But my relief is short lived, because from out of nowhere, the opposite door—the one closest to me—slides open and light slices through the darkness.
They tricked me! Luke sent Sally to open the door anyway!
And now there’s nowhere for me to go, nowhere for me to hide. I’ll be caught. I’ll be arrested. I’ll lose my farm.
Just as a beam of moonlight hits the toe of my cowboy boot, a hand clamps around my mouth and I’m dragged back.
A flash of adrenaline surges to my limbs until the scent of juniper hits me. I take hold of the hand that’s gently cradling my lips.
“Shh, little Sunbeam,” Pane murmurs in my ear. “Not a word, or they’ll find us.”
He’s pulled me into a corner of the barn, out of sight as Luke and Sally Ray study the roses that line the walls and sprout from the ceiling.
“You here, Rowe?” Sally asks. “You come to see your bestie, Stella?”
Pane relaxes his hand on my mouth, but now I notice that he’s holding on to my waist, holding me so close that I’m flush against him. My shoulder blades dig into his chest. My rear end is flush with his crotch.
Memories of our kiss ping-pong around in my mind, and when his thumb begins making little circles on my waist, I wonder if he’s remembering the kiss, too.
Luke rips some of the roses from the ceiling and drops them on the floor. He shines his phone’s light in the stall and sweeps it around.
“Nah, she’s not here. Probably just a fluke. This old unicorn’s so crazy, she may have made them just for the hell of it.”
Luke gets his hand too close to Stella, and she bites at it.
He reels back as she stamps the floor in anger. “Crazy-ass unicorn.” He stares at Stella for a moment before swinging his attention to Sally Ray, who also sweeps her light across the stalls.
“Looks empty,” she says.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
After several long moments, they cross back to the doors and slide them shut. I exhale as the sounds of their footsteps grow fainter and fainter.
Stella’s horn starts to glow again, throwing light around the barn. I turn around to find myself nose to nose with Pane.
Like, literally. I back up a step and say, “Thank you. You saved me from being caught.”
He folds his arms and cocks his chin. “Isthatwhat you calltrespassing?”
I scoff. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re doing it, too.”
“That’s only because Tallulah told me that you were in danger.”
“Tallulah?”
He points behind him, and sure enough, sitting on the floor, giving me her best piggycorn smile, is Tallulah.
I drop my head in my hands. “She must’ve seen me head toward the road. We sometimes come out here together to visit Stella.”
He nods in her direction. “And I assume this is Stella?”
“Yes, come meet her.” I head out of the nook we were hiding in and pass the night-light. “She’s afraid of the dark,” I explain. “If she wasn’t, Sally Ray and Luke would leave her in darkness all the time.”
The unicorn pulls back as Pane steps up. “It’s okay. He’s a friend,” I explain gently.
Stella gives him a good once-over before slowly extending her neck. “Pane, meet Stella, the last unicorn with magic.”
The hotel heir studies her with the quiet respect an alpha male reserves for another creature. “How do you know her?”
