Carolyn McSparren - Over His Head

“Damn! I’ll bet he’s gone back home.” She raced down the steps, taking care to slam the door behind her so that Otto and Poddy couldn’t wander. The asphalt of the lane already felt hot on the soles of her bare feet, but she ignored it, hopping a couple of times when she stepped on pebbles, as she ran across Tim’s lawn to his back door.

She nudged the pet door with her toe. It moved, so he hadn’t locked it, although she didn’t think the Wainwrights had a pet. She bent down, swung it open and tried to see into the kitchen. Next, she tried the back door. Locked.

Most of the people in Williamston left their doors open when they were home.

She peered through the window in the door, shading her eyes to see into the gloom. No sign of Lancelot. He must be inside somewhere. He’d probably scare those children into catatonia.

She raced around to the front of the house, tiptoed onto the front porch and tried to see into the room the Halliburtons had used for their master bedroom. The curtains were drawn. She could see only a sliver of a foot of the bed.

Okay, Okay, she thought, what do I do? Bang on the door, ring the doorbell, wake those city folks up at five on a Saturday morning to tell them they have an intruder? Somehow she didn’t think they’d be pleased. Besides, Lancelot was her responsibility, and this was her fault.

Only one thing to do.

She went to the back porch again. “Please, Helen,” she prayed. “Please have left the spare key over the door.” She stood on tiptoe and felt around. Her index finger touched something metallic.

She dislodged it, saw the key fall, made a grab for it in midair and missed.

It clinked on the porch steps. She dived after it and caught it before it could clink again. Now on her hands and knees bent over the step, she wondered whether she’d actually have the nerve to use it.

She and the Halliburtons had looked after each other’s property a million times. They knew where she hid her spare key, and where the spare keys to her storage shed and car were kept in the kitchen. She’d watered Helen’s house plants when they were out of town, and taken in their mail and newspapers. Helen and Bill had fed the cats when she was gone.

But this wasn’t Helen and Bill. New owners often changed locks. Maybe the key wouldn’t even fit.

Tentatively she slid the key into the lock. It went in. She began to twist it slowly. It turned. The lock clicked.

Now what? Barge in, call out, “Yoo-hoo, it’s Nancy!” and assume Tim hadn’t had time to get a handgun permit yet? Technically she wasn’t breaking in, but she was definitely entering.

She took a deep breath, put her hand along the jamb to keep the door from squeaking, opened it and stepped into the kitchen.

The refrigerator door stood ajar. On the floor in front of it was a bottle of Perrier. Intact, thank the Lord. So far as she knew, Lancelot had not yet learned to open screw caps. She put the sparkling water back. The refrigerator was empty except for several more bottles of Perrier and a couple of big bottles of soda—also screw-on tops. Lancelot must have been extremely disappointed. He could open any pop-top can he could reach.

She closed the refrigerator softly and looked around for evidence of destruction.

The kitchen looked clean. Cluttered, of course. At least a dozen cardboard boxes sat on the counters waiting to be unpacked, but Lancelot hadn’t been able to reach high enough to pull any of them off in his lifelong quest for treats.

She stood in the archway leading to the living room and listened. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, then she heard a soft snore from across the living room and down the hall. Tim must be sleeping in the Halliburtons’ master bedroom. She prayed Lancelot had gone in there and not up the stairs to join one of the children.

Slipping silently across the wood floor, she edged around the boxes and furniture in the living room and started down the hall. The door at the end was open and the snoring was louder now.

Five feet from that door she saw the figure in the bed. Wainwright.

He was not alone.

Beside him, spooned against his belly, head on a pillow, lay Lancelot.

He was the one snoring.

Wainwright lay under a single sheet, his naked shoulders exposed, his arm thrown casually across Lancelot’s back. He was breathing evenly.

She got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the room.

“Lancelot,” she whispered. “Get down here.”

No response. She crawled closer. “Lancelot!” It was hard to whisper with menace, but she tried. “Get down here this instant.”

Lancelot raised his head and stared at her unperturbed.

“Now!”

“Wha…?”

She froze. Please, God, don’t let him wake up.

Tim sighed.

She shut her eyes and began to back out on her hands and knees.

“What the hell!”

He sat straight up in bed. No pajama top. No pajama bottoms, either. Apparently, he saw her on her hands and knees two feet inside his bedroom at the same time he registered that his bed buddy was not the houri he’d no doubt been dreaming about.

He didn’t exactly shriek. The sound was too deep and male for that. He gave a sort of combined gurgle and yelp and lunged sideways off the bed.

His feet hit the floor. He grabbed the sheet and held it waist-high in front of him, but not before she had a glimpse of a well-muscled hairy stomach.

For a moment he simply gaped at her.

“Hi,” she said, and wiggled her fingers at him.

Lancelot, thoroughly awake now and aware that he was sleeping with a stranger, squealed, fell onto the floor and tried to wedge himself under the bed. Since the bed was low and modern, he only made it as far as his snout.

“That is a pig,” Tim said, pointing to the bristly butt sticking up on the far side of the bed. He sounded very, very calm.

“Uh-huh.” Nancy sat back on her heels. She held up Lancelot’s harness and leash.

“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation why he was sharing my bed. Is it a he?”

She nodded. “His name is Lancelot.”

“And an equally simple explanation why you’re crouching at the foot of my bed at dawn.”

She nodded. “I was after Lancelot.”

“I see. Apart from the obvious question of how he wound up in my bed, it occurs to me to wonder if you’ve ever heard the term ‘doorbell.’”

Oh, boy. This guy was a good deal more annoying when he was in the right. She pushed herself up to a standing position and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Isn’t that kind of you.”

“Well, you’re the one who left the pet flap unlocked.”

“My mistake. I should have realized I’d wind up in bed with a pig. Sorry.”

“Listen, you. It could have been a possum or a raccoon or God forbid a skunk. Not to mention a copperhead or a water moccasin.”

“I’m curious. Did you also crawl in the dog door? Frankly you don’t look as though you’d fit.” He ran his gaze from her head to her toes.

She wished she’d taken the time to put on her sneakers, let alone a bra and underpants. She felt her face flame. She knew damned well her nipples were standing out to here, and her shorts not only bared her navel, but covered precious little below it.

“No, I did not crawl in the pet door,” she said with hauteur. “I used the spare key over the back door.”

“Ah. The spare key over the back door. My, I wish someone had mentioned that to me.”

“Here it is,” she said and tossed it onto the rumpled bed.

“Thank you.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll put Lancelot’s harness on and take him home.”

He waved a hand, nearly dropped the sheet and clutched it in front of him again. At that moment, she realized he was standing in front of a full-length mirror that had been propped against the wall beside the bed. The sheet might be concealing the family jewels, but she was learning a good deal more about Mr. Wainwright’s backside than she had thought she ever would. It was an extremely nice backside. Better than nice. Great. She felt her temperature rising just looking at him. If only he knew.