Page 28 of Rescued Dreams
Amelia didn’t know which one of those would be worse.
Either way, she’d wind up more heartbroken than ever. Because she really liked Ridge and respected him as a firefighter—even as her lieutenant. He was the kind of man who was worth loving, barring the revelation of any horrible secrets in his life.
This was about survival for her, with no margin for error. If she trusted the wrong person, the slipup would cost her life. She knew as much from personal experience. This was life or death.
She had to keep her heart guarded.
“Patterson isn’t my original last name. It’s the name I took when my mother remarried.” Just the facts. “This was my father’s house. I inherited it. No one will buy it. People think it’s fine to break in and trash stuff. Not that there’s anything to break, because I have nothing in the main house.”
She took a breath and continued. “They come by thinking he left something sordid, but I cleaned the whole place out after he was killed, and there was nothing like that. They’re looking for a payout. He’s supposed to have hidden money…somewhere in the house.”
TEN
Ridge shot off a text to Kane as he walked back from the front door with one pizza. He’d left the other on the doorstep for his cousin to grab. Maria and Kane were going to hang out regardless of whether Amelia thought someone would show up to harass her tonight.
He was rapidly assimilating information he’d never known about her and trying to get his equilibrium back. Amelia was the daughter of the former fire chief—the one who had been exposed as a dangerous criminal. Someone who had profited off the misery of others.
She had been raised by him.
He couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. His childhood hadn’t all been sunshine and bike rides in the park, but he had no idea what she’d endured. No wonder she didn’t let people in easily. A firefighter who was the daughter of that man?
Ridge found her at the back door, waiting for him. “Kind of chilly to eat outside, isn’t it?”
She said, “Come with me.”
The back patio had some old furniture, just metal frames of chairs with no cushions and a table that had been knocked over. Wrought iron, lying on its side.
“Nice yard.” It resembled a park, wide and deep. Trees around the edge blocked it from view of the neighbors. A white stone pool to the right had been emptied long enough ago that it was now lined with leaves from the neighbor’s tree.
“It’s pretty good for running sprints up and down if I need to work out on my day off and I don’t have time to get to the gym.” She walked with her back to him, striding ahead, down to the end of the yard. Not looking back, just assuming he would follow her.
He was curious enough to do it. “I bought the town house a year ago. The complex has a clubhouse with a little gym that has enough equipment I can do what I need to do.”
She ducked under the limb of a tree and kept going, into the shadows between the trees.
“Pretty spooky back here. You don’t live in a tent, do you?”
She chuckled but didn’t say anything and still didn’t look back. “It’s not a shed…exactly. More like a storage hut. I worked on it, made it into a kind of clubhouse. Or a she shed. No one knows it’s back here.”
He spotted it between the trees.
“He probably used it to store lawn equipment or pool supplies.” She slowed her approach. “At least, I hope that’s all he used it for.” She looked back at the house with a smidge of distaste on her face.
“You grew up there. You probably heard, or saw, all kinds of things he got up to.”
Amelia clicked the metal keys on the door lock, a ten-digit combination that unlocked the cabin. She’d cleaned it up nicely, though it could do with some brighter paint than the sandy color on the outside. He saw a spigot at the bottom of the wall on one side with a bucket beside it.
But then, improving the exterior would make it more noticeable.
She was hiding.
Amelia clicked on a switch by the door, and fairy lights strung up inside the cabin, all around the top of the wall, illuminated.
“Wow.” He stepped inside and looked around. Single cot, lots of blankets and pillows. A space heater. She also had a wood stove in the corner with a funnel that went up to the roof for the smoke. No sink, but she did have a refrigerator and a camp stove, a coffeepot plugged into a power strip. And one of those tower water-cooler things that dispensed hot and cold water.
He frowned. “Wait. You don’t have a toilet or sink—or a shower?”
She shrugged. “I either shower at the gym or at work. I actually have a little outhouse out back, since there’s no water at the house.”
