I reached for his hand, gave it a squeeze and agreed, “The best.”
He squeezed my hand back, parked outside my door, and through my buzz I decided to have another conversation with him about the garage.
My truck was parked in there. The second bay was taken up by Deke’s Harley, which he’d moved there from his trailer.
There was a third, kinda-half bay where you could store ATVs or snow mobiles, if you had them (and I wanted to get them) but now it was stacked with Deke’s tools and some of the construction stuff left over from the house. Extra tiles. Floorboards and bags of grout not used. The remnants of the slabs of marble my countertops were cut from. All of this Deke suggested (this more aptly described as demanded) I keep, at least for a while, just in case I needed to switch something out, do a repair, and simply because I bought it so I owned it.
Since I was closing on the extra property soon, I was having a stable built come spring. Max was having it designed. It’d have a big tack room, four stalls, and a large storage space.
We’d move that crap out there when I had the stables, Deke’s Harley to the half bay of the garage and Deke could park inside.
Something he should be doing now.
His truck was newer, nicer, and he had to go out in the cold to get in it to go to work in the morning. I did not have to do the same thing.
But he wouldn’t hear of me not parking Granddad’s truck inside. We’d had words. I recognized that meant something to him, so I’d backed off.
That said, it was cold, there was a lot of snow on the ground, we kept getting it regular, and I figured if Deke and I spent a few hours in the garage, we could stack the house stuff in a way we could move his Harley over and get his truck inside.
That would be our conversation tomorrow.
After sex, coffee and breakfast.
After that, our plans were to go get our Christmas tree, a live one, and decorate it with the ton of Christmas stuff I’d bought.
But right now, it was about getting inside, sex and sleep.
Deke cut the ignition. We got out. I waited for him at the head of my front walk, the outside arch of my front door draped with fake Christmas boughs, lit and now illuminated, the side points of the draping decorated with big gold and white bows, the middle point having a lit star. And beyond, on the door, there was a fat, brightly lit wreath.
Deke had put that all up.
For me.
It looked gorgeous.
When we got to the door, walking hand in hand, he put his key in and I moved closer to him in an effort not to waste a second in getting out of the cold the minute he allowed me entry.
My mind focused on that, therefore it missed his body stilling.
I didn’t miss it when he used his hand in mine to push me slightly back.
“Deke,” I said.
“Shush, Jussy,” he muttered, bending low so he could peer through the center of the wreath to see into the front door window while slowly turning the knob and pushing in.
What happened next happened so fast, it was almost like it didn’t happen.
But it did.
Fuck me.
It did.
All of it…
Did.
Deke pushed me off, turned to me, bit out, “Run!” then entered the house, slamming the door behind him.
I heard the lock go.
I stood there, stunned immobile, then I heard the gunshots.
My body jerked in shock, instantly electrifying, and my feet moved without me telling them to do it.
In my cowboy boots, I ran along the snow at the front of the house, dodging pine, naked aspen, my hand finding its way into my bag, curling around my phone.
I took the corner of my house on skid through the snow that nearly brought me down. I righted myself, yanked out my phone and I didn’t think. I couldn’t. The house had good insulation, double-paned windows.
But I heard men shouting.
Luckily, I recognized one of those men was Deke.
Extremely unfortunately, he was unarmed and in my house with someone who had a gun and used it.
Looking down at my phone, running blind, pine boughs fluffed with snow stinging the skin of my face as I ran through them, for some reason, I didn’t call 911.
It seemed too much effort, too much time.
I hit contacts.
I hit “K.”
And I hit Chace.
I put the phone to my ear and heard it ringing as I rounded the far end of the deck by the river, cleared it and started racing up the incline toward my private deck.
“Jussy, hey,” Chace greeted in my ear. “All okay?”
“Deke,” I wheezed, hitting the steps to my deck, starting by taking them two at a time.
Slipping on ice, the sole of my foot went out behind me and I went down hard on my shin on the edge of the step above.
“Justice,” Chace growled in my ear.
“Someone in my house. Deke pushed me back. He’s inside. I’m not,” I panted, righting myself. The burning in my shin not fazing me, I leaped to the top step. “Gunshots, Chace.”
“Get safe,” he ordered urgently. “I’m calling cruisers now. On our way.”
“Deke…has a gun,” I puffed, my hand back in my purse, finding my keys. “I…”