Matt watched her slim hands nervously twisting the hem of her T-shirt. Great, he thought, good going, Hallahan. He had made her feel bad. "Look, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. My childhood left something to be desired, but it's behind me."

"I didn't mean to pry."

He took her in his arms and held her close, pressing a kiss into the curls at the top of her head. "It's okay if you pry. You're allowed. When you grow up in a family of seven kids you get used to people prying. Privacy was an unknown quantity in my life."

"Wouldn't that make you want to guard it all the more?"

Matt's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "No. Mostly what I guarded was my underwear. I had four brothers who all wore the same size."

"I guess that pretty much puts things in perspective," Lizabeth said. "It always helps to have your priorities straight."

"You have any brothers or sisters?"

She shook her head. "No. I was the pampered, overprotected only child."

Matt squatted while he opened a box of shingles. "These aren't going to match exactly, but at least they'll keep the rain out." He looked up at her, his lopsided grin giving his features a rakish quality. "Did you wear pretty dresses and bows in your hair and white socks with lace on the cuff?"

Lizabeth laughed. "Yes, but the effect was usually marred by skinned knees, unruly hair, and grass stains on my skirt. I was a completely unmanageable child. One time I tied a tablecloth around my shoulders and jumped out of a tree Superman style and broke my leg."

"But mostly you wanted to be a fairy."

She was surprised he had remembered. "Yes. Fairies were my favorites. A fairy isn't afraid of anything," Lizabeth said. "A fairy just grabs life by the throat."

"That's not what I heard. I heard fairies were outrageously promiscuous. I heard they grabbed life about two and a half feet lower."

"Hmmmm. Well, I suppose there are all kinds of fairies, just as there are all kinds of carpenters. Some are undoubtedly more sexually oriented than others."

Five

Lizabeth snatched her clock in the darkened room and held the luminous dial close to her face. One-thirty. And Elsie was still sitting in the rocking chair by the window. "Aunt Elsie," Lizabeth said. "If you're that desperate to see a naked man I'll rent you one. I swear, if you'll just go to bed I'll thumb through the yellow pages first thing in the morning. I might even be able to find one that dances or does aerobics."

Elsie rocked with her feet flat and her knees spread. She got a good push off that way. "You know what's wrong with these damn perverts?" she said. "You can't count on them. No consideration for other people." She rocked forward in front of the sheer white curtains and back into the black shadows. She rocked steady as a metronome. "Grrrch," the chair went back. "Slap," her feet hit the floor coming forward. "Grrrch," "slap," "grrrch," "slap," "grrrch," "slap."

Lizabeth buried her face in the pillow and groaned. She had to go to work tomorrow. She needed sleep. She needed peace and quiet. She wasn't used to old ladies rocking the night away in a corner of her room. "He's flashed for two nights now," Lizabeth said. "Maybe he's tired. Maybe he's taking a night off."

"Damn pervert," Elsie said. "He should be locked up. He should be ashamed of himself for going around terrorizing defenseless women."

"You don't seem very terrorized," Lizabeth observed.

"Yeah, but I'm a Hawkins. You know us Hawkinses are tougher than most. It takes more than a naked man to terrorize a Hawkins."

A stone pinged at the window and Elsie stopped rocking. There was silence in the room while both women held their breath, waiting for another stone to hit. Lizabeth crept from her bed and pulled the curtain aside. A spot of light slid across the window, briefly illuminating Lizabeth. There was darkness for a moment, and then the flasher turned the light on himself.

Elsie let out a small gasp. "Well, will you look at that!" she whispered. "The man's standing there just as bold as could be in his birthday suit!" Her eyes narrowed. "The nerve of that man! Don't this beat all." She moved a fraction of an inch closer to the window. "Is that all he does? He just stands there?"

"Yup."

"Don't it get boring?"

"Yup."

Elsie watched him for a moment longer. "I suppose it's a good thing he's not dangerous. If he were dangerous I'd feel like I had to get my forty-five and blast him one."

"Don't even think about it. Nobody's getting blasted from my window."

"Nothing to worry about. I don't shoot to kill. I always aim for the privates. Nothing a pervert hates more than to get shot in the privates."

"Yeah," Lizabeth said, trying not to smile. "That'd put a crimp in his style."

Elsie mournfully shook her head. "I'm a pretty good shot, but I'd have a hard time with this guy-he hasn't got much of a target. No wonder the poor man wears a bag over his head." She looked hopefully at her niece. "Don't it ever get more exciting?"

"Not so far."

"Well," Elsie said, "thank heaven for small favors." She grasped the screen and slid it up into the top half of the window so she could lean out. "Hey, you damn pervert," she yelled at the man. "You should be ashamed of yourself, going around showing everybody your business. Haven't you got anything better to do than to stand there looking like a damn fool?"

There was an audible gasp of breath from the flasher, the light blinked out, and the man ran off, crashing through the juniper and azalea bushes that bordered the backyard.

"Ow," Elsie said, "that's gotta smart."

"I should never have told you," Lizabeth shouted after Matt. "You're making a mountain out of a molehill."

Matt looped a length of electrical cable over his shoulder. "That's what Elsie said. But I don't care what body proportions this flasher has, I don't want him coming near you." He handed a two-hundred-watt floodlight to his electrician and pointed to the large oak at the rear of Lizabeth's property. "I want a flood installed there and the cable run underground. I want one at either end of the house…"

"This is my house," Lizabeth said, running to keep up with Matt. "You can't just come into my yard and take over. You can't tell me what to do with my house."

"When's your birthday?"

"November third."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her to him. He kissed her long and hard and released her. "Happy birthday," he said. "It wouldn't be polite to refuse a birthday present, would it?"

"I don't like being bullied."

"You're not being bullied," Matt said. "You're being protected. And if this doesn't scare him off, I'm moving in."

Lizabeth stuffed her fists onto her hips and glared at him. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Matt handed the cable to the electrician. "I want a switch installed in her bedroom and in the kitchen." He looked down at Lizabeth and grinned. "Damned if you aren't cute when you get all riled up like this."

"And another thing: You kept calling me 'honey' at work today. What will the men think?"

"I wouldn't worry about it. None of those men think while they're working."

"And it was very nice of you to have that fancy restaurant cater lunch for me, but I felt a little conspicuous."

"I swear, I didn't order the violin player," Matt said, raising his hand. "They threw him in as a bonus."

Lizabeth shot him an intensely peeved look.

"All right, all right. I admit, I've gone off the deep end. I have this horrible compulsion to do things for you. I can't control myself. Boy, I tell you, love is hell."

"Oh yeah? If it's such hell why don't you sound more miserable? You've been looking absolutely smug all day. And predatory. I have a cat. I've watched Wild Kingdom. I know predatory when I see it."