High Noon

they?”
    “They can, of course.” She glanced up, seeing in her mind’s eye her family tucked safe away for the night. “I’m not discounting the possibility. I’ll talk to the people I need to, first thing in the morning.”
    “I can bunk here. Spare room, spare couch.”
    “That’s a nice offer. But if you do, I’d have to explain it in the morning. At this point, I don’t want to give anyone, especially my mother, something more to worry about. She’s holding. My getting hurt, and then the shooting, those were hard knocks for her. I don’t think she’s been out in the courtyard for the last few days. I can’t stand to think she’ll lose that, too.”
    Duncan studied his glass, had another long sip of wine. “I believe I’ve had too much to drink. I don’t think I should drive. As a duly authorized officer of the law, and as my current hostess, you should discourage me from doing so.”
    Those soft blue eyes, those clear and sober eyes, met hers. “It’s as simple as that, Phoebe, if you let it be.”
    “I don’t know why men think women can’t defend themselves or their home.”
    He only smiled. “Do I need to explain the power of the penis to you—so soon after you’ve experienced its wonder?”
    She tapped her fingers on the table. “You can have Steve’s—Ava’s son’s—room for the night. But if it’s all the same to you, we won’t use your drunken behavior as the reason. It just got late, and seemed easier for you to stay than to drive all the way back to the island.”
    “Fine. We’ll save my drunken behavior for another occasion. Can I ask something that’s none of my business?”
    “As long as the answer can be that’s none of your business, sure you can.”
    “Is Essie getting any therapy?”
    “She was,” Phoebe said on a long sigh. “As it’s difficult, even with agoraphobia, to get a therapist who’ll make house calls, most of it was by phone. There were regular weekly phone sessions for a while, and she tried medications. We thought she was making progress.”
    “But?”
    “Her therapist encouraged her to go out. Just ten minutes, outside the house, to somewhere familiar. They picked Forsythe Park. She’d just walk over to the fountain and back home. She made it over, she got over, and then had a major panic attack. One of the fears is being caught in public, or embarrassed in public, or trapped. She couldn’t get her breath, couldn’t find her way back. I’d gone after her. I watched her walk over, and went out behind her when she was nearly out of sight. So it took me a while to get to her once she panicked.”
    She could see it, still see it perfectly. Her mother terrified and disoriented, and her own heart banging in her chest as she sprinted over pavement and grass, pushed aside stunned tourists to reach her.
    “She was gasping for air, and running. She fell. It was terrible for her. People were trying to help her, but it scared her so much, humiliated her so much.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I got her back. Held on tight, had her close her eyes, and I walked her back. She hasn’t been beyond the courtyard since. That was four years ago. She wouldn’t go back into therapy afterward. Gets testy about it,” Phoebe added with a little smile. “She’s fine in the house. She’s happy in the house. Why can’t we leave her alone? So we do. I don’t know if it’s the right thing, but we do.”
    “It’s right enough. Sometimes the right thing changes, so you have to do what’s right for now.”
     
    She thought about that after she showed him where he could sleep, after digging up a spare toothbrush and making sure the towels were fresh and plentiful.
    The right thing changed, that was true. And sometimes what you thought was right ended up being a wrong turn but a necessary one. She wasn’t sure if Duncan was the right thing or a wrong turn, but she’d fallen in love with him.
    Had probably stubbed her toe on that the first time she’d seen him, then tripped a little when she’d sat in the pub, laughing with him and enjoying the music. Another little stumble here, a loss of balance there, and the fall was inevitable.
    Now, she supposed, she had to figure out what the right thing was, and how to do it. For now.
     
    A big perk to waking up the lone guy in a household of women, Duncan decided, was the big, home-cooked breakfast. It didn’t suck to be fussed over, either, like the newly crowned prince of Femaleland while he enjoyed coffee