Page 55 of Make Mine Sweet
I go into the living room just in time to watch headlights come up our lane and pull into the space out front. The weight that’s been sitting on my chest all night melts away.They’re home.Dutch gets up and does circles by the front door, tail wagging, hoping to play with his boy.
“Come on.” I sit on the couch and pat the cushion beside me. He looks at the door another minute, but reluctantly joins me, laying his head across my thigh. I scratch behind his ears until his eyes close. “I’m disappointed, too.”
We won’t have any socializing tonight. Tess will surely put August straight to bed. Then she’ll go to bed, too.
I do not need to think about her getting ready for bed somewhere on the other side of this wall. I definitely don’t need to scroll through pajama options, trying to imagine whether she’d wear a nightshirt or one of those cute short sets.
I rake my free hand down my face. Keeping track of her scheduleandentertaining a skimpy mental fashion show. I really am a creep.
Grabbing the book I tried and failed to focus on all evening, I settle in to read now that I’m relaxed enough to enjoy it. The front windows are open, and somewhere in the distance, frogs croak back and forth to each other.
After a while, Dutch must decide if he can’t play with August, he’s done for the evening. He slinks off the couch, probably heading for my room. He’s got a plush bed of his own out here, but I’m likely to find him sprawled out on mine with his head on my pillow.
Right when I’m debating if I should call it a night too, a scream punches the air, followed by a crash. I’m on my feet in an instant, my heart hammering as I rush through my front door and onto the porch. Tess’s light is on, her door closed, but the sounds definitely came from that direction. I’m about to hammer on her door when I hear scrambling on the far side of the house.
Blood thunders in my ears as I storm that way, on alert for intruders or pushy dates or I can’t think what else. I round the corner of the house and run straight into something soft.
Tess screams again, but then throws herself into my arms. “Ian!”
I hold her close, her body trembling beneath my touch. Whoever hurt her is going to pay. Looking past her, I try to assess our surroundings, but we’re on the edge of the puddle of light from the porch, and the neighbor’s house is dark. The rest of the side yard is too thick with shadows to make much of anything out.
I cup her face in one hand, the other tight around her. “Are you okay?”
She nods, but even in the dim light I can see how pale she is, how wide her eyes have grown.
“What happened?”
“I think it’s a bear.” She barely whispers the words.
I’m still trying to figure out if I heard her right when a muffled sound comes from behind her, like something’s going through the big plastic garbage cans she keeps back there.
I release her, putting myself between her and the other end of the alley. “Go inside.”
She clutches the back of my shirt with both hands. “Not without you!”
I love that she thinks I might actually try to confront this bear for her. I fully intend to go inside with her, but if I’m going to report a bear sighting to wildlife management, I need to know what we’re dealing with.
I slip my phone from my back pocket—not an easy thing to do with her clinging to my back. Quickly thumbing across the icons, I turn the flashlight on.
Her recycle bin is lying on its side, paper strewn around it. Past that, the garbage can sits against the wooden fence, a trash bag abandoned on the ground next to it. We’re effectively boxed in by the house and the two lengths of fence, creating a tight alley a bear could accidentally corner itself in. But there’s no sign of one.
“Was it right here?” I ask quietly. Best scenario is it climbed the fence on its way to the green space beyond the neighborhood and is already lumbering up the hillside.
“It’s in the can.”
“Inthe can?” I take a step closer, but the trash bag Tess left behind moves.
She stifles a shriek, plastering herself to my back. I peer at the bag. A mother wouldn’t abandon her cubs in a spot like this, so what?—
The garbage can lid lifts a few inches, revealing a furry black face, rounded ears, and beady eyes. Definitely a wild animal, but not a bear. The raccoon hisses at us, white teeth gleaming as its paws scramble with the lid. Tess gasps right in my ear.
The trash bag on the ground splits open as a second raccoon rears up, paws out in a defensive stance. This one lets out a shrill scream, and one of Tess’s hands comes around to clutch at my stomach, her other holding tight to my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to soothe all three of them at once.
I lower my phone so the light isn’t shining in the raccoons’ faces, and attempt to back away. Not an easy thing to do with Tess glued to me like a koala, but I’m not putting a stop to that before I have to.
“We’re all going to leave each other alone,” I say gently.
