Invasion Read Free Page A

asleep for another hour or so, I had just begun to get really serious with her when she drew back a bit and cocked her head, listening.
        I said, "What is it?"
        "Ssshh!
        When my heartbeat subsided and my breathing was somewhat less stentorian than it had been, I could hear it too: the whinnying cries of the horses "Just the nags."
        "I wonder what's wrong with them?"
        "They know that we're sitting in here getting lovey, and they're jealous. That's all it is. They think we ought to be out there grooming them."
        "I'm serious."
        I sighed. "Horses sometimes get spooked for no good reason at all." I tried to embrace her again.
        She was still intent upon listening to the horses, and she shushed me and held me off.
        I said, "I know I locked the barn doors-so it can't be that the wind is bothering them."
        "What about the heaters?"
        "They've been switched on since the last week of October," I said. "I never touch them."
        "You're certain?"
        "Of course."
        "Well… Maybe the heaters have broken down, and the barn's gotten cold."
        Reluctantly I let go of her and leaned away from her. "You want me to see about it?"
        "Would you?"
        "Right away," I said, punctuating it with a well delivered sigh of regret.
        "I'm sorry, Don," she said, her gazelle eyes wide and blue and absolutely stunning. "But I can't be happy… I can't feel romantic if those poor horses are out there freezing."
        I got up. "Neither can
        I," I admitted. Their squeals were really pitiful. "Though I'd have given it a good try."
        "I'll get your coat."
        "And my scarf and gloves and stocking cap and frostbite medicine," I said.
        She gave me one last smile to keep me warm in the snowstorm. It wasn't the sort of smile most men got from their wives: it was much too seductive for that, too smoky and sultry, not in the least bit domestic.
        Five minutes later she huddled in the unheated, glass-enclosed sun porch while I pulled on my boots and zipped them up. As I was about to leave she grabbed me by one arm and pulled me down and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
        "When I come back from psychoanalyzing the horses," I warned her, "I'm going to chase you around and around the living room sofa until I catch you."
        "In a fair race you won't catch me."
        "Then I'll cheat."
        "Toby will be waking up in half an hour or so," she said, using one slender hand to push her blond hair behind her right ear. "I'm afraid we've lost the opportunity."
        "Oh yeah?"
        She gave me a saucy look. "Yeah."
        "Well, it's about time that kid learned the facts of life anyway, don't you think?"
        "Not by watching Daddy chase Mommy around the sofa," she said.
        "Then I'll tell you what."
        She grinned.
        "What?"
        "While I'm out in the barn clubbing the horses unconscious so they can't interrupt us again, why don't you tie Toby in bed? Then, even if he woke up he couldn't interfere with us."
        "How clever."
        "Aren't I?"
        She shook her head in mock exasperation, gave me another of those dazzling smiles, and pushed me through the sun porch door and into the blinding snowfall.

----

    3.
        
        Darkness came early at that time of year, and the dense snow clouds had ushered it in half an hour ahead of schedule. I switched on the flashlight that
        I had brought with me-and mumbled some very nasty things about the manufacturer who had foisted it upon an unsuspecting public. It cut through the darkness and a thick rush of snowflakes for all of two or three feet-which was like trying to put out a raging bonfire with a child's toy water pistol. Indeed, the sight of all those wildly jiggling and twisting snowflakes in the wan orange shaft of light made me so dizzy that I turned off the torch and made my way to the