Page 31 of Hold Your Breath
Although he shrugged, a grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. Glancing at his watch, he changed the subject. “We’re not going to be able to get to the clinic and back in time for me to get to my one o’clock meeting. When’s your next day off?”
Grimacing, she said, “Not until next Wednesday. If we leave early tomorrow, though, we could get back before my shift starts at noon. Unless you can’t get another morning free?”
“Tomorrow should work.” He headed for his truck. “I’ll see if Wilt’s available to respond to any calls while we’re gone.”
“Great. So I’ll see you tomorrow at, what, seven thirty or so?”
He gave her a hard look over the hood of his truck. “Good try. I’ll be here tonight after the board meeting.” Scowling, he added, “I’d rather you not be alone at all, especially after it gets dark. Why don’t you attend the board meeting with me?”
Appalled, Lou stared at him, hoping her expression fully conveyed her horror at the idea. “Why don’t you just shoot me in the face, because I think I’d prefer that to sitting through a two-hour meeting where people squabble about county ordinances and the acceptable decibel level of old Mr. Zarnecki’s generator.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’ve been to one of these meetings then? I haven’t seen you there.”
Shaking her head, she explained, “My mom is very much into civic responsibility, and she dragged me, kicking and screaming, with her. Also, when I was in high school, our neighbor was in a grudge match with my stepdad. Their weapons were city ordinances and arcane state laws about fence lines and swimming pools and tree branch heights. It got pretty ugly. My mom insisted I attend the city council meetings with them in a show of familial support.”
He blinked. “Sounds brutal.”
“It was. So, no, I’m afraid I must decline your kind invitation to the board meeting tonight. But I do promise to stay inside with my doors locked and my shotgun within easy reach.”
“Good.” He opened his truck door.
“Um, you do realize that last part was sarcastic?” she asked. “I mean, not the locking the door part, since I will do that, but the shotgun thing. I don’t actually own a shotgun.”
He looked at her as if she’d just said she didn’t believe in eating food. “Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll bring one of mine.”
She paused to digest that. “Ah…okay. So it’s a shotgun kind of sleepover then. Good to know.”
With an amused snort, he climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the pickup’s door. His truck came to life with a roar. After lifting his fingers off the steering wheel in a manly wave, he followed the deputy’s example and executed a neat three-point turn before heading down the driveway toward the county road.
Although she was shivering, she watched him leave, turning to enter her cabin only when his pickup disappeared from sight and she could no longer hear its engine. But as she walked inside, her trembling got worse instead of better. Her warm little home felt foreign and too exposed, as if her stalker had, through his uninvited nighttime visit, turned her walls transparent.
She hovered in the entryway for a few more seconds before grabbing her laptop and her truck keys. Hopping into her own pickup, she headed to town.
* * *
Lou loved libraries, all libraries. They’d been her refuge and her comfort when she’d been growing up. Even the tiny, underfunded Simpson Library made her stomach warm with a feeling of happy familiarity.
After waving to Bart, the sole librarian, and getting the usual suspicious glare in return, she set up camp in the back corner. Although several rows of shelving provided some privacy, she knew from previous visits that Bart was sure to make multiple passes through the stacks closest to her, making a big show of reshelving books. Lou was pretty sure his real motivation was to check that she wasn’t doing anything shady, like tearing out pages of reference books or using her penknife to carve “Lou + Callum” in the wooden table.
This mental image brought a flood of worries about Callum, his new status as her roommate, and all the potential awkwardness that situation could have. It was hard enough being near him at training, and that was when he had on multiple layers of clothing. Living with him was going to create a bunch of uncomfortable situations. Undressing and showering and brushing her teeth with him in the next room seemed so…intimate. Just the thought of the upcoming night made her skin heat. With enormous effort, she shoved all Callum-related thoughts out of her mind and focused on HDG research.
Although Callum—damn, she just thought about him again!—had warned her about trying to force facts to fit favorite theories instead of letting the facts form the theories, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a little Internet research. Since the conversation with the sheriff and his son was fresh in her mind, she started surfing the web for information about local militia groups.
There was nothing specific about the antigovernment group Callum had mentioned, the one that had taken over the old Miller compound, but there was oodles of information about militias. It was fascinating, especially when she thought about how the local group was located less than ten miles from her cabin.
She was engrossed in reading about an illegal weapons raid on a compound in Michigan when a voice made her jump.
“Lou, right?”
Her first instinct was to slam her laptop closed, but she settled down quickly, realizing that she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Instead of acting like she’d been looking at porn, she glanced up casually and saw the sheriff’s son smirking at her from across the table.
“Yeah,” she said, belatedly answering his question. “Hi, Tyler.”
“What are you doing here?” Pulling out the chair across from her and flipping it around, he straddled the seat and laid his arms over the back.
“I needed a change of scenery,” she said, lowering the top of her laptop, since it looked like Tyler was settling in for a chat. She didn’t mind too much, though. Despite the sulky attitude, he seemed like a nice kid, and her eyes were starting to get a little fuzzy from staring at the computer screen without a break. “How about you? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“It’s been out for, like, an hour.” He jerked his chin toward the clock on the wall. It was almost four thirty.
