Page 14 of Hero Unbound

Shit. She forced a smile. “Blame it on lack of coffee.” Or lack of food, lack of sleep, lack of any sort of normalcy in her life. “I would’ve eventually needed light. I didn’t think anyone could see me from the main house here anyway.”

She walked toward the stall housing Arnie. He did have a slight skin infection, although it wasn’t something worth checking out in the middle of the night.

Theo followed. “I don’t live in the main house. My cabin is on this side of the property.”

Damn it. She’d never considered that he wouldn’t live in the main house. The rest of the houses on the property were much more basic and rustic. “Oh.”

She crouched down by Arnie. “Hi, little buddy. How you doing?” She rubbed his belly then turned him on his side so the patch of dry, irritated skin was more evident.

Theo crouched down next to her. “Wow. That does look painful.”

“Shouldn’t be too bad for him once the ointment Becky prescribed for him kicks in.” Antibiotics Eva should’ve been able to write herself but couldn’t. She wasn’t a vet anymore. Hell, she wasn’t even a vet technician. “Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to come give this to him tonight, get him started earlier.”

Theo nodded, his posture relaxing just slightly. He was buying her story. “I appreciate it. Sorry again for the tackle. We’ve had some trouble around here before—usually kids being a nuisance, but occasionally more than that.”

Which meant he was probably pretty diligent about keeping a lookout. She’d have to be much more careful staying in the shed, where the dogs were currently sleeping.

After seeing it a couple days ago with Becky, she’d started to move the excess stuff from her car in there to give her and the dogs more room.

She’d spent a couple hours earlier today strategically rearranging her belongings inside. She’d made it so if anyonehappenedto open the shed door, they wouldn’t notice her stuff unless they came inand searched. In essence, she’d built herself a little fort.

It hadn’t been until tonight, after the incident with the state trooper, that she’d decided to actually sleep there.She’d been excited to have a place to spread out where she didn’t have to try to rest with one eye open.

And now to find out Theo lived in the only house visible from the shed. The Linear Tactical property was huge; it was just pure bad luck that he’d chosen to live there.

Now she was back to having nothing. She scrubbed a hand down her face, exhaustion weighing on her.

“Hey, what’s going on? Is it that bad?”

She jerked her eyes over at him, afraid she’d given herself away. But he was still looking at Arnie. “No, he’s going to be fine. We just need to make sure everyone stops feeding him junk food.”

“What about you?”

“Just my exhaustion catching up with me, I guess.”

And not just since she’d arrived in Oak Creek. For months and months before that.

“No need for you to stay here any longer. Arnie seems like he’s going to be fine. You should get some sleep and come in late tomorrow.”

That wouldn’t work. Her plan had been to start work before dawn every day so her appearance from the shed would go unnoticed. “Yeah, maybe. I want to check on Wildfire first. But you don’t have to stay with me. I’ve got it.”

Wildfire would wait until morning, but she needed Theo to get back to his house so she could get back to hers, such as it was.

“I’ll come with you.”

Of course he would.

She forced another smile. “Great. Always good to have an extra set of hands.”

“I’ll drive us. It’ll take less time.”

“Let me grab Sugar and Spice. I put them in the shed so they wouldn’t make any of the animals nervous.”

She was thankful when he didn’t question that.

She got the dogs, and they walked toward his house. Now that she knew he lived there, she’d be sure to come to the shed from a different direction and be careful not to turn on any lights outside. She’d still have to be cautious. Slipping anything past Theo on his home turf seemed pretty impossible.

He lowered the back gate of his truck so the dogs could get in. Spice was quick to jump up there, but Sugar was a lot more timid and stood looking up at Eva.

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