Page 18 of My Three Rivals

“Nice, Bizzy,” I growled.

“I’m just saying, they’ll probably get so sick of staring at the cracks in the walls, they’ll end up going home. What are they thinking?”

“You’re asking me?” I almost shouted, my legs carrying me across the house toward the front door, which I’d already ensured was secured. I tried the handle anyway to be sure and found I had, in fact, locked them out from all angles.

“Obviously, you can’t live like that, though,” Bizzy mused. “What are you going to do?”

“You’re my lawyer! You tell me!”

As I suspected, the doorknob rattled a second later, and Atticus knocked. “Tegan! Open the damn door! You have no right to do this!”

I pulled the phone away from my ear again.

“If you live here, you should have a key, shouldn’t you?” I fired back, wiping my sweating hand against the denim of my pant leg.

My pulse raced, and suddenly, I regretted my impulsive action. Would they break a window to get back in? Would they attack me for this? I had no idea what any of them were capable of. I needed to protect myself, just in case.

I shot out toward the living room and dropped to my knees in front of my grandmother’s antique armoire. The brass picture frames rattled as I yanked open the bottom drawer.

“TEGAN!”

“Holy shit, Tegan. Are you in danger?” Bizzy asked, alarm filling her voice as it carried up from where I placed the phone on the worn, wooden floors. “They don’t sound happy.”

My hand shot into the drawer where Gran used to keep the old hunting rifle, which I hadn’t picked up in at least ten years. I didn’t even know if it worked anymore, but I had no intention of using it, really.

It wasn’t there.

“Tegan!” Bizzy hollered.

I snatched the phone back up, my mind racing.

A butcher knife?

I knew from self-defense classes that knives could too easily be turned on the victim, but I was running out of options now.

“I’m here,” I murmured, falling back on my haunches in confusion. “I have to go.”

I hung up, dropping my phone into my back pocket, and stared at the empty drawer in front of me in disbelief. What had Emerson done with the gun? It had always been there.

What the hell wasIgoing to do with the gun?I was being stupid.

Abruptly, the knocking stopped from both sides of the house, the silence almost as unnerving.

Were they plotting to break in now?I had to see what they were up to.

I stood, steadying myself as I stalked toward the bay window in the living room. A rush of breath escaped me as I looked outside and saw the patrol car among the other vehicles. Atticus stood speaking with a deputy, and I raced to the door to unlock it before he could schmooze her too well with his stupid dimple and gorgeous smile.

“…the title in my car,” Atticus said as I rushed out, my flip-flops smacking against the wood of the veranda. Another deputy ambled around the side of the house with Wyatt and Maverick, both men shooting daggers at me, but I fixed my attention on the cops.

“Thank God you’re here,” I breathed. “Can you get them out of here?”

The female officer tipped her hat back to look at me and then warily at the men as Atticus shuffled through his Escalade. The male officer followed him closely, watching his hands.

“And you are?” the female asked me slowly, her peripheral taking in the scene with confusion.

“I’m the damn owner of this house!” I cried. “I called you!”

“Calm down, ma’am,” she said, holding up a hand.

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