"Bye, Arianne." He was acting as though absolutely nothing unusual were going on. "I'll see you soon." And with a great big charming grin he slid behind the wheel. "Get inside! It's too cold for you to be out here with nothing on!"
She realized only then that she didn't have a coat on, and in this weather her pink slippers were hardly adequate. Appreciatively his eyes skimmed quickly down her body right to her toes before the car door slammed.
She waved him off, the sea wind ruffling her long black hair. Rae, anchored on one hip, waved, too. Then Leo's car turned out of her lane and disappeared through the trees. In shock she stood staring at the misty gloom in which it had vanished from sight. She could hardly believe it was true. It seemed so bizarre. Only an hour ago he had been kissing her as though she meant the world to him, and now.. .now...
How could he do this to her? How could he bathe her in the sweetest, hottest passion and then simply up and leave? Her mind couldn't quite grasp such carelessness. Not for a second did she place any value on his promise to return. Not for half a second. It was merely a sop to his conscience.
Perhaps he even meant to return, but once back home he would soon forget everything. This sort of thing happened all the time. Jill had warned and warned her against falling for the guests—because they left. Damn! Why couldn't her sixth sense protect her from such disaster? Why hadn't she listened to her own common sense? Why, why, why…
She turned back to the house. The empty house. There'd be no footsteps now, or the creak of a chair or the sound of a door opening. Now the house would echo with emptiness. Certainly no flashlights would disappear.
Arianne walked slowly up the stairs, remembering how he'd taken her arm that first time. She had to get ready for work, she reminded herself sternly. She had no time for standing on the porch, losing herself in space. She was vaguely surprised to feel scalding tears at the back of her eyes. Such foolish tears.
And she had been worried about Rae getting too attached!
CHAPTERSEVEN
As soon as the numbness wore off she was angry— furious, in fact—with Leo Donev. Talk about slam-bam, thank you ma'am! He couldn't have timed his leaving better had he tried, and Arianne began to think he must have done exactly that. He must have decided, after spending the night with her, to get out fast, before she started making demands. Sure, he'd stayed for breakfast, had even made it! But the phone call he had received had served as an excellent excuse. After all, it was so easy to say, "Something came up—"
But why was she surprised? She shouldn't be. She had known very well he would go sooner or later. And she knew men on the whole didn't want more than an affair with a single mother. She couldn't blame them, either; if she were single, she would prefer another single male rather than one who came with a ready-made family. It made perfect sense. But that didn't make it any easier to bear. And it didn't lessen her sense of outrage. She felt scorned. It seemed to her that he couldn't get away fast enough. He certainly lacked courage, for all his charm and gracious manners.
If only the flashlight hadn't been moved! Then the lovemaking might never have happened. They'd made it through four weeks without more than a kiss, so why couldn't they have made it one more day? Then, after the phone call this morning... would he still have gone, or would he have stayed yet another week? But if he had stayed, would a kiss have been all they would have shared?
It was all a lot of pointless conjecture. She gave up. The fact was, he was gone. And he'd left nothing of himself behind, nothing but her memories.
To Orly and Jill that day she pretended happy relief that her guest had finally left. Used to hiding her curious powers, she could hide her grief fairly well, and since she'd always been reserved, her behavior now didn't strike anyone as unusual. Her two friends believed exactly what she wanted them to believe.
Saturday night she sat alone by the fire, with the bees-wax candle burning sweetly beside her and her black cat curled up in her lap. Alone, her misery was etched on her face. She was so empty inside; the house was so quiet. She wished Rae would wake up and cry just so there would be some noise.
Now she knew what she had been missing these past two years: companionship, the joy of sharing little things. It seemed to her that she had been made to be one of a pair.
She saw her life stretching out ahead, cold and empty, an interminable road to nowhere. Finally she came to the conclusion she did want a man in her life. Finally she admitted she wasn't satisfied with what she had arranged for herself. All her clever planning had locked her into a corner. She had forgotten to account for her wants, desires and basic human needs. And Leo had awakened them all, with a vengeance.
Because of her shortsightedness she had starved herself, so when Leo came she'd fallen for him like a starving man would have grabbed at any food put before him. She should have had the sense to solve her problem using her brains, instead of blindly reaching out to the first man she was attracted to. And now she had to pay for her stupidity. It was as simple as that. Because, despite all her caution, he had taken a part of her with him when he had left. She was afraid she really had fallen for him—she skirted carefully around the word love. As her heart had previously beat with joy, it now throbbed with pain.
***
Her life settled back into its familiar routine over the next few days. On the surface, at least, it was the same as it had been before she'd ever set eyes on Leo Donev. She did all the usual things: she took the baby for walks on the beach where icy winds stung her cheeks red and the fog hid them from the world in a soft damp blanket; she went to work in the shop, where the atmosphere was friendly, with Orly's wood stove crackling in the center, comfortable and cozy, while winter rain poured down. But while the hours slid by in their regular way Arianne knew that Leo had irrevocably changed her life. He had jogged her out of a rut, if nothing else.
She began to consider her options. Basically she had three choices, as she saw it. The first one entailed staying where she was and continuing to work in Orly's shop. But she would have to get away from home more often, to pick up the threads of her old life and begin socializing again with her friends in Seattle. The only problem was that trips to Seattle and socializing cost money, and she didn't make enough to support herself and her son in the fashion to which they had become accustomed and travel, too.
The answer to that was to take up her old practice: that is, act as a consultant to insurance companies, the police, or anybody, in fact, who had a question needing her psi; psi being the scientific term for her sixth sense. But she could only count on getting Sundays off for certain, and that meant working in Port Townsend all week, hopping in her car on Saturday night for the drive to Seattle, making herself available all day Sunday for business and driving back Monday morning to begin another work week. A hectic pace. She would scarcely have time left over for much socializing.
An alternative to all that driving would be to run her practice by mail or telephone. That would be fine, except she risked discovery by someone here in town sooner or later. And Port Townsend was too small a place to be known as a witch. Big cities offered anonymity; small towns didn't. Then, too, once her sixth sense was a matter of town gossip somebody would surely discover her past. The tragic kidnapping case would come to light, and no doubt people here would blame her as they had elsewhere. And then the persecution would begin all over again.
Arianne shuddered. Well, resuming her law practice was one idea. If she continued to go straight—that is, not use her powers to make a living—her second alternative was to take Mikey up on his offer. She would have to move back to the city, of course, but maybe that was the most logical plan, after all. She could move in with her mother until she found a place of her own. She could turn businesswoman—run Mikey's office and set up systems for a little company that was fast becoming a big one. Hm. This idea did have its appeal. Rae would have to go to a day-care center while she became a nine-to-fiver. At first she would probably be too exhausted to socialize, but after sh
e found a place to live and was used to office routine, then there would be time to meet old friends and new.
The third alternative involved doing what she did best, practicing her extrasensory perception. Moving back to Seattle—or any other big city, for that matter—and setting up shop for herself. Big sign on the door, advertisements in the paper. Clear-cut, no more hiding and no more pretending!
But what if the same ghastly thing happened again? What if there were another horror like the kidnapping case? Now people would not only point fingers at her and whisper, but at her son, too. Could she risk exposing him to such mindless cruelty?
Much as she liked the third idea, she shrank from its possible repercussions. And while she liked the second, she didn't know if, after the initial challenge and fun of organizing a booming cookie company was over, she would still be enthusiastic a year down the road when it was running smoothly.
Arianne kept mulling over the various ideas, hoping a solution would eventually come up. Whenever she thought about Leo she forced him out of her mind by pondering career choices, and this was such a big dilemma that the ploy sometimes worked.
More often than not, though, her thoughts kept circling around to him. She had come to admire him so much she could hardly believe the low hit-and-run tactics he had used. Could he have been frightened away by her sixth sense and that of her son? Graphic displays of it sometimes scared people half to death. She searched her memory, but there wasn't a smidgen of evidence to support this theory. He had seemed curious, intrigued, fascinated, but hadn't pried when faced with her reluctance to divulge particulars.
Her mother kept saying she should marry someone with the sight, like herself, and in that way remove the difficulty it caused. There certainly was good sense in that advice....
Even though Leo had admitted the ESP was a little scary sometimes, he seemed to take it all in stride. His spirit was too tough to be frightened away; she was sure of it. Even if her gift had given him a bit of a shock, there was a resilience about him that was as engaging as it was reassuring. Dammit, she was crazy about a man who thought so little about her that he could simply run out on a moment's notice!
Pacing restlessly around her living room evening after evening, Arianne tried to concentrate on a sound plan for the future, but more often than not, kept concentrating on what had gone wrong between her and her lover. Leo.. .aggressive, definite about what he wanted, and yet so gentle, sensitive and considerate. So quick to laugh, so cheerful. He really seemed to enjoy life, and she had enjoyed hers more for knowing him. How she missed him! The days were dreary without him and the nights endless.
She wasn't the only one who missed him, either. Rae kept looking for him and asking for him. In the mornings, after his breakfast, he kept running into the dining room, expecting to find Leo there. It hurt her to see his disappointment. It was hard to comfort the little boy in his sad confusion. And while she could amuse him, she couldn't toss him up in the air the way Leo had and she wasn't much at playing rough and tumble on the living-room carpet, either.
Sure, Leo had said he would be back soon, but she didn't believe it. As Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday went by she knew she had been right. Not even a phone call. One could always manage a phone call.. .if one cared enough.
She couldn't call him, because she knew next to nothing about his circumstances. He lived somewhere in L. A. He owned a travel agency and a small bookstore. He had family back in Brooklyn. He wore expensive clothes, but drove a rundown car. He was rather a mystery…
***
She had become used to having dinner late. Friday evening, when she was dining on a meal of cheese and crackers—loneliness was not good for her appetite—the door knocker sounded and she all but spilled her glass of milk in irrepressible excitement. It had to be Leo. She flew down the hall.
Her disappointment was shattering when she saw only Larry Barnes on the other side of the oval glass. But she had time to steel her expression and put on a welcoming smile.
"Hi, Arianne! I dropped Don off next door and the lovebirds were getting me down, so I thought I'd drop in on you. I'm not interrupting? You're not going to kick me out, too, are you?"
Arianne smiled a little more widely and invited the officer in.
"Jill told me your B-and-B guest is gone. What was his name?"
"Leo Donev."
"Oh, yes, foreign, isn't it? I'll bet you're relieved he's finally gone."
"I'm not used to having guests," Arianne replied impartially.
"I'm relieved he's finally gone! I didn't like the thought of him here... of you all alone with that stranger."
Arianne considered that the officer was a stranger to her, as well, but didn't mention it. She merely smiled faintly, hung up his jacket and ushered him into her living room. It was nice to have some company, after all.
"What was it he did?"
"He owns a bookstore in Los Angeles. May I offer you a little brandy?" She poured some for Larry, but didn't take any herself. A bite of cheese and two crackers were hardly sufficient to cushion something like brandy.
Larry savored a sip of the amber spirit and viewed the bottle with reverence, remarking about its exotic label and age.
"Leo liked it," she explained.
"I'll bet he did! This doesn't come cheap! Come here and sit down, Arianne. I want to ask you out, and it would be so much easier if you were here beside me." Larry flashed her a white grin and held out his hand.
He was sitting on the couch, where Leo used to sit. She sat on the arm of the chair by the fire, declining his invitation to join him, and his hand dropped.
"There's a good movie playing here in town," he continued unperturbed. "Why don't you come with me tomorrow night? I'll have you home early, if you like. If you don't like, we'll go out for dinner afterward. Jill already agreed to baby-sit."
As far as he was concerned, it was a fait accompli. Arianne wanted to say, "No, get the hell out of my house!" She didn't know exactly why she wanted to say that. Most likely, it had to do with the fact that she wanted to be with another man…
"It's a comedy, Arianne." Larry went on to inform her what kind of comedy it was and who was starring in it.
While he was chatting, she was thinking about Leo. He was gone and never coming back. Somewhat recklessly she decided to take Larry up on his offer. After all, why shouldn't she go out to see a movie? At least she wouldn't have to sit all by herself, with only Jinx to keep her company as they watched sparks fly up the chimney.
"Yes, all right. I'd love a movie. And dinner sounds like fun," she agreed, composed and cool, her black eyes on him.
The officer swallowed. "Great. Terrific." He smiled widely, gazing back at her, swirling the brandy absent-mindedly around and around in the snifter. "Jill said you'd like the show. She was saying how happy you were to be rid of Leo whatsit?"
"Donev."
"Right. She thought he might have imposed on you...."
Arianne wondered what on earth he meant by that. She raised her dark, defined eyebrows slightly.
"I guess I'm jealous. Thinking of him here with you."
His fawning eyes were all over her. A faint frown chased over her forehead, "I can take care of myself," she commented quietly.
"You can? How? Listen, darling, you should know karate, or better yet, get yourself a watchdog. Living all by yourself way out here..."
"Jill's doing the same, right next door," Arianne pointed out, beginning to dislike the conversation. Had she agreed to that movie too quickly?
"Yeah, but, ah... you're not exactly big and strong the way she is. She said you didn't like the B-and-B trade. I sure am glad about that!" he exclaimed fervently.
He really was very attractive, and his smile more so. After her ego had been broken into a thousand pieces, this unexpected attention was rather pleasant, even if she didn't particularly like the conversation. She began to wonder if she had anything to fear from him....
Quickly she dismissed the noti
on. He didn't look like the bullying type. And all she was committed to was a movie and dinner. If he proved too boring for mere companionship it would be the last movie and dinner she would have with him. Still, the way he was looking at her... She knew very well he had more than companionship on his mind. Maybe the movie and dinner tomorrow night would have to be the end whether he was boring or not. She didn't feel able to start a relationship, not with him, when she was yearning for somebody else, and she probably wouldn't yearn for him in any case.
"He was with you how long, four weeks?"
"Um, yes." Arianne wondered at his interest in Leo. Was he really so jealous so fast? He hardly knew her!
"Lucky devil! He's gone for good, has he?"
"I suppose so."
"What was the matter with him?"
"Headaches, bad recurring headaches." Even after he had deserted her she was still lying for him! "I believe his doctor thought they were stress induced. That, and too much reading, or something..."
"Hm. What did he do with himself all day?"
"He was out most of the time. His doctor wanted him to get plenty of fresh air and exercise, so I guess he hiked all over the place."
"Seems a little strange, doing nothing but walking the beach and hiking for four weeks."
"Well, I don't know, I've never suffered from bad headaches. They—they lasted for days, apparently." Arianne made this up to put a stop to Larry's speculation. She wished he would stop digging her about her lover. Her former lover.
"What you need around here is somebody like me." Larry smiled confidently, with an inveigling twinkle in his brown eyes. "I'm very good at taking care of beautiful young women, and I'd like very much to take care of a particular one...." He paused meaningfully.
Surprised by this overflow of affection so soon, she murmured, "But you hardly know me, Larry, you're moving a little fast."
"I don't think so. You had me wound right around your little finger the first time I laid eyes on you...." His voice trailed away tantalizingly.
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