The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  shot up and his tail beat on the floor.

  Sam stepped up to the doorway.

  “Got yourself a guard here.”

  Naomi clasped her hands together to keep them still. “Are you— I’m sorry, there’s nowhere to sit down in here. We can go downstairs.”

  “I won’t be long. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m all right. I wanted to keep busy, so . . .”

  “I hear that. First off, if you’re nervous about being alone up here, I can have one of the men sit on the house tonight.”

  “She won’t be alone.” As Naomi started to speak, Xander glanced at her. “Consider it the fee for the crap paint job.”

  “It’d be good to have someone stay with you. I just want to get your timeline, if you remember about what time you left the house this morning.”

  “Ah. It was maybe quarter to eight. I don’t know exactly how long it took me to walk down to where I caught the track. I took some shots, wildflowers, along the way. I can show you.”

  “I’m not doubting your word,” Sam assured her. “Just trying to get a sense.”

  “I think I was at least an hour in the forest. And I took some shots from where it thins and you can see the channel. And after I went down, I took more from that big flat rock—the first one you come to from the track. That’s when Tag ran up with the shoe. I didn’t notice the time, but it had to be after nine. Then the dog kept barking and whining and I turned to tell him to knock it off, and I saw her.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry about this, Ms. Carson.”

  “Naomi. Naomi’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Naomi, and I have to say I’m grateful you walked that way today. It might’ve been another day or two before anyone found her otherwise.”

  “You’re going to tell Chip,” Xander put in. “I know he’s not next of kin, but you’re going to tell him before he hears somebody talking about it.”

  With a nod, Sam took off his ball cap, scraped fingers through gray-streaked brown hair, set it back on again. “I’m going to see him right after I talk to her mother. If you think of some other details, Naomi, or if you just need to talk it through, you give me a call. This house is looking better than it ever did—well, in my lifetime. I’m a phone call away,” he added, and gave the dog a quick rub before leaving.

  —

  She woke herself from the nightmare, ripped herself out of the cellar, under a nurse log in the dark, green forest. The cellar where she’d found Marla’s body. The fear came with her, and the images of the killing room her father had built, and all the blood and death in it.

  Her breath wheezed out, wanted to clog up. She fought to hitch it in, shoved it out again.

  Then hands gripped her shoulders. She’d have screamed if she’d had the air.

  “It’s me. It’s Xander. Hold on a minute.”

  He turned her, one hand still firm on her shoulder, and switched on the light.

  One look at her had his hands taking her face, a hard grip.

  “Slow it down, Naomi. Look at me, slow it down. You’re okay, just slow it down. You’re going to hyperventilate and pass out on me otherwise. Look at me.”

  She pulled air in—God, it burned—fought to hold it, slow it before she let it out. She kept her eyes on his, so blue. A deep, bold blue, like water she could sink into and float.

  “Better. You’re okay, slower, slow it down some more. I’m going to get you some water.”

  She lifted her hands, pressed them to his. She needed those eyes, just that deep blue for another minute.

  He kept talking to her. She didn’t really register the words, just the hands on her face, the blue of his eyes. The burn eased, the weight lifted.

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Water’s right there, on your nightstand. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He reached around her, picked up the bottle, uncapped it. “Slow on this, too.”

  She nodded, sipped. “I’m all right.”

  “Not yet, but close. You’re cold.” He rubbed those work-rough hands up and down her arms. He looked over her shoulder, said, “Ease off now.”

  She glanced over, saw Tag with his front paws on the bed.

  “I woke up the dog, too. At the risk of being stupid on your scale, I am sorry. Nightmare.”

  Not her first, he thought, but the first time he’d seen the full-blown panic. “Not surprising, considering. You should get back under the blankets, warm up.”

  “You know, I think I’ll get up, try to work awhile.”

  “Nothing much to take pictures of at . . . three twenty in the morning.”

  “It’s not just taking them.”

  “I guess not. We should go down, scramble some eggs.”

  “Scramble eggs? In the middle of the night.”

  “It’s not the middle of the night on your time clock. Yeah, eggs. We’re up anyway.”

  “You don’t have to be,” she began, but he just rolled out of bed.

  “We’re up,” he repeated, and walked over to open the doors. Tag bulleted out. “Up and out. Waffles,” he considered, glancing over to study her as he pulled on pants. “I bet you could make waffles.”

  “I could, if I had a waffle maker. Which I don’t.”

  “Too bad. Scrambled eggs, then.”

  She sat a moment, bringing her knees up to her chest.

  He just handled things, she thought. Nightmares, panic attacks, hurt dogs on the side of the road, dead bodies at the foot of the bluff.

  How did he do it?

  “You’re hungry.”

  “I’m awake.” He picked up the cotton pants and T-shirt he’d gotten off her in the night, tossed them in her direction.

  “Do you like eggs Benedict?”

  “Never had it.”

  “You’ll like it,” Naomi decided, and got out of bed.

  He was right. The normality of cooking breakfast soothed and calmed. The process of it, the scents, a good hit of coffee. The raw edges of the dream, of memories she wanted locked away, faded off.

  And she was right. He liked her eggs Benedict.

  “Where has this been all my life?” he wondered as they ate at the kitchen counter. “And who’s Benedict?”

  She frowned over it, then nearly laughed. “I have no idea.”

  “Whoever he was, kudos. Best four A.M. breakfast I’ve ever had.”

  “I owed you. You came when I called, and you stayed. I wouldn’t have asked you to stay.”

  “You don’t like to ask.”

  “I don’t. That’s probably a flaw I like to think of as self-reliance.”

  “It can be both. Anyway, you’ll get used to it. To asking.”

  “And you brought me out of a panic attack. Have you had experience there?”

  “No, but it’s just common sense.”

  “Your sense,” she corrected. “Which also had you distracting me with eggs.”

  “Really good eggs. Nothing wrong with self-reliance. I’d be a proponent of that. And nothing wrong with asking either. It’s using that crosses the line. We’re in a thing, Naomi.”

  “A thing?”

  “I’m still working out the definition and scope of the thing. How about you?”

  “I’ve avoided being in a thing.”

  “Me, too. Funny how it sneaks up on you.” In a gesture as easy, and intimate, as his voice, he danced his fingers down her spine. “And here we are before sunup, eating these fancy eggs I didn’t expect to like with a dog you didn’t expect to want hoping there’ll be leftovers. I’m good with that, so I guess I’m good with being in a thing with you.”

  “You don’t ask questions.”

  “I like figuring things out for myself. Maybe that’s a flaw or self-reliance.” He shrugged. “Other times, it strikes me it’s fine to wait until somebody gives me the answers.”

  “Sometimes they’re the wrong answers.”

  “It’s stupid to ask then, if you’re not ready fo
r whatever the answers are going to be. I like who you are—right here and right now. So I’m good with it.”

  “Things can evolve, or devolve.” And why couldn’t she just let it go, and be right here, right now?

  “Yeah, can and do. How long did you say your uncles had been together?”

  “Over twenty years.”

  “That’s a chunk. I bet it hasn’t been roses every day of the over twenty.”

  “No.”

  “How long have we been in this thing, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure when to start the clock.”

  “The Day of the Dog. Let’s use that. How long ago was it we found the dog?”

  “It’s been about . . . a little over a month, I guess.”

  “Well, in the time’s-relative area, that’s a chunk.”

  She let out a laugh. “World record for me.”

  “Look what you’ve got to work with,” he said, gave her that cocky grin. “Let’s see what Month Three brings around. For now, when we’re done with these really good eggs, we should clean it up, take some coffee up to the deck, wait for sunrise.”

  When she said nothing, he touched her arm lightly, then went back to eating. “This is your place, Naomi. Nobody can take it or what it means to you away except you.”

  “You’re right. Coffee on the deck sounds perfect.”

  Nineteen

  Brooding, worrying, second-guessing accomplished nothing.

  Still, she sat down, wrote a long email to a friend who would understand. Ashley McLean—now Ashley Murdoch—reminded her, always had, always would, that life could go on.

  She’d nearly called, just wanting to hear Ashley’s voice, but the time difference meant she’d wake her friend before Ashley got out of bed with her husband of ten years come June, got her kids fed and off to school and herself off to work.

  And emails came easier—gave her time to compose her thoughts, edit things out. All she really needed was that touchstone.

  It helped, it all helped, making breakfast, watching the sunrise with the man she had an undefined thing with, gearing up for a day of errands while construction noise filled the house.

  Life had to go on.

  With the dog as company—and why had she tried to convince either of them she wanted him to stay home?—she drove into town. At the post office, she unloaded boxes, carted them in, found herself caught for a full ten minutes in that oddity of small-town conversation.

  “Check one off the list,” she told the dog.

  She drove down Water Street. Busier today, she noted. Full-blown spring didn’t just bring out the green and the flowers, it brought out the tourists.

  They wandered the streets, the shops, with go-cups and cameras and shopping bags. As she looked for parking, she saw boats gliding or putting out of slips, and the kayak/bike rental, with those colorful boats displayed, doing a bang-up business.

  She really wanted to try kayaking.

  She found her parking spot, pulled in, turned around to the dog.

  “You have to wait in the car—I warned you—but we can take a walk around after this stop and before the grocery store. Best I can offer.”

  He tried to get out when she opened the back to get the box, and the tussle that ensued to deny him illustrated clearly he’d put on weight and muscle. Gone was the weak, bone-thin dog limping down the shoulder of the road.

  She got the back closed again, had to lean against it to catch her breath. When she glanced back, he was all but pressed against the rear window, blue eyes devastated.

  “I can’t take you into the shop. That’s how it goes.”

  She picked up the box she’d had to put down to win the war, started down the sidewalk. Looked back.

  Now he had his muzzle out the partially opened side window.

  “Don’t let him win,” she muttered, and aimed her eyes forward.

  She knew Jenny worked that morning, as Jenny had called her the night before. Had offered sympathy and comfort. Had offered to bring food, bring alcohol, bring anything needed.

  Friendship so easily offered was as unusual for Naomi as ten minutes of small talk in the post office.

  She opened the door of the shop to a lovely citrus scent, an artistic clutter of pretty things, and the bustle of business. The bustle made her consider coming back during a lull—if she’d known when and if lulls happened. But Jenny, discussing an old washbasin currently filled with soaps and lotions with a customer, spotted her and gave her a cheerful come-ahead signal.

  So she wandered, saw half a dozen things she wanted to buy. Reminded herself she hadn’t come to shop, had a house in crazed construction and shouldn’t shop.

  And ended up picking up a set of wrought-iron candle stands that absolutely belonged in her library.

  “Let me take that.” The minute she could work herself over, Jenny took the box, set it down. “And do this first.”

  Smelling lightly of peaches, she wrapped her arms around Naomi, tight, tight.

  “I’m so glad to see you.” She loosened the hug enough to tip back, study Naomi’s face. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Xander stayed with you?”

  “He stayed.”

  “All right. We’re not going to think about it right now. It’s all anyone’s talking about when they catch a breath, but we’re not going to think about it.”

  “You’re awfully busy.”

  “Tour package.” Jenny took a satisfied and slightly calculating glance around the shop. “We’ve got two busloads in town for the day. The town planner worked the deal months ago. So we’re very carefully not mentioning what you and I aren’t thinking about in front of tourists. Or trying not to mention.”

  She bent down to pick up the box again. “I want to show these to Krista. Come with me. She just went in the back, and we’re covered out here for a few minutes.”

  “You’re really busy,” Naomi reminded her, but Jenny was already nudging her along.

  Jenny skirted around tables, displays, all bright chatter, and reminded Naomi of a pretty bird singing as it flitted from branch to branch.

  She skirted around a counter and through a door into a storeroom/office area where a woman with streaky brown hair bundled up and held in place with a pair of jeweled chopsticks sat at a computer.

  “Tracked the shipment—it’s out for delivery, praise Jesus.”

  “I’ve got some potential stock and Naomi Carson for you, Krista.”

  Krista swiveled on her chair and slid off a pair of purple cheaters. She had a good face with wide brown eyes, a long, full mouth—and the glint of a tiny ruby stud on the left side of her nose.

  “I’m so happy to meet you. Pretend there’s a seat I can offer