Page 35 of Survive the Night
“He’s a really good kisser, too. I mean, I’m not that experienced—trying to date anyone when Jeb was always lurking in the background was not easy—but I’m still smart enough to know a good kisser when I run into one…with my lips.” She giggled, and Bean jerked back, startled. “Sorry. Bad joke, I know. Anyway, Otto is incredible. I completely forgot about everything while we were kissing. All we needed was a romantic soundtrack playing in the background, and it could’ve been something from a movie. It was amazing.” She paused, and Bean breathed through widened nostrils. “There’s just one thing.”
The wind howled louder, an eddy sweeping into the run-in shelter, tossing bits of hay and grit at Sarah. She twisted away, screwing her eyes shut, until it subsided and she wasn’t being sandblasted any longer. When she opened her eyes, she fully expected Bean to be gone, spooked by her sudden twist away from the pounding wind, but he was still standing in the same place, watching her with a mix of curiosity and wariness.
“So, we kissed, right?” Bean flicked an ear forward and then to the side. “I know, I already told you that part. Anyway, after that, he didn’t say anything. It was like it never happened, except that my brain kept replaying it, so I’m sure I sounded like an idiot during lunch when I kept missing his questions and zoning out of the conversation. Is that normal, though? To kiss and then ignore it? I don’t want to have a full postmortem or anything, but a mention would’ve been nice. More kissing would’ve been even nicer.”
Bean studied her, his eyes still wide but missing the ring of white they’d had when she’d first startled him.
“You’re a very good listener, Bean.” Sarah was tempted to reach out to pat him, but she didn’t want to scare him off. “I’m sorry for being whiny. With everything happening with Aaron, I shouldn’t be obsessing over a kiss. I’ll stop now. If something happens with Otto, then it happens. I’m not going to build up my hopes, though, especially since I’ll be leaving town eventually. I’ll just enjoy being with him while I can. Sound like a plan?”
After eyeing her in silence for a long moment, Bean stretched out his neck. Sarah held her breath as the horse’s head got closer. Even though Otto had said that Bean was more timid than aggressive, Sarah still felt a twinge of worry. Horses were unpredictable. What if he was about to take a bite out of her middle?
When Bean was close enough to touch her belly, he lipped at a stray strand of hay that was stuck to her coat. Sarah laughed out loud, a mix of elation and relief bubbling through her. This time, the sound didn’t startle the horse. He just dropped his head and started to eat hay off the ground.
“You’re going to be fine, Bean,” she said. Sarah just hoped she would be, too.
* * *
Later that night, with Otto at work, the house seemed empty. Sarah lay in the guest bed, trying to sleep, but the wind was too loud. It reminded Sarah of that awful—yet amazing—night when Mr. Espina had blown up part of her home so that she could escape. There wasn’t any rain, though, just the wind and the dark and the creaks of a mostly empty house. She didn’t want to endanger Jules or Grace or any of the kids, but she had a moment when she wished she was back in the tiny bedroom at Jules’s house. At least there were other people to distract her and make her feel less alone.
She turned onto her side and squeezed her eyes closed. Stop, she ordered her brain. She was perfectly safe and just needed to quit dwelling on the fact that the wind was so loud it would drown out any sound of Logan breaking in and creeping up the stairs. She wouldn’t even know he was in the house until he grabbed her—
“Stop!” Sarah sat up abruptly. Grabbing her pillow and the blanket folded over the foot of her bed, she slipped out of the room and tiptoed down the stairs. The windows were uncovered, and the moonlight poured through the glass, illuminating everything with an eerie blue-white light…until clouds covered the moon, and all at once the room went dark.
Her heart pounding at the sudden blackness, Sarah clutched the banister and rushed down the rest of the steps. The clouds passed as she reached the main level, lighting her way to the closet door. She pushed aside the coats and felt her way to the back of the tiny space. When Otto had shown this to her earlier, Sarah had been entranced, loving the secret door to the hidden stairway.
Now, though, her hands were shaking as she fumbled to open the door. What had looked so simple when Otto unlatched it now seemed impossibly hard. She almost sobbed with relief when the back of the closet finally swung open to reveal descending stairs.
Something brushed against her leg, and she jumped, biting her lip to hold back a startled scream. Sarah hurried to find the light switch on the wall next to the stairs, smacking it hard enough to hurt her hand.
The fluorescent bulb flickered to life gradually, revealing Mort sitting next to her. Her relieved exhale came out as a shaky laugh.
“Want to hang out in the bunker with me?” she asked in a quiet voice that still sounded too loud in the empty house.
As if in response, Mort trotted down the stairs. Sarah turned to close the closet door behind her and tripped over something—something that gave an indignant yowl.
Pressing her hand against her chest, Sarah closed her eyes, trying to recover from her second near-heart-attack in less than a minute. “Bob? You nearly scared me to death!”
The cat didn’t seem at all contrite, zooming down the stairs after Mort.
As Sarah closed the hidden door and followed the animals down the stairs, she could feel her nerves settling. The three of them would stay in the bunker for the night. Tomorrow night, she’d be brave enough to sleep in the guest room.
Maybe.
Chapter 11
“Theo.” Otto took the last of the stairs at a lope so he could catch up to his partner. Viggy, Theo’s K9, glanced back at Otto and wagged his tail. Theo was not so happy to see him. After one look at Theo’s scowl, Otto’s original reason for chasing him got pushed back. “What’s wrong?”
Theo’s frown grew even more ferocious. “What’s wrong? Are you kidding me right now?”
“What?” Otto wondered if he’d missed some big news. It was possible, although he’d just returned to the police station at the end of a quiet night shift, and he hadn’t heard anything announced over the radio. Had Jovanovic been spotted in the area? Otto’s heart rate sped up, and he mentally cursed himself for leaving Sarah on her own at his place. He’d shown her how to get into the basement bunker, though. She was smart. If something happened, she’d hide. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah, something happened.” Theo’s sarcastic tone calmed Otto. If there’d been a serious incident, Theo would’ve been direct and to the point. “Some asshole left four puppies at Jules’s house. Apparently, she’s able to sleep through their hungry squeaking—I have no idea how, since they’re as loud as a fire alarm—so I was the one who got up with them. Every. Three. Hours.”
His disgruntled expression almost made Otto smile, although he could definitely sympathize. Getting woken up every few hours had left him feeling like he’d been run over by a truck, which had then backed over him for good measure. He’d slept like a baby that afternoon—except that the dreams he’d had about Sarah had been more of the adult variety. “Sorry. Why didn’t you wake up Jules so she could help?”
Theo suddenly appeared to find the hallway ahead of them so fascinating that he couldn’t look away. “She had an early shift this morning. She needed her sleep.”
