When Theo fell into step next to her, Jules gave him a surprised glance. From his fierce scowl, she’d assumed he’d no longer be accompanying them outside.
Although he kept his body low to the ground, Viggy walked on the other side of Theo willingly enough. Jules wondered what the story was. Had the dog had a bad experience? Had Theo, as well? Was that the reason for his perma-scowl? Jules felt her stomach twist as she thought of what possible tragedies could’ve left such a mark on the two.
“Someone look at your stove?”
Once again, the question startled her. Jules didn’t know if it was his gruff manner of barking out conversation, or if she was still jumpy about the whole cop thing—and the bomb-threat thing, and the being-away-from-her-brothers thing. “Yes.”
“A professional?”
“He knew what he was doing.” It wasn’t an outright lie. After finding a manual for the stove online at the library, Tio had managed to get it working without any additional explosions. By the time he’d finished fiddling with it, he was confident in his stove-fixing abilities. It was Jules who was a nervous wreck the whole time he was working.
Theo gave her a hard look, as if waiting to see if she was going to confess to her half-truth, but Jules put on her most innocent expression. After a long moment, Theo gave an accepting—or possibly skeptical—grunt. Taking a few long strides, he reached the door first and held it open for her and Dez.
Jules blinked against the bright morning sun until her eyes adjusted. Florida had been sunny, but Colorado was even brighter than the sunshine state had been. She figured it was something to do with the altitude or the clean mountain air or something.
The first thing she saw when she was no longer blinded was that Theo had slid on his sunglasses, which made him improbably hotter. Jules bit the inside of her lip hard. She needed to nip this crush in the bud immediately. Even if she hadn’t accepted that any relationship was not in the cards for years, just being friends with this man was a bad, bad idea.
Her eyes lingered on the way his upper arms stretched his uniform shirt. It took all her willpower to rip her gaze away and refocus on Dez, who was humming to herself, happily oblivious to the fact that her older sister was being an idiot.
“What do—”
There was a strange sound, something between a crack and a thump, and then she was on the ground, a very large, very heavy cop on top of her.
“Stay down!” he ordered before running the few steps to Dez, who turned to look at him, her eyes and mouth round with surprise as he snatched her off her feet. The sound came again, but this time the side of her calf stung. Her eyes fastened on the hole in the asphalt walkway as she sucked in a startled breath.
Someone was shooting at them.
About the Author
When she’s not writing, Katie Ruggle rides horses, shoots guns, and travels to warm places where she can scuba dive. A graduate of the police academy, Katie received her ice-rescue certification and can attest that the reservoirs in the Colorado mountains really are that cold. While she still misses her off-grid, solar-and wind-powered house in the Rocky Mountains, she now lives in Dennison, Minnesota, near her family.