Grabbing her wine and phone from outside, she locked the French doors.
If her flat screen had been delivered on time, she would’ve gone downstairs and watched television. Instead, she got beneath her covers and scrolled through TikTok posts until she fell asleep.
CHAPTER 11
She staredat him from across the table. He smiled at the waiter and paid the bill.He really is a beautiful and kind man, she thought. She was sure she had little hearts superimposed over her eyeballs as he smiled at her. Sexy. Knowing. He reached across the table, grasping her hand between both of his and kissing her palm. His soft warm lips may as well have pressed against that sensitive space between her ear and jaw line—or a place much more intimate. The place that was heating up, wanting his lips pressed against it as softly as they were pressing against her palm.
“Derrick, let’s go home,” she said softly as he pressed his lips into the back of her hand.
“You know it was never you I wanted.” He stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “I know you saw the way I looked at her. I know you ignored it,” he said, almost in contemplation as he stroked her hand.
“You were convenient, Lauren, and I just wanted to be around the woman I loved but couldn’t have. When I was around her, your love felt like a chain locked around my neck. You were choking the life and joy out of me, and I hated it. I hated touching you, I hated fucking you. I hated everything aboutyou…except her.” He smiled, kissing her hand tenderly before biting into it, his teeth were like razors ripping into her flesh as he reached for her throat, grabbed it, and started squeezing.
She woke up fighting to get free of him, screaming and sobbing. She couldn’t stop sobbing, even as she turned on the lamp and checked for shredded flesh. It was a nightmare. She was okay, she wasn’t harmed. But she was. Had she ignored the hate, not seen their attraction? She had seen Derrick looking at Lahn once or twice? But everybody looked at Lahn. She was strikingly beautiful with an ethereal artistic flare that she’d cultivated to perfection.
But did she know on an unconscious instinctual level? Did she sense that Derrick and Lahn longed for each other and blocked their love out of some selfish sense of jealous entitlement?
Hell no.
She might question if the sky was blue, and the sun was hot, but she didn’t want anything not meant for her, even if it was the man she thought was the love of her life. She didn’t see the value in settling for anyone or anything.
“So, what was my sin?” she asked out loud. “That I’d allowed myself to fall in love, that I’d exchanged vigilance for trust?”
Why was she still trying to understand why?!
“I just want to get over this!” she sobbed.
A cool breeze caressed her heated skin, and the air became almost electric.
A small hand caressed her cheek and when Lauren opened her eyes she was by all intents and purposes alone in the room. The touch calmed her, and she became the clearest she’d been in weeks. Reaching for her phone, she went into the closet and put on her black puff jacket and a pair of running shoes. She turned off the bedroom light and walked downstairs.
Entering the security code, she turned off the alarm, and just in case—in case the spirit didn’t want to be alone in the dark—she left the kitchen light on.
She set the alarm again and walked out the back door.
“I’ll be back,” she said for... She didn’t know why she said it. No, she did. Whatever was in that house had offered her comfort and she wanted to accept it, Ma Mable would’ve accepted it, yet right now she was calmly freaking out.
Locking the door, she trotted down the stairs and trot-walked the distance to Santiago’s home. She banged on his door several times before it swung open.
The sheriff stood there shirtless, his thick hair unbound and flowing in a heavy cascade over his shoulders and back. She was used to seeing his hair pulled back into a tight, slicked down, braided ponytail that rested between his shoulder blades.
“How can you be asleep at a time like this? It’s only like eleven thirty.”
He looked in the direction of her house, a smile spread across his face. “Take it you didn’t enjoy your welcoming party.”
She barged passed him without responding, surprised he didn’t object before closing the door.
“My welcome was sweet. Really. Gentle even. I’m just going to need another night to reconcile that I was welcomed by a spirit, that’s all. I mean…you can’t just prepare for that,” she said, walking around his home, which was very different than hers. His was more of a cabin craftsman but not all wooded out, whereas hers was more of a small Queen Anne.
“Was your grandfather a woodcarver?” she asked, stooping down to examine a baby mountain lion in full-on stalking mode.
“He was. He built himself a studio about fifty feet off the front of the yard that?—”
She headed up the stairs and made a beeline to the door that was most likely his bedroom since it overlooked the lake. It wasa large room with an extra-large bed, and unlike hers had an ensuite that she didn’t bother looking in right now.
Sitting on the firm bed, she toed off her shoes. “Sometimes I snore so I hope you’re not a light sleeper,” she said, slipping under the covers on the side that wasn’t pulled back.
He at least deserved to sleep on his regular side of the bed.
