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“Yes.” He’d done a lot more, but he had a feeling pointing that out would not help reunite the gun with the nightstand. “And was it so bad that you want to shoot me?”
Who the hell gave a loaded weapon to the woman who needed a dog at her side to get through the freaking day?
“I’m sorry.” She lowered the gun, placing it back in the drawer. “Hero, come here.”
“Thank you,” he said, reaching for his clothes as soon as the dog joined his owner on the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pull the sheet over her naked body. Once he had his boxers and jeans on, he turned to her. “And for the record, I’m sorry too. What happened tonight . . . Hell, I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
Lena nodded. “The blonde from the party?”
“Yeah.” He retrieved his shirt and pulled it on, making quick work of the buttons. “Amber.”
As if saying her name cast a spell bringing her here, a knock sounded on the door at the bottom of the stairs that connected the studio apartment to the outside world. “That’s her now.”
He headed for the door, needing to stop Amber before they added a witness to their fucked-up little party. “I’ll send her home and then we’ll talk.”
He heard a soft “OK” from the bed and was tempted to glance over his shoulder to see if Lena was in tears. Not much could make this situation worse. But a crying woman? Yeah, that would do it.
“Just think,” he muttered, descending the stairs two at a time. “It could be Brody or, shit, Katie at the door. That would be worse.”
But he knew where his siblings were tonight. His little sister was doing God knew what with Liam Trulane. OK, maybe Chad had a good idea what they were doing, but he hated thinking about his kid sister doing those things. Brody was at the hospital visiting their youngest brother.
And Chad was the one who’d ended up in bed with a woman who slept with a gun on the nightstand. Too bad Lena was also the woman who took his breath away, she was so damn beautiful. But if he acted on that desire again, shit, she’d find another way to steal his breath.
Chad shook his head as he reached the door and spotted the bubbly Amber on the other side.
FIVE MINUTES LATER, he climbed up the stairs and found Lena sitting on the edge of the queen-size bed wearing the same flowing, floor-length dress she’d had on at the party. The one that probably had beer stains on some of the flowers from when Susan’s sister had dumped her drink over Chad’s head. Yeah, tonight Lena was seeing him at his best.
“Amber went back to her cousin’s house,” he said, taking a chair from the small, circular table by the kitchenette and turning it around so the back faced her. He sat down, looking straight at her. “I didn’t mention your name. Just told her I was too tired.”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Lena said, her voice strong and unwavering, no sign of tears. “Katie told me where to find the key and said I could stay here for tonight.”
“Yeah, she kind of forgot to mention that to me.”
“It was only for one night. I wanted to give Eric and Georgia some space after the party.”
Chad nodded, the pieces of tonight’s puzzle falling into place. But some things didn’t add up. “Do you always lock your dog up at night?”
“No.” She ran her hand over the golden retriever’s head, scratching behind the ears. The big dog leaned closer, begging for more, without ever taking his dark eyes off Chad. “He sleeps with me most nights. In case I need him.”
Need him? How many guys climbed into her bed? Sure, she looked like a supermodel, but still, shit like this didn’t happen every day.
“I have nightmares sometimes,” she added. “Hero helps. But he’s sort of an unofficial service dog. He’s been trained, but not by one of the sanctioned programs. The waitlist for those programs ranges from one to two years. I didn’t think I could wait that long. Hero came from a young trainer, just starting out. He’s a great service dog. But he still chews. And sheds. So I put him in the bathroom for the night and took a sleeping pill.”
Chad stared at the woman who’d attached a bomb to her matter-of-fact account of her dog’s training. A sleeping pill? His stomach flipped and for the first time that night, he thought he might be sick. The pill explained why she’d played along. She’d been ready and willing to make love to a drug-inspired mirage. But it didn’t change the fact that he’d climbed into bed with a scared, drugged woman—the one woman in Independence Falls he freaking knew better than to touch.
LENA PRESSED HER fingers into Hero’s smooth coat. The horror on Chad’s face left her wishing she could walk out of this apartment and away from this night. But she had no place else to go. A hotel maybe, but her bank account was low, and she’d maxed out her last credit card buying dog food.
And she’d been trained from a young age to face her fears head-on. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Her father’s words, not hers.
Every time those words ran through her head, she wondered if the fear she lived with day after day was slowly draining her life. Loud noises and people moving toward her, from any direction, shook her to her core. A simple hug led to panic. She was alive and safe in Oregon. Logically she knew that. The patch of disturbed dirt on the side of the road was not a bomb. But still, she didn’t feel strong. She hadn’t for the past eighteen months. Until she’d moved to Independence Falls, planning to stay with Georgia, the wild, determined woman from her therapy group, Lena had felt like she was losing the battle.
But Georgia was living proof that a person could be broken and strong at the same time. Lena clung to the hope that here, in this town, she could build a normal life too.
Until Chad Summers climbed into her bed and cracked her hope.
“I thought . . . I thought it was all a dream,” she said. “Until you kissed me.”
“Lena, I am so sorry. You have no idea—”
