She swallowed, her throat dry. “My sister told me she was coming over again tonight.”
More surprise. “You’re welcome to come with her, if you want,” he said, guessing at the reason behind her call.
That was nice, at least. “I can’t. I have to stay here with my mother.”
“What about that Mostats-Passuello woman? Doesn’t she come over and sit with her sometimes?”
Marcy was a nurse who helped out from time to time. But she had a family. “Once in a while.”
“Call her.”
“I can’t call her this late!”
“So…”
“So I was hoping you’d…that you’d…” Suddenly what she’d rehearsed—I was hoping you’d look out for my sister while she’s there—promised to come across as so lame she couldn’t bring herself to say it. This wasn’t the first time Presley had gone over to his place, and he’d already said nothing would happen to her there.
Face burning, she decided to end this as quickly as possible. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have interrupted you,” she said, and hung up.
“That was colossally stupid.” She groaned, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. For all she knew, he was with another woman. “What was I thinking?”
She’d been thinking that he was a lot more attractive than she’d given him credit for. That she’d gone long enough without knowing what it felt like to make love to a man. That it didn’t matter if she called Dylan, just as long as she didn’t call Joe.
But she’d made a fool of herself.
“I’m an idiot,” she murmured, and forced herself to go to bed.
* * *
Almost two hours later, the doorbell rang. Cheyenne dragged herself from sleep and checked the clock, but it took a moment for the time to register. Two. Who on earth would be at her door in the middle of the night?
She listened to see if the noise had disturbed her mother. But there was no other sound. Anita was so drugged she could probably sleep through the apocalypse. And, apparently, Presley wasn’t home yet. That, however, wasn’t unusual.
Hopefully, her sister was okay....
Climbing out of bed, Cheyenne grabbed the fluffy robe Eve’s parents had given her years ago and shuffled to the front door in matching slippers. There, she peered out the peephole. Then she pressed a panicked hand to her chest. Although the image was somewhat distorted, she recognized the tall, dark figure who stood leaning against the railing.
Dylan.
Cheyenne’s heart began to pound so loudly it reverberated in her ears. What was he doing here?
She’d called the devil, and now he’d come calling on her.
“Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy,” she breathed, flicking her hands. Did she dare open the door? Would he go away if she didn’t?
She hesitated, watching him. He was smoking. She could see the glow of his cigarette.
He waited patiently for a couple of minutes. Then he put out his cigarette and straightened, addressing the door as if he could see her quaking behind it. “Are you going to answer or not?”
Before bed, she’d left the porch light on for Presley, but she’d turned on the living room light when she got up. He knew she was there. It wasn’t as if her mother could respond to a visitor.
Should she let him in?
She couldn’t decide, didn’t know what she’d say once he was inside. She hadn’t consciously committed to seeing him. She’d just given in to whatever weakness had made her react to the way she’d felt in the park.
“Go,” she whispered. But when he stepped off the porch to do just that, she unlocked the dead bolt and poked her head out.
He turned at the sound, stopping a little beyond the circle thrown by the porch light. She wondered if he’d been drinking. He’d been doing something in the two hours since she’d called him. But he didn’t seem drunk, wasn’t at all unsteady.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked when he merely stared at her.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” Acute anxiety made it difficult to talk. She was shaking, too. Why, she couldn’t explain. He hadn’t taken so much as a step toward her.
Then she realized how cold he must be. He was wearing the same Levi’s jacket he’d had on earlier with a pair of jeans. The worn denim hugged his body in all the right places, but it didn’t provide much protection against thirty-degree temperatures.
“Would you like to come in?”
“Is that why you called?”
Not in her conscious mind. She could never admit it, not even to herself. But she knew she hadn’t phoned him to ask if he’d look after her sister as she’d pretended. She’d been hoping he could fill the gap her friends had left. He seemed like a safe substitute. He wasn’t part of her circle, wasn’t close to anyone who was, and he wasn’t likely to judge her. Not only that, but she was pretty sure he could keep a secret. He didn’t do a whole lot of talking—about anything. It was other people who talked about him.
She shoved back her hair, combing her fingers through it so she wouldn’t look like a hag after tossing and turning in bed. Then she breathed deep and swung open the door.
He didn’t chuckle at her transparency or taunt her for giving in, as she thought he might. In fact, he said nothing as he walked past her. It was almost as if he was a bit nervous himself.
His gaze cut to the tree, then skimmed over the rest of their threadbare furnishings. But, unlike with Joe, Cheyenne felt no need to apologize for what she lacked. Dylan wouldn’t look down on her for her background or her impoverished circumstances. There was something liberating about feeling like an equal, just as there’d been something liberating about standing at the park, knowing that if she acted badly, he wouldn’t necessarily regard her as a bad person.
For a second, she was afraid he’d wait for her to come up with some small talk and couldn’t think of anything. As much as she must’ve wanted this—or why would she have called him?—she hadn’t rehearsed what would come next.
She owed him an explanation for her unexpected behavior, didn’t she?
Probably. But she was grateful he didn’t demand one. He reached behind him and turned off the light, plunging the room into semidarkness, with only the porch light filtering in from outside. Then he extended his hand to her.
Cheyenne thought she must be dreaming. Except she couldn’t be. If she was, she’d be with Joe and not Dylan Amos.