A bumping noise woke Lana from a restful sleep. She crawled out of bed, thinking the noise came from the back porch. It was windy, but she didn't think it was windy enough to cause such a racket. It sounded like someone at batting practice in a batting cage.
Without pulling the drapes back, she stood near the back door and listened and heard nothing. She walked through the house and peeked out the windows and doors … nothing.
About that time her cell phone rang, and it made her nearly jump out of her skin. She glanced at her phone wanting to know who could be calling this early in the morning. When she looked she realized it was only the alarm. She laughed and thought; I need to stop acting like such a scaredy cat all the time. But she did peek out the curtain one last time. The only odd thing she noticed was a piece of wood lying on the ground near the back door. It had fallen about five feet from the bin. She decided Mike had set it there to bring in, had forgotten about it, and the wind had knocked it over.
Standing there bewildered and trying to decide if she wanted some tea, suddenly there was a tap on the front door. Her heart skipped beats thinking Mike had come back for some reason.
Although she didn't hear the usual sound of the truck driving on the gravel, she hoped. She ran to the front of the house and peeked out the window… nothing. Again, she looked out all the windows, and nobody was there. She decided she had lost her mind. Before crawling back into bed, she threw a few logs onto the fire. She watched the fire for a while and dozed off thinking, I don't remember setting my alarm for four-forty.