as quiet as a mausoleum in there.
Surely he wouldn’t ignore her? Had he suffered a hearing problem along with his other injuries?
Just when she was about to knock more forcefully, she heard a click and then the hardwood door swung open. The long accompanying creak had the hairs on Willa’s arms and at the back of her neck rising. But it wasn’t only the eerie sound that got to her, it was the realization that no one was there!
Don’t you dare start again. As dark as it was in there, she just hadn’t seen him yet, that was all.
Holding fast to that logic, she cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the screen. Seeing the cavernous foyer, she decided to try the handle of the outer door. To her surprise it was unlatched.
She opened it slightly and stepped inside. Careful. She glanced around the hardwood door. Even if her neighbor was a bestselling writer, it would be foolish to take anything for granted. Anyone could get a little crazy if they found a stranger in their home; what’s more, hadn’t she read that after the crash, Zachary Denton had been accused by his own wife of becoming “twisted”? Anyway, Willa supposed a person had to be a bit strange to create such convoluted stories as he did.
But instead of discovering someone hiding behind the door, she found a metal armlike mechanism attached to a motor box that was bolted to the inside of the door. Well, well, she mused. So that’s how he did it. Clever contraption.
“What kind of help?”
The unexpected demand almost made her yelp like one of the high school girls who worked at her store on weekends. But as she spun around, she decided it was a good thing she continued to hold on to the door; it helped her stand her ground, rather than run.
He sat on his wheeled throne at the top of the stairs, and although it was quite dark, one glance and the impulse to offer a bright, friendly smile evaporated. In its place emerged renewed doubt, and growing trepidation.
This was Zachary Denton? She swallowed, but her heart stayed stubbornly locked in her throat. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this cross between a grizzly bear and a wild man.
The only picture she’d ever seen of him was the one on the back of his books. In it, he’d been posed leaning against a single-engine plane, the same one he’d ridden to the ground shortly after takeoff at Houston’s Hobby Airport. The black-and-white photograph had captured a man no more than thirty, tall and physically fit, but hardly muscle-bound; and although attractive, even intense, he’d hardly looked the sort to spend so much time focused on the dark side of human nature. The man glaring down at her was a different story entirely.
The fierce-eyed, scraggly bearded sentinel above had the haunted face of someone who could be at least a decade older—until you looked at the rest of him. Even from down here, she could tell he wasn’t anything close to the atrophied wreck she’d expected. Within what looked like a moth-eaten sleeveless sweatshirt was a body that seemed capable of bench pressing someone twice his size. It made her grateful for the distance between them.
“I asked you a question. What kind of help?”
His sharp reprimand snapped her out of her trance. “Excuse me. I’m—”
“I know who you are.”
He did? Had he seen her pull in next door? She wanted to ask, but his stare stopped her. It wasn’t that being looked at was a new experience for her; she and Kelly had been blessed with good genes, inheriting the best features from their striking parents, and as a result had always attracted their share of attention. But few people tended to be quite this…direct about it. Zachary Denton’s visual inventory felt anything but flattering; it was almost an assault!
“I don’t like people wandering around out there.” His voice echoed off the high ceiling and dark-paneled walls, sounding not too different than the rumbling thunder. “When they do, I find out why.”
The accusation gave her the courage to reply. “Then you know I’m not wandering. I’m your new neighbor.” She pointed behind her with her thumb. “11 Raven Lane?”
When she’d first read the street sign down the block, she’d chuckled, reminded of Poe’s famous poem. Now she wondered if the road hadn’t been named after Zachary Denton moved in.
“Well, this isn’t 11, it’s 13, so what do you want?”
What a charmer. Bet anything his house suffered a good trashing from disappointed kids on Halloween, she thought with disappointment. For A.J., of course; how crushed her husband would have been if he’d discovered his favorite writer was a big…creep. Maybe the man had suffered a horrible tragedy, but he wasn’t the first to do so. A person needed to pull himself together and get on with life. All Zachary Denton seemed to have done was entomb himself.
On the other hand, she wasn’t about to offend the man. She needed his help too much to risk getting thrown out.
Moistening her lips, she tried to ignore the deep shadows filling every corner, or how angry the rain sounded beating against his house. “Mr. Denton, if you’ll just let me borrow your telephone, I’ll be on my way in a minute. You see, I was told the water would be on at my place, but apparently someone didn’t make it out here yesterday.”
“No, they didn’t.”
So he didn’t miss anything from his second floor observation point. Wouldn’t George Orwell have found this “Big Brother” inspiring?
When he didn’t add anything else, Willa sighed inwardly and continued. “Yes, well, unfortunately, my telephone isn’t hooked up yet—I mean, either.” Good grief, the man was turning her into a babbling ninny.
“Only a fool would be alone over there without a phone.”
She couldn’t believe his gall! That did it; as soon as she moved in, she intended to lease one of those cellular models. No way did she intend to deal with this caustic, ungenerous…writer again! “That matter should be taken care of shortly,” she assured him, holding fast to the last shreds of her manners, if not her goodwill. “In a few hours at the most.”
“Yes…but sometimes a few hours can feel like an eternity.”
It was a warning despite the softer delivery. It sent another chill racing through her, and she wrapped her arms around herself, barely managing to resist rubbing them again. How dare he entertain himself by attempting to unnerve her! Worse, he’d succeeded. And it wasn’t merely the threat she had a sudden urge to run from, it was an inescapable something reaching for her through his dark, hypnotic stare…something blatant and physical. Something…sexual?
Are you crazy? The man’s in a wheelchair for pity’s sake!
Willa straightened and tried to look like the businesswoman she was, polite but cool. Clearly, she’d made a mistake. He’d gotten the wrong impression from the way she was dressed. It was too late to do anything about that; however, she intended to let him know she didn’t unravel quite as easily as he seemed to want.
“I’ll be fine, Mr. Denton, but thank you for your concern.” Trying not to appear anxious as she glanced around, she spotted the phone on the side table not three yards away. “Oh, I see it right here. If you don’t mind, I’ll—”
“If you have any sense, you won’t move into that house. Get away while
