They’d be rescued. No doubt.
But the longer he spent with Jennifer, wouldn’t it be harder for him to let her go? He got it, why she’d wanted to become intimate with him. She’d instinctively understood it would help her combat the terrifying fear and claustrophobia she experienced in the absolute darkness. They were clearly sexually compatible, that much was a certainty. But once they were free of the cave and she was no longer living on the edge of fear, his use to her . . . her need for him, would entirely dissipate.
“John?” she asked, scattering his thoughts.
“Yes?”
“Earlier . . . when you said that thing about the man your ex-wife fell in love with, how he had a bum knee but a great set of eyes, what did you mean by that?”
“I was just sulking.”
She lifted her head from his chest.
“No, you weren’t. You don’t sulk.”
She said it with so much confidence, even sounding a little defensive at his self-criticism.
“Something happened to Adele and me about six months before our divorce. I guess you could say it was the first step leading to our breakup. Maybe not. I don’t know. It probably would have happened sooner or later, but what happened just set things in motion.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Two men broke into our town house one night. Burglars.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. We were sleeping. I would have been alerted sooner if Enzo was there, but we’d just returned from a trip to Adele’s mother’s, and she’s allergic to dogs. We got home late, and Enzo was still staying at a friend’s house. I heard the burglars and woke up, but they were already closing in on the bedroom by the time I got out of bed. I caught one of them as they entered the door. I hit him in the eye and in the midriff, and it sounded like the air had been knocked out of him. He was wheezing and gasping. Adele screamed. I grabbed for the second guy, but then there was a loud crash and the one I hadn’t hit started cursing. I found out later that Adele had woken up while the man was choking her and started to struggle. He’d used a lamp to hit her head. He’d knocked her out cold.”
“Oh my God.”
“I caught the second guy by the hair as they tried to flee, but his buddy had regained some alertness. He held a gun against Adele’s head and threatened to shoot her if I didn’t let his friend go. We found out a couple months later that I’d broken one of the ribs of the guy holding the gun. I guess he was in too much pain to really care about finishing the burglary—or Adele and me. He told his friend they were leaving.”
“Thank goodness. Was Adele hurt bad?”
“She had a concussion and some scratches. She was shaken up, more than anything.”
“That’s understandable.” For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. “So . . . how did that crime end up leading to your divorce?”
“Later, the police came to question Adele and me while she was in the hospital. They kept her there for a twenty-four-hour observation period because of her head. We described what had happened. I told them that one of the burglars had been about five foot eleven with longish hair and the other had been about six foot with a lean, wiry build. I explained that the taller guy’s left eye would be blackened. I also explained that despite their warnings, I’d followed the pair of them to the front door and heard them start up a car. The police immediately asked me for the make and model, if I’d seen license plates and stuff.”
“They didn’t realize you were blind,” Jennifer murmured. It didn’t shock her. John had an uncanny ability to fool a seeing person into thinking he saw everything they did.
“No. I told them then. But Adele had gotten really quiet as I described everything to the police. It’d been the first time she’d heard me tell the whole story. It really bothered her, even though she didn’t tell me so point-blank until a month or so later.”
“I don’t understand. What bothered her?” Jennifer asked slowly.
“That I had stood so close to the fleeing men, but couldn’t tell the police more details to help them catch them. If I’d been sighted, I could have told them the color of their hair and given descriptions of their clothing. I could have given them license plate numbers. The criminals would have been behind bars a hell of a lot quicker than they were.”
“That’s completely nonsensical,” Jennifer stated bluntly. “You gave them better descriptions than a lot of sighed people could.”
“It rattled Adele’s world, though. Made her feel less secure.”
“That wasn’t your fault. You protected her. You kept her safe from those jerks.”
“Did I?” he asked mildly.
He felt her focused attention on him in the silence that followed.
“Yes. You did,” she said staunchly.