Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,35
lady. Not only was Sierra’s welfare in his hands, but so was a baby’s.
Then she’d left and he’d been angry and worried and full of questions. He had no idea what had happened to her and who had left her with those scars, or who’d abandoned her pregnant in the snow. He didn’t think she was the type to up and leave, but she seemed to know Alma.
But Sierra and Alma weren’t friendly. His intuition screamed that something was off about the old lady. The same sense of wrongness flared whenever he thought back to how tense Sierra had acted around the woman. She’d left the drugstore like someone’s life depended on it.
How could an old woman coerce Sierra to leave him?
He needed to make sure she was all right. He’d left home for work that day years ago, thinking his world would be fine when it had ended hours later.
He peered at the house. Every other house on the block was a similar style to Alma’s. Old, square, farmhouse-style structures. Some were two stories, some had two-car garages, others had none. A few were smaller, but several were larger, wider. All of them had their curtains open in the middle of the damn day. Except for Alma’s.
His gaze dropped to his shoes. Since he’d quit work, he no longer carried a weapon in his vehicle. His hunting rifle and shotgun were at the cabin. For a fleeting second, he wished he had a sidearm again.
Alma had to be pushing eighty. Why the hell was he thinking about being armed?
He fisted his hands on his thighs. The street was quiet for the middle of the week. At the end of the block, a man veered around the corner. He marched, heedless of any icy patches, his gaze glued to the green house Boone had been watching.
The man got closer.
Jim?
What was Jim from the sporting goods store doing out for a walk around Alma’s place?
Jim plowed through a neighbor’s yard and charged through the bushes separating the properties into Alma’s backyard. Snow from the branches rained down on his head and shoulders but that didn’t slow him down.
How were these three people connected? Did Sierra know Jim too? Alma and Jim had to know each other. They’d both lived in Green Valley for years.
It was time for some answers. Boone got out and eyed the front door. Did he just walk up and knock? What would he say? Hey, I’d love to know what’s going on.
As he approached, muted sounds of a crash came from the back of the house. He knew the sound of a door getting busted in. Was that from Jim?
He trotted through the yard, using Jim’s footprints to plow through the snow in less time. The screen door hung off a hinge. Boone scanned the backyard. Tall evergreens cut off the view of the yard behind Alma’s house, and the neighbors each had rows of shaggy lilacs that blocked their view.
Stalking closer to the door, he went as fast as he dared. If he went barreling in, with or without a weapon, he could create more problems.
Scuffles reached him. A grunt. Chairs scraping across a floor. Another giant crash propelled him forward.
He swept through the door, wishing he had more than his bare hands, and took in the scene. Alma stood in the living room, her hands on her knees as she peered into the kitchen, saying, “Is he dead?”
Sierra stood over an unconscious Jim. Her cheeks were flushed, but she appeared unhurt. “Nope. Can you tell if the demon’s still in him?” She pushed the magazine release on a Beretta and pulled open the slide, locking it open as a round flew out and tinged on the floor. The moves were fast and efficient. He barely had time to register the danger of a firearm. She tossed the gun on the counter and stilled. She swung her head toward him.
This was more than a man breaking into a house. It was more than two women taking on an intruder. Alma’s calm inspection of Jim. Sierra’s efficiency with the Beretta. Demons? And Jim. Alma wasn’t the one who’d incapacitated him.
“Shut the door before the world sees,” Sierra said and went through the drawers of the kitchen. “We need rope.”
He stared at her. “Why?” Of all the questions, finding out why she needed rope at the same time there was an unconscious man on the floor of a house that wasn’t hers seemed priority.