Page 93 of Floodgates

“Yeah.”

We froze, both of us glancing from window to window until the floodlights suddenly went on because some motion outside had triggered them. That was the scariest part of the whole thing—knowing for certain that I had not imagined it, that there had, in fact, been someone looking in at us.

By the time Officer Cumberland came rushing in from the living room, gun drawn, I had already calmed, and moved across the room so I could see outside to the now-empty deck. There were two police cars outside in the grass, both with their red and blue lights cycling.

“Are you two all right?” Officer Cumberland asked, checking on Breckin and me.

“We’re good,” I answered quickly before he opened the door and went outside.

“Tracy,” Breckin said as his family started coming down the stairs. “Maybe you should stay away from the glass door, huh?”

If the intruder had wanted me dead, I would already be dead. I dismissed his concern. “I’m fine.”

I got a pained look from him as I stood there, off to the side, as his parents and siblings and Celia clustered around him. The mother of his child walked up to him, and he took her in, hugging her close. His parents rubbed his back, offered to get him something, anything. He stroked Celia’s hair, shushed her gently, and told her he was okay. The way his mother looked at the two of them together was really sweet.

“Trace!”

Everybody started, Michelle even gasped, and I smiled without meaning to, because, really, who came into a house and bellowed like that?

Cord charged into the room, his Glock drawn, scanning the room before his gaze met mine. He was holstering the gun as he reached me.

“You all right?” he barked, sounding scared. I opened my arms for him, and all pretense was gone when he grabbed and crushed me against him. And I wasn’t so much smaller than him—he had only six inches on me—but still, when he hugged me, I felt the strength and power in his hard, muscular frame and loved how I was being held. “Trace?” he whispered hoarsely close to my ear.

“I’m fine,” I assured him, clutching at his jacket.

“What were you doing down here?” he asked, leaning back far enough to see my face without letting me go.

“I was hungry.”

“But you ate dinner didn’t you?” he asked as though that were logical, leading me from where I was by the door near the others toward a quieter spot.

“I was peckish,” I teased him.

“What?”

“It’s only, like, five our time now. I normally eat dinner around nine.”

“You’re not supposed to eat after seven.”

“In what world?”

He laughed.

“I eat late,” I said.

“You do?”

I nodded.

“You usually eat out? Or grab something and go home.”

“Either. It depends.”

“Where do you go?”

And that fast we were having a conversation.

“Sometimes Rosamunde,” I explained, only peripherally aware that people and cops were moving around us. “I like the andouille or the chicken habanero sausage.”