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Hanging up, I looked at the phone screen for a minute, blowing out a breath. It was done. Soon, someone would be coming to help me, and then if that didn’t work, I was going to get a damned hotel room.
Feeling a touch braver than before, I grabbed the heavy flashlight I had stashed beside the bed earlier in the evening, and went to check out the rest of the house. Hopefully, it would be the last night I had to do so.
If only I’d known how wrong I was about to be.
Chapter Eleven
In the classic “nothing can ever happen at a decent time” that was currently plaguing my life, the doorbell rang at 7 a.m.
Vision blurry from lack of sleep, I slid out of bed and padded down the stairs barefoot. If I had been more awake, the cold air on my sleep-warm skin would have alerted me that I was still half naked, but it had been a rough few days.
I looked out the peephole, seeing the distorted figure of a strange man. “Stone Security!” he yelled through the door, and since I was eager to finally have someone around to make me feel safer, I jerked open the door.
“Thank God you’re here,” I blurted out. I had to look up, and up, and up, until I finally met his eyes, which were currently scraping up my body in what appeared to be shock and approval?
“You, ah, want to put some clothes on?” he asked bluntly, turning his head away and waving haphazardly towards my legs.
A blush flashed up my chest to my face in an instant. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I’ll be right back.”
I ran up the stairs again, praying he wasn’t watching my ass, but when I reached the top landing, I took a peek and saw that he was still turned away. What a gentleman.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I pulled my full-length silk robe on, tying it tightly around the middle. Absolutely nothing had been normal for me in over six months, so why not add being casually indecent around the security man to the list?
This time when I greeted the man, I was properly covered in my robe, and he was able to look me in the eye again. Well, look down, and then into my eyes. He must have been one of the tallest men I’d ever met, and it was slightly intimidating.
“Hi, I’m so sorry about that, it’s just been such a crazy—”
“Can I come in?” he asked, walking past me and into the house without waiting for an answer.
I frowned, closing the door behind him, and crossing my arms. “Sure, come on in.”
He prowled through the first floor like a predator, his movements smooth and sure, and it was clear to me that this guy was coiled up and ready to strike at any moment.
“I’m Rachel,” I said to his back. “Rachel Starr. I called you.”
“I know,” he said, not paying me any mind.
I’d already almost had enough of this guy, and I’d just met him. “Do you want to maybe introduce yourself? Since you’re in my home, and I’ve been scared shitless for two days straight? Maybe some reassurance? Or, hell, maybe even your name?”
At the shrillness of my voice, the man stopped and turned to me. He looked me over again, this time with a thoughtful gaze, and seemed surprised at what he saw. As if it hadn’t registered the first time that I was a real person. “Scared, huh?”
I nodded, throat tight.
He approached, and I fought the urge to move back a few steps. Once he was in front of me again, he held out an enormous hand. I took it gingerly, noticing how rough his hands were. He didn’t shake, though, instead just squeezing lightly before letting go.
“Forgive me. I think I misconstrued this situation somehow. I figured your late fiancé would have told you about me. I’m Gunner Stone, and Stone Security is my company. Mr. Smith–” he says the name sarcastically, as if he knows it’s a fake name, “hired me directly to oversee your home.”
“It’s okay. It must have seemed odd to hear from me out of the blue,” I conceded.
He rubbed his hand over his short cropped, dark hair. “If I’m being honest, after Mr. Smith died, I figured the payments for the security bill were just being auto-deducted and that the house was empty. After I got your message and went back to watch the security footage, I could have kicked my own ass for letting that happen to you. I’m still pissed at myself.”
Gunner had a gruff nature about him, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone to match his colossal frame. He was not only tall, but broad, and while I initially found it strange that he was wearing a long-sleeved Henley in this heat, the silhouette of his arms in the shirt banished any other questions from my mind. Gunner didn’t have a runner's body, but instead, one meant to break things … or to protect them.
I didn’t mind that he was a bit uncouth, either, as long as he didn’t try to boss me around in my own home.
“I called the local police,” I offered, and that made his expression even more grim.
“Yeah, I saw that, too. What sort of backwoods Dukes of Hazzard asshole did they send out here? He lifted you in the window instead of going in himself!”
