[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“Because you are the most repetitive sonova—”Nick pointed with the cigarette.“That temper of yours is another reason you ought to stay away from—”“I said no problem!” Chase stormed out of the room and up the stairs.Nick spoke quietly after him, but the sound carried.“Good.I’m glad we’re in agreement.”Cloudless, the night sky looked like a billowing swatch of black velvet.Like a magic carpet, Nettie thought as she lay in the queen-size bed tucked beneath a double window in her second-story bedroom.She’d placed the bed under the window in lieu of a headboard so she could watch the stars glimmer and change on clear nights like this.In winter, before the harshest storms came, she scooched the bed over.Lightning and thunder were not as friendly as black velvet and stars.The full moon was high and amazingly bright tonight.Wondering what time it was she lifted her head to look at the digital clock on her dresser.Only a little after midnight.Oh, brother.One more sleepless night, and her eyes would be as swollen as the moon.She’d spent the past two nights tossing and turning as she thought about Chase.Or as she tried not to think about him.She hadn’t seen him since the day she’d driven to Nick’s, and that was three days ago.Despite her conviction that she would see him again, she had to admit she’d expected him to come to her this time.Or that they’d run into each other in town.There was only one tiny grocery in Kalamoose.If he intended to buy food in town, surely she would see him there.Working on that assumption, in three days she’d bought two heads of lettuce she hadn’t needed, way too many canned goods and enough peanut butter to last half a year.Sighing, Nettie flopped onto her side and pulled the quilt over her bare shoulder.The beloved wedding-ring quilt covering her bed had been in her family for three generations.In years gone by, it had made her feel cozy and happy simply to look at it and think about tradition—the tradition of handing down heirlooms, the tradition of marriage.“That’s your problem,” she muttered, burrowing more deeply into her soft pillow.“You want to live a Courtney Love life, but you’ve got a Donna Reed brain.Women who live for the moment have silk sheets.” She rolled onto her stomach.“And if you want to see Chase again, you’re going to have to hang out where he hangs out.” From her stomach, she moved to her other side and then her back.“I wonder where he’s hanging out in Kalamoose?” By now the town should have been buzzing with news about his presence.Celebrities were rare in Kalamoose, but so far she hadn’t heard a word.A sharp tap made her open her eyes.When she heard it again, she sat up abruptly and looked around.“What—”Ting!Something hit her window.Nettie turned, leaning on her pillows to look out the window and down to the ground.Sara always left the porch light glowing because it deterred criminals (not that they were inundated with them way out here) and because as the sheriff she felt she was on-call twenty-four seven.The front porch was around the corner, but the light spilled over to softly illuminate the side of the house on which Nettie’s bedroom was located.She squinted.There was a man down there.And he was throwing something at her window.Quickly she sat up, all but pressing her nose against the glass as she tried to see who was out there.The man ran a hand over his head, searched the ground, picked something up and ping!Nettie jerked back as another stone hit the window.With the man’s face upturned, she recognized Chase.Scuttling off the bed, she raced to the bedroom door, but realized an instant after she flung it open that her nightgown was sheer wispy nylon, hardly adequate covering for running out of the house in the middle of the night, so she hurried to the closet, searched madly for a robe and wrestled herself into it as she ran down the stairs.“Don’t leave, don’t leave,” she chanted, forcing herself to slow down as she reached the front door.Sara slept like a rock, but Nettie didn’t want to take any chances.Opening and closing the door carefully, she trotted barefoot down the porch steps and around the side of the house.Chase was there, winding up to pitch another stone at her window.She smiled [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]