Page 16 of Echo
Run where? My only other option was to go to places I’d already run away from. Where my dad would ask me a billion and one questions, then get his boys to ride to Miami when I finally crumbled and told him the truth. I didn’t want him catching a murder charge because of me.
He was always at risk of getting one on his own, anyway.
Maybe that was better than this. But this was an entire fucking house. This was not the kind of economy to turn your nose up at a house and a hundred acres.
I needed to reevaluate.
Chapter 6:
Sleepwasaslipperyfucker.
I kept getting up to check the windows of the bedroom, looking for Mark’s car in the driveway.
It didn’t really matter if a bear body-slammed my door every single night. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I couldn’t run home to my daddy and tell him I fucked up. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being disappointed that his daughter would ever allow a man to treat her this way. I’d left my husband for less. I should’ve seen Mark coming a million miles away, the fact that I didn’t was an utter failure on my part.
I could live with an animal or murder mountain man at my door. I couldn’t live with my father’s disapproval, or Mark in my bed.
When I’d gone to lie down, I’d found Pearl’s room, with a shotgun right by the nightstand. I slept in the guest room, but I took the gun with me. It helped me at least get a couple of hours of sleep.
I wouldn’t be caught with a skillet and a kitchen knife again.
Once the sun was up, I opened the front door with the shotgun loaded and ready. Ranger went between my legs, preparing to attack too. I searched the front porch for any signs of last night’s visitor. There were no footsteps or signs of a disturbance, other than scratches in the paint where it had clawed at the door.
Maybe it really was a bear.
I systematically cleared every section near the farm. But the woods were thick, and the land was vast. It would be impossible to say for sure nothing was out there.
The only thing I could confidently say was that there wasn’t an axe wielding murderer in the barn.
The gun was an old familiar friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. My dad had taken me to the range almost every Wednesday when I was young, making sure that no matter what situation I ended up in, whether it was by intentional decision, mistake, or blowback from his job, I could take care of myself. Every muscle in my hand and arms remembered what to do, despite the fact I hadn’t touched so much as a bullet in years.
In the barn, I found countless paint cans in a horse stall and figured shit like last night was why the mailbox paint job was so new. I put the safety on the rifle, and let the shoulder strap guide the weapon to my back.
They had a bunch of colors, but endless gallons of white paint.
Fuck it. I grabbed the black paint can figuring that it would be less noticeable if and when a bear came back again. I went to leave, and the cow mooed at me with enough attitude to get my attention.
“Okay.” I chuckled. I was right. Yesterday’s learning experience made getting the animals fed and watered twenty times easier. The Devil Cock even let me gather the eggs without a fight.
“See, we can be friends,” I told Devil Cock, and he ignored me in favor of pecking at the food I’d brought them from the gardens.
Call me the Queen of Diplomacy.
I used my shirt to hold the excess eggs. I’d get me one of those aprons like Hilda Falin’s eventually. I wished I’d ask her where she got hers yesterday, not that I’d figured out what it was for at the time.
Searing heat scorched the side of my body, as I bent over to grab the handle for the paint can. A fiery gaze that made me feel the person’s passion all the way from here.
Was that who was at my door last night?
The guy who’d been walking his dog yesterday? No. I’d heard my cousin’s voice. Nothing about this made sense.
Ranger crouched at my heel, growling. I followed his gaze to find a tall figure covered in shadows, stepping behind a tree.
A dog barked, but I didn’t see any signs of one anywhere. Something about the bark made my hair stand on end, but I couldn’t figure out why it made me nervous.
I refused to spend another night in my house scared, because this creeper saw something he liked yesterday.
