5
Garreth had intended just to pick up the key, but Helen Schoning insisted on coming out with him. She raised one of the garage doors. "This is your side. If you want to work on your car, feel free to use my tools. Just ask first and put them back afterward."
He stared around the garage. She looked as though she could open her own auto repair shop. "You use these?"
She smiled and went over to stroke the fender of the car in the other half of the garage. "Someone has to keep this running."
He felt his jaw drop. It was a gleaming old Rolls Royce.
"My father bought it in 1955 when his first wells came in. He was so proud of it. It was the only car like it in Bellamy County. Still is." She paused, chin down, looking at him through her lashes. "Mr. Mikaelian, I do have one favor to ask. If you should come home some night and find a car in your side, will you please park in the drive behind my side so the other car can get out? And say nothing about it to anyone?"
He felt himself staring again and closed his mouth with a snap. "No problem."
She smiled. "I hoped you'd understand. I enjoy my solitude—which is not the same as loneliness despite what most people around here think—and am single by choice, but I also like companionship from time to time. Discretely, of course. This is a small town and some of my friends are married."
Garreth regarded her with amazement. She was not what he would have expected to find here. "You don't miss the stability of a long-term relationship?"
She laughed. "What stability? Nothing ever stays the same. People, either. Each of my relationships has suited my needs at the time. What more can I ask? Good night."
Moving in did not take long, just luggage and his pallet. Then he sat back in the deep leather chair and sighed happily. Privacy. Better than that, a refrigerator. He would take his thermos with him on the run tonight and fill it.
Helen had made up the couch. Laid under the bottom sheet, the pallet would fold conveniently, safely out of sight with the bed.
All that remained was to buy some health foods, even if he had to go to Bellamy or Hays for them . . . stage dressing so his cupboard would not look as oddly empty as Lane's. Then like a spider in the center of his web, he would sit and wait for his red-haired vampire fly to appear.