“There’s no footage,” she says, holding up her hand. “I didn’t even get close enough to know there was a — whatever this is — here. I saw a dog and wanted to make sure it was okay.”
Of course. Cheese always goes wild just before a storm, and the two extra seconds it took for me to get her inside earlier were enough for this stranger to spot her.
As though attuned to my thoughts, a low rumble of thunder sounds to the east. I glance up and catch the spot on the horizon where the dark clouds are obscuring the stars.
It’s coming in quick, drifting in over the horizon like in a cartoon. I need to get her out of here, but since the back porch juts out over the side of the mountain, there’s no way for this woman to get out of here without coming through my place.
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. It would be ideal to just check her phone, but it’s not like I’m going to fight with her to get it.
In fact, I don’t want to spend too much time with her at all, in case she might recognize me. My hair is longer, I’m five years older, and I have a full beard, but that didn’t help me last time.
“All right, just— come on.” My words are clipped, the impending storm putting more pressure on this. Even with how pissed off I am that she’s here, and that she was flying a drone, it’s not like I’m going to make her jump over the railing.
Besides, I’ll just get her phone from the drone. With access to it, I should be able to get into her other systems, too. Delete the files remotely without her knowing I’ve even been poking around. It’ll be a pain in the ass to set up the satellite internet and run all the proxies, but I’ll do it.
Giving me a pretty strong side-eye, she gets to her feet, holding onto the railing and muttering something under her breath that sounds pretty vulgar. It only gets worse when she looks to the side and sees what her fate could have been. If she hadn’t landed on the back porch, she would have gone tumbling right over the side of the little cliff my place is situated on.
And the worst part is, I might not have heard that. Or just assumed it was an animal. I try not to think about it, then wonder if I should put some sort of railing up on the roof in case something like this happens in the future.
Seeming to grit her teeth, she takes one jagged step toward me, and my eyes drop to her feet. She stands on both of them but heavily favors her right side.
“Are you injured?”
“No,” she says, her voice tight, her eyes skipping up over my shoulder, toward the door. “Just get me out of here.”
“Fine. Close your eyes.”
Her gaze darts to mine. Her eyes are almoststartlinglygreen. If she was an actress, she’d be cast for the color of them alone. Like those actors with the bright blue eyes that seem to pierce right through the screen.
But hers are more rich than that, like a deep emerald. And they’re narrowing suspiciously at me. “I’m not going toclose my eyes. What if you kidnap me?”
“If you didn’t want to be kidnapped, you shouldn’t have fallen onto my porch in the middle of the night.”
“This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“No, it’s not. If anyone is going to sue, it’s me.”
“What?” Her eyes go wide.
“Do you not know whatkeep outmeans?”
“I didn’t think anyone really lived here! I figured some ultra-rich asshole just bought up land out here because he could. Or maybe for hunting or something.”
“If it were hunting ground, and you were running around without a vest…”
She sighs, exasperated, and for some reason, I want to chase the sound. Something in me likes the back-and-forth of this conversation. The easy rapport we’ve had up to this point. It almost makes me miss being around people.
Almost makes me miss having friends, the way Elliot and I used to trade quips, debate over nothing, and try to solve the unsolvable together.
Luckily, before I can keep thinking about that prick, the woman throws her hands in the air and draws me out of my thoughts. “Well, who— who lives in a frickin’ hobbit hole, anyway?” she says as she gestures broadly to the cabin behind me.
I swallow my laugh, and my joy over the fact that she knows what a hobbit hole is. My nerdy little heart is going to light up at the connection, and we can’t have that. I sober up, force myself to level my voice. “Close your eyes, or find another way out of here.”
“Are you serious?”
Holding her gaze, I nod, then, seeing the newly inquisitive glint in her eyes, I tip my head down so she can’t get a good look at my face. “I can blindfold you, or?—”
“Fine.”
