Murder Deja Vu

my sanity.” He focused on her. “In prison, reading put me in another place.”
    Dana started to write for exactly the same reason. To go to another place. But the place she was escaping from wasn’t hell, only limbo. “I should get back to work before I lose my idea.”
    He signaled he understood and leaned down to choose another rock. She went back to work, and when he finished for the day, he called that he was leaving. And he left.
    His truck sputtered down the drive until the sound faded. The house seemed emptier than it had been before he stepped into it.
    * * * * *
    T he weather turned warmer. Buds sprouted into leaves, dogwoods bloomed, some flowers died off, others blossomed. Reece pulled his pickup into her yard every morning, came inside, poured himself a cup of coffee, and went to work. She disappeared into her office but felt his presence whether or not she could see him. When she ventured into the great room, he’d be lost in his design, iPod in his ears, listening to a book, she learned. At lunchtime, they sat on the back patio and talked about books. Nothing complicated or personal. Sometimes they talked less than more, and sometimes not at all, but the silence wasn’t strained.
    During the afternoons, she read a chapter or two aloud to him. She found the time surprisingly intimate. She’d never before shared the people and situations that sprang from her mind and heart. At least, not until it was between two covers. It made her feel vulnerable, and in a strange way, empowered.
    She marveled at Reece’s ability to pick up flaws she missed—a timeline or a repetition—never in a disparaging way, but gently questioning. She grew to see the man beneath the quiet exterior as a critical thinker. She remembered reading he’d gone to Harvard, so she wasn’t surprised.
    On this particular day, she came into the room when he was ready to leave. He stopped at the door and turned to her. “I’m going to say something I swore I wouldn’t. I’m usually not this impulsive. In fact, I’m one of those people who thinks a long time before speaking. After I say what’s on my mind, if you’re offended, I’ll finish the fireplace as quickly as I can and be out of your hair.”
    Dana couldn’t imagine what he was going to say. “Why don’t you go ahead and spill it.” He rubbed his neck, which seemed his way of segueing from one subject to another. On some men the gesture might have presented an aw-shucks quality, but not on him.
    “I’d like to take you to bed, and not as a random fuck, which is all I’ve had the past six years. I’m forty-seven years old, learned to be rough around the edges to survive. I don’t know if there’s time for me to smooth out. I can be moody, but I’m gentle. I’m honest to a fault…” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head in slow motion. “I’d better leave now. I’m making an ass of myself.” He made a move toward the door.
    Dana took a quick step forward. “You’re not.” Of all the things she didn’t expect. She thought for a moment he was joking, but this was not a man who joked about something like that. Not a crack of a smile or smirk showed on his face. “I’m not offended, and you needn’t rush to finish. There’s plenty of time.”
    He pulled in his bottom lip, bit it, then did a funny twist of his mouth. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”
    * * * * *
    R eece drove off Dana’s property disbelieving what he’d said. Oh, he meant every word. He never said things he didn’t mean. That wasn’t the problem. The words rolled off his tongue because that was the way he felt from the first moment he looked at her, no matter how gruffly he behaved, because he didn’t need the complication. The women he picked up in bars knew exactly what he wanted. No lies, no promises, no I’ll calls. Maybe they appreciated his honesty, because he never left a place without a willing partner.
    He liked this woman. Liked the way she spoke her mind, how there was something so natural and comfortable about her. Other than his random fucks, as he described them, this was the first time in twenty-one years he had the urge to be with someone other than himself.
    So all that crap about entanglements and emotional attachments amounted to nothing more than wishful thinking. Lies he told himself because it was easier to be alone than to share his life with another person. And because he was still a man, no matter how being inside