He shook his head. “Too persistent. Your average random lunatic may hit once, even twice, but not six times. Your average random lunatic wouldn’t have access to a trained attack dog—”
Horrified, Lauren interrupted him. “Trained? Do you think that dog was trained?”
Matt gnawed on his lower lip, as though regretting what he’d said, but the damage had been done. “It’s possible. If it was trained to respond to a high-pitched whistle that our ears can’t detect, that would explain why it retreated so abruptly.”
“Just enough to frighten me … not enough to harm me. What kind of insanity are we dealing with?” Her voice had reached its own high pitch.
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We don’t know anything for sure, except that so far you haven’t been hurt.”
“ButI couldhave been; If I’d been a little slower in leaving my garage that night … if there’d been no Good Samaritan near me on Newbury Street that day …”
Responding to the sudden pallor of her skin, Matt drew her against him and slowly rubbed her back. “Don’t think about what might have been,” he murmured. “Nothing’s happened, and if I have any say in the matter, nothing will.”
With her head pressed to his heart, Lauren believed every word he said. She didn’t stop to ask him how he intended to protect her. She didn’t stop to ask herself why she, who valued her independence highly, welcomed the protection. She only knew that Matthew Kruger filled a spot that, at this particular point in her life, was open and waiting for him.
He drew back from her to ask, “Think that chicken’s almost ready?”
“The chicken!” Pushing herself away from him, Lauren flung open the oven door, reached for a pair of mitts and pulled out first the chicken, then the bread. “Thank goodness it’s not burned! I’d forgotten all about it!” She teased him with a punishing glance. “And it’syourfault.”
“My fault?” He was the image of innocence. “You saidyouwere the cook around here.”
“But you’ve kept me preoccupied. I haven’t even set the table!” The item in question was of the card-table variety, albeit inlaid with cane, and there were folding chairs to match. She’d picked them up to use until she bought regular furniture.
“Then you do that while I toss the salad,” Matt suggested. He was already draining the sweet corn. “I picked up a creamy cucumber dressing—unless you’ve got a super dressing of your own.”
The twinkle in his eye brought fresh color to her cheeks and a momentary curl of warmth to the pit of her stomach. “Creamy cucumber’s fine. Super sauce I can handle; super dressing is still a way down the road.” As she reached for the dishes, she said, “It’s amazing …”
“What is?” Matt asked, removing the salad from the refrigerator.
“That you can take my mind off things. Not only dinner, but everything else. One minute I can be worried sick about what’s been happening; the next, I forget all about it.”
“Maybe you’ve been worrying for nothing,” he ventured quietly. “Maybe all that’s happened reallyisa coincidence.”
“Maybe … but it’s crazy. Everything’s been so wonderful. I left Bennington. I have a new job, new home, new look—” The last had slipped out. She rushed on. “Maybe it’s all too good to be true.”
Matt poured dressing on the salad and began to toss it. “I’m sure that whatever’s been going on can be taken care of.”
“But how can it be taken care of if I don’t know what it is?”
“In time, Lauren. In time. Let’s get back to the random-lunatic theory. Lunatic, perhaps. Random, unlikely.” He held the salad tongs in the air for a minute before resuming his tossing. “Are you absolutely sure you can’t think of anyone who might be behind it?”
Lauren set the silverware on the table with far greater force than necessary. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve told you that, Matt. I don’t know anyone who’d be capable of doing what has been done. Why do you keep harping on it?”
He hesitated. “Because the only other possibility is that we’re facing someone who is neither lunatic nor random, but who has a very specific ax to grind. Maybe someone who has a grudge against your family.”
Her jaw fell open, then snapped back into place. “If you knew my parents, you’d never even suggest that. They are utterly harmless. They live in an insulated little world. There may be competition within the academic community, but my parents have been so well accepted for so long that I can’t begin to imagine anyone’s acting out of jealousy, much less trying to seek revenge. And if someone did, he or she sure as hell wouldn’t do it through me. I’ve declared my independence in ways that have my parents climbing those ivy-covered walls of theirs—” Her voice broke abruptly, and for a minute she wished she could retract what she’d said. Then she realized that there was no point in being coy. Matt, more than anyone, would understand.
He brooded for a minute as he placed the salad on the table, then reached for the wine. “What do you mean?”
Lauren opened the foil-wrapped bread with care. It was hot. “What I’m doing with my life isn’t exactly what my parents had wanted me to do.”
“In what sense?”
“Oh,” she began, juggling the steaming loaf into a bread basket, “they would have preferred that I stay in Bennington and work at the museum. I’d be surrounded by culture, attend plays and lectures, take part in a weekly reading-and-discussion group. Then I’d marry some nice, pale-faced fellow whose interests lay in Babylonian astronomy or medieval art or comparative linguistics. I’d go on to have sweet little children who would take up the cello at age four, read Dostoyevsky at age eight, write a novel at age twelve and beg for college admittance at age fourteen.”
“And you? What would you prefer?”
“Me?” She set the bread basket on the table and looked up at him pleadingly. “I want to be happy. I want to do well at whatever I choose to do. I want to feel good about myself.”
