“Zack?” she called after him, but he slammed the bathroom door behind him to shut her out.

And in the morning, I’m gone, he thought. Because if I don’t leave in the morning, I will never leave, and I’ll end up remodeling this house, and telling Heisenberg “Dead dog” twenty times a day, and making love with Lucy until I die.

He stopped, nailed by the thought.

“Cold water,” he said, and stripped off his clothes.


WELL, THAT’S THAT, Lucy thought, settling back in front of the fire. He kissed her once and then he ran up the stairs to get away from her.

She couldn’t possibly be that bad a kisser.

It must be that she wasn’t his type. He probably went for really exciting women. Women who wore black lace and had long, thick, blond hair.

As opposed to, say, dry, fuzzy, curly, green hair.

Could hair as bad as hers send a man running up a flight of stairs?

“It’s not the hair,” she told the dogs who had padded down to rejoin her when Zack shut them out of the bathroom. “It’s me. I’m dull and unemotional. I should have jumped him when he kissed me, but did I? No. I was too polite.”

She let her head fall back against the love seat.

“Maybe this is all just fallout from the car blowing up,” she told the dogs. “You know, that ‘You’re never more alive than when you’re on the edge of death’ thing people are always talking about. Except, even with the car bomb and everything else, I still find it hard to believe somebody’s trying to kill me. Which would seem to mean it’s not the edge of death that’s getting me into trouble here. It’s the edge of Zack.”

She considered what Tina had said. “Be irresponsible.” She should just go right up those stairs and climb into bed with him and seduce him until he was witless.

Except she wasn’t sure how.

She thought about it for a while, trying to figure out how black lace nightgowns and champagne and all the other classic stuff would fit with Zack’s cheerful eroticism. Zack would probably prefer somebody who just crawled into his bed naked.

She couldn’t do that.

And then there was her hair.

Forget it.

She sighed and called the dogs to go upstairs to bed.


AFTER A NIGHT OF frustrating fantasies about a fully-clothed Lucy, Zack came downstairs planning to tell Lucy he was leaving right after breakfast. Then the phone rang, and he answered it, and the caller hung up.

“I don’t like that,” he told Lucy as she came down the stairs. “That makes me nervous.”

“Everything makes you nervous.” Lucy moved past him to the kitchen. “You are a walking exposed nerve.”

“Hey, I can be calm.” Zack followed her to the kitchen, wanting to be with her. “I’m steady.”

“Well, I’ve got to admit I’m amazed you’ve stayed in one place this long. I thought you’d be out the door by now.”

Zack froze in the doorway. “Oh? Why?”

Lucy opened the refrigerator and took out an egg carton and the milk. “I thought you’d get bored. I had no idea you had this much staying power. And I want you to know, I appreciate it.” She nudged the refrigerator door shut with her hip and smiled at him. “I’m not really scared. But I appreciate it anyway. What do you want to make for breakfast? Eggs or French toast?”

Zack looked into her calm, open, trusting face. She needed him. “Eggs. We can have leftover chili for lunch.”


THE PROBLEM WAS, there wasn’t anything for him to do all day but look at Lucy and fantasize. He still couldn’t see her naked, but it almost didn’t matter.

Anthony was out checking prowler reports for Lucy’s neighborhood, calling Pennsylvania again, and running credit-card checks to see if either one of the Bradleys was dumb enough to use his Visa card while he was on the lam. Even Junior was probably arresting jaywalkers. Only he was stuck baby-sitting three dogs and a marrying kind of woman he couldn’t imagine naked.

He needed to do something with his hands. Fast. Before he put them all over her.

“You know, this kitchen tile is really ugly,” he said, kicking at the gray speckled stuff as Lucy put the breakfast dishes away. “I wonder what’s underneath it?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “It’s on my list of things to- Hey!”

As she spoke, the floor had slipped under her feet and she fell against the cupboard. When she turned, Zack was holding the edge of her kitchen floor in one hand, waist high, like a bedsheet.

“I don’t believe this. The idiots put tile squares over sheet flooring. What dummies.” He looked under it to see what was left on the floor and missed Lucy’s glare.

“Zack, put my floor down,” she said, but he didn’t hear her.

“Come on,” he said, dropping it finally. “Water got under here and the whole thing’s loose. Let’s move the table and chairs out of here and peel this up. There’s wood under there!”

“Of course, there’s wood under there,” Lucy began, but he was already pulling the table toward the door.

“Pick up your end. We’re going to have to turn it sideways.”

Lucy sighed and obeyed. She was going to have to do the floor anyway sooner or later, and at least it kept him out of trouble.

And with her.

He might even kiss her again, and if he did, she was going to pounce this time. No more shrinking violet.

As long as he made the first move.

“Okay, tilt it to the right,” Zack said, and Lucy obediently tilted the table.

Maybe if she wore her old tight jeans. He seemed impressed with them that day on the basement stairs.

Would that be fair?

Did she care?

“Come on,” Zack said, and she followed him with the table through the door into the dining room.

“Listen,” she said as they put the table down, “if we’re going to do messy stuff, I’m changing into my jeans.”


ANTHONY CALLED, AND ZACK took it in the living room, sinking into one of the oversoft chairs and moving his arm so Maxwell could climb into his lap.

“Glad you called. I want a phone tap,” Zack said. “Somebody is calling and hanging up every time I answer.”

“Sounds like a jealous ex-husband. You may want to watch your back. Mrs. Dover reported another prowler. If it’s Bradley Porter, and he’s the one running around with the.38, he uses it.”

“Just so he doesn’t use it on Lucy. She insists that he’s not violent, by the way.” Zack idly scratched Maxwell’s ears. “Anything new on the car bomb?”

“I’ve got the final report here. Very neat. Plastic explosive, timer set on a five-minute delay, controlled damage. Professional job. And our Bradley – John Bradley- was in the Navy. Very tidy.”

“If this case is so tidy, why are we still so lost?”

“Speak for yourself,” Anthony said. “I’m pursuing the investigation with my usual cold, clean logic. What are you doing?”

“Ripping up Lucy’s kitchen floor.”

“With your teeth? Well, at least you’re calmer than you were last night. What happened, anyway?”

Lucy came down the stairs and walked by wearing her jeans. She smiled at Zack before she went into the kitchen.

He had a sudden vision of her naked.

“Oh, hell.”

“What?”

“You know that fantasizing problem I was having?”

“Is this the ‘Lucy naked’ part?”

“Right. Well, I’m not having that problem anymore.”

“Oh.”

“I’m having other problems.”

“Try a cold shower.”

“There’s not enough water in Riverbend.” Zack stood, dumping Maxwell off his lap, and craned his neck to try to see through the dining room into the kitchen. “I’m relying on self-control and maturity.”

“I’d be worried,” Anthony said, “but I know Lucy can defend herself. How’s your lip?”

“Great. I have to go now. You wouldn’t believe how tight this woman’s jeans are.”

“Zack?” Anthony’s voice was suddenly serious. “You know, it’s not a great idea to seduce a woman you’re protecting. All kidding aside, do you want me to send Matthews over?”

“Who?”

“Junior.”

“I will shoot him on sight,” Zack said and hung up so he could follow Lucy into the kitchen.


BY EIGHT THAT NIGHT, the phone tap was on, the flow had come up with a minimum of effort and a maximum of mess, and Lucy had shown Zack how to make roast beef with dry onion-soup mix for dinner.

“This is amazing,” he said, after the floor was in the backyard, and they were in the dining room eating. “All I did was pour some water and that powder stuff on the meat and throw it in the oven, and three hours later, we eat Do you have any idea what chefs get paid in this town?”

Lucy tried not to grin. “I don’t think the Maisonette uses onion-soup mix. I mink they chop more than we do.”

“Absolutely amazing,” Zack said, and Lucy laughed “What?” he said.

“You just make everything so much fun. Even boring things like cooking and taking out the kitchen floor. You’re excited about everything.”

“Not everything. Just about some things.” Zack watched her for a moment, her face warm and happy is the soft light. She was so calm, there was so much peace wherever Lucy was, that lately, whenever he looked at her, he felt like he was home. It was a dangerous feeling.

If she could do that after only three days, where would he be in a week?

“Zack?” she said, and he said, “Tell me about yourself.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Me? There’s nothing to tell.”

“Sure, there is. I already know you’re a great teacher.” He gestured at his plate with his fork. “And I know you’re a great cook. And I know you have the sister from hell.”

“No, she’s not. She’s just had bad luck with men.”

“Three times? No offense, but that temper of hers must have had something to do with three divorces.”

Lucy shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. She used to be a lot nicer than me, although she was always really practical. The first time she got married, she thought she was getting married for money. Well, she didn’t just think so, she did. Morgan was very rich. And he was a lot older than she was, too.”

“A lot?”

“Forty years. She was nineteen.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes, but then she fell in love with him. Our parents weren’t…well… warm people. I mean, they took very good care of us, but there wasn’t a lot of hugging. When we were kids, like in grade school, Tina and I used to talk about what it would be like when we got married, and we both swore we were going to marry men who hugged a lot, like the men in the movies. But then when we got older…” Lucy sighed. “Well, I still believed in that, and I think Tina wanted to, but then Morgan proposed. He was crazy about Tina, and Tina was just tired of not having any money, and she wanted to go to art school. Morgan promised to put her through, so she said yes. I tried to talk her out of it, but she said it was stupid to wait for love, and that Morgan was very sweet, and she was going to do it. I cried all the way through the wedding because I thought she’d made a terrible mistake.”

“So what happened?”

Lucy’s face softened into a smile as she remembered. “He was wonderful to her. It wasn’t just the money. He thought all her paintings were beautiful, he thought she was beautiful, and he told her so. He hugged her all the time, praised her all the time…” Lucy’s smiled turned rueful. “Six months after they were married, I apologized to her for trying to stop her. By then, she was crazy about him. They were so happy together, people even stopped saying she’d married him for his money.”

“So what happened?” Zack repeated.

“Nothing for four years. They were waiting until Tina graduated, and then they were going to go around the world for a year seeing every art museum they could find for Tina, and…” Lucy stopped again. “Tina was so excited. She told me that she was going off the Pill for the trip because they were ready to start a family. She was thrilled.”

Zack winced. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this next part?”

“He died,” Lucy said. “The week after she graduated, he had a heart attack and died. And Tina was devastated. She was in mourning for almost two years. She wouldn’t do anything but paint and listen to music. Morgan had a huge record collection, and she used to listen to it because she said it was like he was there.”

Zack shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like the Tina I saw in the diner.”

“The Tina you saw in the diner has had two husbands since then.” Lucy picked up her fork again. “One slept with her best friend and one hit her. Don’t criticize Tina. She’s a survivor. I should be more like her.”