AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once I was ready, I headed over to the living room window and cracked it wide enough to allow Archie to come and go. Doing so let in some warm damp air that fought with the A/C working away in the background, but I figured it was a small price to pay to ensure domestic tranquility. The cat was eating his dinner at the time, and came out afterward and inspected the window.
“Thank you,” was all he said, but for Archie, that was being pretty mellow.
Soon enough after that, Calvin knocked on the door, and the cat promptly bailed. I would have been worried about him roaming around town after dark, but since he’d spent decades doing just that and seemed to have survived the experience just fine, I told myself to relax. Besides, this deep in town, he was probably safe from marauding coyotes and bobcats, with the biggest worry someone deciding to speed along Broad Street, which was limited to twenty-five miles an hour in the downtown section — a speed limit that only about a third of the town’s population seemed to obey.
I opened the door to see Calvin in jeans and one of his dark-toned button-up shirts, this one in a nice eggplant shade. He held a bottle of wine in one hand.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I responded, and stepped out of the way so he could come into the apartment.
A quick kiss on one cheek — with a gleam in his dark eyes that told me the caress was only a down payment on future activities — and he handed over the bottle of wine. I looked down at the label and raised an eyebrow.
“‘Chateau Tumbleweed’?” I asked.
“One of my favorite Arizona wineries,” he said. “They’re up in the Verde Valley, about twenty miles outside Sedona. I thought this sangiovese would be perfect with lasagna.”
“I’m sure it will,” I said. I went over to the dining room table and set the wine bottle down on it. “Why don’t you go ahead and open that up? I’m just about to get everything out of the oven.”
He nodded, and came over and picked up the corkscrew I’d left sitting out on the table. While he was occupied with opening the wine, I headed back into the kitchen and pulled the lasagna and garlic bread out of the oven, then brought them over to the dining room. I’d already set out hot pads to shield the table from the lasagna pan, so I put it down there.
Once everything was assembled, we both sat down, and Calvin poured us some wine. “To a quiet evening together,” he said as he raised his glass.
After the tumult of the past few days, I could definitely drink to that. I clinked my glass against his, and said, “To quiet evenings.”
We both drank, and then he asked, “Do you want to tell me what happened with your mother and Tom?”
I swallowed some more wine. He was right; it was really good. “There was another disturbance last night, and they both decided they’d had enough. They’re probably already back in SoCal by now.”
Calvin shook his head as he dished some lasagna for the both of us. “That’s rough…but understandable. What do you think they’re going to do with the place?”
“They haven’t come right out and said it, but I have a feeling they’re going to try to sell the house.” I plucked a piece of garlic bread from the basket and then offered some to Calvin. He helped himself to a slice, and I added, “I just don’t know how well that’s going to work with everything so unresolved.”
“Yeah, I could see that a house possessed by demons might be a hard sell.”
I didn’t bother to point out the difference between possessions and infestations. Tomato, to-mah-to. “And I also can’t shake the feeling that something else is going on here, something else I just can’t figure out.”
“It’ll come to you.” He set down his fork and reached over so he could lightly stroke the back of my hand — a warm, reassuring touch that immediately made me feel better. “You’re trying to help, so no sense in beating yourself up.”
“You’re right, of course.” I smiled at him and sipped some more wine. “Okay, tell me more about Chateau Tumbleweed.”
He sent me an answering grin, complete with friendly crinkles around his dark eyes. “There’s not a lot to tell. They make great wine and have a tasting room in Clarkdale.” A pause, and then he said, “You know, we should really plan a trip up to the Verde Valley sometime. We could spend a few days going to the various wineries in the area — there’s actually a lot of them. And we could visit Sedona. That’s supposed to be kind of a woo-woo place, isn’t it?”
I wrinkled my nose at him. True, I used the term “woo-woo” myself from time to time, but it tended to get my hackles up when someone else said it. “Supposedly,” I replied. “I think a lot of it has been kind of commercialized, though. Still, it would be fun to check out Sedona. The area is really beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve only driven through and haven’t stayed there, but it is pretty amazing, the sort of place everyone should try to visit if they can.”
That sounded like a great idea. I thought of how nice it would be to get away to a place where no one knew either one of us, where we could just be tourists and not have to worry about demon-infested houses or cursed cats or anything else.
I’d have to find a cat sitter for Archie, though. Maybe Hazel could help me out, since it would only be for a couple of days.
“Then let’s put that on the tentative calendar,” I replied. “What’s a good time to visit there?”
“I think it can still be pretty hot in September,” Calvin said. “But October is usually nice.”
Did that comment mean he was anticipating a future for us that lasted into the fall? It sure sounded that way. I wasn’t sure how to respond, mostly because my relationships back in L.A. tended to involve me tiptoeing around anything that sounded like making plans which extended beyond the end of the next week. Los Angeles men were notorious commitment-phobes.
It didn’t seem as though I’d run into the same problem with Calvin.
