Page 72 of Forecasting the Forward

Yawning, I lean my head against the door. It’s been a long day. Usually I’m in bed by now, but Jacob has a game in California, and I’m trying to stay up until he calls. He’s called every day that he’s been gone, and I find I’m missing him more than I expected.

Glancing at my phone, I see that it’s almost ten o’clock. My alarm goes off at three. I really can’t survive on less than fivehours of sleep, so I decide to get the pigs squared away in their cages for the night so I can attempt a little bit of shut-eye. I quickly get four of them relocated, but I can’t find Rose and Bluebell.

“Seriously? Where the hell could they go?” I murmur as I check the towel under the door to see if it had been moved at all. A scratching noise under the chair alerts me to Rose’s location, but Bluebell is nowhere to be found. Near tears, I’m praying that I find her immediately, when my phone rings, scaring the crap out of me.

“Hey, Spitfire,” Jacob’s voice says warmly.

“Hi,” I whisper.

“What’s wrong?” His voice sharpens as he hones in on my distress quickly.

“Nothing.” I don’t want to admit to my husband that I lost one of his guinea pigs.

“Baby,” he says softly, and my heart skips a beat, “I know when you’re lying. What happened?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Did something happen with your family? I swear, if your brother showed up there because he knew I’d be gone, I’ll fly to Indiana right now and shove my fist in his mouth so fucking hard I’ll have his teeth imprinted in the back of his skull,” he snarls.

I can’t help the giggle that bursts from my mouth. “Nothing with my family.”

“You promise?” he asks warily.

“I promise.”

“Something with work?”

“No.”

“Whatever it is, you can tell me, darlin’.”

I sigh, knowing he’s right. “Promise you won’t be mad?”

“I promise I’ll try not to be mad.”

“Fine. So I’ve been trying to spend time with the pigs multiple times a day so they get used to me, and tonight, I thought they’d enjoy getting out of their cages for a little bit. You had said you did that occasionally, so I thought it was fine. I even bought some special treats, and everything was going fine, but now …”

Jacob chuckles. “Bluebell likes to climb under the recliner I have in there, and because of her coloring, she blends in with the fabric. You can’t see her unless you’re pointing a flashlight directly at her. Stick a piece of spinach under the chair, and she’ll follow it.”

“How did you know that’s what I was going to say?” I ask incredulously.

“Two reasons. She’s done that to me more than once.”

“And the other reason?”

“Now it’s your turn to promise you won’t be mad,” he says with an amused tone.

“Okay?”

“I have a camera in the room, baby. I saw you get everyone back in the cages but Bluebell.”

I jump up, looking all over the room, finally locating a very small camera hidden at the top of a bookshelf. “This would have been nice to know a few days ago, Jacob.”

“Maybe. But I’ve enjoyed watching you without your knowledge.”

“Why do you have a camera in here?”

“Checking on the pet sitter initially. But then I found that watching them before going to bed on away trips actually relaxed me. So I kept the camera.”

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