The Alibi

Cursing, he swerved around a motorist who was testing his patience by driving too slow. Everything was an irritant today. Since waking up this morning, he had been taking out his disappointment and frustration on inanimate objects. First on the bureau on which he had rammed his big toe as he had bolted from the bed and run into the living area of the cabin, frantically hoping to see her puttering around in the kitchen looking for a cereal bowl, or thumbing through a magazine in the living area, or sitting in the porch rocking chair watching the river flow languidly past as she sipped coffee and waited for him to wake up.

His fantasies had taken on the soft-focus glow of greeting card commercials.

But that’s all they had been—fantasies.

Because the living room and kitchen were empty, her car was gone, and the only occupant of the front porch rocking chair had been a spider busily spinning a web that spanned the seat from one armrest to the other.

Uncaring that he was bare-assed, he had brushed the spider aside and sat down in the rocker, pushing back his hair with all ten fingers, the gesture of a desperate man on the brink of losing all self-control.

What time had she left? What time was it now? How long had she been gone?

Maybe she was coming back. Maybe he was getting upset over nothing.

For half an hour, he had deluded himself into believing that she had gone in search of donuts and danish. Or cream for her coffee. Or a Sunday newspaper.

But she didn’t come back.

Eventually he had relinquished the rocking chair to the spider and went indoors. In his attempt to make coffee, he had spilled grounds on the countertop. Angry over that, he had cracked the glass carafe and wound up throwing the whole damn machine onto the floor, breaking it apart and dumping the water with which he’d filled the tank.

He had searched the cabin, looking for something she might have left behind, wishing for a business card… or, better yet, a note. He found nothing. In the bathroom, he had inspected the wastepaper basket beneath the sink, but there was nothing in it except the disposable plastic liner. When he came back up, he bumped his head on the open door of the storage cabinet. Furiously he slammed the door, but cursed with even more ferocity when he slammed it shut on his finger.

Finally, although the bed was the most poignant reminder of her, he had returned to it, flinging himself down onto it and placing his forearm across his eyes, willing himself to get it together.

What the hell was wrong with him? he had asked himself. No one who knew him would have recognized him this morning, prowling around naked and unshaven and not giving a damn, looking and behaving like a wild man, like a dangerously unbalanced lunatic. Hammond Cross, acting like a chump, like a lovesick calf. Our Hammond Cross? You gotta be kidding!

Wait a minute, did you say lovesick?

Slowly he had lowered his arm and turned his head toward her pillow. He touched it, placing his hand in the depression left by her head. Gradually he had rolled onto his side, drew the pillow against his chest, and buried his face in it, breathing deeply of her scent.

Desire engulfed him, but this wasn’t about sex.

Okay, it was, but not entirely.

This wasn’t ordinary lust. He’d experienced that lots of times. He would recognize that. This was different. Deeper. More involving. He was in the grip of a… yearning.

“Shit,” he had whispered. Would

you listen to yourself? Yearning?

Rolling onto his back again, he had gazed up at the ceiling and dismally conceded that he didn’t know the term for what he felt. It was foreign to him. He had never experienced it before, so how could he put a name to it? He only knew that it was encompassing and debilitating, that he had never felt like this before even though he had been with a lot of beautiful, captivating, sexy women.

From there his thoughts had wandered from his sexual history to hers. And that’s when he had remembered the telephone call. Frowning, he had looked at the telephone on the table across the room. When he had caught her using it, she had looked startled and guilty. Who could she have been calling?

Suddenly he had sprung off the bed. Heart racing, he bent over the telephone and ran his finger along the rubberized buttons on the panel. He wasn’t even sure that this particular model had the feature he sought, but then, yes!, there it was.

Auto Redial.

Hesitating only a second, he depressed the button. Beeping a series of tones, the telephone automatically dialed the number, which simultaneously appeared on the LED. He grabbed a pencil and the only paper within reach—last season’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. He scribbled the telephone number across the cover girl’s abdomen.

“Dr. Ladd.”

He didn’t know what he had expected, but after two rings when his call was answered by a clipped, professional, female voice, it caught him off guard.

“Pardon?”

“Were you calling Dr. Ladd?”

“Uh… I’m… I might have the wrong number.” He repeated the number he had jotted down.