“I can leave, if it’s a problem.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I’m glad you came here. My door is always open for you, sunny.”
I stilled, eyes darting around his face.
There was that old nickname again, and it hit me square in the heart. Lane didn’t seem embarrassed for the slip up, though. His gaze remained steady on mine, waiting for my reaction.
Ignoring it completely, I asked, “What do we do now?”
“Now, I call Johns out here so you can give a statement.”
Great.
When the sheriff called,whether he was on medical leave or not, his deputies came running. Though Lane lived out of town, on a parcel of the Lawless ranch land like the rest of his brothers, a department vehicle pulled up outside in less than ten minutes.
“We sent a unit by your house,” Johns said when he settled on the couch next to Lane. “Of course, your intruder was long gone.”
“How’s my house look?”
Johns grimaced. “According to Lee, it was trashed. I’m sorry, Sutton.”
“It’s all good,” I said. “It’s just stuff.”
“Gonna need your statement, if you’re up for it,” he continued, withdrawing a little spiral bound notebook from his pocket. A habit he no doubt picked up from his boss.
I nodded, pulling the blanket Lane had given me while we waited tighter around my shoulders. Boots was off roaming the house somewhere.
Johns clicked around on his phone screen until it began recording our conversation. He ran through the date and time.
“Interim Sheriff Johns interviewing Sutton Rausch…” I lost the rest of his spiel to the brief flash of hurt that passed across Lane’s face.
This had to be hell for him, being physically unfit to do his job, having to sit by while Johns ran his department.
“Walk me through what happened tonight,” Johns said to me, snapping my attention back to him.
“Before you ask, I never got a look at the guy.”
“Where were you at the time?”
“My bedroom. I was reading.”
“How did you know someone was in the house?”
“I heard glass break, and then the floor creaking, like someone was moving around. Didn’t take long to figure out what was happening.”
“How’d you get out?”
“Climbed out my bedroom window.”
“Quick thinking,” he praised, and I shrugged. “Anything else happen? You’re sure you didn’t get a look at them?”
“Positive.”
“Earlier you said ‘guy.’ Are you sure it was a man?”
“I could be wrong,” I admitted. “But I don’t know many women that could bust down a solid core door like the one to my bedroom. I heard it crashing open as I slipped out, but I didn’t stop to look back.”
“You did the right thing,” Lane said, speaking for the first time since Johns arrived. His teeth still ground together, and his muscles tensed, like his temper was barely leashed.
