if he’d been around.
And she could brush her teeth and wash her face and move back and forth between bathroom and bedroom without worrying about running into him.
Which did not prevent her from picturing him the minute she was in bed with her eyes closed. How could he sit up there for hours on end the way he did? Wasn’t he bored to death? Or was he like any predator, endlessly patient?
Lia knew he always carried that big, black gun. She wasn’t sure the boys had noticed. She hoped not. She didn’t want them to become curious about it. Conall would have the sense not to show it to them if they asked, wouldn’t he?
Most nights she eventually dropped off, but she also often woke when he came downstairs at three or four in the morning. As a foster mom, she’d become super sensitized to any sound in the night; she mostly woke if one of the boys or Sorrel got up to use the bathroom, too. The plumbing in the house wasn’t quite antique, but it was old enough to be noisy, which didn’t help. The thing was, she heard Conall from the moment the attic door quietly opened and closed. He moved soundlessly down the hall, but she knew where he was every second, knew he sometimes paused outside her bedroom. She would lie rigid in bed, aching for him to push the door wider and come in. One night, when he stood out there for a particularly long time, she had to bite the back of her hand to keep from whispering his name.
Then there would be the equally quiet click of the bathroom door, water running, the toilet flushing. Sometimes he’d hesitate outside her room again. And at last his door would close. Silence would last for a couple of minutes, during which she imagined him stripping. Then the bed would creak as he lay down.
By that time—she couldn’t help herself—she’d be so turned on she could hardly bear the weight of the covers. She could feel the dampness between her legs, the need clenching in her belly. Staying still nearly killed her, but if she so much as moved restlessly, her bed would creak and he would hear and he might know that she was lying awake thinking about him.
Wednesday she had less success than usual avoiding him. It was drizzling, which meant all of them except Sorrel, who’d gone to school, were stuck inside. Lia pretended to be busy with housework for an hour, but really the house had never been cleaner, thanks to days of evasive maneuvers. Then she insisted on an hour sitting at the kitchen table with the boys working on a math chapter from their respective textbooks. Finally she succumbed and agreed to play Monopoly with Conall and the boys.
They let her be the banker. Walker turned out to have a ruthless streak almost as deep and long as Conall’s, while Brendan didn’t get lucky rolls and Lia was—she had to admit—too softhearted. Even so, they all had fun. Her heart ached at the boys’ giggles and whoops and Conall’s lazy grins, many directed at her. So much fun, she was sorry when she had to admit to bankruptcy and left the two remaining real estate moguls to duke it out while she started dinner. By that time, Sorrel was home and happily ensconced on the sofa behind Walker to root him on.
“Why him? Why not me?” Conall was complaining when Lia left the room.
The good mood lasted through dinner but was killed when Conall’s cell phone buzzed before he’d finished dessert. He glanced at it, said, “Jeff needs me,” and disappeared with startling haste.
Was the indefinable something finally happening? The something that would mean she could have her house back? She made the evening as normal as she could for the kids while living with a clutch of anxiety in her chest so big and dense, she suspected it would form a dark shadow on an X-ray.
Sleep was more elusive than ever. Didn’t Conall know they would all worry? Would it have killed him to pop down and say, “False alarm?” Or “I’ve got what I need to get a warrant, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time?”
She woke abruptly and lay rigid, knowing she’d heard…a whimper? Or was that part of a dream? No, there was another muffled cry, and she jumped from bed and hurried to the hall, where she had to stand still