Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow - By L.L. Muir Page 0,42
same route with Skye, but it would have made her even more suspicious than she’d already been.
Her face, after he’d lit the candle. Her standing confused and surprised in the middle of the room. That stupid scarf tied around her head. It all made his gut clench.
With one foot propped on the first foothold, he paused and took a deep breath, pushing away all soft thoughts—all images of his mother and grandfather—shoving them into a strong box in his mind and slamming the lid closed.
He didn’t worry about being seen against the blackness of the tree; he’d dressed carefully, put a black beanie over his blond head. Gloves would have been smart, though, not for camouflage, but to keep warm. His hands were so cold he might very well lose his grip.
Climbing the tree in the dark turned out to be pretty easy, though, even with the center of the rungs cut out. He remembered every crevice, and soon he was once again sliding that bolt from the door.
He opened the hatch and waited a few heartbeats, to see if she was going to come running at him, to hurt him, but he heard nothing. He stuck his head up and looked inside. Nothing. The candlelight showed a clear floor. She had to be crouched in a corner. His gut clenched again, but he ignored it.
He pulled himself up with routine ease and swung his legs inside. Two seconds later, he was sliding the bolt home and adding a padlock, one with a combination. He’d brought a small flashlight along, in case he needed it to open the lock.
The room was warm. He took off his hat and shoved it in his back pocket, then braced himself to face her.
She wasn’t crouching in a corner—in any of them. She wasn’t sitting on one of the boxes.
He whipped out the small flashlight and checked the boards he’d used to cover the windows. None of them were missing, none looked loose. She had to be there!
He dropped to his knees in front of a long box and flung the lid open, ready for a teenage vampire or any possibility to come at him.
Just water bottles, their contents winking in the beam of the flashlight. He closed the lid and scooted over to the other box. On top of the wood, her jacket, scarf, and other things were folded neatly in a pile, and on top of the pile was the box of matches he’d spilled on the ground...
...and a pair of handcuffs.
“Shit.”
His mind whirled as he picked through her clothes. How on earth had she gotten out? Why had she taken off her freaking clothes?
Oh, Lucas and Jonathan were going to be thrilled when she showed up at the front door with nothing on. He might as well climb into one of the wood boxes now and save them a few steps.
Why would she need her clothes off? Had she been able to squeeze out without them?
The escape hatch!
Jamison sprang to his feet, took the candle off the stool and set it under the escape hatch he hadn’t considered nailing shut. It flew open and thunked against the roof.
He stuck his head out, but only his eyes cleared the top of the roof; he couldn’t even get a shoulder through.
He turned in a circle, but she wasn’t up there. If she’d gotten out, she’d made it down the tree. If she’d fallen, he would have seen her body on the ground.
Wouldn’t he?
He heard metal clank below him. She was trying to get the bolt out of the door!
He stepped down off the stool and she snapped a handcuff on one of his wrists, but when she tried to pull is hands together, behind his back, she couldn’t do it. He pulled his hands in front of him, the handcuffs hanging from one wrist, his small flashlight in the other hand.
She was behind him, and when he turned toward her, she moved to stay that way.
He laughed. Of course she didn’t want him to see her in her underwear. She must have been hiding under the blanket and he hadn’t noticed.
He dropped the smile. No quarter. No mercy.
“Would you like me to turn my back while you get dressed?”
“Would you?”
“Yeah.” If she didn’t get dressed, well...she just had to get dressed, that’s all.
He faced the nearest wall. He really wanted an excuse to muzzle her again. Even those two words, “would you,” had hit him in the stomach and the poor organ had