bitter cold wind whistling through the tall pines. With no electricity to keep the tiny space heater going, the trailer wasn’t much warmer than outside. He jerked the chenille bedspread from the bed and wrapped it around his body as he fell back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.
“What have I done, Melanie? I wanted to buy this property for you, to fix it up in your honor, but now I’m having second thoughts.” He shook off the bedspread, and in two strides, he opened the refrigerator. He fumbled around in the dark until his hand closed around a bottle of beer, but then he changed his mind and left it there.
“I need something stronger.” He opened the cabinet above the stove and carefully felt around until he recognized the shape of the whiskey bottle. Using the light of the moon flowing in from the kitchen window, he poured about two fingers into one water glass. He sat on the sofa and drew the spread over him.
Even though he couldn’t see Melanie’s face clearly in the dark, he held her picture to his chest. “Talk to me. I’ve got a couple of days to back out of this deal. I can always drag this trailer back to Marshall and go on with my life.”
The whiskey warmed his insides, but it didn’t do much for the outside, which continued to get colder by the minute. “Are you tellin’ me to go back to the house?” he asked. “I don’t know if I can. You’re here with me in the trailer.”
You got a choice. You can get up off your butt and go get into a warm bed or freeze to death. Her voice sounded so real that he looked over his shoulder.
He tossed back the last sip of whiskey and threw the bedspread on the sofa. It only took a minute to pack a small duffel bag with a change of clothing and his toiletries. He hoped that the two socks he’d found matched, but if they didn’t, he could always come back for more when it was light.
The house was dark when he opened the door and slipped inside. Stumbling over furniture, he tried to find the light switch, but no amount of running his hands across the walls turned one up. Finally, he decided to make his way to the kitchen, and that’s when a spiderweb hit him smack in the face. Tucker Malone would do battle with a burglar hopped up on drugs quicker than a spider, so he did some fancy footwork trying to brush it away.
It wasn’t until a string got tangled in his fingers that he realized it wasn’t a spiderweb after all. With a nervous chuckle he gave it a jerk, and presto, the foyer lit up. Glaring at the wooden thread spool hanging from the end of the string, he said, “Enjoy this, because you will be rewired to a switch by the end of next week.”
It took a moment for his eyes to focus when he looked away from the light bulb, but when he did, both of his hands went up in surrender. Jolene stood in her bedroom door with a small pistol pointed at him.
“That cord is part of the old-time feeling, and something Aunt Sugar would never change. And neither will I,” she said.
“Whoa, girl! It’s just me,” Tucker said. “I didn’t know about the light, and I thought I’d run into a spiderweb.”
She lowered the gun. “Scared of spiders, are you?”
“Terrified,” he answered and wished he could cram the words back into his mouth. Melanie was the only one who knew about his phobia.
“Well, you’d better be more afraid of me mistaking you for a burglar and shooting your sorry butt. Turn out the light before you go to bed. No need in jacking the electric bill up—unless a big, brave cowboy like you is afraid of the dark, too,” she said.
“No, ma’am, just spiders. You afraid of anything?”
“Not one thing long as I have this little friend close by.” She kissed the barrel of the pistol and disappeared back into her bedroom.
He’d checked out the whole house earlier and knew that the other bedroom on the ground floor opened right across the foyer from her room. He felt around on the wall just inside the door and breathed a sigh of relief when he found the switch. One flick of the wrist and the room was lit up. Before he did anything else, he went