She couldn’t tell him, of course. She couldn’t incriminate herself that way. She supposed she gave little hints from time to time, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d put two and two together, and even if he did, he wouldn’t betray her. Their late-night talks were private and special. If he didn’t feel that, she reasoned, he wouldn’t answer the phone.
She was infinitely grateful that he did. She doubted he understood how much comfort he brought her, though on more than one occasion she’d tried to tell him. He was always calm and together. If the sound of his voice on the radio was soothing, the sound of his voice on the phone was even more so. She called more often as the trial approached, needing more frequent assurance that things would work out.
***
Savannah, too, grew more keyed up as the trial approached. She showed no signs of nervousness at the office, where she juggled her full load of cases with the same competence as always, but she was having trouble eating, and sleep came only in two- to three-hour shifts.
That was why, at four in the morning, she was in the office within sight of Jared when one of the calls from Megan came through. She’d been sitting at a desk, making notes on a yellow legal pad when the telephone rang. She looked up in time to see Jared lift the receiver.
For a minute, looking at him, she forgot about the call. He was a beautiful man; she’d thought it the first time she’d seen him, and she thought it even more now. Though she knew his body nearly as well as she did her own, there were times like this when, in a flash of fresh awareness, she had to stop and catch her breath. Wearing denim cutoffs, he seemed all tawny, hair-spattered legs. His T-shirt hugged his chest and shoulders; his arms were every bit as well formed and masculine as his legs. And his hair, the hair she loved to touch, fell as casually as ever over his brow.
Swiveling around in his chair to use the control table as a backrest, he cradled the phone to his ear, bringing her thoughts back to the call he’d received. He didn’t look at all surprised by it. From time to time he frowned, but there was a gentleness to his expression that aroused Savannah’s curiosity.
“Who is it?” she mouthed.
He held up a finger to say he’d answer her shortly, which she took to mean that it wasn’t a simple matter of mouthing a name. He didn’t talk for long, no more than five or six minutes, but as soon as he’d hung up the phone, he put on the headphones and went on the air to announce the time, the weather, and the songs he was playing. When he’d finished doing that, he set the headphones on the console and went to the door of the booth. Opening it wide, he leaned against the doorjamb.
Savannah’s eyes asked the question she’d mouthed earlier, and for a minute Jared stood there looking puzzled. Then he shrugged.
“I don’t know who it was,” he said. “I’ve been getting the calls on and off for a while now.”
“You talked. You looked like you knew.”
“In one sense I do. It’s the same caller each time.”
Savannah shot a glance at the clock on the wall. “At four in the morning?”
“Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. She varies the day and the time.”
“She?”
Pushing off from the doorjamb, Jared strolled over to where Savannah sat. “Not to worry.” He slipped his fingers into her hair and exerted just enough pressure to tip her head back. “You’re my only girl.” He planted a firm kiss on her lips.
“But she calls you in the middle of the night while I’m asleep,” Savannah teased in the last breath of the kiss. Less teasingly, she asked, “What does she say?”
“Not much.” He sat on the edge of the desk, took her hand, and wove his fingers through hers. “She says that talking with me calms her. She never stays on long, and she apologizes for taking my time. But she’s upset about something, something that’s very wrong in her life. She won’t tell me what it is.”
“How often does she call?”
“Once a week, maybe a little less.” He thought about that, then corrected himself. “It’s been more lately. That was the second call in a week.”
Savannah found the idea of a nameless woman’s fixation a little frightening. “I thought you didn’t take calls like that.”
“I don’t. But she calls on my private line. I remember when she did it the first time, I let the conversation go on because I wanted to find out how she got that number.”
“Did you?”
“No. And I still don’t know. The only people who have that number are people who have good cause to have it. I can’t believe one of them is passing it around. And it’s not like she dialed it by accident. She said my name right off the bat.”
“Scary,” Savannah said. “She could be a little nuts.”
“We’re all a little nuts. She doesn’t sound unusually so, just troubled.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t take the calls.”
“You’re not jealous?” he chided.
“No,” she said, and she wasn’t. “But the more you talk, the more involved you get. If she has problems, she should see a professional. She may seem only a little nuts now, but what if she gets worse?”
