Chapter 1 #3
There were only two houses that she could see on this street, and it had been miles since they’d bumped and jostled past her last nearest neighbor.
If the old man and lumberjack were father and son, then it was entirely possible that they were the same people she’d come to interview with.
The address was right, although the directions she’d printed off of Mapquest had said there was at least two miles between her new home and her (hopefully) new employers.
Was she at the right place, or was she about to jump out of the frying pan and into a hot new kidnapping situation?
The police siren was growing louder, drawing nearer, and that made her feel just safe enough to risk climbing the front porch steps. They couldn’t hurt her with cops on the way, right?
She climbed, her back and hip aching as she moved up the stairs.
It was the first that she’d realized she’d hurt herself when the driver knocked her down.
She reached back, feeling along the chilly wetness of her pants and through the mud, revealing the cut in her jeans.
She looked at her hand, finding the stark red of wet blood on her muddy fingers.
“Oh, I know, honey,” the old man hoarsely soothed Lily.
“You’ve had a scary day, but you’re safe now.
” Stace’s stomach tightened when he switched his attention to her, and his old weathered face took on that stern look all over again.
His tone mirrored it as he opened the screen door.
“Get on inside where it’s warm. You’re going to catch your death out here.
Don’t clean up, though. Wait until after Sheriff Thompson gets done with you. ”
Wanting to take it as a good sign that they knew the sheriff, she wiped her dirty hand on equally dirty jeans and limped inside.
It was surreal standing alone in a home that wasn’t hers.
Patting Lily’s back to help calm her, she looked around.
The place was neat, rustic, very tidy, and with an open concept floor plan as far as the living room and combination dining room and kitchen were concerned.
Stairs to her far left led up to a second-floor landing, blocked by a single door and guarded by a jackalope head, mounted above it.
A short hall directly ahead of her led to three more closed doors.
Light from the kitchen shown through a side entry archway.
It wasn’t a huge place, but it was comfortable and cozy and just about the right size for two bachelors.
Who knew where they were going to put a live-in companion.
She jumped when the screen door bumped her back.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She jumped aside, letting the old man hobble back in, his rifle in his hand.
He started to set it on the floor leaning against the wall behind the door, but quickly caught himself.
Flashing a look at Lily, and then her, he hoarsely whispered, “I’ll just put this back up on the wall in my room.
” He winked at her, half smiling as he shuffled off.
His door was the one directly ahead of her.
“Here she is,” the lumberjack said, and Stace jumped all over again, moving even further out of the way as the big man came into the house, followed by the sheriff.
“H-he got away?” She had no idea what scared her more: not seeing the driver in handcuffs directly behind them, or lying in the mud and the cold, from when he’d knocked her down.
He’d been so angry. So inexplicably angry and violent towards her, and she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around the why of it.
“Got away?” The bearded man looked at her, a flash of something moving through his dark eyes so quickly that she couldn’t recognize it.
But she knew his tone—those heavy, grim, slightly disapproving notes that sent ripples racing through her until they found the perfect place to hide: her already quivering tummy. “He did not ‘get away.’”
“He’s cuffed in the back of my car with a good-sized knot on his head from when he charged your friend here,” Sheriff Thompson added.
“I figured I’d come in and get your statement first, but I can already tell by the looks of you, he’s headed straight for my jailhouse and a Zoom call with the county courthouse come Monday.
” Sighing, the officer knuckled his fists into his lean hips and looked her over.
He shook his head once. “Never could stand a man who’d put angry hands on his woman. ”
“I’m not his woman,” she said quickly. “I’m moving into my aunt’s house next door—”
Thompson’s gray eyes brightened. “Maggie told me her niece was coming to visit. You’re Stace-Loo Malone?”
The lumberjack looked at her.
“Stace,” she corrected, her face growing hot. Only her aunt still called her by her baby nickname. She took the sheriff’s hand when he held it out, giving her a greeting shake.
“Welcome to Myrtle Creek, Stace.” He looked at her hand, turning it first to examine her broken dirty nails and then rolling it over and gently disengaging his hand so he could better see the bloody scraps on her knuckles and then on the soft palm of her hand.
He shook his head again. “He wasn’t a very nice man, was he? ”
That went without saying.
“I hurt my leg too.”
The lumberjack looked at her, but she kept her eyes glued to the officer who was already digging through his jacket in search of his camera.
“Let’s get some pictures, shall we?”