Chapter Seven – Bad Moon Rising #2
When I was a kid, Swift Rivers had been nothing more than a small town whose short acclaim had disappeared with the gold and diamonds that had first drawn people to it.
I’d moved away long before the Harrington family had transformed their ranch into a five-star resort, enticing the rich and famous here, and then the everyday Joes who wanted to vacation in the same place as their favorite celebrities.
Coming home, living here again, it felt almost disconcerting to see Rivers thriving, especially knowing skiers would soon be carving paths through the snow with the same enthusiasm that hikers and rafters chased the sunlight in the summer.
At one of only two traffic lights in town, I made a left by the Emporium.
Part souvenir shop, part grocery, part pharmacy, it was River’s homespun version of a box store.
As a teenager, I’d hated shopping there.
I’d wanted the malls and name brands our little store hadn’t stocked.
Now, all I saw was how it held our community together, and how shopping there supported the people and the town I’d sworn to my father and the county supervisors I’d protect.
I wished I could make Luca see it as I did, but all my son saw was a pretty prison.
I pulled into Andie’s driveway and glanced toward my house. The front windows were dark.
My stomach tightened. Hopefully, Luca was just in his room.
I’d only been gone a couple of hours. I’d shown up late to the wedding, missing most of it so Luca and the behemoth dog he’d dragged home yesterday wouldn’t be alone for long.
After a backyard battle with the garden hose and nearly an entire bottle of Dawn, the creature had emerged from our makeshift bath fluffy, blindingly white, and seeming even larger than before.
Sheila at the shelter hadn’t found any reports of a missing dog like Akela or of any Samoyed-Alabai mix breeds in the area, but she’d promised to post his picture online and on the community boards.
We had a vet appointment on Monday, and the sinking feeling I’d had on Thursday—that I was inheriting a dog—was starting to feel inevitable.
Luca had sworn he’d take care of him, and the hope in his eyes had made it nearly impossible to say no. Even still, I’d insisted it was on a probationary period—for both of them.
By the time I stepped out of the car, Andie had already opened the back door and released Beckett’s dog. The black mongrel bolted across the yard toward his own house instead of Andie’s.
I whistled, attempting to call him back so she didn’t have to chase after him in those spiky heels, but she stopped me.
“I’m going over there to check on the cats, anyway. Can I have my keys?”
She held her hand out, and as I deposited them, my fingers brushed her palm. A sharp, aching spike of desire coursed through me at the simple touch. She really was havoc. On my nerves. My body. My mind.
I stuffed my hand in my pocket.
As Andie started to turn away, I stopped her with my words, reluctant to let her leave without reassuring her once more.
“I’m sorry I scared you. I want you to know you can trust me. If whoever the hell you're frightened of shows up, you don’t have to face them alone. I’ll show them out of town and make sure they stay out.”
It was nearly pitch black in our cul-de-sac without the streetlights I was so accustomed to in LA, so I couldn’t see her expression, but I heard her inhale sharply as nerves jangled back to life.
She battled them now, just as she’d battled them at the hotel.
It was strangely sexy as hell to watch the control she wielded over her emotions.
But the past haunting her made her a fiery, damsel-in-distress addiction I knew better than to succumb to.
“I believe you mean that, Sheriff.”
“Cooper. And I do.”
I felt rather than saw the nod before she clicked her way along the sidewalk. She needed a damn light. She had a phone, so why didn’t she turn the flashlight app on?
It wasn’t my business. Andie was a grown woman. If she broke an ankle, it wasn’t on me.
I strode purposefully away from her, jogged up the porch steps, unlocked my door, and nearly slammed it behind me in my attempt to put a firm wall between me and her chaos.
I hollered that I was home as I flipped on the entrance light, and my entire body froze as absolute destruction greeted me.
My first shaken thought was that we’d been robbed, that the house had been broken into while I’d been gone, and my son had been alone.
I sprinted for the hall, shouting Luca’s name, and nearly ran into the damn dog. He’d been sitting hidden behind the armchair on one of the missing couch cushions. It was the bit of stuffing hanging from his mouth and more strewn around him that finally clued me in to what had happened.
The damn dog had destroyed all the cushions, gnawed through both arms of the couch, and chewed every item on the coffee table, including the television remote.
“What the fuck, dog?”
Akela had the audacity to wag his tail and let loose a friendly bark.
“Luca!” I shouted, storming past the mutt and flinging open my son’s bedroom door.
His light was off, and when I flipped it on, it revealed an empty room.
I swore to myself.