Standing there, she picked out the lights in Ford’s house.
Was he crafting the Seeker’s next adventure? Maybe chowing down on frozen pizza, what she imagined the bachelor’s version of a home-cooked meal might be? And what was a comic book writer-pardon me, graphic novelist-doing living in a beautifully restored old Victorian in rural Virginia?
A single graphic novelist, she remembered with a smirk, with an unquestionably sexy Southern drawl and a lazy gait that edged up toward a swagger. And an odd little dog.
Whatever the reasons were, it was nice to see the lights shining across the road. Close but not too close. Oddly comforted by them, she turned away to continue upstairs, where she intended to slide into her sleeping bag and work on her plans.
HER CELL PHONE woke her out of a dead sleep, had her eyes flashing open, then slamming shut again against the glare of the light she’d neglected to turn off before dropping off. Cursing, Cilla pried one eye partially open as she slid a hand over the floor for the phone.
What the hell time was it?
Heart pounding, she read the time on the phone-3:28 A.M.-and her mother’s data on the display.
“Crap.” Cilla flipped the phone open. “What’s wrong?”
“Is that any way to answer the phone? You don’t bother to say hello?”
“Hello, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not happy with you, Cilla.”
What else is new? Cilla thought. And you’re drunk or stoned. Ditto. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, especially at three-thirty in the morning, East Coast time. Which is where I am, remember?”
“I know where you are.” Bedelia’s voice sharpened even as it slurred. “I know damn well. You’re in my mother’s house, which you tricked me into giving you. I want it back.”
“I’m in my grandmother’s house, which you sold to me. And you can’t have it back. Where’s Mario?” she asked, referring to her mother’s current husband.
“This has nothing to do with Mario. This is between you and me. We’re all that’s left of her! You know very well you caught me in a weak moment. You took advantage of my vulnerability and my pain. I want you to come back immediately and tear up the transfer papers or whatever they are.”
“And you’ll tear up the cashier’s check for the purchase price?”
There was a long, brittle silence during which Cilla lay back down and yawned.
“You’re cold and ungrateful.”
The thin sheen of tears on the words was much too calculated, and too usual, to get a rise. “Yes, I am.”
“After everything I did for you, all the sacrifices I made, all of which you tossed away. Now, instead of you willing to pay me back for all the years I put you first, you’re tossing money in my face.”
“You could look at it that way. I’m keeping the farm. And don’t, please don’t, waste my time or your own trying to convince either of us this place matters to you. I’m in it, I’ve seen just how much you care about it.”
“She was my mother!”
“Yeah, and you’re mine. Those are the crosses we have to bear.” Cilla heard the crash, and pictured the glass holding her mother’s preferred nighttime Ketel One on the rocks hitting the nearest wall. Then the weeping began. “How can you say such a horrible thing to me!”
Lying on her back, Cilla swung her arm over her eyes and let the ranting, the sobbing play out. “You should go to bed, Mom. You shouldn’t make these calls when you’ve been drinking.”
“A lot you care. Maybe I’ll do what she did. Maybe I’ll just end it.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Possibly. “You need to get a good night’s sleep. You’ve got your show to plan.”
“Everyone wants me to be her.”
“No, they don’t.” Mostly, that’s just you. “Go on to bed now, Mom.”
“Mario. I want Mario.”
“Go on to bed. I’ll take care of it. He’ll be there. Promise me you’ll go up to bed.”
“All right, all right. I don’t want to talk to you anyway.”
When the phone clicked in her ear, Cilla lay as she was a moment. The whining snub at the end signaled that Dilly was done, would go to bed or simply lie down on the handiest surface and pass out. But they’d passed through the danger zone.
Cilla pushed the speed-dial button she’d designated as Number Five. “Mario,” she said when he answered. “Where are you?”
It took less than a minute to recap the situation, so she cut off Mario’s distress and hung up. Cilla had no doubt he’d rush home and provide Dilly with the sympathy, the attention and the comfort she wanted.
Wide awake and irritated, she climbed out of her sleeping bag. Carting her flashlight, she used the bathroom, then trudged downstairs for a fresh bottle of water. Before going back to the kitchen, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the short section of porch that remained.
All the pretty sparkling lights were gone now, she noted, and the hills were utterly, utterly dark. Even with the thin scatter of stars piercing through the clouds overhead, she thought it was like stepping into a tomb. Black and silent and cold. The mountains seemed to have folded in for the night, and the air was so still, so absolutely still, she thought she could hear the house breathing behind her.
“Friend or foe?” she asked aloud.
Mario would rush into the house in Bel Air, murmur and stroke, flatter and cajole, and ultimately sweep his drunken wreck of a wife into his toned (and younger) Italian arms to carry her up to their bed.
Dilly would say-and say often-that she was alone, always so alone. But she didn’t know the meaning of it, Cilla thought. She didn’t know the depths of it.
“Did you?” she asked Janet. “I think you knew what it was to be alone. To be surrounded, and completely, miserably alone. Well, hey, me too. And this is better.”
Better, Cilla thought, to be alone on a quiet night than to be alone in a crowd. Much better.
She stepped back inside, closed and locked the door.
And let the house sigh around her.
THREE
Ford spent two full hours watching Cilla through his binoculars, sketching her from various angles. After all, the way she moved jump-started the concept every bit as much as the way she looked. The lines, the curves, the shape, the coloring-all part of it. But movement, that was key. Grace and athleticism. Not balletic, no, not that. More… the sort of grace of a sprinter. Strength and purpose rather than art and flow.
A warrior’s grace, he thought. Economical and deadly.
He wished he could get a look at her with her hair down and loose instead of pulled back in a tail. A good look at her arms would help and her legs. And hell, any other parts of her that might pop into view wouldn’t hurt his feelings any.
He’d Googled her, and studied several photographs, and he’d NetFlixed her movies, so he’d have those to study. But the last movie she’d done-I’m Watching,Too!-was about eight years old.
He wanted the woman, not the girl.
He already had the story line in his head, crammed in there and shoving to get out. He’d cheated the night before, taking a couple hours away from his latest Seeker novel to draft the outline. And maybe he was cheating just a little bit more today, but he wanted to do a couple of pencils, and he didn’t want to do those until he had more detailed sketches.
The trouble was, his model had too many damn clothes on.
“I’d really like to see her naked,” he said, and Spock gave a kind of smart-assed snort. “Not that way. Well, yeah, that way, too. Who wouldn’t? But I’m speaking professionally.”
There came growlings and groanings now, with Spock rolling to his side. “I am a professional. They pay me and everything, which is why I can buy your food.”