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His cock hardened, and his pulse raced.
Bernie was so close physically, just a few short steps away, but still so far out of his reach that he might as well cool it.
She wasn’t the kind of female a man had a one-night-stand with. She was an until-death-do-us-part woman whom a man committed to.
Gerard wasn’t the man for her. He might as well get the thought out of his head now. He was there to protect her. Nothing more.
He closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. It didn’t. Several times over the next hour, he lit the dial on his watch. Time crawled. Would this night ever end?
A low woof sounded from the porch outside the front window.
Gerard sat up straight.
A bark, louder this time, was followed by what could only be described as a honking sound.
Gerard lunged to his feet, pulled on his boots and grabbed his gun.
He was heading for the door when footsteps sounded behind him.
A glance over his shoulder brought him up short.
Bernie rushed from her room, wearing shorts, dingo boots and a T-shirt, her nipples tight little points against the soft fabric. She carried a shotgun. “You heard that, right?”
He nodded. “You should stay inside. I can check it out.”
“Like hell. Those are my animals. I won’t let some bastard kill another one of them on my watch.” She caught up with him as he reached the door.
Gerard’s hand closed over the doorknob before Bernie could grab it. “At least let me go outside first,” he insisted.
She hesitated in the soft light glowing from a nightlight near the front entrance. Her brow furrowed, but she gave him a curt nod. “Wait.”
Gerard’s hand froze on the knob.
Bernie reached around him, her breasts brushing against his arm, and lifted a flashlight from a mounted bracket beside the door. She handed it to him. “Take this.”
He held the light in one hand and his pistol in the other.
Bernie grabbed a headlamp from a hook beside the wall bracket and slipped it over her head.
Gerard would rather have had night vision goggles, but a flashlight was better than nothing if he couldn’t make out shapes in the starlight.
Gerard had his own handgun, but Hank Patterson had equipped each team member with a pair of night vision goggles, an armor-plated vest and a radio headset, all of which were in the boarding house, except the handgun he carried with him everywhere.
Without turning on the porch light, he slipped through the front door, down the steps and out into the yard.
The barking and honking had moved farther away from the house and seemed to be coming from the field past the barn.
Bernie ran down the steps. “That’s Gandolf and Howey. Sounds like there’s trouble in the watermelon patch.”
Before he could stop her, she ran past him and around the side of the house.
He gave chase, quickly catching up and passing her, heading for the noise.
Once out in the open field, starlight gave them just enough light to make out a blur of white motion.
“There,” Bernie pointed. “That’s Gandolf. Howey will be close.”
They picked their way through the vines until they reached the goose and hound dog.
