Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [7]
“What are you doing, skulking around in the dark?”
The voice came out of nowhere, and she barely managed to stifle a shriek as a tall figure emerged from the shadows. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the porch light, and she couldn’t see him clearly—she only knew she’d never met him before.
He moved closer, and his face came into the light. Not a kind face—it was thin, with sharp cheekbones, hooded eyes and cool twist to the mouth. “You’re not sneaking a cigarette,” he said, “and as far as I can tell I’m the only one out prowling tonight, so you couldn’t be meeting a lover.” He looked at her, a long, assessing stare, and Rachel couldn’t rid herself of the thought that he was sizing her up and decided she wasn’t lover-material. “So why are you lurking outside Stephen Henry’s house? It is still his house, isn’t it?”
“They’ll have to use a crowbar to get him out,” she muttered. Even though the poet laureate of Silver Falls College had retired ten years ago, he always found an excuse not to vacate the impressive faculty housing that had always been his as dean of students. No matter how hard everyone, including his son, tried.
The stranger laughed. “That sounds like him. So why are you hiding out here?”
“He’s doing a reading,” she said gloomily.
He laughed again, and she got the impression he didn’t laugh often. “I don’t blame you. He goes on forever.” He paused, and Stephen Henry’s velvety tones seeped out of the old house. “You must be new here. Who are you, one of the faculty wives?”
“Why wouldn’t I be on the faculty myself?” she shot back, annoyed.
“Because you’re dressed too appropriately. Faculty can do what they want, the wives and husbands have to toe the line.”
“Then who are you? A faculty husband? I’ve never seen you before.”
He just looked at her. “Do I look like the kind of man who toes the line?” he said. He didn’t wait for her answer. “Is your husband in there? He isn’t going to like it that you skipped out on the old man.”
“He’s used to it.” She didn’t bother asking him how he knew she was married. She wore a ring, and he was the kind of man who noticed everything.
She heard the phone ring inside the house, while her father-in-law simply raised his voice to be heard over it. A moment later even Stephen Henry shut up, and there was dead silence, followed by a buzz of conversation.
“Sounds like there’s something more exciting than a poetry reading going on,” the stranger said in a lazy voice. “Don’t you think you ought to go in and find your husband?”
“What’s this obsession with my husband?”
He leaned back against the iron fencing. “What’s this lack of interest in him on your part?” he said. “Why are you trading barbs with a stranger in the dark?”
Because she felt alive for the first time in months. She was annoyed, stimulated, irritated and bizarrely happy. “I’m not,” she said, plastering the good wife smile on her face and turning toward the door. “I’m going to find him.”
The touch of his hand was electrifying. It was light, just a brush against her arm, but the message was clear. “Don’t go back in,” he said. “If he made you wear that dress then he doesn’t deserve you.”
She looked at him as he stood in the shadows, apart from the well-regulated life she’d chosen. Chosen for her daughter, chosen for herself. If she were a different woman, she’d simply go with him, leaving everything behind, the proper black dress, the safe life, the perfect family she’d created. But she was doing this for Sophie, she reminded herself, who’d lived through enough chaos. She didn’t have a choice.
She pulled away from him, more sharply than she needed to. “I think I’d better find out what’s going on. Are you coming in?”
Only the ghost of a smile. “I think I’ll stay here for the time being. I don’t think anyone will be particularly happy to see me.”
She stared at him a moment longer. There was something she was missing, something important….
The kitchen door opened suddenly, and David stood there, looking distressed. “I thought I’d find you