Chapter 27 Paige
PAIGE
Ryan jerks next to me, and I jolt into a sitting position. A red light flickers on his vibrating watch.
“There’s an intruder.” He pulls the covers off and slides his body around the side of the bed.
“Noah.” I race out of bed and down the hall, skidding to a stop when I reach Noah’s room. He lies peacefully on his back, soft rattling snores coming from his open mouth.
My hand goes to my chest, which is when I realize I’m completely naked. The memory of last night cuts through the panic for one blissful moment, making my body heat even as I slap my hands over my exposed areas.
There’s a thump from the bedroom. In my rush to get to Noah, I forgot about Ryan and his prosthetic. I jog back to the bedroom and find him on the floor.
He’s pulling himself back onto the bed. His face is set in a determined line, made even more determined by the red glow from the flashing light on his watch.
The watch that tells us someone is on the property.
I reach for the light switch.
“No,” Ryan grits out. “I don’t want them to know that we know they’re here.”
He reaches the prosthetic, and with one hand on the bed, he pulls himself up to sit on the bed. He’s slow, and that’s not his fault, but there’s someone creeping around my property, and I need to do something about it.
I throw a t-shirt over my head and grab the baseball bat from under the bed.
“What are you doing?” Ryan whispers.
He’s struggling to pull on his underpants, and if I weren’t so panicked, I might find this funny.
We went to all the trouble of setting up cameras, and we’ve both been caught literally with our pants down.
We’re wasting precious seconds, but I don’t want to draw attention to how long Ryan is taking.
He’s sensitive about his prosthetic, and even though certainly nothing was lacking last night, I don’t want him to feel less than if he’s too slow to go out there and protect us.
“I’m going to…” I tap the bat on the palm of my hand.
What exactly am I planning to do out there? Last time, I chased them away, and they ran quicker than I did and got away. I’m not sure I could actually swing the bat and hurt anyone.
Ryan finally tugs his underpants over his thighs, and as he pulls them over his hips, I glimpse his smooth, grabbable ass. But instead of strapping into his prosthetic, he reaches for his laptop. He pulls it onto his lap and opens the lid.
“Neither of us is going out there.”
He opens an app, and the feed from the security cameras populates the screen.
“There’s more than one way to catch a perp.”
I climb onto the bed and peer over his shoulder at the images showing every angle of my property. One camera shows the driveway, another the front yard, and yet another picks up the front door. One camera is angled at the street and shows an SUV parked out front, its license plate clearly visible.
“Got him.” Ryan’s lips quirk up. “I may not be fast enough to go chasing him yet. But I’ve still got my smarts.”
He switches feeds, and this time the back garden and side areas come into view. A shadowy figure creeps next to the greenhouse.
“He’s going to smash it,” I hiss.
I can’t let that happen. It’ll cost hundreds of dollars to replace, and the plants inside will be ruined. I’ll be picking glass out of the ground for months, making it a no-go zone for Noah.
“We’ve got what we need,” Ryan says. “Let’s scare him off.”
I jump off the bed and switch on the light just as Ryan shouts, “Get out of here!”
The figure on the screen startles and runs off down the driveway. “Should I chase him?”
Ryan shakes his head. “We’ve got everything we need.”
A few moments later, a car engine starts, and the SUV squeals away. I pad down the hall to check on Noah again, but he’s still fast asleep.
When I come back, Ryan is concentrating on the laptop screen.
Climbing onto the bed, I kneel behind him. He leans against me, and the weight of his warm body calms my racing heat.
I peek over his shoulder at the screen, and he’s replaying the footage. We watch the SUV arrive on camera one. A person gets out of it and grabs a baseball bat from the front seat. It looks like they were serious about destroying the greenhouse.
They’ve got a hoodie over their head, but the way they walk, hunched over, looks like a man. So it’s not Rowena Evans.
We pick them up on camera two as they scurry up the driveway, swinging the bat in their hands. They glance up at the house, and Ryan pauses the camera. I lean in closer, but they’re too far from the camera to give a clear picture of their face.
Ryan brings up camera three, the one covering the front entrance. This angle is closer, and we watch the figure get out of the car again and come up the driveway. As they get closer, they glance at the house. When Ryan pauses the video, I gasp.
“You know this guy?”
It’s black and white and a little grainy, but there’s no doubt who it is.
“Unfortunately, yeah. Chad Huntington.”