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Grabbing my car keys and my purse, I stepped out into the hallway, carefully closing my bedroom door behind me and tip-toeing down the stairs so I wouldn’t make too much noise. It had been a long day for all of us, and the last thing I wanted to do was to wake up the whole house because I’d been a bad friend who couldn’t remember what day of the week it was.
I made it all the way down the stairs and to the front door without making too much noise—just the usual creaky floorboards, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about that. I turned the doorknob and stepped out onto the front porch, blinking against the darkness as I fumbled to close the door behind me.
I had one foot on the porch step that led down to the front yard when I heard the voice behind me.
“Janessa, wait.” The voice stopped me in my tracks and made me nearly swallow my tongue as I opened my mouth to scream. “Where are you going?”
Thank God I’d been too scared for any noise to come out because it was just Boone. I could barely see his large, shadowy form as it moved across the porch, but of course I recognized his deep voice once my brain got past the initial terror that someone else was out here with me.
In my rush to get out of the house, I’d completely forgotten that the guys were still alternating watch shifts out here. And God, if I was this tired, how in the world had Boone managed to stay awake out here in the dark by himself?
“You scared me half to death,” I whispered as he came closer. “I forgot you were even out here.” I nodded toward my car. “I have to go into town and pick up a couple of friends from the bus station. I shouldn’t be gone too long.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said. “I’ll get Cade to cover my watch.”
He’d said it all so quickly and in such a matter-of-fact way that he was already halfway back across the porch toward the front door before I’d fully realized what he was about to do.
“Wait, what?” I started after him. “No, no, don’t do that. I won’t be long. I’m just going to pick them up, and then we’ll come straight back here. Nothing to worry about.”
“You’re right,” he said. “There probably isn’t anything to worry about. But if someone out there is keeping an eye on this place, I wouldn’t put it past them to try something crazy—like running you off the road, for instance—if they thought it might scare us.” He gave me a hard look that was unmistakable, even in the darkness. “And it would scare us, Janessa. I’m coming with you. Just give me a second to let Cade know and we’ll be on our way.”
I nodded, not that it really would have mattered. Boone had already made up his mind, and I could tell it would have been useless to argue. Besides, after what he’d just said—and after seeing the destruction at Derek Winslow’s ranch earlier in the evening—I was willing to admit he had a fair point.
Someone out there was trying to make our lives hell, and we didn’t know what else they might be capable of.
“You guys are really too much,” I said, trying not to smile as I drove toward town.
“What did we do?” Cade asked, feigning innocence with his own familiar grin. “Boone told me to hurry up and get down here, so here I am.”
Boone grunted. “Pretty sure I told you to get downstairs and keep watch outside, not run out and jump in the car with us…”
I laughed, and Cade just shrugged. It really was overkill for both of them to be riding with me to pick up Daisy Lynn and Becca, but I honestly couldn’t complain. I would have been lying if I’d said I didn’t enjoy every single minute that the three of us spent together.
I wasn’t exactly sure how the other two girls were going to fit in my small car with these two big guys already taking up so much space, but we’d figure it out somehow. At least it wasn’t a very long drive.
“Did my uncle seem pissed off when you woke him up?” I asked, glancing in my rearview mirror to catch Cade’s eye in the back seat. “He didn’t look super happy to be out there on the porch when we drove off.”
“Well…” Cade’s smile faded a little as he cleared his throat. “I don’t think he was particularly thrilled to see my smiling face when he woke up. But he did agree that it would be a good idea for the two of us to go with you, so he couldn’t have been too angry… right?”
Of course Uncle Justin would have thought that was a good idea. Cade had certainly known which buttons to push to get his way, it had to be said.
“It would have been his turn to take watch in a couple of hours anyway,” Boone said. “We’ll just make sure he gets to turn in a little early when we get back.”
I nodded. As long as nobody was angry, I couldn’t complain. We didn’t talk too much more until we got to the bus station in Bliss. Daisy Lynn and Becca ran out to meet us as soon as we pulled up, and I felt a pang of guilt at how relieved they looked to finally be out of the station.
“Oh my God,” Becca said, sounding breathless as she got into the back seat of my car. “Who are those guys? They just walked up and grabbed our bags and brought them out here without us even asking!”
“Right?” Daisy Lynn nodded. “I didn’t know you traveled with an entourage these days. Or… bodyguards or whatever is happening right now.”
I laughed. “They aren’t my bodyguards. Or my entourage. They’re—”
I stopped talking as the guys finished loading the luggage in the trunk and each climbed into the back seat on either side of Becca. It was a pretty comical sight to see her sandwiched in and looking so tiny between the two of them. I probably would have been jealous if she hadn’t been one of my best friends.
Okay, so maybe I was still a little jealous.
“Boone Tate,” Boone finished for me. “And my friend here with the goofy grin is Cade Winslow. Looks like we’re all heading to the same place tonight.”
Cade and Boone shook hands with Daisy Lynn and Becca, then it felt like everyone in the car turned to look at me as it got quiet again.
