Page 52 of Fighting for Lucy

Her head snappedin the direction of the door.

It sounded like someone was out there.

Lucy kept one hand tangled in Cotton’s fur while her other trembled as she tentatively reached for the weapon sitting on her coffee table. Just because she knew how to use the gun, and just because she had a permit to own it, didn't mean she was in any way comfortable around it. Scarlett was the only one on their team who was actually confident with guns, and that was only because her parents had insisted she learn to shoot as a small child, in preparation for the life they had planned out for her. A path she hadn't wound up walking down.

Maybe she imagined the sound?

There were no more sounds, and there was no reason for anyone to be at her front door anyway.

Prey wasn’t taking any chances with her safety or anyone else’s on Athena Team. Scarlett was with Tate so she was safe, and a few guys from the SEAL team who had helped rescueScarlett were helping out by watching over her house and Ella’s and Cassie’s. She liked Mark “Bubba” Wright, who had been the one to disarm the bomb intended to kill Scarlett and whoever was close enough to her at the time. Trusted the man, too. He was a nice guy, married to Zoey, and while she hadn't met the woman, Lucy knew what it took to make a relationship work with a man with a job like Bubba’s so she knew Zoey was a strong woman.

She was safe with Bubba out there, but knowing it andknowingit were two different things.

Even though it was three in the morning she had yet to make it to bed. There was too much going on in her mind to be able to settle down and sleep. Out in the jungle it had been about survival. There was no time to think about what had happened to her and the myriad of ways it had changed her.

But now …

Now there was time to think.

Too much time.

And she had no choice but to start attempting to process it all.

At least her inability to sleep might work to her advantage now. Because if there was someone out there, and they had managed to get past Bubba, then they would be expecting her to be upstairs in her bed, not in the living room with a poodle and armed with a weapon she was scared to use but absolutely would if she had to.

Another sound had her jack-knifing to her feet, causing Cotton to lift a head and shoot her an offended look. Too bad her dog was about as far away from a guard dog as you could get.

That was something.

Someone.

There was no use pretending that there wasn’t someone on her porch, someone who would likely be inside in seconds, a minute at the most.

Panic swelled inside her, and her sweaty hands snatched up the gun, holding it pointed at the door.

Ready.

Just when she was about to shake herself into spontaneously combusting there was a knock on her door.

A knock?

What kind of intruder announced themselves first?

None.

Maybe it was Bubba?

She thought if he needed her for any reason, he would have texted first to let her know what the problem was then come in so he didn't scare her to death. He was lucky if she didn't put him into an early grave for scaring her like that.

A rebuke was right on the tip of her tongue as she set the weapon down and unlocked her door, opening it, but it got stuck before it could fly out.

Because it wasn’t Bubba who was standing there.

It was Zander.

Took a moment for that to register. Zander was there. On her front porch. Knocking like he thought she would be up at three in the morning.

There was a hesitancy to his stance that she hadn't seen once when they were in Mexico. Then he’d been so sure and confident. It had been infuriating when she wasn’t sure he could be trusted, but reassuring once she knew he was on her side.

---