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“Okay, Robin. Let’s take a look at that bike.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Siena woke when thesun streamed across her face and the light burned through her eyelids. She’d forgotten to put her sleep mask on. Feeling thickheaded and oddly stiff, she rolled to her back and tried to figure out why, on a day she could sleep in, she felt so—
Oh, right. The three-a.m. encounter with the new neighbor, who, based on the evidence of that encounter, was mentally ill, cognitively challenged, an asshole, or some combination thereof. Ugh.
For half a second, when he’d stormed out of the truck and looked like he was going to charge her, Siena had thought she might actually have to shoot a person. She was pretty sure she would have, if he’d come right up on her. Like eighty, eighty-five percent sure. She’d trained for self-defense, which meant, in part, knowing when and where to shoot, and how to decide whether to shoot to disable or to put down.
Last night was the first time she’d been so close to having to make that decision.
But he’d stopped, and he’d turned out to be a lot less threatening than she’d at first thought—a lot less threatening than he looked, too. He was ripped with muscle and covered in ink—throat, chest, hands, arms. He’d been wearing an open flannel shirt over a white beater, so she hadn’t seen more skin, but again with the evidence she had, she felt pretty safe guessing his belly and back, at least, were equally colorful.
And that big bike, too. She wondered if he was one of the new bikers in town. Some of the girls at work had been talking about Laughlin getting an MC—the Bulls, or something like that. Maybe the new neighbor was one of those guys. Or maybe he was just a tattooed fitness and motorcycle enthusiast.
What was his name? Something with a K. No, a hard C. Cooper. That was it: Cooper. She’d been surprised because that seemed like a white frat boy first name, and the guy was decidedly not white, frat boy or otherwise. Latino, she thought.
And no slouch in the looks department. In addition to the ink and muscles was thick, wavy dark hair and a matching beard. As irritated and ready to put a hole in him as she’d been, she’d noticed his way-above-average looks. And his A+++ smile.
Her libido was mostly dead, but her eyes worked fine. Dude was hot. Inconsiderate and annoying, but hot.
Fully awake and aware, Siena sat up and grabbed her phone to check the time: Nine-thirty. Not too bad, considering her sleep’s intermission. No doubt Geneva had fixed herself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch long ago and was now probably buried in her miniatures.
After a good stretch, Siena got up, went to the bathroom, had her morning pee, washed her face, swiped some Secret on her pits and brushed her hair. Then she pulled on a pair of yoga pants, a comfy tee, and the hoodie she’d yanked on last night.
Today was errand day, but they didn’t need to rush. For one thing, the truck was probably still blocking her driveway.
Seconds after she had that thought, a metallic crash and thud outside her window seemed to verify her assumption. She went to the almost-bay window in her bedroom and opened the curtains all the way. Yep, U-Haul and trailer still parked in her way. The trailer was unhitched, resting on its post on the street, and the ramp was down. The noise must have been something being dropped on that ramp, but whatever it was, the guy had already taken it to the house.
As she watched, Siena saw her fourteen-year-old sister walked out of the back of the new neighbor’s U-Haul and down the ramp. She carried an Amazon box with the word BATHROOM written on the side in black marker.
What the actual fuck.
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~oOo~
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Shoving her feet intoher knock-off Birkenstocks, she hurried outside. Neither Geneva nor the new—Cooperwas outside. Geneva’s bicycle leaned against the gate to their so-called ‘back yard.’ No other sign of her.
Before she stomped over to the guy’s house and tore into him forhaving her fourteen-year-old sister in there with no one but him, she stomped to the truck and peered in the back. There was a big black leather sofa in there, and a couple stacks of boxes, and a bunch of other random shit, but it was about two-thirds empty.
They were both in that house together. With nobody else.
