Page 78 of Falling Too Late

No one could step foot onto my property without these two knowing.

I managed to step around them and get to my bedroom, dressing in an old T-shirt and sweats. We headed downstairs, and I planned to force myself to make dinner.

I lived out of town, down a long dirt road. The property had several acres to it. It was an old farmhouse with a barn that had been converted to a shop by one of the previous owners.

The house was perfect, with a wraparound porch, hardwood floors, decent-sized kitchen and a laundry room.

I had the property fenced and a gate put at the entrance of the driveway. If the wind even blew the gate too hard and the chain rattled, the pups would hear it and take off down that way.

They didn’t take too kindly to strangers.

I paused outside my office door, staring at the glass door that had paper taped to the inside of it. I turned the doorknob and pushed it open gently, flicking on the light.

The room was a mess. It had papers taped up all over the walls. In the center of the room was an easel with a piece of paper pinned to the board. His eyes stared at me.

The tips of my fingers tingled while I stared at the image I had worked on for hours.

I had no pictures of Alex. I’d torn through boxes of his mother's things after I had packed them all up. There were a few pictures of him as a child, but none of him as the Alex I knew.

Once I realized that, the anxiety started. What if I forgot his face? The flecks of golds and greens in his warm brown eyes. The way the sides of his forehead crinkled when he was concerned about me. The freckle just below his left ear.

I had gone to an art store and picked up different mediums. Acrylics, oils, watercolors. I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, determined to recreate him from memory.

I failed at all of them.

That was, until I got my hands on charcoal. Something about it made sense to me, and I had been working with it ever since.

I closed the door, heading to the kitchen.

I made quick work of some boiled noodles and a jar of alfredo sauce. I even went as far as to put some butter and garlic seasoning on some bread, toasting it in the oven.

I fed the pups their meal, which consisted of high-end ground meat that I made for them. Their meals cost more than mine did.

They sat in the kitchen, drooling puddles, when both their ears perked up. In the next breath, they had both launched themselves out the dog door.

I moved to the window above the sink. The motion-sensor floodlights had kicked on. Straining to see anything out the window, I left the kitchen and headed to the front of the house. In my front hallway, I opened the drawer of the entryway table, pulling out a .38 revolver and checking the cylinder before heading to the front door. Holding the gun had my adrenaline spiking. I steadied my breath, forcing myself to maintain a clear head.

I stared out as far as the lights illuminated but couldn’t make anything out. The longest minute passed before King and Queen emerged, a ball in King's mouth and his tail wagging happily.

The stress melted away and I shook my head, only pausing when Queen stopped and turned her head back, tail high in alert mode.

I unlocked the door, opening it but keeping the storm door in place.

“Whatcha think, Queen?” She looked at me, snorting before she disappeared around the house. Moments later I heard the dog door open and close, two sets of paws on the hardwood. I stared out into the darkness for another beat; it wasn’t rare for a critter from the dense woods to hang out around the property. I always tried to remind myself of that. Locking the door, I double-checked all the windows before I went to bed.

CHAPTER 29

ALEX, 27 YEARS OLD

A black sedanpulled up just as I stepped out of the confines of prison as a free man. The sun beating down on me was too bright. The air smelled too clean. Not enough like the blood, sweat, and shit I had dealt with for the last six years. I stared at the sedan, eyebrows quirked, hands shoved in my pocket. The only things I owned were on my back. The passenger window rolled down halfway.

“Alexander Harper?”

“What's it to you?”

“Nikolas said you needed a ride.”

I stared at the sunglasses-shielded eyes for a moment longer before I looked over my shoulder. A guard stood there, his arms crossed, staring at me, a pissed look on his face. Tilting my head back, I looked to the barred windows I had been staring through the last six years. Faintly, I could see a figure standing in the window, his head nodding.

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