It was all good.
He made a grab for her when she tried to leave the cab, and she let him haul her close and kiss her breathless. Her legs were noodles when he finally let her go. She slipped out, shut the door, and leaned against it for a full ten seconds before she found her land legs and walked to her car. He waited until she was moving before he started his truck and then he followed her out of the lot. She kept an eye on him in her rearview mirror right up to the moment they parted ways to their respective parts of town.
Nearing her house, Ramsey slowed to a crawl to make the turn into her driveway, and then applied the brake for a full stop when she noticed the unfamiliar car parked on the opposite side of the street had a Maryland tag. Maybe the Andersons had a visitor. She wanted to believe that because the alternative made her shiver, and not in a good way.
The SUV’s headlights swept her front lawn and porch steps as she turned in. The porch remained in the dark, but the motion detector light above the garage door came on as she approached. It didn’t help her see if anyone was waiting for her on the porch. She opened the garage door and drove in, turned off the car, and sat unmoving while her heart quieted. It was easy to tell herself she was being stupid. Much harder to believe it.
Six million people called Maryland home. What were the chances that the car across the street belonged to someone she knew? Yes, she was being stupid. No, she didn’t believe it.
Ramsey leaned toward the opposite door, opened the glove box, withdrew her pistol. She made sure the chamber was clear, tucked the Walther into her jacket pocket, and then got out of the car and walked down the driveway to the sidewalk that led to the front porch. She purposely did not close the garage door. The motion detector light illuminated her path until she reached the sidewalk and stood there for a long moment, still as stone.
She saw him move. He appeared out of the deep shadows of the porch and came to the lip of the steps. She knew his spare and slender silhouette. Knew the breadth of his shoulders, hunched now against the chill in the air, and recognized the backward tilt of his head. It didn’t matter that he already occupied the high ground. He still had to underscore that he was looking down on her. He wasn’t wearing a hat. Ball caps had never suited him and a fedora made him look more like one of John Gotti’s lieutenants than Indiana Jones. His dark hair was carefully cropped and styled, all of it in place in spite of the occasional eddy of wind that blew dry leaves across the lawn. His manner of dress, his way of carrying himself, his classic good looks, set him apart from his jeans and T-shirt colleagues in the IT department at Willow Garden Health. She knew it for a fact because she’d met the colleagues at one too many holiday parties.
Ramsey took out her phone and raised it so he could see. “You need to leave, Jay.”
“For God’s sake, Liz. What are you doing? Threatening me with the police?”
“It’s not a threat.”
Jay shifted from side to side, stamping his feet. “It’s chilly out here. C’mon. Invite me inside where we can talk.”
Ramsey let silence speak for her. The last thing she wanted to do was encourage conversation.
“Don’t you want to know how I found you? In your place, I’d want to know.”
Shedidwant to know, but it came to her suddenly that it was no longer as important as it would have been four years ago. She would have run then. Picked up and left and put down stakes in some other community. She was not prepared to do that now, and she hadn’t known it until she was facing him again. Ramsey stopped short of thanking him for the epiphany. She pocketed the phone without tapping the green call button.
Jay dropped down one step, then another. He sat on the edge of the porch and turned up the collar of his wool driving coat. “I never stopped looking for you.”
“We’re divorced.”
“A detail.”
It was so like him to be dismissive of details that were important to her that she almost laughed. There would have been no humor in it, but since he often missed nuance, she remained silent.
“I hadn’t considered that you’d change your name, Liz. Not at first, anyway. That occurred to me later. Your parents weren’t helpful. Neither was your brother. They don’t know, do they? You cut them out too. They still call you Lizzie.”
She couldn’t stand it any longer. “What do you want?”
“What? You think it’s something more than the pleasure of seeing you?”
“I know it is.”
Jay jerked his head back toward the door behind him. “Inside. This is no place to talk.”
“You’re right. And not the time. I’ll meet you for breakfast at Eat’n Park. I’m sure you can find it. Six-thirty. Before I go to work.” She saw him lift a hand and knuckle his chin as he considered her suggestion. Did he understand that it was the best he was going to get from her?
“All right. But you’re buying.”
That gave her a small start, and then she thought about it. Her eyes narrowed. The light from the street lamp at the end of the block was too diffuse for her to make out Jay’s angular features. “Are you here for money?”
He stood and tripped lightly down the steps. When he stood on the sidewalk, he said, “Tomorrow morning. Six-thirty. Eat’n Park.”
Ramsey backed up into the driveway and stepped sideways to let him pass. Her heart hammered when he paused at the edge of the sidewalk. She wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t have extended an arm and hauled her in. She didn’t know if it was courage or foolishness that made her stand her ground.
“Careful there, Liz.”
His voice was a deep throaty baritone. There was a time his voice had very nearly hypnotized her with its silken whisky heat, but just recalling that now made acid rise in her throat. The light above the garage detected their movements and illuminated the drive. She stared at him.
