“I won’t be long,” he said apologetically, most likely noticing the sour expression on her face, which she should erase. But if she did, then wasn’t she falling into the very trap that she wanted to avoid?
He picked up her pink receiver and then promptly frowned.
“I’m not getting a dial tone,” he said, as if surprised.
Devon shrugged, perhaps a bit cocky. “Sometimes that happens with storms,” she replied vaguely.
“Damned phone companies. Never there when you need them most. Do you have a cell?”
Seeing the easy confidence in his expression, Devon’s smile became more sure. “Absolutely. Do you want to try it?” Not that it was going to matter. She’d bet the last dollar in her emergency savings account (well-funded) that there was no cell reception. No, Mr. Who-Needs-Insurance was going to be stuck.
Alone with her.
At that lusty thought, she almost grinned. Instead, she handed him the sturdy mobile phone that she kept for emergencies.
Efficiently he punched in numbers, holding it up to his ear, and then nodding, as if there was an actual chance in hell of communication with the outside world.
Devon waited.
Disaster in three…two…one…
Still confident in a rational world order, he started to talk. “Scott, it’s Chance. Yes, Chance Cooper, your squadron commander, the one currently toting an extra fifty pounds, you son of a bitch. Your ass is mine, Airman.”
He kept grinning, talking successfully, actually arranging car pickups, meeting places, time synchronization without any thought to contingency plans. And most remarkable of all, the phone connection was still working. The overhead lights still were shining brightly, there were no strange animals or people jumping through her windows.
It was…ordinary. Immediately Devon sensed there was something wrong with this world. Maybe it wasn’t April 1. Maybe time had frozen, or sped up, or shifted to a parallel dimension. A new and unfamiliar twinge of emotion sprang up inside her. Was this a feeble spark of something that might could be termed hope?
And oh, yes, look outside the window—flying pigs, no less.
Once again secure in her own well-protected lifestyle choices, Devon rocked back on her slippered heels and prepared for impending disaster. Blissfully ignorant, Chance continued talking while secretly she ogled him and his sodden, dripping, drenching hunk of body.
Her eyes lingered on the black T-shirt that clung to his well-hewn arms. On that bulky chest that might have attracted a more shallow female. She knew those military types believed in physical fitness, and she told herself it was logical that such athletic musculature would cause her tongue to cleave to the roof of her mouth.
Proof that the man was human was a small scar above his right eye, nearly concealed by the thick curl of black hair. The scar was a neon sign that perhaps he wasn’t quite as lucky as he believed. Devon liked it, the way it spoke of hard-fought battles, as if his waterlogged attire and slightly swollen nose weren’t enough. But oddly, it was the tiny scar that kept tempting her eyes.
Survival. That was what it stood for. The scar told of disasters surmounted, and wounds that were healed. He carried no provisions for emergencies. He simply persevered.
Fascinating.
And exactly why had this unlikely specimen of oozing testosterone showed up in her house tonight?
Just as she was contemplating the slim, statistically unlikely, struck-by-lightning, lottery-winning long shot that he might have brought something good into her home, the man stopped his cheerful chattering and swore.
“Phone died?” she asked, blinking innocently, as if she didn’t know.
“It must have been the battery,” he muttered, and right then the bank of overhead bulbs began to spark, pinging one after another like targets in an arcade game. Devon exhaled with relief. There was an odd comfort to her survivalist existence, and she didn’t like change. When she was a young and naive twenty-one, she’d been tempted to believe that the curse wouldn’t affect her life. That she should go balls-out like her brothers, Cam or Reg. After four bad breakups, long nights alone with Ben & Jerry’s and a lot of movie rentals, Devon realized that balls-out was for idiots who actually enjoyed emotional pain.
Exactly on schedule, her backup generator kicked in with its comfortable hum, illuminating the room in an eerie yellow glow. Chance looked at her with surprise and respect, not quite so life-zestful anymore.
It was about time. If things had stayed the way they were—communication working, electrical facilities intact, fuel gauges functioning—she might have been lulled into complacency. But Devon knew that history repeated itself. The statistics never lied. “Are they coming to get you?”