Fear dripped like ice down Nick’s spine. He’d been passed out. He hadn’t even heard Riot bark or Sassy investigating the disturbance. If the intruder had gotten past the dog and taken Sassy by surprise…attacked her…would Nick have slept through it?
The sick feeling doubled. He drew in an unsteady breath.
“Nick?” Sassy sounded scared now, as if despite her protests her thoughts had aligned with his.
“Call the police,” he said as he traced the path of the mud-caked footprints over the porch boards, down the steps and into her yard.
* * *
Riot’s appearance at River House had been canceled while Sassy and Nick dealt with the police. They took photographs of the boot prints outside her back door, fingerprinted her doorknobs and canvassed her neighbors for Ring camera footage.
None of them had it, she knew, because her neighborhood was supposed to be safe. The safest one in Dark Canyon. It was why she’d chosen the fixer-upper in the first place. When she felt like running or walking or biking, she could do so without worrying about her personal safety.
She wasn’t stupid. She was a single female living alone. She slept with an aluminum baseball bat beside her bed. And normally, yes, she did lock the doors.
She’d forgotten to lock the back one after taking Riot out for a potty break before she turned in. There had been too much going through her mind. Too many what-ifs and what-to-dos and how-do-I-make-this-betters?
When she thought of someone trying to make entry into her home…a burglar…a predator…her mind automatically went into denial, because some part of her still believed that Dark Canyon was the safe place she’d grown up knowing it was.
If Riot hadn’t woken her…
She shut down that train of thought as swiftly as it had come, making the turn for the reservation. “You didn’t have to come with me. I’m fine.”
Nick, in the passenger seat of his truck, didn’t answer. There had been no answer from the mechanic when she’d called about her Bronco this morning. Nick had offered her the use of his truck when she’d told him about her afternoon plan to visit the Navajo Nation.
He’d been brooding. She pursed her lips, hating to think about his ashen face when he’d realized that someone had nearly gotten to her the night before.
She could practically hear the wheels of his mind spinning. He’d refused to take another sedative. All day, he’d sat in his pain, stewing in his thoughts.
The silence was an itch across her back. It was driving her crazy. She took a long breath, straightening in her seat. “Are you sure you’re up for this? I’ll be visiting at least four different houses.”
“I’m sure,” he grunted.
She tucked her tongue in her cheek.Caveman, she thought. Was this what he would do while he was off work—follow her around town, playing bodyguard, waiting to beat away the bad guys with one arm tied behind his back?
She reached for the radio dial. His preferred ’80s station pumped the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” through the speakers. It sounded much better than his overthinking.
Tapping her fingers on top of the steering wheel, she bopped to the beat and eyed the side mirror. She got an eyeful of Riot’s lolling tongue and flapping gums as he hung his head out the back window.One of us is having fun, she observed, unable to fight a grin.
The song changed into something slower and suggestive. Sassy stopped bopping because it made her think of man nipples and soft black boxer briefs and Nick curled up on her guest bed, happy in repose.
She hadn’t thought about that…him…her reaction to him since breakfast. All the disturbingly good feelings she’d drowned in the night before had sunk to the back of her mind when she’d seen those footprints and accepted what they meant.
Unwilling to dwell on those things, she studied the terrain. “River’s up,” she noted.
“Mmm.”
Behind her sunglasses, she rolled her eyes. She tried again for conversation. “Must be all the snowmelt north of here. Did you notice it on your hike?”
He cleared his throat. “Closer to the canyons. Not so much on the south side.”
Where he’d faced dehydration, she remembered.
When another love song started to play, he leaned over to flip the music off.
She sighed. “Nick, do we need to talk about this?”
“What?”
