“I think Riot had trouble staying asleep,” Sassy pointed out. “He started going crazy around two o’clock this morning.”
Nick shook his head and rubbed a hand over his face to chase the droopy feeling from the muscles there. He needed a cold shower and a sprint around the block to bring him to wakefulness. “I didn’t hear him.”
“Can he open doors?”
At first, the question didn’t make sense. He had to chew over it for a minute before the meaning came together. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“When I got to him, he was standing on the back deck,” she explained. “I’ve never heard him bark like that before. It took me a couple minutes to convince him to come back inside.”
Nick’s frown deepened. “The door was open?”
She nodded. “Wide-open. If he didn’t open it, then the wind must’ve done it?” she said in question, as if trying to riddle it out herself. A narrow divot of confusion dug between her eyebrows.
He set his teeth. “Do you not lock your door?”
She sighed at him. “Not this again.”
“Sassy,” he said, coming awake in increments. The incredulity helped. “After what happened at the gallery—”
“Nothing happened at the gallery. I showed you the video feed. You agreed there was nothing in the footage to suggest anyone had been there.”
The chair’s legs scraped across her new floors as he pushed it back and ducked through the archway. He ran his hand along the wall to steady himself as his balance tipped slightly and righted slowly. Part of his mind was still back in her guest bed under her grandmother’s quilt, wearing nothing but boxer briefs and drool on his face.
How he’d gotten there he had no idea. Had she put him to bed?
Was it her who stripped him of his shirt, slacks and shoes?
He could only hope he hadn’t said something dumb as she tucked him in like a toddler.
The door still wasn’t locked.
He cursed and twisted the knob. The hinges creaked noisily as he swung the door open.
At the sight of the deck, his blood froze. “Sassy.”
“Look, Nick,” she said as she approached. “I don’t need a lecture.”
He swung the door open wider, stepping aside for her to see the porch boards.
She stopped. “What the hell is that?”
“Those,” he said, bringing the words up from the base of his throat, “are footprints.”
She began to shake her head. Her mouth opened. He could see an explanation rising to the forefront of her mind and cut her off swiftly.
“Someone tried to break into your house last night.”
“No,” she said, her denial automatic. Her head shook listlessly. “Why would someone do that? There’s nothing here but secondhand furniture and my artwork. No one wants that. I don’t have anything that anyone would want.”
He ran his gaze over her frame. She wore fuzzy leopard-print pajama pants, the garden boots she’d walked Riot in before he rose from the guest room like Dracula on the backslide of a blood binge and a loose-fitting crop top with the year 1491 on full display. It slacked over the point of one smooth, dusk-colored shoulder. Her hair was loose. It splayed over both shoulders. The ends tickled her elbows.
She was fiercely independent. She liked living alone. She was also vibrant and capable and strong. Yet he knew he could wrap his thumb and forefinger around her wrist. He knew if someone had wanted to get into her house, they could have.
He knew that if they’d wanted to catch her unawares, they could have. If it hadn’t been for Riot…
Nick felt sick. His stomach roiled. He planted a hand against the doorjamb and fought a hard wave of nausea.
He spotted Riot on the floor at his feet, nose busily sniffing the threshold. He made a growling noise.
