No Ordinary Hero

A chuckle escaped him. “You picked quite a profession.”

“I enjoy it. I like working with my hands and solving the problems that go along with restoring a house.”

He was silent a moment, then asked carefully, “Why’d you turn into a hermit?”

She faced him then, folding her arms and leaning back against the counter. “Truth or social quip?”

“I vastly prefer the truth to social ice skating.”

At that she felt a smile tip up the corners of her mouth. A smile she hadn’t expected. “Truth it is, then. My husband was killed in the accident that paralyzed Colleen. You know what they say about once burned, twice shy? I seem to have applied that lesson to everything except Colleen.”

“I can definitely see how that might happen. I have a similar story, but I’ll leave that for another time.”

She could see his barriers snap into place, and her curiosity itched. But okay, she was willing to observe his boundaries. She expected the same courtesy for herself.

“Fair enough,” she agreed and turned back to the counter. But she couldn’t help wondering what his story was. “I hope you like salad.”

“Any way it’s made.”

“Good.” Because that was all she had planned tonight, a green salad with some leftover grilled chicken breast and a choice of bottled dressings. Her time was so limited these days that she stuck with basics, the quicker and easier the better, her only nod being to the healthfulness of what she prepared.

As she was standing at the counter slicing tomatoes, a bang sounded through the house.

She whirled around, her heart accelerating, and found Mike looking upward. “Door slamming,” he said. “Do you have windows open or a fan on?”

“Not right now. I didn’t open anything when I came home.”

He rose. “Stay here. I’ll go look.”

“Like hell,” she answered. She’d been using her chef’s knife to slice, and she seated it more firmly in her grip. A weapon.

He didn’t argue with her as she followed him. For that she gave him points.

“Sounded like it was from upstairs,” he remarked quietly.

“It did,” she agreed. In the hallway it was easy to see at a glance that all the doors stood wide open, the way they’d been left. Mike glanced at her, acknowledging that he’d noticed, too.

And then he started up the stairs, stepping to the outside of the risers so as not to make noise. She followed his example.

But at the top of the stairs, they could see all the doors were open, just as they’d been left.

He spoke. “Could something in the attic have made that sound?”

“There’s nothing up there. Not so much as a box.”

They both stood for a minute, listening, but no other sound disturbed the utter silence of the house.

“It must have come from outside.” But even as Del spoke the dismissal, she knew she was lying to herself. That noise had come from inside, not from without. And there was no mistaking the sound of one of these solid oak doors slamming.

“Well,” said Mike slowly, apparently agreeing with her thought if not her words, “if one of those doors slammed open it would have been hard enough to leave some evidence.”

Del watched as he checked in every room. She didn’t need to look for herself because she knew exactly what the sound was, and it wasn’t a door opening. As often as she had the windows open and fans going, she absolutely knew how these doors sounded when they slammed shut, and it wasn’t the same as when they got caught on a gust and were pushed open. Not the same at all.

Mike returned in only a few moments. “Let me check the attic,” he said.

She looked at him, realizing he wasn’t criticizing her, understanding that he was genuinely concerned someone other than the two of them might be inside the house. Heck, the back of her own neck was prickling with that suspicion.

But surely if someone were in the house, they would have discovered it on their walk-through. Unless, as Mike apparently feared, someone was in the attic.

God, the idea made her skin crawl. She waited with forced patience as Mike pulled down the overhead ladder to the attic and climbed up. She heard him flip the switch which turned on three bulbs that hung from the rafters from one end of the attic to another. He reappeared only a minute later.

“Nobody could hide up there unless they’re six inches tall.”

“I know.” And somehow that only made this worse.

Noises for no reason? She’d lived in this house for over two months now, and she knew its sounds as intimately as she knew her own heartbeat. That had been the sound of an oak door slamming. Hard. And in the usual way, they wouldn’t do that even with the windows open and the fans blowing, even with a relatively strong breeze in the house.

Inevitably, she thought about the sounds Colleen had been hearing and tried to put it together. But it made no sense.

Mike closed the attic trapdoor and looked at her, his gaze trailing down to the knife she held. “Loaded for bear?” he asked lightly.

A faint flush stung her cheeks. “Stupid, huh?”

He shook his head. “I was just thinking that you look like you could take on the whole damn world. That’s a compliment.”

“Thanks.” But now she felt foolish. She’d investigated odd sounds many times in her life, but never before had she felt compelled to carry a knife on the hunt. “Major overreaction.”

“Not really. Not when you consider that Colleen has been complaining of noises. That’d raise my action-alert level, too.”

He really was a very nice man. Her embarrassment seeped away and she turned for the stairs. “Let’s go get that salad.”

He also turned out to be a comfortable companion. She felt no pressure to talk as she finished the salad and served them at the table. She often spent large chunks of her time inside her own head, busy with her hands, and most of the time she preferred it that way. There was a soothing rhythm in her work, and it left her feeling content at day’s end.

Someone who could share that silence while seeming to remain comfortable was unusual indeed.

“I don’t spend much time on cooking,” she said apologetically as she put the last bottle of dressing on the table. “Healthy foods are the best I can do, as quickly as possible. Oh! I have some frozen garlic bread, if you’d like some.”

“This is fine.” He smiled and gestured her to sit with him. “I don’t cook much at all myself. A fresh salad is a treat.”

She returned his smile and motioned him to serve himself first. “With Colleen I probably keep a better eye on things than I would otherwise.”

“Understandable. I think the animals in my kennel have a far better diet than I do. When I get sick of bottles, cans and frozen foods, I go to Maude’s.”

“Maude’s is one of my guilty pleasures, too. I’m surprised I haven’t seen you there.”

“I don’t go often.” Something in his tone suggested there was a reason for that, and she wondered but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know him well enough to ask any personal questions.

She paused just as she poked her fork into a bit of tomato, as the sound of the slamming door sounded once again, this time in her head. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think I can hold a normal conversation right now.”