Cam couldn’t remember the last time she tossed and turned so much.
She’d been completely in the wrong to insult Ian that way. Again. To make it sound like he could be her plaything and comfort her in her time of need.
No, she hadn’t thought that at all when she’d said it, but could understand why he did.
They were pretending to be a couple. Just playing a game for outside eyes.
There were no eyes on them last night and yet she asked him for something she had no right to. Just because she wanted his hands on her, didn’t mean he felt the same way.
She was going about her day like she’d planned, trying to not look at the wood boarded up on her window in the kitchen. Too bad it was like a lighthouse in the storm for a ship out at sea, drawing her eyes right to it saying, “here I am, keep me in your sight.”
She’d gotten through the morning trying to avoid the kitchen at all costs when Ian called her. She didn’t want to answer but knew she had no choice.
It’d be cowardly on her part to avoid him when he’d done nothing wrong. Nope, it was all on her shoulders this time.
“Hello,” she said, and if her voice was a little breathy, she was going to blame it on the fact that she ran to get her phone, not that she had any anticipation of hearing his voice again. Deep and sexy, sending vibrations through her body like the base turned up too high in her car with all the windows shut.
“Everything okay there, Doc?”
Back to that again. She had it coming, she supposed. “All is good here,” she said, trying to sound as normal as possible.
“I just spoke with the captain. They’re putting a call in with the Buckleys.”
Amanda Buckley, David’s murdered girlfriend’s parents. “And their reason?”
“Get an alibi for last night. Find out where their head is at. The usual.”
“What about the Arrows?”
“They’re next on the list. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything. Want me to come over?” he asked.
“Why?”
“We’re supposed to be dating. You had an incident at your house. Don’t you think it’d look odd if I didn’t come check on you?”
“Not if I have plans today.”
“What plans are those? You shouldn’t be going anywhere without checking in with me.”
She ground her teeth at his tone. The tone of authority. He had no right to tell her how to live her life. She may be agreeable to this act, but she wasn’t going to be treated like a child. “I didn’t know that was a requirement.”
“I’m making it one. What are your plans today?”
She held her tongue; so did he. She caved first. “I’m going shopping with my mother today and then dinner.”
There was some hesitation on the other line and she was hoping he didn’t offer to come with them. It was her and her mother’s normal once a month outing, nothing major. No reason to do anything different. She had no intention of telling her mother anything that was going on. She just wanted the normalcy of the day.
“Check in with me when you get home.”
“Fine,” she said and then hung up and went to change.
Several hours of shopping and dinner later, Cam let herself into her house. She hadn’t missed the unmarked police car driving around her street when she entered her garage. She’d thought about being bold and standing in her driveway until it drove by again and flagging it down, but knew that would only tick some people off.
No reason to get anyone on her bad side just because she was annoyed with her own actions.
Even her mother wanted to know why she looked so tired, but she said she had a headache and couldn’t get to sleep last night. It wasn’t a complete lie; she just didn’t volunteer what caused that headache. That thoughts and images of her fake boyfriend stripping her naked and tasting every part of her was a sexual frustration she’d never experienced before.
She unlocked her door, then set the alarm for the night and shot off a quick text to Ian that she was home and staying in.
He only replied back with a simple “OK”. That just about summed up their “relationship” right now. OK. Nothing great. Nothing spectacular. Just getting along.
Why was she thinking along those lines? This wasn’t a relationship.
She needed to get a grip on reality right now. When had she stopped having one?
The wind was roaring and thunder was rumbling. Lightning flashed several times illuminating her room while the TV was on. It was almost midnight at this point and she felt she was finally going to fall asleep now that the storm seemed to be passing. Upstate New York spring thunderstorms could be beautiful or treacherous. Sometimes both, but tonight there was nothing beautiful to be heard.
She decided to shut her TV off in her room, and snuggled in for the night, hoping to get some sleep.
That hope was squashed when she heard a bang outside. A loud one, followed by another. Just the wind, she told herself and pulled the covers up higher, hoping it’d stop.
It did.
She actually felt her body drift off when she heard a tap, causing her to sit up straight in bed. The alarm wasn’t going off, it was nothing, she repeated again. Then she listened and heard silence, thinking it was her imagination all along.
But it wasn’t when the tap got louder and it sounded like something was scratching glass. Was she being broken into now?
She grabbed her phone and ran into her closet, shutting and locking herself in there, then called Ian.
***
It was well after midnight as Ian sped to Cam’s house.
After everything that had been going on, not once had he heard the fear in her voice like he had just minutes ago.
Her breath was coming in short gasps, whispered and quivering. Noises outsides, something against the glass in her house and she was locking herself in the closet.
He was already pulling jeans on the minute the call came in. He didn’t need to hear the reason why. He didn’t have to wish she was calling for him to come over because she wanted him to kiss her again...and maybe something more.
He just reacted and knew he’d be on his way.
He turned the corner down her street and almost plowed right into a garbage can, swerving and barely missing the top on the other side of the road.
The minute he pulled into her driveway, the garage door opened up. What the hell? She said she was hiding in the closet.
He pulled in, shut the car off, pulled his gun out and opened the door in the garage leading to the house. The beeping told him he had ten seconds to shut the alarm off before the police were dispatched. Taking care of that, he made his way through the house, looking everywhere and seeing nothing.
When he walked into her room, he flipped the light, seeing the closet door was shut and even though he wanted to just open it, he figured he’d better call out. She was the one that must have opened the garage door, so she had to know he was in the house, but no use scaring her more.
“Cam?” he said loudly, putting his gun back in the holster. “Come on out.”
He heard the lock turn and the door open; then she threw herself into his arms and clung on tight. He carried her to her bed and sat down, pulling her into his lap, noticing she wasn’t wearing much more than a T-shirt and underwear.
Her heart was racing; he could feel it as he held her against him. “Shhh. Take a few deep breaths. There’s no one and nothing here. It’s all clear. It’s just me now. Tell me what you heard.”
He held her a minute or so, and then she pushed back, wiping the moisture from her eyes. “I heard lots of noises. Several crashing sounds outside. I tried to push it off, but then there was scratching at a window in the house.”
“The noise was probably garbage cans. The wind is crazy right now. I almost ran over two of them on your street.”
“Oh,” she said, her face starting to turn red.
“I get it. You’re jumpy. You’ve got every right to be. Stop trying to put up this front like it’s not bothering you when we both know otherwise.”
“I didn’t think it was,” she said. “Then the storm just triggered it. I was watching TV until it passed. I’ve never been a big fan of a thunderstorm.”
“It’s good to be alert. Tell me when you’re feeling unsafe.”
“I wasn’t. I told you that. Now I feel like a fool—”
“What?” he asked when she stopped and looked around, her eyes frantic again.
“There. That noise. There it is. Did you hear it?”
He listened and he did. There was definitely something hitting a window in the house. Not in her room though. Another room. “Stay here.”
He got up and walked into the room next to hers. It was all clear moments ago. When he heard the noise again, he pulled the shades up and saw a tree branch that was bent and broken, hitting the window when the wind blew hard enough.
Unlocking the window, he opened it and saw the screen was torn and barely hanging on. He pulled that in and set it on the floor, then managed to break the limb the rest of the way off and send it down to the ground.
When he turned, he saw her standing there watching him. “I’m sorry I got you out of bed for this.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I never used to be this irrational before. I don’t know what has gotten into me.”
“In less than a week you’ve had your tires slashed, a dead snake delivered to your office, and a rock thrown through your window. You can be irrational all you want.”
“I guess when you put it that way it makes me a feel a little bit better. Not much though.”
“Go back to bed. Try to get some sleep.”
“I’ll never sleep now,” she said shaking her head. “Too much adrenaline at the moment.”
“Sure you will. Because I’ll be here and you’ll know you’ll be safe.”
“Here where?” she asked, her eyes replacing the fear with arousal, his blood rushing to his jeans now.
“The couch downstairs should be good.”
She shook her head rapidly. “You’ll be uncomfortable.”
“No less than sleeping in my car. Speaking of which, why open the garage door?” He had to get his mind off of the way she was looking at him.
“I opened it on my phone. It’s remote in case I forget to shut it one day. I can watch my house on an app, adjust the furnace and such too. And I didn’t want anyone to see you in my driveway and know I had to call you.”
He shook his head. She was so afraid of letting others see a weakness in her. Except him. She let him see it and he wondered what it could mean. Or was it she just didn’t want anyone to think she was lowering herself by having him spend the night, regardless of the change in her. They were pretending, but it’d be done in a few weeks. No use making himself too comfortable. He wasn’t going to be her little toy.
“Go back to bed,” he said, kissing her on the forehead and trying to look anywhere but at the long legs peeking out of her T-shirt or the fact that he was fully aware she didn’t have a bra on. “I’ll be downstairs. Turn the TV on for a distraction if you need it.”
He turned and got the hell out of there before he did something stupid like kissing more than her forehead, when she looked at him longingly.