Page 18 of Boss's Mate

It was then she saw the open kitchen window. Thinking back, she remembered how she had opened it the night before when she had made herself a late-night snack. What an idiot she had been to leave it open all this time.

It was then the hammering on the front door stopped. Straining her ears, she realized she could hear rushing footsteps. They stopped for a second and she heard the rattling of the back gate as Stan volleyed over it.

Shit!She hurried to reach up for the window handle. Just as she grabbed it Stan appeared in the garden, running right at her.

Just in time, she slammed the window shut, locking it firmly. Trembling hard, she unlocked her phone and searched for the one number she could think to ring.

“Kayla! Put the phone down. I only want to talk!” Stan yelled through the window. He hammered on the glass, and Kayla feared it might break.

Nausea bubbled up her throat and she struggled to hold back tears as she pressed call.

The second she heard the call connect, she screamed down the phone, “Lance, he's here. Stan is here!”

Chapter 10 - Lance

The phone started to ring when Lance wasn’t even halfway home. Still riled by how things had gone down, he debated ignoring it. It was likely Lewis just calling to let him know he had closed up the office, or maybe even Sarah checking on how his day had gone. But he was truly in no mood to talk to anybody.

Yet, something deep in his gut made him press the answer call button on the steering wheel.

“What is it? I’m driving,” he said into the microphone above his head, really in no mood for chitchat.

“Lance, he’s here! Stan is here!”

The words were filled with such terror that Lance immediately slammed his brakes on.

“I know I shouldn’t have called you, but he’s here! He was in my house. I got him out but now he’s trying to get back in and—”

“Whoa, Kayla! You did the right thing. Calm down and do exactly as I say,” Lance instructed. “Grab something, anything you can use as a weapon. Go to the nearest bathroom or closet and lock yourself in. I’m on my way.”

He heard the sound of hammering footsteps and knew that Kayla was obeying his instruction.

“What do I do if he gets in?” Kayla asked, her voice still terrified but calmer than before.

“You do whatever you can to stay out of reach until I get there,” Lance told her. His stomach twisted painfully at the thought of what might happen if he didn’t get there in time. Deja vu made every muscle in his body tense up, and he turned thetruck around so fast that he almost crashed it before he was even headed in the right direction. “And, Kayla, if there’s no other way, kill him.”

“But I…” Kayla trailed off, as if she wasn’t sure how to respond to such a thing.

“You’re a good girl, Kayla. I know you think you don’t have it in you, but if it comes down to it, don’t choose him. He’d never choose you.”

Pain lanced through him as he thought on how many times he had seen it, how many times he had witnessed women giving everything for the man they loved and the one they thought loved them back only to lose everything, to be so bruised and beaten that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

“If it is between you and him, Kayla, choose you!” he emphasized. “I’m almost there.”

Speeding faster and faster, Lance screeched into Kayla’s driveway.

“Is…is that you?” Kayla asked as if she had heard him. “I…I think he’s heard you.”

“Where is he? Can you see him?” Lance demanded, killing the engine.

“Yes. I can see him out the bathroom window. He’s running down the garden, over the fence.”

“Stay right where you are. I’ll call you back.”

With that Lance ended the call, checked that his phone was in his jeans pocket, and rushed from the truck. He vaulted over the garden gate and around the back of the house. The scent of lion shifter hit him like a slap in the face and he wrinkled his nose.

One glance at the upstairs windows told him Kayla had listened to him. He could see her peering out from behind the net curtain in the bathroom.

Lance stood, straining his ears, trying to pinpoint exactly which way Stan had gone, but when he picked up the pounding of feet, he realized the lion had already put a great deal of distance between them.

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