Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

Jenna let his words sink in and realized he was right, just as Adam had been right. Shaky, she laid her cheek against Seth's knee. And made herself allow him to care about her. Made herself allow him to share what she was feeling. "I was so scared, Dad. I thought he would kill me."

He stroked her hair and said nothing.

"He put the knife to my throat. He tried to cut me open, but I got away and he cut the mattress instead. Jean-Luc bit him and he ran. And knocked Evelyn down on his way out."

His hand on her head trembled, then resumed stroking. "Jenna, you're coming home with me."

Jenna looked up, not sure how he'd take her next words. "I stayed with Steven last night. He wants me to stay with him."

Seth studied her for a long moment. "He cares for you?"

She remembered the way Steven had held her the night before. Like rare china. "Yes."

Seth's eyes narrowed. "And he has a spare bedroom?"

Jenna felt her cheeks heat. "Dad!"

"Well, does he?"

Jenna nodded. "Yes." Then smiled. "And an aunt who doesn't make meat loaf on Wednesdays."

Seth smiled at her and she knew she was forgiven. "Can I come, too?"

Tuesday, October 11, 1:00 A.M.

Jenna couldn't sleep. Part of it was her whacked-out sleep cycle. Part of it was knowing it was exactly this time the night before that she'd awakened with a knife at her throat and that the police had no suspects because Victor Lutz had an alibi. And certainly part of it was knowing Steven was sleeping in the next room. She told herself most of it was knowing Steven was sleeping in the next room and not an unreasonable twenty-four-hour anniversary fear.

She considered calling the twenty-four-hour emergency veterinary clinic that still had Jim and Jean-Luc, but figured their conditions hadn't changed in the last hour. Jim was improving but Jean-Luc still clung to life. Even though Kent's friend Wendy had done a superb job, Jean-Luc's stab wounds were deep and vicious. Knowing he'd taken them for her still made her ill.

"Both dogs were poisoned with strychnine," Wendy had told her and Steven earlier this evening when she and Kent had dropped by to give them an update. "Probably introduced to their system through the steak I found when I pumped their stomachs."

"So my intruder was very well prepared indeed," Jenna had remarked, feeling her skin grow cold. He'd brought his own lamp, his own plastic case. Poison for her dogs. Knives.

"Except," Wendy had returned, "neither dog had enough poison in his system to kill him outright, so he wasn't prepared all that well." Then she'd said Jenna could call the clinic anytime.

And Jenna had, but it didn't make sense to do it again so soon. She imagined the clinic staff did have other things to do besides calming her irrational nighttime fears.

So she pulled on her robe and set out for a snack, wishing she'd had the presence of mind to stop for Rocky Road on her way home, when a noise from Nicky's room caught her attention. Peeking in, she discovered him sitting in his sleeping bag on the floor, reading a comic book.

"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" she whispered.

"Aren't you?" he whispered back.

Touche, little man , Jenna thought with a smile. "Can I come in?"

He shrugged and put the book aside. "Okay."

She settled herself cross-legged on the floor next to his sleeping bag. "Is the book any good?"

"It's okay."

She wondered how many nights he sat and read when he should have been sleeping. "I can't sleep," she confided in a low voice. "Any ideas on how I can fall asleep?"

"Aunt Helen says warm milk."

Jenna grimaced. "Sorry, but that sounds gross."

"It is. Matt says he counts ewes."

Jenna frowned. "U's? How would counting letters help?"

"No, ewes. Brad said he counted sheep , Matt said he counted ewes . They're girl sheep."

Jenna nodded, pursing her lips. "Oh."

"It meant something about sex because Brad smacked Matt upside the head when he said it."

Jenna coughed. "Excuse me?"

Nicky narrowed his eyes. "You know. Sex. You've got to know about sex."

Jenna swallowed hard. "I've heard of it, yes. I'm just surprised you have."

"Well, I am seven," he said.

"Okay." Wildly Jenna searched for something else to say. "Okay. So how often do you sit here reading-" She picked up the book he'd set aside. " The Adventures of Captain Underpants ?"

" 'Bout every night."

She set down the book in surprise. "Every night? Why, Nicky?"

He looked at her severely. "Because I can't sleep either. Not since the incident." Then his expression softened. "I heard Daddy and Aunt Helen talking about your incident. Don't worry," he said, patting her hand. "You'll get used to it."

Jenna blinked, not knowing how to respond to his matter-of-fact reference to his abduction. Her fingers moved to the bandage at her neck. "But I don't want to get used to it. I like to sleep."

"Then I'd try counting ewes," he said wisely.

Or perhaps sex , Jenna thought, bnt decided she'd keep that to herself. "Well, when I was a little girl and couldn't sleep my dad and I would play a game."

He looked interested. "Soccer?"

Jenna chuckled, just thinking of what her mother would have said if she and her father had played soccer in the house. In the middle of the night, no less. "No, it was a storytelling game. Dad would start the story, then I'd tell a little, then he'd tell a little, until it was done."

"Which story?"

"We'd make it up. You want to give it a try?"

He shrugged. "Sure, why not."

Jenna smiled at him. "You're funny, Nicky."

He perked up at that. "Really? Everybody always says Matt's funny, but never me."

"Well you are. Why don't we make up a funny story? I'll start. Once upon a time a man lived in a town called Walla

Walla, Washington." She leaned close to him. "That's a real place you know."

Nicky shook his head. "No, it's not."

"Is." She looked at him, suddenly inspired. "How much do you want to bet?"

"I can't bet. I don't have any money."

"Who said anything about money? Tomorrow, we'll look it up on-line. If I'm right-and I will be-you lie down in your bed tomorrow night. If I'm wrong, I'll sleep on the floor with you."

He considered it. "It's fair," he decided. "So the man had a llama. That's got two l 's, y'know."

"I know. One day his llama got sick and had to go to the doctor."

"And the doctor said he'd swallowed an alarm clock," Nicky said, snuggling into his pillow.

"Which made an awful racket every day at noon. The llama wasn't welcome anywhere…"

Ten minutes later Nicky had reduced the llama to selling kisses at the circus. And he was sound asleep. Rousing herself she left Nicky's room only to run into Steven's hard chest.

She swallowed. His hard, naked, hairy, naked, golden chest. "He's asleep," she whispered.

"So I see." His eyes twinkled and crinkled at the corners and she wanted to grab him and wrestle him to the carpet and have her way with him. "Kissing llamas, huh?"

She shrugged. "He's your kid." Then she frowned. "Your son knows about sex."

Steven grinned. "Well, he is seven."

She propped her fists on her hips. "Just how long were you standing there?"

"From the minute I heard you leave your room. I haven't slept a wink all night knowing you were in there asleep and not being able to touch you." He leaned closer until his forehead rested against hers. "I've heard of sex, too."

She had to bite her lips to keep from smiling. "Well, you are-how old are you, anyway?"

"Thirty-six." He tugged on her hand. "Old enough to know about sex, and how to do it, too."

Jenna was laughing softly as he closed his bedroom door behind them. "You don't say."