Safe Haven

It didn’t take long to find everything she needed. His cleaning woman had baked a ham, and Avery quickly had his sandwich on the table. He was almost finished when she sat down. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was watching her. It made her nervous, but she’d learned the hard way to hide her feelings.

“How old are you?” Logan asked, genuinely puzzled. She handled herself like a mature woman.

“Twenty-eight,” she said, then dabbed at the corner of her mouth and took a sip of her own Coke. “Is my age a problem?”

“None I can think of just now.” There was something that still didn’t seem right, but Logan gave up. He didn’t feel like playing games with her. He folded his napkin and rose from the table. “Your first official duty is to answer the phone and take messages.”

As HE CLIMBED the stairs to his bedroom, Logan wondered where he’d gotten the notion that she was playing games. Was that what she was about? He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was more to Avery Jensen than she allowed him or the world to see. He’d have to give it some thought when he wasn’t one of the walking dead.

By the time he reached the landing, he felt like a man twice his age. As he passed one of the closed bedroom doors, he paused and stepped back. He put his hand on the cut-crystal doorknob and noticed how cold it felt. A familiar sense of foreboding settled between his shoulder blades. As much as he wanted to walk away, he couldn’t. He twisted the knob and opened the door.

He couldn’t force himself to take that step over the threshold, though, so he simply stood there. His son’s room was as silent as a tomb. It was also empty. Every piece of furniture, all the toys and posters had been taken away, but Jamie’s presence hadn’t been erased. Even the faint musty smell hadn’t obliterated that special child scent that was Jamie’s own.

For a moment Logan thought the pain in his chest would destroy him. He wished it would, and thus end the dreams and the awful longing. Sometimes when he closed his eyes he could still feel small arms wrapped tightly around his neck and hear the bubbly giggling in his ear. At last he pulled the door shut and continued down the hall, his heart filled with tears he could no longer shed.

AVERY LISTENED to the muffled footsteps overhead, the opening and shutting of doors, the rush of water in the old pipes, and knew he was taking a shower. Folding her arms on the table, she lowered her head and breathed deeply. More than anything she longed to relax, let go and cry from sheer relief. She’d done it. Her life was about to begin anew. This time, she vowed, she wasn’t going to screw up.

With that thought firmly in mind, she got to her feet. First she cleaned the kitchen and then studied the contents of the refrigerator, freezer and pantry so she could plan dinner. Then she decided to acquaint herself with the first floor of the house.

It didn’t take more than a few rooms to see that someone had expensive taste and a flare for decorating. There were antiques mixed with chintz, lace and leather. Still lifes and nineteenth-century portraits were artfully mixed with Oriental paintings, and all were cunningly arranged with a few fine pieces of Western art. Eclectic taste, to be sure and it worked, but Avery’s first thought was that the display was the work of someone who liked change but was loath to let go of the past.

Avery was very observant, and she realized there was something out of place here, too. Expensive area rugs covered the beautiful hardwood floors, and she noticed impressions in the nap of the wool where furniture once had stood. The room was obviously missing some major pieces.

Wandering back toward the rear of the house, across the hall from the kitchen, she found the office. It was full of the usual things—file cabinets, a computer, printer, a phone and fax machine. The desk appeared to be an antique. An effort had been made to bring some sort of order to the desktop—it had a clean, white pad of paper, an in-and-out tray and a brass pencil-and-pen holder. It was obvious this room was Logan’s territory and he’d furnished it. Here and there were items that showed a feminine influence—a cut-crystal vase full of dried flowers, a delicate china dish of potpourri.

But like the rest of the house, something was lacking here, too. As Avery was about to leave the room, she spotted boxes stacked haphazardly in a corner. A couple of them were open, and she saw the edges of picture frames. Her boss was either moving in or moving out. Puzzles—the house seemed full of them.

When the telephone rang, Avery flinched, still startled by the almost forgotten sound. She hesitated, then picked up the receiver, a little unsure how to answer. “Monahan’s,” she said, and recognized the surprise in the long silence that followed.

“Who is this?” a male voice demanded rudely.

“Avery Jensen. Mr. Monahan’s unavailable at the moment—may I take a message?” There was another lengthy pause. As she waited, she frantically searched the stacked papers on the desk for something to write with, found a stubby pencil, then tore off a scrap of paper from the unblemished notepad. “Hello?”

“Yeah, this is Tanner. Tell Logan Molly’s gone down on me again and if he doesn’t get here quick, I’m going to have to put her out of her misery.”

The phone clicked in her ear so abruptly she wondered if she’d just received an obscene telephone call. With the blank bit of paper in one hand and the pencil in the other, she walked to the bottom of the staircase and called Logan’s name. The second floor seemed to be his personal domain, his space when he was home, and she was reluctant to invade it. Then she realized how ridiculous she was being and sprinted to the top landing.

As she made her way down the hall, she noticed all the closed doors. She was tempted to stop and inspect each one. “Don’t do it, Avery,” she warned herself under her breath. “Keep your mouth shut and your nose out of his business.” She kept walking toward the door directly in front of her. It had to be the room situated directly over the kitchen and office, where she’d heard most of the sounds.

She knocked and called his name, then waited a moment before doing so again. The doors in the old house were solid, and even pressing her ear against this one, she couldn’t tell whether or not he’d heard. She’d raised her fist to give it another good pounding when the door was suddenly yanked open.

“What?”

Her gaze flicked over him, taking in every detail of the towel wrapped loosely around his hips, his damp skin and long muscular legs. She also noted the expression of frustration and anger on his face. It flustered her, made her stumble over her explanation. “Some—someone named Tanner called.”

She looked down at the blank piece of paper in her hand as if it would help, but saw entirely too much of her employer around the edges. Her eyes bounced back up to his face. She struggled to keep her gaze steadily fixed on an imaginary spot in the center of his forehead. “He said Molly went down on him and...” Her voice trailed away.

Ordinarily Avery didn’t blush, but now she felt the heat rising in her cheeks and couldn’t stop it. All her concentration was fixed on relaying the message and keeping her eyes from darting where they shouldn’t.

Logan watched fire stain her pale skin and gave a rough bark of laughter. “That got your attention, didn’t it?” He hooked the towel in his hand around his neck. “Did Tanner say anything else?”

“Only that he was going to put her out of her misery if you didn’t come quick.”

Logan glanced over his shoulder at the big bed. He sighed. “I’d better get over there.” He started to turn away, then stopped. “By the way, Molly’s a horse and down with colic.”

Avery was as nervous as a cat. But she managed a nonchalant shrug and forced herself to calmly turn and walk away.

Logan watched her, his eyes narrow and his jaw tight. She was a cool one. Too calm, too cool and much too collected. She hadn’t even cracked a smile.

Avery vanished down the stairs and out the front door, her heart pounding like a racehorse’s at the starting gate. Once back in her quarters, she leaned against the door to catch her breath, amazed by the way her hands shook.

After a desperate search of the kitchen for tea bags and a juggling act with a teapot, she almost dropped everything when there was a window-rattling pounding at her door.

Logan was standing on the porch holding some keys. “I locked up the big house, so you’ll need these to get in.”

She didn’t think she was crazy, but he seemed incredibly agitated. “What time will you be back?”

He barely stopped from snapping at her. “I don’t know—maybe in a couple hours. Maybe not, but make yourself at home. Unpack, look around, and if you need me, there’s a list of numbers by the phone in the kitchen.” He turned to go. “If I’m late, just leave me something to eat in the oven.”

She stood on the porch, watching him, and realized the truck he was driving was different from the pickup she’d seen earlier. This was white and one of those paneled things, with double doors that opened at the rear. And on the side of the truck was stenciled in black letters Monahan’s Veterinary Clinic.

As the sound of the truck dwindled away and she was suddenly left in silence, she smiled. “A vet,” she said under her breath, and wondered if Denise knew. Avery had only been told her new employer lived on a ranch and raised horses.

Logan had suggested she look around, make herself at home, and she intended to do just that. But first she had to call Denise and tell her the news.

“So how bad can a man be if he administers to sick and injured animals, Dee?” Avery asked when she’d dialed her friend’s number. “Not very.” She laughed.

“It’s good to hear you laugh, Avery. I take it you’ll keep me up to date on the mystery?”

“Yes, but, Dee, I don’t know how often I can call. I mean, I don’t know his work schedule yet. I’ll call when I can.”

“Sure. First see how the wind blows.”

“Thank you, Dee.”

“For what?”

“Everything. Especially your trust in me.” The lump in Avery’s throat kept her from saying more than a strangled goodbye. She blamed her weepiness on exhaustion. She’d get an early night tonight.

AVERY SAT BOLT UPRIGHT in bed, her heart banging furiously against her chest, her nightshirt damp with perspiration. Confused and disoriented, she fought for breath as she tried to figure out where she was and what had awakened her. She listened to the night and in the utter silence remembered where she was. She squeezed her eyes closed as relief washed through her.

It was funny, really. For eight months, twenty-four hours a day, she’d heard nothing but noise. Every minute of every day had been filled with sounds. She would lie awake at night and pray for just a moment of this sort of silence.

Her wish had been more than answered, but crazy as it was, the quiet had kept her from falling asleep until well after midnight. Maybe it was a nightmare, already forgotten, that had startled her awake. As she tried to shake off the residue of fear, she glanced at the travel clock on the bedside table and groaned.

Five o’clock and she was wide awake. She knew she’d never go back to sleep. The craving for freshly made hot coffee was far more appealing than wrestling with the covers for a few more hours.

Just as she was about to climb out of bed, something thudded against the side of the house, next to her bedroom window. Avery froze, straining to identify the sound, waiting to see if it would come again. When nothing happened, she exhaled, then laughed as she realized she’d actually been holding her breath. It must have been a wild animal of some sort, or maybe the wind blowing something against the house. She threw back the covers, swung her legs to the floor and reached for the lamp.