Finally, his eyes dropped and I watched as they slid, slowly, from my face down my body to my feet and, just as slowly, starting back up to my face.
During this journey I realized that my robe had fallen open and he could see my nightie. Pale lavender satin, short, hitting me at the upper thighs but there was a three-inch hem of smoky gray lace below that. The same lace was at the bodice over the cups of material covering my breasts. The nightie fit close at my chest and midriff but there was room to move around my hips and thighs. It was nowhere near as risqué as Kenzie’s teddy. It left something to the imagination and that was good, unless you had an imagination.
Carefully, I pulled the edges of my robe together and his eyes speeded up to hit mine and I knew the instant they did, without any doubt, he had an imagination.
My mouth went dry.
“I’m Joe Callahan,” he stated.
“Hello Joe,” I said quietly.
“Cal,” he corrected me and I nodded but remained silent.
When this stretched the length of the Porsche firing up and reversing out of the drive, Joe Callahan prompted, “You are?”
“Your neighbor.”
His heavy, dark brows went up. “Does my neighbor have a name?”
I shook my head and his heavy, dark brows drew together.
“You don’t have a name?” he asked.
“I think I want to leave,” I told him.
His face got hard but his voice got soft when he said, “Listen, buddy –”
“No, please, Joe, I want to leave.”
“Cal.”
“Whatever, I’d like to leave,” I repeated.
He started toward me and I backed up, lifting a shaking hand and he stopped, his eyes dropping to my hand before cutting back to my face.
“I live next door, that’s it,” I said softly. “I wanted the music to stop. It’s stopped. Now I’d like to leave.”
His eyes held mine and something was happening in them, I just didn’t know what and, after witnessing that scene, listening to the way he spoke to her, what he said, how he said it and the utter humiliation he inflicted, I didn’t care. Then his gaze dropped to my body again, he closed his eyes and stepped to the side.
I wasted not even a second. I ran to the door, unlocked it, threw it open, ran out and across the snow to my house. I threw myself through the side door, closed it, locked it, threw the chain and then armed the alarm.
Then, quaking head to foot, I slid off the wellies, made my shaky way to my bedroom and got in bed with Tim’s robe on, pulling up the covers to my neck.
I turned my head to the frame sitting on my nightstand. I could barely see it in the dark but I didn’t need to see it, I had the picture it held memorized. Tim and me, close up, he was behind me, both his arms around my shoulders, wrapped across my upper chest, his jaw pressed to the side of my head, my head slightly turned into him. He was looking at the camera. I had my eyes closed.
We were both laughing.
“Miss you, baby,” I whispered to the frame, my voice shaking as hard as my body still was.
The frame had no reply, it fucking never did.
*
The next morning, Joe Callahan’s house was quiet and the shiny, black, new model Ford pickup was gone.
It wouldn’t come back for three weeks.
*
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d been at the garden shop all day and during the day it had snowed.
I was sick of snow and I wished I’d picked Florida or Arizona or somewhere that didn’t have snow when I’d packed up my girls and fled Chicago.
Furthermore, Kate was driving now. She’d turned sixteen and she got her license and I bought her a car. Tim would have been pissed I bought her a car. Then again, he’d have been pissed I bought myself a Mustang. As a cop, he’d seen too many accidents so he was all for staid, sturdy cars that were built so tough you could drive them through a building and only have to buff out a few scratches. He might have driven like a lunatic (which he did), but he wasn’t a big fan of me doing it (which I didn’t unless I was in, say, a Mustang) and he wasn’t a big fan of spoiling the girls.
Then again, with a dead Dad, spoiling them had become something of a habit.
And anyway, I didn’t have Tim anymore to help me take them places and pick them up. I also didn’t live in a household with two cars unless I bought one for Kate.
So I did.
She was a good driver, responsible, my Kate. Keira, now, Keira would probably be picked up joyriding when she had her learner’s permit with me in the car. Keira was a magnet for trouble. Kate would rather die a thousand bloody, painful deaths than break a rule or get into trouble. Keira would make a deal with the devil for a killer pair of shoes and not even blink.
Even if Kate was responsible and a good driver, I still hated it when she drove in snow.