It wasn't what he'd expected.
Wade brought the rental car to a halt along the curb and
simply absorbed the sight of the modest, cozy home nestled
in the small-town neighborhood. Phoebe's home. Phoebe's
neighborhood.
He cut the ignition and eased himself from the car, taking
in the pretty autumn wreath on the front door, the carved
pumpkin on the second of the brick steps leading to the
porch, the fall flowers in bright shades of rust, burgundy
and gold that brightened up the bare spaces in front of
the small bushes along the foundation.
He'd assumed she would live in an apartment. He didn't
really know why he'd thought that, but every time he'd
pictured Phoebe since he'd learned she had moved away,
he'd imagined her living in an apartment or a small condo.
Nothing so...permanent, as this house appeared to be.
He'd gotten quite a shock when he'd finally returned home,
eagerly anticipating his first sight of her β only to
learn that she'd left California months earlier. He didn't
even want to think about the bleak misery that had swept
through him, the letdown that had been so overwhelming
that he'd just wanted to sit down and cry.
Not that he ever would. Soldiers didn't cry. Especially
soldiers who had been decorated all to hell and back.
Living at home had been difficult. Only two short months
before he'd been injured, he'd gone home on leave for his
mother's funeral. While he was recuperating, his father
made valiant attempts to keep things as normal around the
house as possible. But without his mother, there was a big
hole nothing could disguise.
He made casual inquiries about where Phoebe had gone, but
no one seemed to know. By the time he was home for a
month, he was desperate enough to start digging. The
secretary of her high school graduating class had no
forwarding address. A light Internet search turned up
nothing. He finally thought to call Berkeley, the
university she'd attended, but they wouldn't, or couldn't,
give him any information.
He was about ready to consider hiring a private
investigator when he thought of calling June, the only
girl other than Phoebe's twin sister Melanie who he could
really remember Phoebe hanging around with in high school.
Geeky little June with her thick glasses and straight As.
Someone Melanie wouldn't have been caught dead hanging out
with, but as he recalled, a genuinely sweet kid.
They really had seemed like kids to his four-years-older
eyes back then. But by the time the twins had graduated
from high school, those years had no longer seemed to be
of much consequence.
Getting in touch with Phoebe's old friend was a stroke of
luck. June had gotten a Christmas card from Phoebe four
months after she'd moved. And God bless her, she'd kept
the address.
That address had been quite a shock. She'd gone from
California clear across the country to a small town in
rural New York state.
Ironically, it was a familiar area. Phoebe's new home was
less than an hour from West Point, where he'd spent four
long years in a gray uniform chafing for graduation day,
when he could finally become a real soldier.
He wouldn't have been so impatient for those days to end
if he'd known what lay ahead of him.
He climbed the small set of steps carefully. His doctors
were sure he'd make a full recovery β full enough for
civilian life, anyway. But the long flight from San Diego
to JFK had been more taxing than he'd anticipated. He
probably should have gotten a room for the night, looked
up Phoebe tomorrow when he was rested.
But he hadn't been able to make himself wait a moment
longer.
He knocked on the wooden front door, eyeing the wavy glass
diamond pane in the door's upper portion. Although it was
designed to obscure a good view of the home's occupants,
he might be able to see someone coming toward the door.
But after a few moments and two more knocks, nobody
showed. Phoebe wasn't home.
Disappointment swamped him. He leaned his head against the
door frame, completely spent. He'd counted on seeing her
so badly. But...he glanced at his watch. He hadn't even
considered the time. It was barely four o'clock.
The last time he'd seen her, she was a year out of college
with a degree in elementary education, and she'd been
teaching first grade. If she still was a teacher, she
might soon be getting home. She probably worked, he
decided as relief seeped through him.
If she wasn't married, he thought, trying to encourage
himself, it stood to reason she'd need income. And June
hadn't heard anything about a husband. If she had married,
she hadn't taken his name, which didn't really fit with
the quiet, traditional girl he'd known so well. And he
knew she hadn't taken anyone's name because he'd checked
the local phone book and found her there: P. Merriman.
Fine. He'd wait. He turned and started for his car, but a
porch swing piled with pillows caught his attention. He'd
just sit there and wait for her.
If she'd been married, he wouldn't be here, he assured
himself. If she'd been married, he would have left her
alone, wouldn't have attempted to contact her again in
this lifetime.
But he was pretty sure she wasn't.
And despite the good reasons he had for staying away from
Phoebe Merriman, despite the fact that he'd behaved like a
jerk the last time they'd been together, he'd never been
able to forget her. Never been able to convince himself
that being with her had been a mistake. He'd thought of
little else during his long months of recuperation and
therapy. He'd nearly reached out to her then, but some
part of him had shied away from a phone call or an e-mail.
He wanted to see her in person when he asked her if there
was any chance she'd let him into her life again. Sighing,
he dragged one of the pillows up and leaned his head
against it. If only things hadn't gotten so screwed up at
the end.
It had been bad enough that Phoebe's twin Melanie had died
because of him. Indirectly, maybe, but it still had been
his fault.
He'd compounded it in the biggest damn way possible when
he'd made love to Phoebe after the funeral. And then he'd
run.
Phoebe Merriman jumped when the mobile phone in her
minivan began to play the jazzy tune she'd programmed into
it. That phone hardly ever rang. The only reason she had
it, really, was so that Bridget's babysitter could always
reach her in case of an emergency.
Alarmed, she punched the button to take the call. A quick
glance at the display had the dread in her stomach
lurching uncomfortably. Phoebe had good reason to fear
unexpected phone calls. And just as she'd feared, it was
her home number. "Hello?"
"Phoebe?" The babysitter, Angie, sounded breathless.
"Angie. What's wrong?"
"There's a man sitting on the front porch. In the swing."
The news was almost anticlimactic, considering that she'd
been fearing a high fever, blood or broken bones.
"Sitting? And what else?"
"Nothing else." Phoebe realized Angie wasn't breathless;
she was whispering. "He came to the door but I didn't
answer, so he sat down on the swing and I thought I'd
better call you." Her voice quavered a little.
Phoebe remembered how young her sitter was, newly
graduated from high school and still living with her
parents on the next street over, taking evening classes at
a local community college. Phoebe had met Angie's mother
in her Sunday-school class and had felt lucky to find
Angie.
"You did exactly right," she assured the younger
woman. "If all he's doing is sitting there, just stay
inside with the doors closed. I'm only a few blocks from
home."
She pulled into her driveway a few minutes later, the cell
phone's line still open. There was a gray sedan with a
rental tag parked in front of her house. Maybe it belonged
to whoever was waiting on her front porch.
"Okay, Angie," she said. "I'm home. You stay right where
you are until I come inside."
She took a deep breath. Should she call the police? Common
sense told her whoever was waiting on her porch probably
wasn't a criminal. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here in the
middle of the day, unconcerned about the neighbors taking
down his license plate or identifying him. She positioned
her keys between her fingers with one key thrust outward,
as she'd learned in the self-defense class she'd taken
when she'd first started college. Then she pivoted on her
heel and headed up her front walk.
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