Her shoulder length hair was tied back with a matching red bandanna. In the fifteen years that he’d known her, she had never looked better.
“ God, Chris, you look great.”
“ I love you. I’ve been in love with you for years. I just thought you should know.”
It was one thing to hear it from the girls, another to hear if from Christina herself.
“ You don’t have to say anything. I’ve always known you were in love with Ann and that all we could ever be was friends. After she died I was so used to the relationship, you know, the friends thing, that I never imagined anything else. But after last night I can imagine more. I don’t know what exactly, but I can imagine something else.”
“ I love you too,” he said.
“ No you don’t.” She smiled. “Well, maybe you do love me, but you’re not in love with me. There’s a difference.”
“ So what do we do?”
“ Take it one day at a time and see if you fall in love with me.”
“ That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“ Will you keep living in Tampico?”
“ No. There’s nothing holding me there now.” He felt a twinge as soon as the words left his lips.
“ Nothing? How about the girl next door?”
“ There’s nothing between us. And say,” he laughed, “what do you know about the girl next door?”
“ Come on, Judy’s a good friend. They spent last Christmas with us. I know how you love J.P. You must feel something for his mother.”
“ That’s not fair.”
“ Last night was great, probably the best night of my life, but let’s face it, there were times when you weren’t all there. Admit it.”
“ I was there, all there, enjoying every second.”
He saw the lines of tension leave her face and the determined set of her lips relax into a smile and he realized he had a problem. He cared for Christina and was maybe even in love with her, but until she put it into words, he wasn’t aware of how strongly he felt about Judy Donovan.
“ So where do we go from here?” she asked.
“ I don’t know. Ann hasn’t been gone that long. She’s still the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning, the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep.”
“ It’s been six months,” she said, “but I understand you still need more time.”
“ And I plan on taking a little more, not too much, but a little. I’m going to buy a new Jeep and take awhile driving back up to Tampico. I’m going to stay at cheap motels off the freeway and check out all the small towns along they way. Maybe I’ll find a new place to live,” he said.
“ Look, I don’t want what happened last night to come between us. I’ve seen too many situations where sex ruined a perfectly good friendship. I don’t want to lose you,” she said.
“ You could never lose me.”
“ Oh yes I could. I could pressure you into something you’re not ready for and drive you away and I’ll be damned if I’ll do that. So here’s what I’m proposing. We go on like we did before. Friends. When you come to L.A. or Long Beach, and I hope you’ll come often, you stay here, only you sleep with me instead of on the sofa. That is, if you want to.”
“ I want to,” he said.
“ And if you should choose to be with someone else, the girl next door for example, I’ll deal with it.”
“ I don’t think you have anything to fear. I’ll go to Tampico and make arrangements to sell the house. It shouldn’t take more that a couple of weeks. Then I’ll be back.”
“ Where will you live?’’
“ Why don’t we talk about that when I get back.” He smiled. “I’m sure we can work something out. Who knows, maybe I’ll have found that small town on the edge of nowhere. How would you like living somewhere with the desert for a backyard, or maybe a small town on the sea coast in Oregon or Washington? Someplace large enough for a bookstore, but too small for a movie theater.”
“ Really?” she jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly.
“ Really.” He squeezed her in a strong embrace.
Rick guided the new Jeep along the two lane road, getting into Tampico before the sun, with his mind full of Christina, the future and the twins.
He started to run through what he would have to do. He had to box the personal possessions he wanted to carry over into his new life with Christina and the girls. He had to contact a broker and put the house on the market. And he had to start living the rest of his life.
He made the left off of Solitude River Road onto Seaview and started up the hill, when something darted in front of him. He cranked the wheel hard to the left, stomped on the brakes as he shoved in the clutch, but the moves were unnecessary, because it was too fast to be hit by a car doing less that thirty miles an hour. However, the brakes locked the rear wheels and he found himself screeching to a stop on the wrong side of the road. Shaken, he downshifted into first and eased the car back on the right side of the road and parked to catch his breath and his wits.
It must have been a mighty frightened bear, he thought, because he had never seen one move so fast. If it made its dash across the road a fraction of a second later, he would have hit it head on. He counted to ten, released the clutch and drove on.
By the time he pulled into his driveway his adrenaline rush was as dead as he felt. He shut off the ignition and hauled himself out of the Jeep. He grabbed his overnight grip from the back seat, closing the door without locking it. He looked next door and noticed the light was on in J.P.’s upstairs bedroom.
He opened the door and entered the living room, turned on a lamp and stared in stunned disbelief. Someone had been living there. Empty beer cans littered the living room and foil dinner trays, left over from frozen dinners, filled a waste basket. The remnants from daily newspapers lay throughout both the living and dining rooms. The television was on and there was a note taped to the flickering screen.
He walked over to the set and read a childish scrawl.
Your wife saw the knife before she died.
In the kitchen, he found dirty dishes and uneaten food on the breakfast table and counter tops. He emptied filthy water from the sink and rinsed the dishes, worrying and thinking about the note as he worked. Then he turned on the disposal, grinding the rotting scraps into the city sewer system. He filled the sink with clean soapy water and started to wash the dishes, when he was interrupted by the doorbell.
He dried his hands, wondering who wanted him so early in the morning. He decided not to take any chances. He hadn’t told anybody when he was coming back and his house had been broken into, two good reasons to exercise caution.
He went out the back door, into the cover of the forest that encircled the two houses on the hill. He worked his way around the back, to the west side of the house, trying to move as quietly as possible, using tree and bush as cover. He paralleled the house, till he was opposite the front porch and saw her. His caution hadn’t been necessary after all.
“ Judy?” He stepped from behind a tall pine.
“ I saw the light,” she said.
“ I had a break in. The burglar left a note.”
“ They must have been awfully quiet, we didn’t hear anyone.”
“ You want to come in?” He mounted the porch, inviting her inside.
“ Sure.” She followed him in.
She saw the beer cans and refuse, but her eyes quickly fastened on the note taped to the television screen.
“ That’s the note?” she asked.
