Page 9 of The House on Forgotten Hill

Shocked, I lowered the binoculars.

Then curiosity got the better of me, and I raised them again.

A man sat on the edge of the bed reading a hardcover book. He appeared to be somewhere in his fifties, with dark hair beginning to gray at the temples. Even from this distance, I could see he was more handsome than most.

A moment later, the bedroom door opened, and a woman about half his age stepped inside wearing a silk robe. She slipped it from her shoulders, revealing the lingerie beneath, before climbing into bed beside him.

He smiled, set his book aside, and leaned over to kiss her.

Heat rushed into my cheeks, and I lowered the binoculars, almost dropping them in the process, and I decided looking through them in my father’s office needed to end.

Over the next couple of weeks, most of the boxes had been unpacked, the house was almost in order, and my days soon settled into a routine. Coffee in the morning, followed by renovations around the house. Then I’d search through another box or two before making myself something for dinner. Afterward, I’d curl up in bed with a good book or find something to watch on television.

Every once in a while, I’d pick up my father’s binoculars, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

I wasn’t even sure why I did it.

The man next door had become part of my routine almost by accident. Some evenings he’d be reading. Other nights he’d be watching television. Most nights, however, he had company. It was always a woman, and never the same one twice.

Before long, I found myself inventing stories about him. I guessed he was divorced, or perhaps widowed, and worked somewhere that made meeting women easy.

One evening about two weeks after I’d found my father’s binoculars, I lifted them to my eyes, and as I stared through them, I gasped.

Tonight, the man wasn’t reading.

He wasn't watching television.

He wasn’t entertaining company.

He was standing behind his bedroom window, his arms folded across his chest. He wasn’t looking out at the neighborhood. He was looking straight at me.

For one impossible second, I couldn’t move.

Then realization struck.

Somehow, he knew I’d been watching him.

6

Five minutes later, there was a knock at the front door, and I knew it was the man from next door. I hurried to my bedroom, grabbed a robe from the closet and slipped it on, my fingers trembling as I tied the belt.

I made my way downstairs, and when I got to the door, I stopped, too nervous to open it. Then a thought occurred to me. Maybe if I didn’t answer it, he’d go away.

He knocked again, a lot louder this time.

Then he said, “Are you going to open the door? I know you’re in there.”

I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.

Up close, the man was even more attractive than he had appeared through the binoculars, but there was something unsettling about the amusement in his blue eyes, as though he knew something I didn’t.

In his hand was a bottle of gin with a blue ribbon tied around the neck.

He smiled as he handed it to me. “I thought I’d bring you a housewarming gift. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

Without thinking, I accepted it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”