The In-Between Hour. Barbara White Claypole

      Nine

      Will woke to bright moonlight and the howling of coyotes. And a pair of delicate nails poking out of his skin. So, Hannah hadn’t been some ghostly mirage created by his burned-out mind. He felt—Will concentrated—okay. The headache had retreated into an echo of pain. Staring up at a full moon, he eased out the first needle, then the second.

      How long had he been asleep? Jesus.

      Will jumped up and tugged open the front door, gagging on the smell. The old man was stretched out on the futon, asleep and drooling. The new bottle of Wild Turkey, a quarter empty, pinned a note to the coffee table. “Dinner in—” indecipherable scribble. Oven? Oven!

      Running into the kitchen, Will stopped to glance around for a fire extinguisher. As expected, Hannah was a woman with her shit together, a woman who placed a small fire extinguisher on the wall and a smoke detector on the ceiling. The green, blinking light suggested it was fully operational.

      Will made a quick check through the glass door of the oven. Good, no flames. And the knob was turned only to two hundred degrees, probably because the old man couldn’t see without his glasses. Who knew what had happened to those.

      What other details had Will missed? On a rock face, he never doubted his ability to protect lives, and yet here he was—spectacularly inept at looking after one octogenarian. Was he supposed to remind his dad to change his underwear, brush his teeth, wipe his ass—Will eased open the oven door—take the plastic wrapping off the lasagna before heating it?

      No wonder Hawk’s Ridge charged exorbitant rates. The staff earned every cent.

      A large mug of black coffee and an internet search later, Will had compiled a list of local assisted-living facilities and researched another leg of Freddie’s trip. Will laced his hands behind his neck and stretched. Rediscovering the joy of in-depth location research was invigorating. As with every aspect of his writing, he’d grown lazy, choreographing action around backdrops rather than exploring the psychological impact of setting on character. After all, a patch of forest could brand you for life.

      The scar on his knee itched; he ignored it.

      Freddie and Cassandra were in Vienna. They’d spent the evening before at the Prater, riding the Giant Ferris Wheel, and the morning at the Augarten Park. Fortunately, they’d avoided Hitler’s anti-aircraft flak tower, a concrete monument to evil.

      If only Will could figure out how to use that Nazi behemoth in his work, incorporate it into a hate crime Agent Dodds could stumble into while on vacation. Except his hero was still suspended from the helicopter. Besides, Agent Dodds didn’t do vacations. Didn’t do downtime. Sex was rushed, desperate and usually with someone’s wife; A.A. meetings were an excuse for Dodds to check email. The only time Dodds unplugged was when he visited his paranoid schizophrenic mother in the nursing home surrounded by razor wire.

      Will pushed back from the kitchen table and wandered into the main room. He should try and get his dad upstairs to bed. Or maybe not. Life was so peaceful when the old man was out cold. It was the relief of watching a sleeping toddler after a crazy-ass day of playground supervision. It was also the writing hour—or would be, if he had a story worth telling. Something other than the Great European Adventure.

      He eased the cotton throw off the back of the futon and tucked it around the old man. A walk in the moonlight might unlock a little inspiration. Will refused to think the word muse, which resonated with literary pretension and angst. Of course, he’d always dissed the phrase writer’s block, too. Cosmic payback was one sick bitch.

      Five minutes—Will tiptoed onto the porch—he’d only be gone five minutes. Long enough to take a look at the mare that was always tearing up grass with her teeth. Didn’t want the old man waking to an empty house.

      A large buck with a trophy rack appeared on the edge of his vision, then glided back toward Saponi Mountain. Will turned his head away from the siren song of the forest. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to set foot in there before returning to New York.

      Tree frogs croaked a concerto, and snuffling came from the compost pile. The raccoons were out in force. Above, an expanse of night sky shimmered with stars. Man, he’d forgotten the glory of Southern nights—how he was drawn to the stillness, the raw energy. As a kid, he’d loved reading or writing in the middle of the night. Unless there was a storm to whip up her craziness, terror tended to come with the light, when his mom was awake.

      On the ground floor of the main house, a figure moved behind closed curtains. His temporary landlady was still awake. Temporary was such a wonderful word. It didn’t hold you to a thing.

      And was that running water? Curious, Will changed direction and headed toward the beam of artificial light illuminating the far side of the main house. Too late he remembered what Hannah had said about an outside shower. He swallowed a huge, painful gulp.

      Poppy was standing under a jet of water, and she was full rearview naked.

      If she were ten years younger—and he hadn’t stopped dating when Freddie was old enough for sleepovers—Poppy would have been a classic Will Shepard babe. Curvaceous, wild, outspoken, she was fire inside and out, a woman who dazzled with a good-time guarantee and the knowledge that she could lose interest and vanish. Great sex, no future. But thinking with his dick had only ever led to disaster, and dealing with his dad was enough of a calamity.

      He should turn away. Really. Because to stay meant crossing the line into being a sicko, a total perv. He should look away, but like a twelve-year-old with a stack of porn magazines, he couldn’t.

      Poppy rinsed her hair, tilting her head from side to side.

      Eyes up, Will, eyes up.

      But his eyes, unable to heed the message from his brain, trawled lower. What was it about women’s butts that made him behave like a kid confronted with a wall of jelly beans in every flavor you could imagine and some you couldn’t?

      Grab and eat your fill.

      Then a door opened, and Will sprinted for the camouflage of the forest.

      * * *

      Had anything ever felt quite so divine? The buzz from a bottle of wine—minus Hannah’s one teeny-weeny glass—and the cool water caressing Poppy’s body. No wonder Hannah liked to shower in the moonlight. This was bliss. At least, it was until Hannah started cawing like trailer trash.

      “Poppy!”

      Poppy hummed loudly.

      “Poppy!”

      She should have plied Hannah with more wine, but her friend had stopped drinking after droning on and on about being on call. ’Course Hannah didn’t do drunk, didn’t do mad, and she hadn’t had sex in forever. What was her problem?

      Stupid, stupid, s-t-u-p-i-d for a woman in her prime to say she wouldn’t date because of her sons—neither of whom even lived at home anymore. If she put in the smallest effort, Hannah would be a red-hot babe. And the boys wanted their mom to get it on with someone so they didn’t have to worry about her being home alone in the middle of nowhere. Well, that was Galen’s take. Liam’s motivation was more along the lines of “So she’ll, like, stay out of my business.”

      Poppy had only kept one secret her whole life: that when Liam was sixteen and wasted, he’d asked Poppy to be his mom. Well, maybe she’d kept more than just that one secret.