“Do you have any wine?” Ryan inquired.

“Wine,” Greer echoed. She stared at him blankly until the word finally registered in her fogged brain, and then wandered toward the kitchen and crouched down by the cupboard near the stove. One Christmas, someone had given her a lovely wine rack; the lone bottle resting on its inexpensive side was dusty.

She wiped it clean, searched for a corkscrew, opened the bottle and groped for a wineglass. Her movements were mechanical, her mind functioning at half power. Fear was an intangible thing. It hit in waves, like the ebb and flow of a tide, engulfing her one minute, releasing her the next.

If only she could put a face to The Breather or understand what she could possibly have done to make anyone so obsessively harass her…but she could find nothing, no clue to help her answer that why. She was well liked, successful in her work, had family and friends who loved her. After her divorce, she’d had a rough time, but her world was secure now. Secure, stable, normal-all were qualities she valued. And every single time the phone rang, she felt as if she’d been cut loose from her moorings, as if she were floundering with nothing to hold on to. It had to stop.

Turning, she held a glass of wine out to Ryan, but found he couldn’t very well take it. Both his hands were busy filling a pan with water. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Cooking noodles for tuna casserole. You don’t mind if I putter around a little in your kitchen, do you? Since you’ve already had your dinner?”

“I…no.” Since he had half the ingredients already laid out on her counter, there seemed little else she could say. Her new neighbor had a slight tendency to mow down people in his way. Within seconds, she found herself sitting at the kitchen table with the wineglass in her hand. Rather bewildered, she sipped from it.