Alternate Worlds: The Fallen by Kaitlyn O'Connor

trailer without emptying it,
I rushed back into town to take care of that and beg them to send
someone out so I wouldn’t have to sit in the dark. The woman
promised to try, but she didn’t look very hopeful of actually
managing it. Since I didn’t think she’d manage it either, I stopped
by the supermarket and bought bottled water and candles.
    I was sitting at the kitchen table like
someone about to perform a séance when the lights abruptly came on.
I leapt up from the table with an Indian war whoop and did a little
dance around the kitchen table.
    When I’d made the circuit, I came face to
face with a grinning face at the kitchen door. My heart nearly
stopped.
    “Everything working now?”
    I turned red as a beet. Moving to the door,
I snatched it open and stared at the utility man, trying not to
think about the hopeful jerk my heart had given when I saw a male
face in the glass. “I was afraid I’d have to spend my first night
here in the dark.”
    “Mildred told me you were going to be out
here alone in the dark if I didn’t come. I couldn’t have that. You
want to check the tap and make sure the pump’s on?”
    “Oh. Good idea!” I moved to the sink and
checked. “Yahoo! That’s working too! I don’t know how to thank you
enough for coming out so late.”
    He grinned at me. “You can let me take you
out sometime.”
    I stared at him blankly, abruptly
uncomfortable. Get back up on that horse, girl! I chided myself.
The sooner the better. He’s cute. He’s got charm. “Maybe when I’m
settled in?”
    When he’d left, my shoulders slumped with
relief, and then I kicked myself. A hair of the dog, Nicole!
    But I didn’t want a hair of the damned dog!
I wanted Gideon.
    I wasn’t going to think about that, though.
I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to look back.
    Settling in took so much work that time flew
for me. I didn’t have much to move in, but there was a hell of a
lot of stuff to wade through and move out. My mother, apparently,
had never thrown anything away—so much for thinking she wasn’t
already dotty before she left the farm. I found boxes filled with
nothing but used wrapping paper and bows, stacks of newspapers,
magazines dating back to forever.
    I’d hired workers to take care of the
repairs I didn’t feel competent to handle, but there were a lot of
‘small’ things I had to take care of myself. Before I knew it a
week had passed.
    Half way through my second week in my new
home I heard a knock at the front door. Startled, I backed down the
ladder I was working on and stepped in the tray of paint I’d left
at the bottom. “Shit! Damn it to hell! I’m coming! Give me a
minute.” I yelled the last in the direction of the front door. “Or
maybe a half hour,” I muttered to myself.
    Slipping my shoe off, I hopped on one foot
to the bathroom and shoved my foot into the tub. The shower came on
instead of the tub spout, thoroughly drenching me. Fuming, I
finished rinsing the paint off my leg and grabbed a towel, drying
off as I hobbled through the house with one shoe on and one
off.
    When I’d snatched the door open, I simply
stared blankly at the man standing there, trying to get my mind
around the strangeness of seeing him dressed like an ordinary human
being.
    He stared back at me, his gaze traveling
slowly down my paint and water spattered form before it returned to
my face.
    “I thought you’d gone home,” I managed
finally, still too stunned to allow myself to believe he was more
than a mirage brought on by my desperate yearning for him.
    Something flickered in his eyes—uncertainty,
but then he set his jaw with determination. “I could not. I missed
you.”
    My chin wobbled. I knew any minute I was
going to do something completely stupid—start blubbering like a
baby and make a fool out of myself besides scaring him off. I
didn’t want to do that—desperately. I wanted to feast my eyes on
him. I wanted to fling my arms around him and never let go. I
would’ve