For all morning, if need be.
The cat’s snoozing between my thighs. Sloane’s snoring softly again with her face plastered to me.
And I feel…peace.
Fuck.
Not peace.
I’m having a reaction to properly using my hero complex to help a woman in need.
I’m mistaking pride in a job well done for peace.
I inhale another deep breath, ordering the boner to remember we’re a loner, and that’s when I smell something else.
Coffee.
I sniff again.
The coffee scent gets stronger.
I sniff Sloane’s hair again—definitely cinnamon.
But then—then I hear it.
The sound of my tea kettle getting hot enough to shake.
Someone’sinside my trailer. Using my kitchen.
When I double-triple-checked that the door was locked.
I bolt upright.
The cat yowls and goes flying, thumps weird on the ground, and yowls again.
Fuck.
Three-legged cat.
Shit shit shit.
But I see a shadow move beyond the door, and the cat doesn’t matter.
Neither does Sloane, who’s gasping, “Who saved the chicken?” as I spin out of my bedroom in a crouch, ready to take on whoever’s?—
Mother.
Fucking.
Fucker.
In less than a heartbeat, I identify my intruder.
She’s about five six. Brown hair. Approaching fifty, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her.
And she’s smirking at me as she holds a to-go coffee cup of her own that she must’ve brought, which explains the coffee smell before the tea kettle’s hot. “Oh, doesn’t feel so good when the shoe’s on the other foot, does it?”
Levi will die.
