And we both had jobs and lives.
I mean, if it came to it, we could run. But we’d run out of money fast.
Normally, I’d say I’d stay put and shoot him if he came to the house. But the guy got my gun.
“God,” I groaned, stomach sinking.
That was my gun. As in my legal, registered gun I’d needed to get since, well, what normal person knew how to buy a black market weapon?
What if he, I don’t know, committed a crime with it? Would I be somehow at fault? Should I report it stolen? The thing was, I didn’t have a concealed carry permit. So I couldn’t say it was stolen off me or out of my car. I’d have to say it was from myhouse. And, again, that would require me telling my sister since there would be cops around.
My stomach twisted in its millionth knot.
I would just have to play dumb about the gun if something came of it with another crime.
It likely wouldn’t come to that. Most likely, he would track me down and shoot me with my own damn weapon.
Except… except he’d saved me.
And that just made no sense.
My mind was no clearer when I pulled up to the shabby little duplex I shared with my sister on our side and an old, partly deaf, ornery man on the other side. We shared a small backyard that he maintained with his little ride-on mower he loved. In thanks, we maintained the front flowerbed that he’d allowed to be taken over by weeds. And on one weekend when he’d been off fishing with a buddy, we’d sanded down and repainted the whole deck. He’d grunted about it, but we noticed him spending a lot more time out there after we fixed it all up.
It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, if I were being honest. But it was all we could afford and be close enough to the city, where my sister had gone to school, then after that, worked, to reach by a short train ride. It was definitely an area where you didn’t walk around at night. Sometimes, we were a little nervous taking our dog out to pee. But she—a block-headed pittie mix with a scarred face from who-knew-what before we adopted her—and the old guy next door, helped us feel a little safer.
I parked close to the house, climbed out, and mostly closed the door so I could hip-check it all the way to keep the sound from waking up my sister or our dog.
I crept around the back of the house, unlocking both doors, then locking them again as I went inside. I debated putting something heavy in front of it too. But there was no way Runecould find me that quickly. And, well, it would open me up to questions.
I thought I was in the clear until I walked through the living room to have the light flick on in the pitch-black space.
I felt like a teenager caught sneaking in past curfew as I turned to find my sister and our dog sitting up on the couch with matching looks of disapproval.
Shit.
I hadn’t prepared for this.
I was way too worked up to come up with a convincing line on the spot.
“So,” Sofia said, looking uncharacteristically serious in her ridiculous pig-printed pajama pants. Our dog had a matching pajama shirt on. In fact, Hamster had an entire closet to herself in the hallway because she had too many clothes to keep anywhere else. Many of which matched my sister’s outfits. “What’s his name?” she asked, her voice going all soft and teasing in a beat.
“What?”
“His name? What is it? You never sneak in the house. So I can only assume it’s because you have a new man friend and you don’t want me to know about him yet. But too bad. Now I do. So, what’s his name?”
I can’t tell you why it slipped out of my lips. Exhaustion? Confusion? The fact that not a single other male name appeared in my head as I stood there.
“Rune.”
“Rune. Oh, sexy.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“When can I meet him?”
“Never.” I prayed. “Don’t pout at me.”
Sofia was a world-class pouter. It was how she ended up getting anything she wanted when we were growing up. Well,that, and she’d always been almost inhumanly beautiful, even as a baby.