“You’ve been standing there all night, haven’t you?”

“No.”

Yeah, right.

“I slept on the couch for a while,” he admitted. “I’m awake a lot during the nights out here. Actually back home, too.”

“Why?”

He paused before answering. “I don’t need much sleep. Never have.”

His head moved slightly and the moonlight illuminated two of the scars on his neck. Gianna focused on the scars, wondering about his past, and decided not to ask more questions. If he wanted to play vampire, she wasn’t going to stop him.

“Did you need something?” he asked.

“Just water. Unless you have something stronger.”

A wisp of a smile crossed his face as he lit a lamp. “Sorry. Water it is.” He drew the curtains.

The gas lamp would reveal us to anyone outside.

He poured some water from a refrigerated filtered pitcher, and she sat on the stool where she’d perched to eat her sandwich the previous day. Is he always extra cautious or just tonight?

“Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep after a particularly rough day at work,” she said to fill the silence. “I get images in my brain and can’t let them go. I’m better about it now.”

“Do you like your work?” Chris asked, pouring his own glass of water.

“I love it. I’m nosy and curious and it’s fascinating to see how actions during our lives are reflected in the cells and tissues after death.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, a simple example is a chronic alcoholic. When I cut them open, I might find a liver that is almost crunchy, not spongy and flexible, and even after death their bodies still exude a sweetish alcohol smell. Or what about a smoker? Most people know smokers’ lungs are hardened black lobes, right?”

He swallowed hard.

“What do you do?” She politely changed the subject.

“I write software and manage IT for a few small companies. I can do it from anywhere. I just need a computer and the Internet.”

“Then you’re obviously not working while you’re up here.”

“It’s good for me to break away. Back home I’ll automatically reach for my laptop even when I don’t have work to do. Being disconnected forces my brain to do other things. Or simply be bored. We’re raising a generation of kids that doesn’t realize it’s okay to be bored. They constantly crave stimulation. They’re addicted.”

Gianna agreed. Violet had been annoyingly vocal about the lack of Internet at the cabin and constantly played the games she’d downloaded to her phone.

“Sometimes it’s good to simply listen to the silence,” Chris added. He ducked his head a bit, and she wondered if he’d revealed more than he’d meant to about himself.

“How much school did you attend to become a forensic pathologist?” he asked. He sipped his water and leaned against the counter in the small kitchen area. His constant awareness had mellowed, and Gianna wondered if it was because she’d provided a distraction.

“Four years of college, four years of medical, four years of a pathology residency,” she stated. “Then I spent two years training in New York in death investigation and autopsy pathology. During my residency I studied what every single cell and tissue in the body looks like. I also learned what they look like when things go wrong. I could have gone and worked in a nice quiet lab after that, staring in a microscope all day long, but that sounded a bit dull.”

“You didn’t want to be a regular doctor?”

Gianna grinned at the common question. What is a regular doctor? “I’ve found I prefer patients who can’t complain, and I like knowing that I can’t make them more sick by working on them.”

It took a split second for her old joke to sink in, and then Chris gave the first full smile she’d seen from him. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, she abruptly realized. He simply had a way of not calling attention to any part of himself.

He wasn’t shy; he was reserved, she’d learned. He had plenty of self-confidence but didn’t flaunt it. He’d been comfortable with her daughter. Some people didn’t know how to talk to teens, but Chris seemed a natural at it. He’d known exactly what to say to Violet to alleviate her fears.

Impressive for a man who claimed to avoid people.

“You studied computer programming?” she asked.

“No. I have a history degree, but I’m self-taught when it comes to computers. Everything I’ve learned came from books or online or from my own discovery when I’d stumbled into solutions while struggling with a coding problem.”

“You like it?”

“Love it.”

She nodded. She loved what she did, too. It was a hell of a path to travel to get to her position, and there’d been times when she’d nearly given up . . . usually when infant Violet had been up all night or Gianna realized she’d missed another school recital. She said a quick prayer for her passed mother-in-law. She never would have succeeded without her help with Violet. They’d been a household of three since Violet was one.

“Can you imagine doing anything else?” she asked.

“Never.”

“I feel the same way. I swear I learn something new every day, and I get to solve problems. I find that very satisfying.”

“I could say the same thing.” He took a close look at her. “Are all your drugged-feeling symptoms gone?”