Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [11]
That kind of independence was unheard of, even for one as old as Miss Gail. According to his report, she was twenty and unwed. Not for the first time, he wondered why.
Adjusting his hat, he climbed the steps. The front door was open, leaving only a screen between him and her.
He knocked. No movement, no noise. He could see the door led to a large living area.
He knocked again. “Hello? Anybody home?”
Nothing. He stepped back. The double window above the green bench looked into the same big room. He circled around the rockers on the left and peeked inside an open smaller window.
Lacy curtains billowed out, giving him a glimpse of a bed, a washstand, and a wardrobe. He immediately straightened, though there was no need. No one had been inside the bedroom.
Sighing, he looked up and down the street. Hers was definitely the smallest house on the block. Cattycorner and three lots down was the Campbellite church. But there was no activity there, nor anywhere else.
Honey Dew swished her tail and gave a slow blink.
Returning to the door, he knocked again, then cupped his eyes with his hands and rested them against the screen. A bank of windows lined the entire southern wall of the living area. Spaced across it was a large, cluttered office desk, the switchboard, and a boxed-in contraption. The frame for all the cables, perhaps?
Centered along the west wall was a stone fireplace, bookcases on either side. He lifted his brows. Surely SWT&T didn’t supply her with books, too. But where else would all those have come from?
An overstuffed divan, an easy chair, and a rocker crowded the center of the room, facing the dormant fireplace.
No rug. No wall hangings. No ornaments on the mantel. No zillions of tiny knickknacks, which stifled every parlor he’d ever seen.
He frowned. The phone company said she’d come from their Dallas exchange and had been here for over a year. Seems like she’d have given it a woman’s touch by now.
Straightening, he swiped at a gnat buzzing about his ear. Maybe he should check the back. He was halfway down the side of the house when it occurred to him she might be at the outhouse.
He slowed his pace. He’d just look around the corner. If she was making a trip to or from, he’d dart back to the street and start all over.
“Dad-blast it, Ivan.” A woman’s strident voice. “I’ve told you never to come around here. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Luke froze. An unwelcome suitor? A woman living alone would be mighty vulnerable. He crouched down, inching his way forward.
“I’m sick and tired of you coming over here licking your lips while drool drips from your mouth. I’ve had enough, I tell you. Enough.”
Luke stopped midstride. What kind of woman would say something like that? Only one kind he knew of. And it wasn’t the kind who had a respectable address in a respectable neighborhood.
“Stop it.” Her voice jumped an octave. “No! Get!” Whack. “I mean it. Get away from here.” Whack. Whack.
Luke took several running hops, removed his hat, and peeked around the corner.
A little wisp of a woman held up the hem of her brown skirt with one hand and swung a broom with the other.
“Botheration,” she mumbled, jumping over a clump of pink flowers. “Missed again.”
He slowly eased away from the house. Whatever creature she was whacking, it wasn’t of the two-legged variety.
“Out!” She swung.
“Rrrrraaaaaarrh!” A reddish-brown cat leapt to the edge of the property, the woman keeping pace.
“You find your dinner somewhere else, Ivan. You cannot dine here.” She swung and missed. “Ever. Do you hear me?”
Ivan jumped onto the trunk of an elderberry, then onto a fence and over the other side.
“And stay there,” she shouted, shaking her fist. “Because the next time you come back, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll shoot you with a slingshot. Just see if I don’t!”
Luke rubbed a hand across his mouth. What the deuce was wrong with cats?
She stood with her back to him, a swath of blond hair tumbling over one heaving shoulder while she gripped the broom’s handle so tight her knuckles turned white.
Looking up into the tree, she