Colby’s eyes shifted slowly from the scene in the valley below to her face. “Signals?“
Diana fiddled with a small weed she had picked. “Yes, signals. You know what I mean.“
“I know what you mean, all right,“ he agreed roughly. “If nothing else, it’s a relief to know I wasn’t imagining things.“
Diana’s mouth curved in gentle amusement. “I expect that with an imagination like yours you have to be a little cautious about how you interpret things.“
Colby picked up his beer can and took a long swallow. His eyes met hers over the rim. “I can control my imagination. Most of the time.“
“I see. It’s your hormones you have trouble controlling?“
His eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “I can control those most of the time, too. But around you they seem to go a little crazy.“
Diana gnawed briefly on her lower lip and then opted for total honesty. “I think a part of me was thrilled to know that,“ she admitted very softly. “Because I was having the same kind of trouble controlling my, uh, raging hormones around you.“ She looked away, unable to meet his steady gaze. “I don’t have that kind of problem normally. It’s been a very long time since I felt on the edge the way I do around you.“
“So maybe we should take pity on ourselves,“ Colby said dryly. “Let’s go to bed together and work it out of our systems.“
Diana gave a disgusted exclamation and leaned back on her elbows. “You’re such a flaming romantic,“ she complained sarcastically.
“I write horror, not romance.“
“That’s no excuse.“ she snapped.
“It’s time both of us stopped behaving like a couple of teenagers and started acting our ages. Neither of us needs a repeat of last night.“
“I’ll make another deal with you,“ Diana said. “If you don’t mention last night again, neither will I.“
Colby shrugged. “Whatever you want, so long as you’re not trying to put an end to whatever it is we have going between us. Any more potato chips?“
“I think Specter ate the last of them.“
“Figures.“ Colby threw a disgruntled glance at the sleeping dog. “One of these days, that monster and I are going to have a serious talk.“
“Speaking of a serious talk…“
“Yeah?“
“Tell me about Margaret Fulbrook.“
“I did promise you a few answers, didn’t I?“
“Yes, you did.“
Colby took another swallow of beer. “There’s not all that much to tell. I was married to Cynthia Fulbrook.
Technically, that made the old battle-ax my mother-in-law.“
“What happened to Cynthia?“
“She died.“
“Oh. I’m sorry.“
“Margaret Fulbrook has always blamed me for Cynthia’s death, among other things.“ Colby’s mouth tightened. “I should probably take this from the top.“
“I’m listening.“
He drew a breath and shifted his eyes back to the little town below the falls. “My mother and my Aunt Jesse were both born in Fulbrook Corners. They came from the wrong side of the falls, as folks around here like to say.“ He smiled grimly and indicated a handful of rooftops on the left-hand side of the river. “They were stuck here all of their lives.
My mother worked in a local cafe and dreamed of marrying some man from the other side of the river.“
“And your Aunt Jesse?“
Colby’s eyes softened slightly. “Aunt Jesse dreamed a lot, too, but not about marrying and moving to the right side of town. She poured out her dreams in an endless stream of poems and short stories that almost never got published. She considered herself a writer, even if no one else did, and she felt obliged to live up to the image. She was eccentric, unpredictable and erratic. She seemed to be in another world most of the time. But after Mom died, she didn’
t hesitate to take me in. Aunt Jesse was good to me in her own strange way. And she taught me things.“
“What things?“
“How to take care of myself, mainly. She did it by leaving me to my own devices most of the time. It worked. I grew up knowing the only person you can count on is yourself.“
“What about your father?“ Diana asked cautiously.
“What about him? I sure as hell never had the privilege of meeting him. He worked for a lumber mill near here for a while – just long enough to get my mother pregnant – and then he took off.“
“Oh.“
Colby looked at her. “Yeah, that’s about all you say about it. Oh. At any rate, to make an excruciatingly long, boring story short, I grew up with Aunt Jesse. And I guess I ran a little wild. I was the dangerous young hood from the other side of the falls. Always in trouble. Always blamed when there were missing hubcaps. Always the one people pointed at when there was a fight at the school dance. Always the one who got picked up when Sheriff Thorp heard about a midnight drag race out on River Road.“
“And you were always perfectly innocent, of course?“
His lips twitched with a small smile. “Of course – except when it came to drag racing on River Road.“
“In short, the kind of boy our mothers warned us about,“ Diana replied with a flash of amusement.
“Afraid so.“ Colby rolled onto his back and cradled his head on his folded arms.
“Well, that makes sense,“ Diana said calmly. “That was always the most interesting kind of boy, naturally. I always wanted to meet one.“
Colby blinked lazily. “But you never did?“
“Unfortunately, no. I was never the type boys like that found fascinating. I wasn’t very pretty for one thing, and I was much too serious for another. From my first day in school, I knew I had to make something of myself. I always had my head in a book. By the time I was out of high school, I was on the fast track to college and a career.“
“And the kind of boy who swiped hubcaps, drove too fast and wore his hair too long wasn’t interesting any more, was he? That kind of guy wouldn’t have had any place in your up-and-coming life-style.“
Diana refused to let him bait her. “I don’t know if he would have fit in or not. I told you, I never got a chance to meet him.“
“Be grateful. You might have wound up pregnant at eighteen, the way Cynthia Fulbrook did.“
Diana hesitated a moment, absorbing that information. “You got Margaret Fulbrook’s daughter pregnant?“