Engaging Alex

The sound of footsteps made him look up. He saw Paige gaping at him, horror in her big blue eyes as she looked at her unconscious mother on the floor, then at the pruning shears he still held in his hand.

“Get away from my mother!”

4

PAIGE CHARGED toward Alex as he straightened to his full height. Her heart raced in her chest, but she couldn’t completely blame that reaction on fear.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” he exclaimed, holding his hands out helplessly. “I just walked through the front door. She took one look at me and hit the floor.”

Paige moved to place herself between him and Margo. “Then why are you holding those?”

Alex looked down at the pruning shears in his right hand as if he’d never seen them before. “They fell out of your mother’s hand when she fainted. I thought it might be dangerous to leave them on the floor in case she started to flop around or something.”

Paige knelt down beside her mother, telling herself not to trust him. Despite falling madly in love with Alex a year ago, she didn’t know anything about him. A fact that still nagged at her.

Margo moaned and Paige sensed Alex moving closer beside her. Her traitorous body reacted to his nearness, a strange tingling emanating from somewhere deep inside of her.

“Is she all right?” he asked in a low voice. “Should I call an ambulance?”

“No,” Paige replied, picking up her mother’s limp hand from the floor and rubbing it vigorously between her own. “She’s fainted before. It’s how she reacts to a shock.”

The last time had been the night her husband disappeared. Margo had taken Paige out into the backyard to show her the unusual burn marks in the lawn. While they were outside, her mother had come across Stanley’s pocket watch half-hidden in the grass, the one she’d given him on their wedding day. And she’d fainted dead away.

“You didn’t tell her I was back?” Alex asked. “Or why I left?”

Paige remembered her own shock at seeing him at the door of the apartment. “No. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her, either. It’s bad enough everyone thinks you didn’t want to marry me. I’d prefer they didn’t learn you didn’t even want to date me.”

“That’s not true….” Alex protested, but another moan from Margo cut him off.

Paige kept rubbing her hand and soon Margo’s eyelids began to flutter.

“Mom?”

Margo opened her eyes and looked up at her daughter. “What…happened?”

“You fainted,” Paige replied, relieved to see some color flow back into her mother’s cheeks.

Margo’s gaze moved over her shoulder to where Alex stood. Her eyes widened. “He’s back.”

Paige reached for a large green florist’s sponge on the shelf behind her, then pillowed it gently beneath her mother’s head. “I know.”

Margo stared up at her daughter. “But how can you be so calm about this? It’s a miracle!”

“Not quite,” Paige said, reaching for her mother’s other hand. “Let’s try to sit you up.”

Margo shook off her help, then rose gingerly to her knees. “I’m fine. I just can’t believe they let Alex go.”

“They?” Alex intoned as Paige stifled a groan.

“The aliens who abducted you,” Margo explained. She grabbed the edge of the counter and hauled herself to her feet. “Just like my poor Stanley.”

Alex skittered a glance toward Paige and she knew he was about to suggest calling an ambulance again.

“Mom’s still a UFO buff,” she explained, brushing the floor dust off the back of her mother’s blue jumper. “She believes anyone who disappears under mysterious circumstances was the victim of alien foul play.”