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“I do.”
“What type?”
I frowned.
He lifted his head. “Rifle, handgun? Something else?”
I felt a little foolish for taking so long to clue in. “We’re going to clear the buildings.”
He nodded. “We’re going to clear the buildings.” He sized me up. “Can you handle yourself in a fight?” He was all business and all soldier, nothing like the male fans I was used to.
“I can handle myself.”
He continued to scrutinize me. “You ever been in a fight?”
“My pops was a drunk, and not a nice one. And my twin is in prison for attempted rape.” I didn’t think I needed to say more. “Yes. I’ve been in a fight.”
His eyes sharpened. “Which do you feel more comfortable with? Handgun or the rifle?”
“Handgun.”
He passed me a 9mm, keeping the rifle for himself. Then we headed out. I’d never had any official training so I listened carefully as Howard clipped out commands, giving me a brisk explanation of how we’d be moving through each building and what our formation would be.
We did Billie’s place first, then the coop and the rest after.
He turned to me as we moved along a walking path in their woods, circling around the land and coming back toward the house. “You know how to handle yourself.”
I didn’t ask how he knew that. When you’re around someone who knows violence, you recognize a certain quality. I had that quality. “Didn’t have a great first chapter in life,” I told him. “Football gave me a different path, you could say.”
He grunted. “Billie said you were worried about her being out here.”
I considered my words, but I wasn’t one to mince words when shit needed to be said.
“You’ve got an open driveway,” I pointed out. “No gates. No sensors that I’m aware of. No security system. No dog. She’s in a separate building. Dead of night—”
“Dead of night, I’m going to hear if someone is walking up on my home,” Howard countered. “My family is here. No one’s getting past me.”
I stopped, making him stop as well. We faced off, and I didn’t flinch. “With respect…”
His eyes went flat.
“You can’t protect her when you’re tucked up in bed, sleeping. You gotta wake if someone steps wrong on a blade of grass, race down those narrow wooden stairs in an old house that creaks, and beat him to her place in order to get between him and her. If that happens, you’ve left your wife in the open.”
“I can protect my family.”
“You’re one man and again, no security system. I’m not trying to make you feel a certain way, but I’m going to do every goddamn thing possible to make sure Billie’s safe. No bullshit, I won’t sleep well knowing she’s here alone.”
His nostrils flared. He didn’t like hearing that. “She ain’t alone. We’re here.”
“Yes, in another building, on another floor. You move fast, and I can see your military training, but Billie’s in the open, and you know it.”
“I’ve protected her so far.”
“You were protecting her against nosy and intrusive reporters, not a killer who won’t be driving a vehicle or bringing a cameraman and a microphone with him. He’ll come in on foot, and he’ll be silent and fast, and if you’re lucky, he’ll try your house first. I’ve no doubt that you’ll wake the second that screen door squeaks open, and you’ll meet him with a rifle. It’s not escaped my attention that you handle that rifle like it’s an extension of your hand. But if he goes to her first? If he decides he doesn’t think that shed is a shed? If he breaks down her door and grabs her in two seconds?”
His eyes glinted at me in the moonlight. “She’s not as helpless as you’re making her sound.”
“I’ve no doubt, and it’s reassuring to hear that, but there’s a reason ‘element of surprise’ is a phrase. She could be dead before you hit the bottom step in your place.”
