The phone shrilled. Meghan rolled over and groped for the receiver. She was being very bad. It was late afternoon and she was still in bed. Not sick, not making up for working the night shift; she was still in bed because she’d been making love with Marcus in between naps and hadn’t yet found a compelling reason to get up. She could hardly believe it. Things like this happened to other people, other women, the way suburban houses and three children did. This kind of thing never happened to her. And instead of feeling suspicious, she was feeling lucky.
She smiled as the sheet slipped to her waist and Marcus opened one eye to look at her. She lifted the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Meghan?” Danny screeched her name in her ear. “Thank god you’re okay. Listen, you’ve got to get the hell out of there — ”
“What?” Meghan sat up straighter. He sounded just like he had the night she kicked down his door and started this beautiful relationship.
“Not safe for work!” Danny shouted.
She pushed the hair out of her face and tried to concentrate. “What?”
“Not safe for work!” he repeated, exasperated, as if repetition and exasperation would serve to enlighten her, which they didn’t.
“Danny, if this is your idea of a joke — ”
She head Danny inhale a bushel of air, presumably to help him contain his impatience. “I just figured it out. Look, a buddy of mine, works for Kozlova Group, I had him noodle around a little, asking about Marcus.”
Shit. Now Marcus was sitting up in bed, too, and coming in to drop a kiss on her bare shoulder. She didn’t want to be talking to Danny right now. She wanted to be living her fantasy life. How many chances was she going to get? She had never been lucky before —
“And I finally figured it out,” Danny was ranting. “Ricardo was telling me it’s not safe for him to ask about Marcus at work.”
“Slow down, Danny,” Meghan said, pressing the phone tight against her ear. If Marcus overheard that she was having him investigated, her fantasy life would evaporate and her nights would revert to normal: A good imagination and a few battery-operated implements. She didn’t want that to happen no matter what Danny thought he knew. “Take it from the top.”
“I can’t!” he shrieked. “No time! I’m getting the hell out and you should, too.”
And he thought she was nuts.
“Listen,” Meghan said firmly. “No one does paranoia like me. And I’m telling you, you’re acting crazy. Cool down. Go stay with one of your buddies or something. I agree you need to get out and be among lights and people because you are losing your marbles.”
“He’s with you, isn’t he?” Danny said abruptly, his voice suddenly going calm in a way that was worse than him shrieking at her. “For god’s sake, Meghan, be careful.” Then he was gone, leaving a buzzing in her ear.
Meghan slowly replaced the receiver. Danny tended toward being gun shy, which instinctual habit, she acknowledged, she’d reinforced to by kicking in his door. But she hadn’t ever heard him quite this panicky and incoherent. It was because of having to deal with people and not computers. Danny found people distressingly unpredictable. Not that he was Mr. Stable himself. But he understood computers in a way he would never get people, mostly because he expected people to act in a rational manner. This was not a failing she shared.
She turned away from the phone, met Marcus’s blue gaze. She could get out of bed and go hunt Danny down and shake some sense into him or she could give him until tomorrow to calm down, then find him and see what was what.
“I’m starving,” she said to Marcus, and he answered with a mock sigh, “I suppose you mean that literally,” and she wondered if there was such a thing as being too happy.