“Of course it was. It should have been me. Jennifer should never have been in that car. If I hadn’t been freaking out—”
“That’s bullshit. She was your friend, Natalie. You were upset and sick. That’s what friends do. You have a lot of other things you can take the blame for, but that isn’t one of them.”
He was glad she didn’t ask him what things. Truth be told, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything right now.
He stood to leave while he still could. “Get some sleep. I’ll take the couch tonight.”
He saw the look of surprise in her eyes but didn’t react. It wasn’t because he trusted her. He just didn’t think she was going to be trying to climb out of any more windows while pregnant.
Turned out that it wasn’t a window he needed to worry about. Her opportunity to escape arrived a few minutes later.
Ten
Scott took a seat on the couch while Natalie went upstairs to get him a pillow and blanket to use later. It was still too early for him to crash, but a couple of more stale beers and the Sox game, and he should be able to eke out a few hours.
He had a lot to digest.
“Here you go,” Natalie said, putting the stack of bedding on the seat beside him. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
He didn’t, but with the situation in limbo for the next few days until the test results came back, he figured he better set down some ground rules before she headed back up. First and foremost, he needed to make sure she wasn’t communicating with anyone. He wanted her phone, computer, and...
A knock on the door startled them both. Natalie’s gaze shot to his, obviously looking for direction.
But one glance out the big living room window and he knew that it was too late for instructions. He swore, seeing the sheriff’s car parked along the driveway.
His operational awareness had obviously gone to hell.The TV was on, and the car was parked away from the house, but Scott should have heard the footsteps up the weathered and creaky front porch stairs. Whatever work had been going on inside of the house hadn’t moved to the outside yet.
Realizing that the sheriff had probably already seen him, Scott knew the jig was up.
“Why is he here?” Scott whispered angrily. “Did you call him?”
She gave him anare you out of your mind?glare. “Of course not. I told you I barely know him. What do you want me to do?”
“Get rid of him—fast.” He caught her gaze with a hard look. “And don’t try anything. There’s a lot at stake, Natalie. Other lives, not just mine, okay?”
She nodded, but he cursed inwardly, knowing the balance of power had shifted. He just hoped to hell she didn’t realize it.
But of course she did. Natalie was too smart not to recognize the opportunity that the sheriff’s unexpected—Scott hoped unexpected—arrival gave her. She could get away. He could see the indecision on her face as she paused at the door and glanced back at him. Their eyes met for a long heartbeat. She seemed to be searching for something.
He didn’t know whether she found it, but he gave her an encouraging nod, acting more confident than he felt. “Go ahead. Open it.”
He resisted the urge to stand, knowing that he had to appear as relaxed and unthreatening as he could.
As soon as the door opened, Scott knew his instincts had been dead-on. The sheriffhadseen him. Beneath the wide brim of his felt hat, the lawman’s sharp-eyed gaze shot directly to Scott, taking in every detail of his scruffy, hard-edged, living-off-the-grid appearance. Scott knew he looked more like a hired hit man than a highly decoratedSEAL officer. He’d taken “low vis,” as they called it on the Teams, to heart the past couple of months.
Natalie stepped in front of the door, trying to block the sheriff’s view, and asked, “Is there something I can help you with, Sheriff Brouchard?”
She was trying to appear casual and friendly, but her acting skills had apparently gone the way of his operational awareness skills, and her voice was shaking. Of course, if it had been intentional and she was trying to alert the sheriff, Scott was in trouble. From the way the sheriff’s gaze narrowed, he definitely hadn’t missed her nervousness, either.
“I was in the area so I thought I’d check up on you to see how you were doing. I saw your car was still in town, and I was worried about you being stranded out here.” Scott didn’t like the way the sheriff was looking at her—it wasn’t just neighborly concern in his gaze—and something hot and possessive surged through his veins. His muscles tensed and his posture probably wasn’t quite so relaxed and nonthreatening anymore. The sheriff hadn’t missed the movement, and his gaze shifted to Scott on the couch. “But I see that you have company.”
There was an unspoken challenge in his gaze that Scott wasn’t going to ignore—even if he should. “She does,” he said. “And she’s being well taken care of.”
In other words, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, buddy.
“Who are you?”
Scott smiled; he knew the law. He didn’t have to answer that. “Not sure that’s any of your business unless you got some kind of warrant there that I can’t see?”
