Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Rowan carried her coffee cup out the front door, yawning and shivering in the early-morning chill. The paper lay out in the driveway, and she scooped it up, digging her toes through her pink fuzzy slippers into the concrete. Another yawn overcame her as she turned to go back to the house.
The sun was up, making her squint as she glanced over the yard.
Frost edged the grass, and her roses were bare and leafless.
She finished yawning, contemplating her front yard, and started up the driveway again.
She stopped halfway to the house, something nagging at her.
Some instinct warning her, but that was silly. Keep your head out of the clouds, Ro.
The sense of being watched returned as she put her slippered foot on the first porch step. She stopped and looked over her shoulder, scanning the street.
Nobody there.
I’m probably just nervous from last night.
She shook her head, taking a sip of coffee.
It was too cold to stand out in her front yard woolgathering.
Her breath plumed in the air while she made her way back up the porch steps and into the house.
The Major had raked all the leaves into piles, preparing to get them into the compost heap.
The sight of the bare, leafless trees made her feel a little sad. But that was silly too.
“Paper, Dad,” she said, coming into the kitchen and dropping a kiss atop her father’s steel gray head.
He growled, and she set the paper in front of him and poured him a cup of coffee, adding a little milk.
I drank so much black coffee it hurts m’gut, he said sometimes, shaking his head.
But I can’t give it up, so I cut it with a little milk. Sissy.
And Rowan would always laugh. Not a sissy, Daddy. Just a softie.
By long agreement, neither spoke again until they had both finished a cup of coffee.
The Major read the business section while Rowan read the comics.
Then she got up and scrambled some eggs, made his toast the way he liked it—almost burned—and poured him a glass of orange juice.
When that was done, she made her own toast—barely browned—poured more coffee, and settled down at the kitchen table with her well-thumbed Compleat Shakespeare while her father digested the rest of the paper, spreading it across the butcher-block table with complete abandon.
It was the only messiness he allowed himself.
She was deep in the wilds of Othello when the sense of being watched returned, making her shiver. She hurriedly took a sip of coffee to cover it, but her father’s green eyes came up over the rim of the International section of the paper and fastened on her. “Rowan?”
She waved a hand at him. “Nothing, Daddy.”
He folded the paper and set it aside. “You look pale, sweetheart. Is it one of your feelings?”
Rowan felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Dad.” Her tone was firm. “You know I don’t believe in that junk.” Or I only wish I didn’t.
“Well, is it?”
“I just feel like I’m being watched, that’s all,” she admitted, setting her coffee cup down and scratching at her neck. Her conscience pricked her. Why hadn’t she told her father about the Taylor house last night?
Because I don’t want to worry him, she told herself firmly. It was nothing, just some college kids doing a stunt.
Something nagged at her, though. Some uneasy feeling. Rowan finally sighed and met her father’s gaze squarely. “I’m uneasy. I don’t know, Dad.”
“Well, pay attention to that feeling.” He returned to his paper. “More there than you know, princess.”
Rowan suppressed a sigh. For a former Marine and such a precise man, her father was certainly in love with woo-woo.
He read all sorts of books on psychic phenomena, listened to radio shows about the unknown and subscribed to magazines about New Age stuff.
Rowan felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Well, he’s earned a little eccentricity, hasn’t he?
And ever since Mom died, he’s been getting more and more into this stuff.
I think it’s comforting for him. Probably harmless, too.
She took another drink of coffee. It’s nothing, Rowan.
Just ignore it. You don’t need a bunch of weirdness messing up your life.
She settled back into Shakespeare’s comforting rhythms, trying to ignore the persistent feeling of being tickled right on her nape. Eventually it would go away.
It always did.