“Hello?” she answers.
“Hey, Han.”
“You okay?” In an instant, she’s more alert and I hear the rustling of her sheets through the phone.
“Kind of. A dog ran into the driveway and set off the motion alarm.”
She sighs. “How long ago?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Is the shotgun in your hand?”
I glance down at the gun in my hand and sigh. “Yeah.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“No,” I blurt, standing up and resuming my pacing. “You don’t have to do that. I just needed someone to talk me down. I’m sorry. It’s stupid.”
“I’m walking out of the house right now,” she tells me before hanging up and I pull the phone away from my ear, shaking my head. I feel terrible for waking her up and dragging her out of bed in the middle of the night but I’m also so relieved that she’s going to be here with me. Being alone is one of the hardest things for me to cope with after everything I went through and probably one of the main reasons I was talked into adopting Jack so easily. Lord knows how badly I would be losing it right now if he weren’t here to make me feel a little safer.
Walking back out into the living room, I sit next to the window and peer out into the driveway to wait for Hannah. I readjust the grip on the gun and try to swallow my fear. There’s something about the moonlight that makes my mundane driveway seem ten times creepier than it does in the daylight, though and I will Hannah to drive faster.
After ten tense minutes, she pulls into the driveway, setting off the alarm again but this time, I breathe a sigh of relief as I stand up and rush to the door, yanking it open. She smiles and grabs her bag out of the back seat before turning to face me.
“You holding up?”
I nod. “Sure.”
“Come on,” she replies, meeting me on the porch. “Let’s go put the gun on the coffee table and try to get some rest before we have to wake up for work.”
“Thank you,” I tell her as I shut the door behind her and lock it up tight. She sighs as she sets her small duffel bag down on the couch.
“You never need to thank me, you know that. But, we will be talking about this tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes as I set the gun down and grab a few blankets from the hope chest in the corner. “Whatever.”
She lies down on the couch and I cuddle up on the chair next to Jack’s bed, pulling my legs up to my chest as I lay the blanket over me.
“Night, babe,” she says into the darkness and I quietly blow out a breath, more of my fear slipping away. I know that tomorrow, I’ll have to tell her what’s been going on and figure out what the hell I’m going to do about this mess but for now, all I want to do is sleep and pretend like I’m not totally screwed.
* * * *
Scanning the back room of the animal clinic. I make sure everything is in order before flipping off the light and making my way up to the waiting room where Hannah is perched behind the front desk, typing away at the computer. I plop down in the chair next to her and she spares me a glance.
“You about ready to go?”
She nods. “I just need to finish this up. Five minutes, tops.”
“You’re good,” I tell her, setting my bag down on the counter as Victoria steps out of the closest exam room with our last patient of the evening, a cute little French Bulldog.
“Give us a call if Buster’s not feeling better in a couple days, okay?” she instructs and Buster’s mom nods. Victoria walks them to the front door and says good-bye before locking up and turning back to us. “Any big plans for the evening, ladies?”
“Oh, yeah.” I nod. “I’ve got a hot date with a bottle of my favorite wine and my bathtub.”
“Ooh,” she exclaims, wiggling her eyebrows as she does a little shimmy with her shoulders. We both laugh and she winks as she disappears back into the exam room to clean up.
“So,” Hannah prompts. “We going to talk about what happened last night?”
I sigh. I’ve managed to make it through the whole day without her grilling me on my behavior last night. Not that I ever thought I’d get away with not telling her but I was enjoying my reprieve.
“What is there to talk about? The alarm woke me up in the middle of the night and after that, I was too freaked to go back to sleep. It’s nothing new, Han.”
“But I thought it was getting better?”
“It was…”
She stops typing and turns to me, arching a brow. “But?”
“But then Noah came back and led him right to me.”
“What?” she whisper-yells, looking around the office like we’re trading governmental secrets. “How do you know?”
“He left a rose on my porch the other day.”
She studies me for a moment, fear in her eyes. The same fear that’s settled deep down in my soul since Noah found me. “Are you sure it was him?”
“Pretty sure,” I answer with a shrug. “I asked both Mason and Noah and neither one of them left it so unless it was you…”
“Maybe Noah’s just messing with you.”
I shake my head. “There isn’t a whole lot Noah wouldn’t do but I can confidently say he wouldn’t do this. What would be the point? He wants to win me back, not scare me to death.”
“But he wouldn’t know that it would scare you, would he?”
“That’s true,” I concede. “But you didn’t see his face when I asked him about it. He genuinely had no idea what I was talking about.”
“And it’s not Mason?”
“No. He was with me when I found it and he assumed it was from Noah and got pissed.”
Dr. Hebert walks out of his office, interrupting our conversation, and we both flash him a smile. “I’m off for the evening, ladies. Make sure you lock up and set the alarm before you go.”
“We will, Sir,” I tell him and he shakes his head, chuckling as he waves and disappears down the hallway to the back door. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Hannah turns back to me.
“There’s something happening between you and Noah, isn’t there?” The shit eating grin on her face makes me want to object just on principle.
“No. He and I can’t be together anymore and this just proves why.”
She nods, turning back to the computer but she starts chewing her bottom lip as she types and I can practically see the wheels of her mind turning. Without warning, she stops and whips her head to me.
“Go with me on this for a second…”
I nod, wary of whatever train of thought put the triumphant look on her face.
“Say, he has already found you, right?”
I nod again, my stomach doing a little flip.
“And if that’s the case, it means you’re already in danger so what’s stopping you from following your heart and working things out with Noah?”
Narrowing my eyes, I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “And what makes you so sure that my heart wants Noah?”
“We’ll just call it a hunch,” she says, rolling her eyes as she turns back to the computer and presses a few buttons. “There. I’m ready to go.”