Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I’m feeling pretty damn good when I leave the house to go grocery shopping. Roxie has been glowing, Dillon has finally stopped lecturing us about sleep cycles, and Boone has let me win an argument about crib placement.
Small miracles everywhere.
The town is fully decked out now with twinkling lights on every lamppost, wreaths with big red bows on just about every doors, and plastic reindeer on half the roofs. I shake my head as I walk across the snowy parking lot of the market, juggling too many bags of groceries.
Approaching my truck, I glance up and instantly go still.
Tucked into a row of salt-stained pickups and beat-up SUVs is a car that does not belong. Sleek. Black. Untouched by snow or gravel.
It’s the kind of vehicle that doesn’t come from around here. Hell, it doesn’t come from within a hundred miles of here. It’s too polished and too expensive. Just wrong.
Every instinct I have snaps awake. My heartbeat slows. My senses sharpen.
Someone sits inside. I can’t make out a face, just the silhouette of a person watching the street.
I don’t move at first, just set my groceries gently in the back seat of my truck and shut the door like nothing’s wrong. Then I pull out my phone and text Boone.
Got eyes on an unfamiliar car in town. Too fancy and new to be local. Gonna stay here a bit, see if they move. Heads up: we might have trouble.
My thumb hovers for half a second, then I add:
Keep Roxie inside.
I slip the phone back into my pocket, turn toward the market window so I can watch the reflection without turning my head, and let my breathing settle into that cold, steady readiness I haven’t needed in a long time.
Everything has been perfect since we found out about the pregnancy. Peaceful. Safe. But we’ve always known it wouldn’t last. Just looking at that car, I know it’s over. There’s no way whoever is in there isn’t a threat.
25
DILLON
Boone peeled out of the driveway fifteen minutes ago, muttering something about a problem in town and how we’ll talk when he gets back. I don’t question him. Curiosity is my default setting, but the tension in his voice tells me this isn’t the time to ask questions.
My gut churns. It’s impossible not to worry. We’ve been waiting for trouble, and then he suddenly takes off like that. Still, I stay at my desk with three monitors glowing, two keyboards going, and a half-eaten cookie sitting on a napkin beside me.
I’m elbows-deep in a data scrape when the doorbell rings. Once. Twice. A third time, like whoever’s out there has zero patience.
Since Boone told me to keep Roxie inside and out of sight, I get up, shaking my head at her when she moves to do the same. I jog downstairs, groaning when the bell rings for a fourth time. “Who the hell?”
I open the door and nearly laugh out loud at who I find standing on the other side, shivering her ass off in her hooker heels and a fashionable coat that doesn’t stand a chance against a Montana winter.
It’s Snow White. If Snow White were a vindictive, narcissistic, soul-sucking nightmare. Tessa. Boone’s ex-wife.
“Dillon,” she says, her voice sugary in an artificial-sweetener way. “You look older.”
“Time does tend to move forward after ten years. You should try it sometime, the whole moving forward thing.”
Her smile tightens. “Where’s Boone?”
It’s more a demand than a question, and she tries to brush past me without waiting for an invitation. I step in front of her, blocking her path. I don’t care if she freezes her fake-ass cheeks off out here. “Nope. We’re not doing that. You can’t just waltz into this house like you own it.”
She lifts a brow. “I owned half of everything he had, actually.”
“Yeah, but then you divorced him, took your payout, and vanished to chase whatever plastic surgeon you were sleeping with. Let’s not play pretend, shall we?”
She crosses her arms. “I know he’s home. There’s nowhere else to go in this godforsaken town. Get out of my way, Dillon. I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not here.”
She stares up at me, obviously trying to figure out if I’m lying.
“I hear he’s doing well,” she says after a beat, lowering her voice like she’s offering condolences at a funeral. “Very well, actually. In fact, from what I’ve heard, you’ve all been exceptionally successful with your little computer business.”
And there is her motive for being here.
Her eyes sweep the interior over my shoulder, calculating. Taking mental inventory. Assessing assets the same way some people appraise jewelry at a pawn shop.
I don’t know where Boone is at this exact second, but I suddenly want to call and warn him to drive in circles until she’s gone.
Before I can discreetly slide my phone out of my pocket to fire off a text, footsteps sound on the stairs, and then Roxie comes into view. She’s still wearing one of Boone’s shirts, her hair in a loose side braid, but she stops halfway down the steps when she sees the woman in front of me.