"Tea is fine for me."
I put the soup in a pan and turned on the stove. "This won't take long. If you want to make yourself a sandwich, I can—"
"Tess."
"The weather has been nice," I said, babbling away and realizing that now we were here, alone in my house, all the emotions I'd had burbling around inside me while he was gone were churning into a roiling mass in my stomach.
Loneliness.
Worry.
Fear.
And now he was back. And trying to act like we could take up where we'd left off. Could we?
Should we?
Why did relationships have to be so hard?
I opened a can and fed my cat, who stalked into the room when she heard the can opener, haughtily ignoring Jack.
"You have it easy, my friend," I murmured, petting her silky head. "No tom cats to worry about."
Jack started laughing. I hadn't had to worry about Superior Tiger Hearing for a while, so I'd gotten out of practice in keeping my thoughts to myself.
"No tom cats, hmm?" He put the silverware down on the table and started toward me. "I missed you, Tess."
I froze. "I… I missed you too. I just—"
"You just what?"
"You left me! For almost two months! I was worried about you. How can I be involved with somebody who does that?" I backed away from him when he moved closer. "What if you do it again?"
This time, it was his turn to still. He was silent for a long moment, and then he sighed. "I can't promise that I won't. There are responsibilities… obligations. Promises I made. I wouldn't be the man you let into your life if I didn't stand by my word."
I didn't know how to answer that, because… he was right.
I'd leave a relationship in a heartbeat to help Aunt Ruby or Uncle Mike if they needed me.
But, still…
"I'd call." I poked him in the chest. "Yes, I'd go, but I'd call. I wouldn't make you worry all the time, like you did to me."
"I don't know what to say, other than you're right."
"And—what?"
"You're right. I'm so used to compartmentalizing my life that I didn't want the ugliness of what was happening there to touch you here."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing, just put out plates and bowls. We sat down to dinner, mutually coming to a silent agreement to avoid difficult subjects while we ate. And it worked. Little by little, chatting about nothing at all important, things between us started to feel better. Almost back to normal.
Until Jack stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence. His eyes locked on the back door, his body tensed, and he inhaled a long, deep breath.
I knew that reaction, and it didn't bode well. "What? The rifle is in the closet… I'll go—"
He shook his head, pushing his chair back and starting for the back door. "No. Not danger. Just… the wind shifted, and a breeze coming in the window smells like stranger."
I followed him, flinching at the thought of what might be on my back porch.
