Page 110 of The Promise Of Rain

“I’ve never told anybody about the dream.”

She squeezed my arm close.“Thank you for trusting me with it.”

I closed my eyes, focussed on the perfection of holding her in my arms.“I do trust you.I want you to trust me, too.”

Her phone buzzed, the sound cutting through the peaceful silence between us.

She picked it up, and it trembled in her grip.

My attention sharpened on her face.

Paling, she pressed accept.“Hello?”

There was no answer.

After a moment, she ended the call and turned to me.“Wrong number.”

She looked too scared for it to be a wrong number.“Is this the first time hang up you’ve received?”

She shook her head, her eyes glossing over.“I’m scared it’s all going to start up again,” she confessed.

“All what?”I prodded, tucking her back under the covers with me.

We’d deal with our nightmares together.

We’d deal with everything life threw at us together.

“The crank calls, the slurs and name-calling, the boycotting of my business, the vandalism.It was bad.”

“I had no idea,” I admitted.

“I don’t want you dragged into it.”She gulped.“I still check the front window every morning.Even though it only happened once, having those words up there for everyone to see, it was humiliating.”

“Do you want to tell me the words?”I asked softly.

She paused, then shook her head.“There was a break-in.”

My entire body hardened.“Were you home?”

She nodded.“I was upstairs.Sergeant Elliott got here before they made it into the kitchen.The only damage was to the front.Miller and the rest of the guys helped me fix it up.”

“A forced renovation,” I stated.

“Something like that,” she admitted.

“Did they find out who did it?”

She shook her head and softly scraped her nails over my chest, soothing the beast inside me.“No.They had suspicions but couldn’t make them stick.”

“Do you have a security system?”

“No.”

“We’ll get one.First thing Monday morning, I’ll make arrangements.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she protested.

I shook my head, only slightly exasperated.I kissed her neck.“You’re not getting it, baby.Not yet.But you will.”