True. I’d put off getting better locks on my house because I never locked the house. It wasn’t because I was stupid or thought the best of people. It was simply because before a few months ago, nothing bad had ever come near my house which sat at the top of about a hundred steps, and was pretty inaccessible by any other route.
It looked out over the bluff to a tumble of salal bushes and huckleberries, below which rolled sea grass and then sand that skiffed and humped all the way out to the sea.
When we were kids, we burrowed our way like rabbits through all those bushes to create a pine needle padded, root-riddled trail between the house and the sand. We’d been clever about where the trail spilled out onto the beach, so it was nearly invisible.
That trail had long since grown over and suffered a small rockslide, so there was no sneaking up on my house from any way except the front door.
Maybe Jean had a point. Ordinary had gotten dangerous lately. A small part of me wondered if it had always been this dangerous and I just hadn’t noticed, or if, since Dad’s death, something in our happy town had been broken and was now bleeding black.
I started up the stairs. “The original locks were fine.”
“How would you know?” Jean said, behind me. “You never used them.”
“I liked them the way they were.”
“I know. But that had to change. You understand that, right? All bets are off. You’ve been attacked. Twice. What we’re up against right now–Lavius–isn’t something we can just assume won’t happen again. I need you to tell me you know that.”
“I know that.” I did. I still hated that it was messing with my house.
“I need you to tell me like you mean it.”
“Yeah, well.”
She slapped my hip. “Stop being grumpy. We’re going to keep you safe no matter what, you idiot. Accept our overly-protective, demanding love, or else we’ll threaten you.”
I threw her a finger over my shoulder and was so glad to hear her laugh.
Okay. Maybe things were still a little normal. Well, as normal as they ever were.
“Dee-laney Reed!” a male voice sang out. “Here you are!”
I stopped with three steps still ahead of me and looked up at the sneaky elf thief masquerading as a reliable business owner.
“Brown.”
Gabriel Brown was a handsome man. Like, thin and graceful runway model handsome. He had bright, soft eyes that seemed to lean toward whatever color was in his immediate environment and blond hair that was shoulder-length, artfully tousled and just begging for fingers to be dragged through it.
His face was sharp at the jaw and cheekbones, but not too much at the chin. He had a tasteful amount of stubble over his jaw and the perfect symmetry of his face made his eyes bigger, his shoulders wider, his chest firmer, his hips narrower…no, it wasn’t just his face that did all that.
His elfness did it. He was extraordinarily gorgeous. And boy-howdy did he know it and use it to his advantage.
That was the reason why he’d never served time for his string of burglaries. His victims took one look, got hit with his one-two punch—smile and dimples—and the charges, (and often panties) were dropped.
I didn’t hate the guy, but I tired of his charm pretty quickly.
“You look lovely today, Dee.”
“Still hate that nickname. What are you doing to my house, Brown?”
“Something that should have been done years ago. Making it safe. Do you have any idea how easy it would be to break into your house? I mean even blind, drunk and with one foot tied behind my back, it would have been child’s play. No, what’s easier than that? Baby play? Fetus play?”
“Go back to the part where you’re tied up and blind,” I said. “Because I was liking that.”
Dimples:pow, pow!
Like that would work on me.
“You are a treat. Why aren’t we besties?” He said it like he’d just run out of chocolate to lick off his fingers and wanted to try mine.
