AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I quickly moved around the room and gathered my clothes, pulling on my shirt and jeans without giving it another thought.
I still didn’t have any idea why someone would be driving around outside the house at this time of night, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it. Nobody would have driven down the long dirt road and up the Thoresons' private driveway in a storm by accident.
Now I just needed to find out who the hell had been out there and what the hell they’d been up to.
I opened the bedroom door at the same time Cade was stepping out into the hallway from his own room.
“You heard that, too?” he whispered.
I nodded. “I saw headlights. I was just coming to get you.”
“I didn’t see anything on this side of the house, but I was pretty sure I heard an engine rev outside. If you saw the headlights, that pretty much confirms it.”
“But why?” I asked, my stomach twisting into knots as I nodded toward the end of the hallway. “Did Justin go somewhere?”
Cade shook his head. “He’s not going anywhere. I can still hear him snoring.”
I stopped to listen, barely able to hear anything over my own drumming heart. But yeah, now that Cade mentioned it, I could hear the old man’s rattling snores coming from his bedroom.
“Do you think we should wake him?” I asked.
If this had been our place, Cade and I would have already been outside investigating. But this wasn’t our ranch. Still, if there was someone still outside, I didn’t like the idea of Janessa being up here all alone—and Justin would almost certainly insist on coming with us if we woke him.
“No,” Cade said, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “We can move faster on our own. Let’s just go down there and check things out. If we find anything, we’ll come right back and tell him. If not…” He shrugged. “No sense in waking up the whole house in the middle of the night, right?”
I didn’t bother answering. I agreed, of course, but we had already lost time just standing here talking. Now it was time to get moving.
“Sorry about earlier, by the way,” Cade whispered as we got to the foot of the stairs. “I really wasn’t doing anything with her. I wouldn’t have—”
I held up a hand to cut him off. “Don’t worry about that right now, buddy. I’m over it. I’m a hell of a lot more concerned with what might have happened outside than anything you could have done in the kitchen, okay?”
He nodded, then followed me through the house without another word about it.
Thank God.
Because while I might not have actually been one hundred percent over it, I also didn’t want to keep being pissed off about it. At the end of the day, Cade and I knew each other better than anyone else on the planet. We were still good. Still on the same page as far as Janessa was concerned.
And for now, that was good enough for me.
We stopped at the back door, and I turned to face him one more time before turning the handle. “Let’s just stick together out there. I think whoever it was is already long gone, but I don’t want to take any chances by splitting up.”
“Got it.” He nodded. “I’ll follow you.”
I opened the door and we stepped outside. Between the crisp night air and the rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins, I felt like I was ready for anything.
We moved around to the corner of the house, and I held up a hand to stop Cade from moving any further while I listened. It was so quiet. Too quiet. Even the normal nighttime sounds seemed to be gone.
I took another step, peering around the side of the house toward the horse stables and then sucked in a sharp breath as I heard something rustle behind us.
Cade was already on it, though. He’d turned around and crouched low just as I finally made out a shadowy form in the darkness.
“Janessa?” Cade’s voice was a mixture of worry and irritation as he stood back up and moved toward the figure. “What the hell? You need to get back inside the house right now.”
My mouth fell open as she stepped closer. I could see her better now and could see that she was shaking her head.
“I’m not going anywhere unless it’s with the two of you,” she said, her defiant tone matching Cade’s. “Anyway, you guys might need this.”
She held up a shotgun, and Cade turned back to look over his shoulder at me. The expression on his face was enough to tell me exactly what he was thinking.
