Page 31

Sierra

I walk down the steps with the empty coffee cup in my hand, looking over at Theo, who is in the living room with the broom in his hand. He looks up and smiles. “Hi. Mitchell just left.” He points over his shoulder at the new window.

“That was fast,” I observe once I get to the bottom of the steps. The movement from outside has me looking at the front door.

“Caleb had a couple of words with him.” Theo snickers, and I can just imagine. “The guys are almost done putting up the cameras too.”

“Cameras? As in plural?” I walk to the front window, seeing three people on my porch.

“He’s got four in front,” Theo starts to say, “four on the side, and I think four in the back.”

I gasp out, “Isn’t that…”

The front door opens and my head whips around to look at Caleb. “Hey,” he greets, looking at me, then looking at Theo. “Everything good?” he asks, putting down the black duffel bag he was holding in his hand.

“I’m great,” Theo replies, “but I don’t know if I’m the one you should be worrying about.”

He looks at me with a confusion filling his face.

“Can you explain to me, please?” I try to remain as calm as I can, but today has been a roller coaster of emotions.

I’ve been on fucking edge all day long. Even though Theo has been here with me, every single noise made me jump.

“How did one door cam equal out to, I don’t know, a thousand? ”

“It’s not a thousand,” he defends himself. “There is one at the door, which you need, and another on top of the garage. Then I got two more in the front at the corner and a couple in the back.”

“So a thousand. I don’t think I need all of that.”

“Better safe than sorry,” he says, then turns to Theo. “You going to head out?”

“I am now.” He scoops up the dust that was made putting in the window. We don’t move from our spot as Theo goes to the garage to grab his things. “Call me if you need me.” He opens the front door. “Actually, scratch that, I don’t want to hear from you.” He walks out and slams the door behind him.

“What’s with the bag?” I ask him, my eyes going to the duffel.

“My stuff.” He picks up the bag and starts to walk to the stairs, avoiding looking at me.

“What stuff?”

“Clothes”—he walks up the steps—“shaving shit, shower shit.” He gets to the top of the stairs and looks down at me. “I’m moving in.”

“Um, excuse me?”

“Until this is all fucking over and you aren’t scared out of your skin, I’m moving in.” He starts to walk toward my bedroom, and even though what he just said sounds really, really nice, we should have maybe discussed it.

“Um, shouldn’t you have asked me before you just showed up here with your stuff?”

He tosses the bag gently into the bedroom before turning and coming back down the stairs and straight toward me, grabbing my face in his hands and bending to kiss my lips. “If I tell you to pack your shit and move in with me, will you do it?”

“No.”

“So this was the only way that it was going to happen.” His thumbs rub my cheeks.

“What if I don’t want you to stay here?”

“Then I’ll sleep in my truck in the front.” My mouth hangs open. “Bottom line, I’m not fucking leaving you by yourself.”

“Caleb, they are just?—”

“You said you aren’t going to stop,” he cuts me off. “So this is what we have to do until you get the answers to whatever it is you are looking for.”

“You can’t be sweet and annoying at the same time.” My voice comes out soft and he laughs before he bends and kisses me just as softly. “It’s an either-or situation.”

“I’ll work on that,” he quips and then he’s interrupted by the doorbell.

He walks over to the door, opening it. The guy with the camera equipment is there to talk to him, so I walk over to the kitchen.

Placing the mug in the dishwasher, I walk over to the fridge and open it, spotting the steaks I bought two days ago. I take them out.

“Where is your cell phone?” he asks, coming into the kitchen. I reach into the back pocket of my jeans and hand it over to him.

“What’s your code?” He looks down and then looks up at me.

“You don’t even know my birthday and you are moving in with me?” I put my hands on the counter. “Do you not see how fucked up that is?”

“You can either tell me or I put in random shit and lock you out for five hundred and fifty-four days.” He smirks at me. “I know it was last month, so I have what, thirty tries.”

“Zero, nine, two, five,” I grind between clenched teeth, as he pulls out a stool and starts doing something on my phone.

“I’m making dinner tonight, but I hope yours doesn’t taste good.” I turn back to the fridge and take out the ingredients I need to make one of my favorite meals.

“Baby,” he says, not even looking up, “I’ll love whatever it is. I’m starving, I didn’t have lunch.”

“Why not?”

“I was dealing with stuff,” he mumbles as I grab the garlic and an onion.

“Weren’t we all.” I place the ingredients on the island before walking over to get a cutting board.

“What stuff were you dealing with?” he asks me as I grab a knife and start going over to my spice drawer and grabbing the paprika, parsley, and salt.

“I got the list of births for the day I was born, and from the look of it, everything looks normal.” He looks up now.

“So I was thinking, if I wanted to get rid of a baby, what would I do?” I open the steaks and start seasoning them with the spices and some olive oil.

“I would either have it at home so no one would know, or have it at a private clinic where they don’t really have to issue paperwork.

” I look up at him as I rub the spices into the steak with my hands.

“There are four private clinics that were open and two are now closed.”

“So you think it’s one of those?”

“I have no idea, but I’m going to go and speak with Bruce and see if he remembers anything.”

“You should check and see if there are any forums on the clinic also,” he suggests. “Sometimes you can get a doctor’s name or something and then work with that.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admit to him as he pushes away from the island and comes over to me.

“I got it all downloaded.” He shows me my phone. “The app is there. I also installed it on my phone. As soon as it detects motion, it starts recording.”

“There goes me trying to sneak all my other men into the house.” I knock his shoulder with mine, laughing. When I look at him, all he does is glare at me. “I was kidding. Jesus, you live here now. How am I supposed to be able to do anything?”

“Sierra,” he says my name, his voice tight, “I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower and then come and help you make dinner.”

“You better not leave your dirty clothes on the floor in the bathroom,” I tell his retreating back as he jogs up the stairs.

I turn to start making dinner, and when he comes back downstairs, I’m almost done.

He wraps his arms around me, pressing his front to my back as he buries his face in my neck.

The wetness from his hair makes me scrunch up my shoulder.

“I cleaned up my mess.” He kisses me. “It smells amazing. What are we having?”

“Creamy garlic pasta with steak,” I tell him and he stands up.

“You did all that in twenty minutes?” he asks me, looking around.

“I did.” I nod and plate up his food, the two of us eating side by side.

“That was so good,” he compliments after his third plate.

“You don’t say.” I grab my plate and start to stand.

“You cooked, I’ll clean. Go take a bath,” he urges and I lean over and kiss his lips. “I’ll be up after I’m done.”

“Okay, maybe this living-together thing is going to be okay for a while.” I kiss his neck before walking upstairs and taking a bath.

I slide into bed with him, as if I’ve been doing it forever and not that we just started doing it.

The following morning I’m getting dressed when my phone rings, and I look down to see it’s Bruce.

I called him last night after dinner but left him a message on his answering machine.

And not the one where it’s in the phone; no, this one was an old-school one.

“Hello, Mr. Bruce,” I answer him, putting it on speaker.

“Hello yourself,” he booms out, “you called and left a message late last night.”

“It was six thirty.” I try not to laugh.

“I get up early.” The gruffness to his voice feels somewhat like a hug. “What do you want?”

“I was wondering if I could come over and ask you a couple of questions.”

“Are you going to bring me something sweet?” he almost whispers.

“I can but?—”

“But nothing, I’ll be waiting for you this morning.” He doesn’t even give me a chance to answer him, he just hangs up.

“Who was that?” Caleb asks, walking into the room as I grab a pair of brown dress pants that are tight on the hips but loose all the way down.

“That was Bruce,” I answer as I button the pants and look over at his side of the closet.

Which made me stop in my tracks yesterday when I came upstairs.

I knew he was “moving in” but I’ve never had a man live with me before.

His stuff mixed with mine, I thought would look out of place but it’s the complete opposite.

“I’m going to go over there and talk to him about the private clinic. ”

He looks at his watch. “Okay, let me get a couple of things in place and I’ll come with you.”

“What?” I stop getting dressed to look at him. “Don’t you have to work? I thought you were going to the barn today?”

“I’ll send Theo, get him out of this house. He might like it.”

“You don’t have to do that.” My voice is just above a whisper.