work. You’ll need a babysitter.” Jaci was fighting to lower her voice. She did that when she was trying hard to sound like a mature adult.
“I’ll figure out a way.” Kyndal moved over to the mirror and looked herself in the eye. “I can do this. My mother did it, and I turned out okay. I can, too.”
In the reflection, she watched Jaci flop back on the bed and cross herself—adding a dramatic sigh for effect.
* * *
“I DON’T THINK THIS SYSTEM is the one you need for this job.” The design engineer from the security system company folded his arms around the clipboard he’d been scribbling on and eyed the entrance to the cave again.
“Why not? What’s the problem?” Chance had hoped the vandalism would be taken care of by the end of the week, but that wasn’t sounding like much of a possibility.
“Well, to begin with, if we run the alarm to your house, you’re likely to get yourself killed. It goes off, you come busting down here with your shotgun, somebody down here is high—maybe got a weapon—it’s dark, you’re outnumbered—”
“All right, all right.” Chance held his hand up to stop the guy from getting any more graphic. “You’ve made your point. I got chased away from here one time by the former owner wielding a shotgun. Scared the crap out of me—but kids today are different.” A brief memory of Kyndal’s big eyes and her tight grip on his hand scampered across his mind. He let it go and forced his attention on the problem at hand.
“You hear what I’m saying then. Best to leave that to the law enforcement officials.” The engineer glanced at his scribbled notes. “You’d need to call the sheriff, and if you’re not at home, it wouldn’t do any good. And if we set the alarm to sound at the sheriff’s office, depending where the responding officer is in the county, it could take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour to get here.”
“Which wouldn’t give the kids much time to do anything,” Chance countered.
“Long enough—if they’re smart enough to set up a look-out. This system you’ve ordered isn’t underground cable. There will be wires—too high to reach without a ladder, but they’ll be visible.”
Chance could hear the cost of the system going up with each statement the engineer made. “So what do you suggest, and how much is it going to cost me?”
“We’ll have to draw up a custom plan, and I’m not going to lie to you, it’ll be expensive.” His smile seemed to convey that the truth wasn’t hurting him a bit. “Running cable underground all the way to the house will be the bulk of the cost. I hate to say this, but Thursday’s Thanksgiving, and we’re talking another couple of months before we can get to a project that big.”
“A couple of months?”
“February, at the earliest, provided we don’t get too much cold weather that’ll freeze the ground. If that happens, we’ll have to wait for the March thaw. Sorry, but I want to be up front with you about it.”
Chance ran his hand down his face in exasperation. The cave could be ruined by then. He wanted to protect it, and there appeared to be only one way—one very costly way—of doing that. “Draw me up a design and give me an estimate. But, in the meantime, go ahead and install this one. Maybe it’ll act as a deterrent for a while at least.”
Cha-ching. He was standing close enough to hear the sound of the cash register ringing in the engineer’s mind. No doubt it was going to cost a fortune to have this done right. But someday, when he brought his children down here to explore the cave, it would be worth whatever it cost.
The thought of kids brought the memory of making love with Kyndal to the front of his mind. Damn the woman! What would it take to be rid of her for good? The weeks since he’d seen her last had him worried that wasn’t going to happen.
But sure as hell he was trying.
* * *
A BABY. SHE WAS GOING to have a baby. She was going to be a mother. A little more than seven months from now, her whole life would change.
Forever.
Jaci had finally left, and Kyndal lay in bed watching the progression of Sirius across the window. How many times, as a kid, had she wished on that star from this very spot? Adulthood…motherhood seemed so far away