“Sorry Sunshine, you’re a nut,” he replied. “But that’s a good thing.”
I decided to ignore that. Hank cal ed me a nut nearly every day.
And, for some insane reason, he did think it was a good thing.
“I need to cal my Mom,” I told him.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning in Indiana,” he reminded me.
“Trust me, Hank, she won’t care.”
And she wouldn’t.
Trish Logan would be over the moon.
Trish Logan would cal an emergency church meeting so the whole congregation could praise the Lord that her daughter, Roxanne Gisel e, had final y landed herself a good, decent, honest man.
“Cal her in the morning,” Hank demanded.
“Whisky –”
His arm got super tight. “Roxanne, cal her in the morning,” he repeated. “Tonight is yours and mine.” I sucked in breath.
Then I said, “Okay.”
He turned my body to face his, lifted his head and buried it in my neck.
I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.
Shamus got the hint and exited the bed.
Chapter Seventeen
We’re Good
Stella
I was drifting back and forth between awake and asleep.
In my waking moments I was visualizing my bank balance and wondering how much I could afford to send home to Mom and Dad (the answer I came up with… not much).
In my sleeping moments, I was dreaming of flying truffles, exploding confetti, Dixon Jones laughing maniacal y, Preston Mason showing me a picture book with gruesome caricatures of murders in it and Mace’s face fil ed with pain.
I came ful y awake when I heard the scrape of a key in the door.
Juno’s body jerked, confirming I wasn’t hearing things. I felt her come up to her bel y. As she was at the foot of the bed, I couldn’t see her but I figured her head was up, facing the door, ears perked.
I assessed my situation which was pretty much effed. I’d fal en in bed then into a fitful sleep without the phone close by. I had no weapons and I wouldn’t know how to use one anyway. The house was on a huge plot, no other houses close by and Swen and Ulrika were on vacation.
No one would hear me scream.
The alarm beeped when the door was opened. Juno moved again, the bed shaking with her bulk and she jumped down.
My body was rigid with fear as I listened in terrified confusion to buttons being pressed and the beeping stopped.
I was so panicked, I didn’t realize after the beeping stopped that I didn’t hear anything else except soft movement and Juno’s tags jangling on her col ar.
In other words, my dog didn’t bark.