin. The yearning of years ached inside of her like a hunger she had never been able to sate, that made her weak and unsteady on her feet. He pulled her in close. There was no truer home to her than the one she knew in his arms. That was becoming more clear to her every day. She shivered as if someone were walking over her grave. Her desire and fear seemed almost audible, like sirens in the distance, moving closer from opposite directions, warning of danger.
“Lydia.”
The tone in his voice was a confession, mirroring her own. And in the second before his lips touched hers, the quiet night was pierced by a cacophony of