If I Had You by Deborah Bedford

Author:Deborah Bedford [BEDFORD, DEBORAH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446506816
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BEN SNUCK OUT through the back patio door. Beside the patio, there was a huge bank of laurel shrubs growing against the façade of the house. He could hear the shrub rustling as if something were hiding there. Something skittered away from his feet in the grass.

He flattened his spine against bricks that still held the heat of day, his own breath roared in his ears, and he had the odd feeling that everything about to happen in their lives was aiming at him, like a rockslide. At the corner of the house he could see the one square of light from their bedroom, sending a gold shaft onto the lawn. The sharp shadows made his weed-free Bermuda grass look like a bed of razors.

Ben inched away from the wall toward the broad cement step that aproned the spot where, in the evenings after dinner, he and Nora liked to sit out and watch the squirrels and eat bowls of Bluebell ice cream. When his Nikes sank into the turf, he felt like he had stepped away from security. He was a macho character in an action movie. Skulk around the corners. Let the barrel of the gun lead you.

The crickets hummed so hard that he could literally feel the pulse in his ears. His tongue felt coated with metal shavings. His eyes had begun to adjust to the light. As he sprang around the corner ready for a show-down, Ben saw a figure poised in the side yard, one arm raised toward the kitchen window, knees locked, both legs together, its head wearing some odd-shaped hat. “Hey! Get away from my kitchen window,” he wanted to shout. But the dry metal in his mouth wouldn’t let him.

Oh, that he could be like Nora and turn to a higher power at a time like this. What had she taught him about prayer? Ask and ye shall receive.

Well, he didn’t know if he’d call that his first prayer or not. But no sooner had he thought those words then the paper boy started up the street. When Ben had been a paper boy, he’d ridden his bike the length of ten city blocks every morning before going to school. Nowadays the paper boys’ mothers drove them while the boys reclined in comfort on the open tailgate of a Chevy Suburban. Headlights from the Suburban glanced off the figure he’d been about to tackle and Ben saw, instead of the outline of an intruder, the spindly shape of the maple he’d planted and staked up last spring. Nailed in the crook of its branches, almost too large for the fledgling tree, was the arched, head-like birdfeeder Nora had given him for his birthday last fall.

The wave of lightheaded relief hit so hard that he chuckled. So old Claude must’ve been seeing things. There can’t be anyone prowling in my yard. But before that thought was out, Ben heard a smattering of stones against the house, the sound of someone diving into the dirt for cover.

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