I woke up on the bed, still fully clothed, the overhead fan languidly spinning its blades. I fished my phone from my pocket and checked the time. It was just after midnight. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and wiggled my toes in my boots. I hadn’t been out for more than thirty minutes.

I wasn’t groggy, either, even with the brief nap. I’d always been a light sleeper, even as a pup. My mom would make a noise in the kitchen or my stepdad would belch too loudly in the living room, and I was up like a bomb had exploded. My time in the service had just honed my skill to a fine edge, making it razor sharp. Now I was liable to wake if a fly buzzed around the room.

Not that I was complaining or anything. It made me great for details like these, where I was expected to, at most, sleep lightly while I watched my client.

I got up from the bed and wandered out of the bedroom, carefully turning the knob, easing the latch back, and quietly stepping out into the hallway. I shut the door behind me just as silently as I’d opened it and crept toward the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. I stopped outside Jessica’s door, focused on listening to see if she was still awake. I heard a slow, easy breath from her. Not like one of deep sleep, but something lighter. I put my hand against the door and fought the urge to turn the knob or ask to enter.

No. That would be too much, too soon. And, besides, I had to focus on the misison.

Feeling a bit like an actual creeper and not a hired bodyguard, I continued past her door into the kitchen. I pulled a glass down from the cabinet and filled it from the tap. I leaned back against the cooking island and sipped my drink, my eyes staring out through the darkness into the moonlit world of the forest all around us. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the light because of my night vision being more than enough. Plus, I didn’t want to wake her unless I absolutely had to.

After all, she was paying for me to keep watch. Not so a bull in a china shop could wake her up every fifteen minutes.

As I took another sip of water, relishing the taste of the cool well water on my tongue, I stiffened at a noise. I quickly realized it was just Jessica shifting in her bed, though, and tried to relax.

I heard her shift on the mattress, pull the covers back and get out of bed, her feet bare. No, wait. Not bare. Fuzzy slippers, maybe?

She stopped at her door for a moment, then slowly and carefully opened it, and crept out into the hallway. “Richard?” she whispered to the dark cabin.

I debated standing stock still, waiting for her to come into the room before I said anything, but I quickly decided that wouldn’t be fair to the wildlife outside. Jessica struck me as a screamer when she was surprised, and I knew she’d send the deer running for miles around if I popped out of the shadows like I planned. Besides, I liked her, and as funny as pranks could be, right now wasn’t the time for them.

“In the kitchen,” I replied in a quiet voice as I turned around to face the opening to the hallway.

“Thank God,” she said more loudly than before, but not at any higher of a volume than I’d used. She came padding into the living room-kitchen combo, her feet barely making a sound on the hardwood as she practically glided across the floor like an angel in her fuzzy little slippers.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked as she came into the room wearing only a long night shirt that hung down to the middle of her thighs.

She shook her head. “How can you see anything in here?”

“I eat my carrots,” I lied. “Supposed to be great for the eyes.”

“You know that’s a myth, right?”

“Really? Guess I just have good genes, then. Did I wake you?”

She shook her head in the darkness as she felt her way through the unfamiliar room in the darkness. I heard a soft noise as she quietly yelped, “Ow!” after bumping into an end table. I fought the urge to laugh. “Can’t you turn on a light or something?”

I smiled. “Hold on,” I said, brushing past her, my hand reaching out to lightly touch her arm. I flicked the lightswitch over the sink, immediately bringing light to the room like a poor-man’s excuse for Genesis. “Let there be light,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and went to find a glass of water. “Figured I needed to drink some more water after I, you know, drank some more already.”

I chuckled. “Supposed to do that while you’re drinking, aren’t you?”

Jessica shrugged as she drew her own glass of water. She leaned back against the sink. “Why can’t you sleep?” she asked after two long, deep drinks.

“Me? Never been able to, really. Ever since basic training, I’ve always woken up at a pin drop. What about you? New place?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe. Just, you know, had a lot on my mind. All this going on.”

I nodded, glancing down at my empty glass. I walked over to the sink and reached past her to draw some more. This close to her, her smell was almost intoxicating. Just something about her made me crave her touch again, to take her into my arms, press my lips to hers once more, and to never let go.

“One other thing, too,” she said as I leaned back against the sink beside her. “Something I was wondering about…something you said earlier.”

“About dinner?” I asked, immediately worried. “Because, I don’t know, we don’t–”

Jessica cut me off with a laugh and a hip bump. “No, not dinner,” she said. “You’re not getting out of our date that easily.”

I playfully bumped her back, sending her stumbling a little. She just giggled instead of getting mad, though. “What then?” I asked.

“You mentioned something about investing in the Curious Turtle before we, you know, kissed.”

“Yeah?” I asked. I remembered. I’d said it half-jokingly, but I had quickly realized I’d been serious as a heart attack about the offer. I didn’t have anything else to spend the money on anyways. “Who wouldn’t want to be a part owner of an art gallery? Hell, even crazy bikers want to.”

She smiled and took another drink of water before setting her glass down on the kitchen island across from us. “So you were serious, then? Because I think I’d say yes to that.”

“How much money are you talking?”

“Oh, I don’t really know yet. Sheila’s my finance person,” she admitted as she turned to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “She knows how much it would take. But if you’re really interested, I’d be more than open to it.”

I nearly had to catch my breath as I looked down into her eyes. I set my own glass of water aside without breaking our gaze. God, she was beautiful, especially with the way the moon streamed in through the kitchen window and hit those gorgeous green eyes of hers. “Well,” I whispered, leaning my lips down to meet hers, “you put your people in touch with mine, and we’ll see if we can’t make a deal.”

“Don’t lie,” she whispered, her eyes half closed, her lips parted. “You don’t have people.”

My lips stopped just before they reached hers, my ears metaphorically perking up. I glanced toward the front window.

Jessica opened her eyes, those gorgeous greens going suddenly from bedroom invitations to confused and worried. “Richard?”

“Go,” I whispered, shoving her as gently as possible towards the hallway and the bedroom beyond. “Get dressed, Jessica. Now.”

“Richard?” she asked, trying to fight me at first. “What’s going on?”

I looked her dead in the face. “Someone is coming up the road, and I don’t know who it is. You need to get dressed because we might have trouble.”

“Trouble?”

I nodded. “Don’t freeze up on me now, Jess. Go into the bedroom and get dressed. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.” Jessica turned and quickly moved down the hall, throwing open the bedroom door and heading inside.

Crouching down low to keep myself out of sight, I moved across the living room and up to one of the windows to peer out from behind the blinds. Whoever they were, they had their headlights on, which meant they weren’t trying to be stealthy. I could just barely see the corona of their lights as they came up the slight incline through the trees.

I went to the little coat closet and pulled up the false bottom, revealing a stash of already filled 9mm clips and various boxes of ammunition. I cursed myself for not having done this earlier, for being too focused on this damned domestic bliss crap, and not the mission. But what was done was done. If I was lucky, I’d have plenty of time to get everything set. Fortunately, we were as meticulous with storing our weapons and keeping them clean as any soldier alive. I pulled the ammo box from the hiding spot, set it behind me, then stood and brushed aside the coats and other winter gear that hung there. Behind them were the long arms we kept, specifically the shotguns and rifles.

I pulled down one of each, a combat shotgun and an AR-15, and carried them over to the coffee table, laid them out, then went back for the ammo cache and another handgun. I wouldn’t need the extra sidearm, but Jessica might, especially if things got really dicey and I had to send her out into the surrounding woods.

Judging by the sound of their engine, and thanks to the long, winding road we’d graded when Peter and I renovated the place, I still had a few minutes to prepare. I began loading the shotgun, a SPAS-12 semi-automatic with a collapsible stock. They were originally designed for the French military, but they opened them up for sale here back in the 90s. This was more than any hunter would ever need for fowl, and probably more than any homeowner would ever need for defense. Unless, of course, his last name was Koresh.

The car still on approach, I set the shotgun aside and checked out the rifle. I checked it over before slapping a clip in and checking the sights. Satisfied, I racked a shell into the chamber and leaned it against the wall next to the front door. If I ran out of ammo in the shotgun, I wanted to have a backup ready to go, something with more stopping power than just my 9mm sidearm.

“Jessica?” I called. “How’re things looking back there?”

“Almost ready!” she yelled back, her voice not quite reaching the frantic fever point I was anticipating.

Good. The last thing I needed was for her to panic. It was like trying to save a drowning victim from the water. The more they panicked, the harder they were to save and the more likely they were to pull you down with them.

Out in front of the cabin, tires crunched against the gravel and halogen headlights shone inside as it pulled around to park. This close up, the purr of the engine seemed familiar.

I realized then where I knew the sound of that car from. It was Lacy’s! I peered out through the blinds again, carefully pulling them to the side so as to not attract more attention than necessary. Even though I was pretty certain it was her car, though, I kept my gun low and at the ready. If it was someone else, like one of the Skull and Bones trying to pull a fast one on me, they were about the get a welcoming party full of buckshot.

But there Lacy was with her little blue Subaru, scrambling to unbuckle the seatbelt and get out of the car as fast as humanly possible.

“Fuck,” I muttered, all the adrenaline rushing out of my body at once, leaving me drained. I had never felt more irritated and relieved at the same time.

Lacy came sprinting across the front, gravel flying up behind her. “Richard!” she screamed as her arms and legs pumped up and down, carrying her up onto the porch to the front door. “Richard! Open the fuck up!”

I flung the door open and quickly pulled her inside by one arm. “What the hell are you doing here?” I growled as her eyes traveled over the shotgun slung over my shoulder and hanging at my side.

“Jesus!” she squalled as she tried to yank her arm out of my grip, a look of pain and hurt coming over her face. “What the fuck, dude?”

“You’re breaking fucking protocol,” I said, releasing my grip on her arm. “What if someone followed you here?”

“That’s the problem,” she said frantically, rubbing her upper arm where my hand had just been. “Someone did!”

“Dammit, Lacy!” I yelled, cocking my head to the side. There, off in the distance, I could hear it. “What the fuck did you bring up here with you?”

Down the mountain, towards the highway, I heard three cars rumbling along as they came up the path. Two heavy trucks, from the sound of it, and something else. Maybe a sporty little sedan? I whirled back on Lacy. “What the hell did you bring up here? And to the fucking safe house of all places? What were you thinking?”

“Look,” she said, her voice cracking, laden heavy with a panicked whine as she slumped into the couch, “I got the video off the copy shop’s security cameras, and I thought I’d bring it up here. Okay? I wanted Jessica to look at it so we could get Sheriff Peak looking for the person who started this!”

“Couldn’t wait till fucking morning?” I yelled back. “So one of the guys could bring it here?”

Farther back in the cabin, I heard Jessica come back out of her bedroom. “Richard? Everything okay?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Is that Lacy?”

“Hey Jessica,” Lacy called half-heartedly.

I didn’t need her freaking out; that’d just make things more complicated. “Yeah,” I called. “But we still have company coming up the road. Still need you ready to move.”

Lacy shrank into the cushions as I turned my gaze back on her. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked, more quietly this time, “but I thought it was important. As soon as I noticed them following me, I called Frank and he told me to head here, and Matt, Jake, and him would meet up with us.”

I turned back to the window and peered out the blinds. “Dammit, Lacy,” I muttered again.

“What did you want me to do, anyways?” she asked, her voice trembling like she was on the verge of tears. “Pull over on the side of the road? Drive to the next town so they could just get me there, furball? Frank told me who they were, the Skull and Bones guys. What did you want me to do? Just let them kidnap and rape me till I told them where you were? I didn’t know they tried to jump you earlier today. Nobody fucking tells me anything!”

I dropped the blinds and looked back at her. I could smell the fear coming off her as it filled the room. Hell, even if I hadn’t been a shifter I could probably smell it clear as fresh grass on a summer’s day.

She wiped the beginning of a tear from the corner of her eye, her lower lip with its silver piercing quivering. “Look, I know I fucked up, okay? But I can’t take it back now, can I? Yelling at me about this shit isn’t going to fix the fucking problem, though, is it?”

Dammit. I’d made her cry. I’m a hard ass when I need to be, but putting on the waterworks always tugs at my heartstrings. I sighed and slowly shook my head, suddenly feeling bad that I’d gotten angry at her for putting us all in harm’s way. I mean, she deserved an ass chewing, that was for sure. But now wasn’t the time or the place for yelling. First, we needed to get out of this mess she’d brought down on our heads, and then I could yell at her with Peter. “You said the guys are headed up here, right?”

“All except Peter,” she replied with a nod and a sniffle. “He’s still out of town.”

I nodded and huffed through my nose. “How long ago did you talk to them?”

“Just when I was leaving the Rock. They’re probably just a minute or two behind us.”

“You drove slow, right? To give the guys time to catch up?” Lacy was a real speed demon, much to Grandma Gen’s dismay. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d heard her yelling at the girl for how fast she took these mountain turns. “Please tell me you at least took your fucking time getting here.”

“Come on, Richard,” she said, her voice a little bit closer to normal. “I might be a fuck up sometimes, but I’m not a huge one.”

I snorted and turned back to the window. “Guess we’ll find out, huh?”

She got up off the couch, shuffling her feet loudly on the rug. “I–I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Again.”

I sighed, my eyes still fixated out the window. “Not now, okay? We’ll get through this apology shit later. Just go and show Jessica that video. And then I want you both to stay in her room and stay out of sight. This is about to get bad.”

“Bad?” she asked, gulping so loud even someone with normal hearing would have heard it from across the room.

“Bad,” I repeated. “No matter what you hear or see, I want you to keep Jessica away from the living room, away from the front of the house. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure, I can do that. I can keep her away.”

I turned back to her. “No, Lacy. I need you to promise me. Whatever happens, you have to keep her out of her. You got it? Nothing can happen to her. And you stay safe, too. ”

She nodded fervently, a concerned look on her face. “Yeah, of course. I promise,” she said, her voice more serious than before. “Richard, you’re talking like things won’t…”

“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to the window, gripping my shotgun tighter. “You remember how to handle a gun, right? Peter’s still been taking you to the shooting range?”

“Yeah,” she croaked.

“Get the pistol off the table and take it with you. If anything happens to me, I want you two to go out the back window and go out into the forest. The guys’ll find you when this is all over. Okay?”

She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but the words didn't come. Instead she just picked up the pistol, along with a spare clip, from off the table.

“Go,” I growled. “And don’t come back out. Got it?”

With a frightened nod, she shuffled back towards the bedroom.

The approaching convoy of bikers was closer. Not much longer now, I figured. Just a few more minutes before we saw how the next leg of this sordid tale shook itself out.

I wasn’t worried, though. Lacy might have screwed the pooch pretty royally this time around, but I knew she’d do what it took to finish the mission, to keep our client safe.

Hell, I didn’t even need to tell her that the woman she was guarding was the most important person in my life.