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Clearly, that only half-worked because while I browsed the nursery afterward, I left empty-handed, despite having seen several indoor and outdoor plants and flowers that I’d wanted.
I didn’t hear from Triss until after six, and we’d met up for sushi before heading back home.
After a whole day away, I’d almost been able to forget about the anxieties I’d felt toward our home. And the thing that had occurred there the night before.
“What is…” Triss started as we both got out of our cars.
Then I heard it too.
The alarm.
“Shit. Shit shit shit,” Triss said, looking around with wild eyes.
But whoever it had been, they weren’t lying in wait in our bushes.
“I left the damn gun in the garage,” she said as she hit the button as I tried to bite back an objection to going anywhere near the interior of the house.
“Maybe we should call the police,” I suggested.
“But we don’t know if it’s anything,” Triss reasoned. “I mean, you got that alarm system on clearance,” she added. “Maybe it’s just malfunctioning.”
It was a reasonable assumption. The week after we’d installed it, the damn thing had gone off when there was a lizard climbing on the window.
It could have been anything.
Somehow, though, the knot in my stomach insisted that it wasn’t just anything as I followed closely behind my sister as she ran into the garage and reached for the gun she’d hidden under our grandfather’s old work bench.
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath as she inched toward the door. “Stay close. Hey, grab that,” she said, waving toward the pitchfork hanging from the wall.
“A pitchfork?”
“Think of the kind of damage that could do.”
Oh, I had no problem imagining that. Which was why I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t be capable of inflicting it.
But I picked it up anyway as I followed my sister into the mudroom, then through to the kitchen.
It wasn’t until we hit the living room that we knew it hadn’t been a lizard. Or the wind. Or just a wiring malfunction.
Because someone had busted in the back glass doors, little shards scattered all around.
Triss’s gasp was in sync with the way my stomach plummeted.
She half-turned to me, pressing a finger to her lips. Then we did what the police did in movies. We went in every room, checked in each closet, made sure no one was still around.
Then and only then, we locked ourselves in my bedroom.
“I’m calling the bikers,” Triss declared.
“Why not the police?”
“Because they said to call them if we weren’t in, you know, imminent danger. No one is here.”
“Yeah, but…”
“They will know what to do,” she insisted.
There was no use objecting any further. She was already dialing the number she must have saved in her phone so she didn’t misplace it, and talking to the man on the other end of her phone.
“They’re coming,” she said, taking a couple steadying breaths. Calm because she believed they would have all the answers and solutions. “Look, we couldn’t just call the police,” she said after glancing over at me.
“Why not?”
“Because then we’d have to talk about the attempted vehicular manslaughter last night. And explain why we didn’t call the police then. Maybe getting ourselves and the Henchmen dudes in trouble.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Besides, what can the cops do, right? Send a patrol car to drive past once an hour? Like that would do anything. It doesn’t take an hour for someone to break in and murder us.”
She had me there, I guess.
So we sat. And waited.
Eventually, the alarm system stopped screaming, then there was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Triss, Maeve?” a voice called.
“What if it isn’t them?” I asked as Triss moved across the room.
As an answer, she cocked the gun, then turned the lock, going back a few steps to let it swing open.
Then there they were.
McCoy, Alaric, and… Donovan.
There was absolutely no good reason that my heartbeat sped up again when I laid eyes on him.
So I went ahead and pretended it was because seeing him brought the events of the night before to the forefront of my mind once again.
“Everyone aright?”
“Physically? Yes. Emotionally, I need about six strawberry daiquiris to calm myself down,” Triss declared, getting a smirk out of McCoy and Alaric, only confirming my musings I’d been mulling over earlier about guys like them and girls like her.
I didn’t realize that Donovan hadn’t been smiling until I turned to look at him, and found him staring at me instead of my sister.
“Are you okay?” the words blurted out of me before I could stop them.
Because, well, he didn’t look too hot. I mean, he looked hot, but also very, very injured.
It looked like half of his body was wrapped in gauze and tape. He had a cast on one hand, a neck brace, and a nasty bruise across his cheek.
“Think that’s my line, sweetheart,” he said, giving me a small smile. “Were you planning on impaling us?” he asked, gaze lowering to the pitchfork, making me realize I was still gripping it.
