I swallowed. “I didn’t order an alarm.”
I hadn’t seen that on the note. It’d said that he had a couple of friends coming over later in the day to take a look at my locks. It had said nothing about an alarm.
That cheeky bastard. He had to have known that I wouldn’t have allowed them to come over and do that.
Stuff like that cost money. Money which I didn’t have just floating around.
I made just enough in a week to cover my bills, groceries, and a few frivolous things. Not something expensive like an alarm system.
“I don’t have the money to pay for that. I’m sorry you wasted your trip,” I told them honestly.
They exchanged glances with each other.
It was the smirk on both of their lips that had my back feathers ruffling.
“Foster said you’d say that. You need to just let us do our job. Apparently, it was funded by the police department,” Scarface said. “My name is Max.”
He held out his hand to me, and I took it, shaking it.
I must’ve surprised him with the force I put into it, because he squeezed my hand a little harder before he released me.
“Gabe,” tall, dark and dangerous said, offering me his hand.
I took his as well, and stepped out of the doorway, allowing them in.
“Well,” I didn’t really know what to say. “Do you need me for anything?”
“Only access to the house. Which you’ve already done. Later, we’ll need more guiding on the code. So be thinking of something easy you want to use. A six digit number is best. Nothing consecutive,” Max told me.
I nodded and swept my arm in an arc.
But I stopped them before they could get more than two feet.
“Do either of you have Foster’s number?” I asked hopefully.
They smiled.
“No, pretty lady. We don’t.”
With that comment, they left.
Stubborn men.
I damn well knew that they had his number.
They had to.
Foster had asked them not to give it to me, though.
I knew it just as well as I knew that the police department wasn’t the one paying for it, he was.
A smile kicked up the corner of my lip, and I closed my eyes.
What was the feeling in my chest?
After an hour of watching The Price is Right, I decided I knew what it was.
Excitement. I was actually looking forward to something for the first time in a very long time.
And it was a fight.
Hopefully a fight that would lead to something…more.***I was painting my toes when what sounded like a movie started to play at full blast.
It played out just like an action movie. The part where a hail of gunfire starts peppering the surroundings, and the people all hide behind the car and miraculously don’t get hit.
My head peaked up from its hunched position over my toes, and surveyed the area.
I hadn’t even heard them move.
It was like they were trained in the art of ninja or something.
One second they were nowhere to be seen, and the next I was being hauled backwards.
I spilled my nail polish in the process, and all I could focus on, while a tattooed, muscled forearm belonging to Max, hauled me back, was the fact that the spilled polish resembled a pool of blood.
“What the fuck?” Max barked in frustration when he saw my side room.
They hadn’t had a chance to get to that room, obviously.
It was filled to the brim with books.
The entire four walls were packed three feet high and three paperbacks thick.
Nonetheless, Max dropped us down to the floor and covered me with his body.
This wasn’t anywhere near as erotic as I’d imagined it being
Firstly, in my books, the heroine was always in love with the one protecting her.
Secondly, the man at my back was married, and I couldn’t feel that way about someone that was married.
He’d been talking about his wife, Peyton, for a good hour and a half now, and frankly I was a little jealous.
I wanted what she had.
But I was also happy for her. It was nice that someone had the devotion of a man like Max.
Someone that would protect her like the way he was doing to me, with his life.
Sure, he’d do it for stranger, too, which he was exhibiting now. But it wouldn’t be that blind devotion that he’d give to his wife.
The shooting, which had continued this entire time, suddenly stopped.
My ears rang in the silence, and I finally took my first breath in three minutes.
Well, I’d probably taken others, but I wasn’t counting those. Those were panic breaths.
Max’s heavy body didn’t move, and I laid there, wondering when he would.
“Are you going to get off of me?” I asked after a while longer.
“Shh,” he hissed.
That’s when I noticed that the other man, Gabe, wasn’t with us.
What if that man died?
He had a wife.
And kids.
Oh, my God. It’d be all my fault!
The sound of Gabe’s voice from somewhere beyond had me breathing a sigh of relief.
Max finally got off of me, and hauled me effortlessly to my feet.
Then he proceeded to drag me into the living room, giving me the first good look at my house. And I realized just how close I came.
“Well,” I said breathlessly. “I don’t think there’s any point in installing that alarm.”
I’d said that, though, because of the fact that my living room wall resembled Swiss cheese.
“Jesus,” I breathed.
Then I turned my head to watch as Gabe entered the room, blood streaming down his arm.
“You’ve been shot!” I wailed in despair.***“Gabe!” A woman’s frantic voice wailed from the doorway.
I turned to see a beautiful blonde dart across the room, and throw herself into Gabe’s arms.
I got up quietly, exiting the room as the couple embraced.
We’d gotten to the hospital less than twenty minutes ago, and I’d sat with Gabe while a doctor looked at the bullet hole on his arm. Something he called a ‘graze.’
I called it a fucking bullet hole, but who the heck was I to say any differently?
“Blake!” My ex-husband’s voice called loudly from the entrance.
I looked up at him and glared.