She forced a smile. “But you’re right, I’m going outside. It’s morning. We should see about finding that car and getting that…you know, the man taken care of.” Ugh, in all of the upheaval, she’d practically forgotten about the killer on her land. She was glad she didn’t have to deal with his death, but man, she wanted him locked away and gone.
She grabbed her coat from the door. “I’m going to go feed Barney first. Poor guy’s probably starving by now. Why don’t you stay here?”
“What? No way. We stick together until the cops come collect Leonie and fully search the woods. I’m sorry, honey.” He held up his hands, no doubt in response to the irritation on her face. She so was not used to someone telling her what to do. “Look, I think I’ve pretty much proven what an accommodating guy I am. Hell, I’m sure most people are going to call me henpecked. But when it comes to your continued good health, I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit of an ass. You might be a crack shot, but you aren’t going out there again without me. Period.”
Genevieve gave a gusty sigh. The obstinate set of his jaw told her this was one battle she wouldn’t be winning. “Fine.”
He dressed in another ancient pair of sweatpants he must have found in her storage closet, and she found him a huge men’s T-shirt she sometimes used in the summer to sleep in. Despite the ridiculousness of the outfit, Genevieve felt a pang of sadness. She’d gotten used to her naked hunk wandering around, or when he was in the sheet, her gentle gladiator. Genevieve shook off the poetic thought. “You can’t walk around in the snow with no shoes.”
“Way ahead of you.” He picked up a huge pair of tattered sneakers next to the chair. “I don’t know why you had these in your home. They’re too big for me, but I’ll take them.”
“I don’t know either. I’m a packrat. I’m impressed you found them. Now tell me you found a coat somewhere.”
“Nope.” He picked up her handgun, tucked it in the waistband of his sweatpants and wrapped a blanket around himself. “This’ll have to do. I’m used to much colder weather. This is really nothing to me.”
She grabbed her rifle and opened the door. The cold was nowhere near as freezing as it had been over the past couple of days. Good for the roads, bad for her heart. She tried to sound light. “Tough guy.”
“I have to be, or you’ll walk all over me.”
They checked the shed first, Alex going in ahead of her with his gun cocked. Leonie was still out cold. The place was freezing, but when she mentioned that fact to Alex, he just gave her an incredulous look. “He’s lucky he’s alive and not in the snow. I’ll be damned if I let you give him so much as a blanket.”
She hid a smile. “I think you misinterpreted my tone. I didn’t mean, ‘Awww. His wittle toes must be cold!’ I meant, ‘Sweet, he must be cold.’”
“I’m glad to hear that. You had me wondering where my tough woman had gone to.”
They continued to banter as they walked to the barn. He stopped as they reached the barn, his expression dissolving into bliss as he inhaled deeply of the smoke and apple scent in the air. He looked out into the distance and Genevieve followed his gaze, trying to see her home as he saw it, a dot of civilization wrestled from the tangled wilderness around it. Tall and mighty, the trees stood like sentinels guarding her little clearing—she knew each of them, had played within their shelter as they grew with her. The sun was just starting to rise above the horizon, splashing fingers of crimson and burnt umber over the woods, colors so bright they almost hurt the eye. “It’s beautiful, Genevieve.”
She nodded and swung open the door to her little ramshackle barn. “See? There are upsides to living here. That right there makes up for a lot of problems.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sunrise like that.”
“Yeah, you can almost feel it, can’t you?” Genevieve walked into the barn, sensing Alex behind her. “Come meet Barney,” she said over her shoulder. The old horse, hearing his name and her voice, poked his brown head over the stall door, ears pricked.
“Uh, I can just wait here while you do…whatever you need to do.”
She turned to look at him standing just inside the barn door. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of my old horse?”
He fidgeted and then scowled. “Of course not. I’m just enough of a city boy to appreciate that you shouldn’t be too close to something that could crush you just by lifting a foot.”
Genevieve laughed and entered the stall. Barney nudged her and then tossed his head in displeasure. “I’m sorry, baby. That man outside has me so turned inside out I forgot to bring you a treat. Next time, okay?”
Barney whinnied. She buried her face in his soft brown coat and gave him a hug to make up for her forgetfulness before starting to clean up, humming under her breath.
Had Barney not been so quiet, she would have missed the thud from outside the stall. She frowned and looked up. “Alex?” she called out. “Did you knock something over?”
Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed the rifle propped against the stall door before she walked out, the remnants of sun sending rays of light through the many cracks and holes in the barn’s roof. A crimson shaft haloed Alex where he sprawled on the ground, mixing with the blood pooling under his head.
For a second, she felt her head spin with déjà vu. “Alex?” she whispered.
“Well now, sugar, this is quite a surprise.”
14
Adrenaline mingledwith shock as their intruder stepped out from the shadows to her left. It had been over four years since Genevieve had last seen him, and time had not been kind to Deputy Tom Reynolds. His face was bloated and red, his body soft and straining at the seams of his dirty and torn uniform.
She had been prepared for eventually confronting the man and dealing with her demons, but she wasn’t ready for the ugly-looking gun he pointed at her chest.
“Drop the gun.”
