“Want to dance?”
“Here?” she looks around at the others.
“Dancing sounds nice.” Katelyn stands and reaches down to Garrison, clearly trying to make Anastasia feel better about it. “How about it, hubby?”
“Absolutely.” He stands, and Katelyn winks in my direction.
I grin back, my way of thanking her without bringing too much attention to it.
“Okay.” Anastasia slips her hand into mine, and I tug her to her feet, then pull her in close. I wrap one arm around her waist and press our joined hands against my chest.
We’ve danced before. Once or twice when we went to hear a band playing at the local watering hole.
But never like this.
Never so—intimate.
She rests her head against my chest, and I close my eyes, losing myself in the song and the way it feels to have her in my arms. The warmth of her body pressed against mine.
“I could stay like this forever,” she whispers.
I lean down closer so only she can hear me. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
Chapter 10
Anastasia
The shrill tone of my cell phone rips me out of sleep. Dazed and slightly confused, I answer without checking the readout. “Hello?” My throat is scratchy, my voice raw. “Hello?”
“Did you get it?” a voice replies. It’s low. Deep and slightly robotic.
My pulse kicks into gear, fear threading through me. “Get what?” Flipping on my lamp, I pull the phone away to check the readout. Unknown number.
“The gift,” the voice replies.
What gift—and then I remember the orange stuffed cat sitting downstairs in my breakroom. “Who is this?”
“A friend.”
The sleep dissipates, and I rush to my feet, practically running into my closet to unlock the small safe. Then, I withdraw the pistol my brother gave me for my twenty-first birthday. My hands are shaking so badly, though, that I’m not even entirely sure I could pull the trigger. But holding it still makes me feel less powerless.
“Did you like it?” the voice asks. “I thought it looked like sweet Axel.”
Fear spreads through me like a wildfire, so I put the phone on speaker and manage to fire off a text to Sawyer.
Me: Help.
A single word that autocorrect thankfully fixed for me when my shaking fingers accidentally typed ‘helo’.
The question is…am I really in immediate danger? And if I am, will he see it and get here in time?
“Don’t you think so?” the voice asks.
“Who are you? Why are you calling me?”
“You’ll know me soon enough. We’re going to be good friends, Anastasia. I’ve been calling for a while now, but I just couldn’t quite get the words out once I heard your sweet voice.”
Tears fill my eyes, and the fear roots deeper.
