the fireplace, and checked each and every closet. What a goose, she thought. How many years had she lived alone… and now suddenly she was frightened. Not so much frightened as uneasy. The house didn’t feel right. It was empty. It needed Jake.
Jake sank deep into his couch, his long legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Spot grunted and flopped down under the coffee table. “Look at this place, Spot. It’s a dump.”
Just two weeks ago he’d thought it was a palace. He’d arranged everything around his favorite couch cushion. The TV, the microwave, and his veterinary journals were all within arm’s reach. He never had trouble finding clothes because they were spread across the floor. He’d lived like this for as long as he could remember. Weeks. Maybe years. Now all of a sudden he didn’t like it. It was the messy habitat of a couch potato.
How had he become such a lazy slob? Practice, he decided. Years and years of practice had honed his slobbery to a fine art. Not only was his home a mess, but his body was falling apart. Amy had almost killed him on the jogging trail.
He looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. Not too late. He carried the microwave to the kitchen and found a place for it on the counter.
“Look at this counter,” he said to Spot. “Immaculate. You know why? Because I never use it.”
He shook his head in silent rebuke as he examined his refrigerator. A can of coffee and a six-pack of beer. Two TV dinners resided in his freezer.
A wave of lonely depression washed over him. Amy’s refrigerator had all sorts of good things in it, and her kitchen smelled like cookies and daffodils. Jake wrinkled his nose. His kitchen smelled like Spot.
An hour later Jake straggled into his apartment with bags of groceries. He filled his refrigerator with milk and cheese and a container of potato salad. He artfully arranged his apples and oranges and grapefruits. He proudly stuffed a chicken into the meat drawer, enormously pleased with his purchase, despite the fact that he hadn’t a clue what to do with it.
“Only healthy food,” he said to Spot. “No more greasy chips.”
Spot looked disappointed. He sniffed at a bag of carrots and went back to the couch.
“And that’s not all. We’re going running.” He clinked the leash onto the dog’s collar and pranced around the room.
“Come on, Spot, wake up those muscles. Get the lead out. Let’s go pound some pavement.”
Jake’s T-shirt was soaked through when he returned to his apartment. He unlocked the door and leaned against it for a minute, catching his breath, watching Spot bound up the stairs. “Show-off,” Jake grumbled.
He labored up the stairs and went straight to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. “This is so damn healthy,” he said, leaning against the counter. “Why isn’t it any fun? How come everything that’s fun contributes to heart disease?” And why am I feeling so grouchy? he thought. He’d moved his microwave, bought good food, and run his buns off. He kicked at the kitchen chair and muttered an oath. He wanted to be with Amy.
There was more to a refrigerator than apples and oranges. He couldn’t simulate her kitchen any more than he could pretend she was in his bed. He’d changed, he realized. A whole chapter of his life had ended. His carefree bachelor days were gone.
Good riddance, he thought. He was never much of a bachelor, anyway. He wanted to be married. He wanted mortgage payments and crabgrass and Amy snuggled next to him for the rest of his life. Amy, who felt responsible to a bunch of Munchkins.
He stretched on his bed and linked his hands behind his head, wondering what Amy was doing. He didn’t like those two slimeballs camped outside her house, but he felt powerless to remove them. He picked up the phone to call her and realized he didn’t know her number. He tried information, but she wasn’t listed.
“That’s it. I’m going over there.”
He stopped at the head of the stairs. He couldn’t go. It would compromise Amy’s image. “But maybe she’s in danger. Maybe those creeps are knocking on her door right now.” Jake, he told himself, this is the woman who wasted Safeway. Probably he should worry about the creeps. “Okay,” he shouted, making flamboyant gestures, “I’m going to take a shower. I’m going to put this out of my mind. I’m being silly, right?”
He was still asking that question at five in the morning. He was freshly showered and dressed for the office in a button-down and striped tie. He’d eaten a grapefruit, drunk a gallon of coffee, and tried to fry an egg, but it had stuck to the nonstick pan.
“So I’m being silly. Big deal. You know what they say. Better silly than sorry. I’m just going to go over there and check things out. I’ll be cool. No one will know.”
It was black as pitch when Jake drove past Amy’s house in a camouflaging cloud of his own exhaust. The van was still parked across the street, and the little Cape Cod house was ominously dark. Jake swore softly and continued on.
He parked around the corner and crept through a neighboring yard. He climbed Amy’s split-rail fence and sprinted across her back lawn. Now what? He tried windows. If he found any of them open, he was going to throttle her. Okay, all windows secure. Patio door locked with jimmy bar. He tiptoed up the stairs to her deck. Deck door locked with jimmy bar. Good. Motley looked at him from the other side of the sliding door and meowed. Jake tapped on the window to the cat.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” he said. Motley continued to howl. Jake saw a light flash on in the hall and a dark figure shuffle out of the shadows.
Amy scratched her head with both hands, yawned, and stretched. “Motley, you’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood. How can anybody sleep with this racket going…
She slumped against the wall and put her hand over her heart. “It’s the big one,” she said. “Heart attack city.” She opened the sliding door and pulled Jake inside. “What the devil are you doing out there? You scared me half to death.”
“I… um, I came for breakfast. I tried to make an egg, but it stuck to the pan.”
Amy cocked an eye at him. “Breakfast? Are you kidding me?”
“Okay, so I was worried. And lonely.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and grinned his most endearing grin. “And hungry.”
Hungry she could believe. He was looking at her as if she were the last jelly doughnut in the world. “Jake, the sun will be coming up in half an hour. How are you going to get out of here?”
“Simple. Once you leave, they’ll leave. Then I leave.”
“And you want to waste time having breakfast?”
Jake removed his tie and followed her into the bedroom. What a strumpet, he thought happily. She wore a pale-pink-satin shirt-type nightgown that was rolled at the elbow and slit up the side with matching panties under the shirt. The sort with wide flared legs, like shorts. The sort you could reach your hand into with no trouble at all. The sort you’d strain your eyeballs trying to get a peek into.
He quickly stripped and slid between sheets that were still warm from her body and subtly fragrant with perfume and shampoo. Amy straddled him, resting her silky bottom on his thighs. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt, letting it hang loose while she leaned forward to kiss him. He reached for her and she retreated, laughing.
“Tease,” he said huskily.
“You ain’t seen nothing, yet.”
They lay together for a long time afterward in silent affection. Amy was the first to speak. “I’m going to be late for work,” she said softly.
“Maybe your boss will give you the day off.”
She sat up and stretched luxuriously. “I don’t think so. He’s a terrible slavedriver. Work, work, work.”
Jake slapped at her bare bottom, but missed, as she headed for the shower. “Do I get to share a shower with you?”
“Definitely not. I know about your showers. You can use the upstairs bathroom.” She washed quickly, towel- dried her hair, and shook her head to fluff her curls. She decided on black cotton slacks and a bright yellow knit shirt, dusted a hint of blush on her cheekbones, and swiped at her eyelashes with the mascara wand.
“Perfect,” she said to her reflection in the bedroom mirror. “The guys in the van couldn’t possibly miss this shirt.”
