normal-person hours.
The old cellar doors creaked like they always had. Surviving the fire that claimed the top floor of the house seemed to have warped the doors further—but Roan had come prepared. She doused the hinges with WD40. The hasp was so old that it snapped under pressure from the bolt cutters.
So far, so good.
She pulled the heavy doors open, using both hands. Then she took a deep breath and got ready to descend the steep stone steps into the basement. She wasn't afraid, not exactly—but it had never been her favorite place, not since her mother died and the shelves full of canned goods and the old washtub and drying racks and trunks full of clothes and linens had been cleared out. After that, it was just a sad, empty, echoing chamber of memories, strung with cobwebs and little else, and Roan had avoided it. Mimi refused to even set foot in it, insisting that her father build her a laundry room on the top floor.
As Roan descended the steps, playing the beam of her flashlight on the empty space in front of her, she wondered how many people had even been down here since the fire. A few insurance adjusters, the firefighters. The rodents who'd decided to make it their home.
Once down the steps, the room seemed smaller than she remembered. The shelves were dusty, but empty. The pipes sagged; paint flaked from the walls. The floor and walls were poured concrete, so there was no point searching for Grandpa's treasure down here.
Roan put her hand on the banister leading up to the first floor. The steps were still remarkably sound; the door at the top of the stairs was standing open, just as it had been when she visited two nights ago. In fact, it was close to that door that Calvin Dixon had first confronted her...
No. She wasn't going to think about Cal. The nagging sense of guilt—for lying to him, for leaving him stranded in her apartment when she bolted...for kissing him, that most of all—would have to wait for another time. Tonight was all about avoiding him, not fixating on him.
Never mind that she could still almost taste his kiss, that one of the main reasons she couldn't sleep was because she'd been imagining his arms around her, the way he pulled her into his lap with seemingly no effort at all. The effect he had on her was all wrong—it was rough and tender, and demanding and soft, all rolled into one.
Which didn't change the fact that he was days away from becoming a cop, and he could turn her life upside down with very little effort.
Or the fact that Roan didn't date—not seriously, anyway—because love had lost its appeal for her after her mother died and her father brought Mimi home— and her parents' perfect fairy-tale marriage was revealed to be nothing but a handful of ashes. If Earl and Elaine Brackens couldn't manage a lasting love, then no one could, and Roan wasn't going to be made a fool of for trying.
She tread softly, even though there was no one there to hear. She had made it almost to the top when she heard a shuffling behind her.
She whirled around in time to face a glaring spotlight trained directly in her eyes.
"Don't go any further," an unfamiliar voice commanded. "I've got a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."
#
" Wake up, man," someone was saying urgently. Cal blinked a couple of times in the darkness before the light was abruptly switched on and his room was filled with jarring bright light.
He moaned, rolling into a sitting position on his bed. Jimmy was standing in the door with his hand on the doorknob. "I'm very sorry to wake you," he said.
Cal took a deep breath and tried to clear the dream from his mind. In it, Roan Brackens had been—for some unknown dream reason—riding a bicycle with no hands, waving prettily at him while her long hair streamed past her. And she'd been naked , which was something that Cal would have liked to enjoy for as long as possible, even if it wasn't real.
Jimmy stood formally, averting his eyes. He was the most polite of Cal's
The old cellar doors creaked like they always had. Surviving the fire that claimed the top floor of the house seemed to have warped the doors further—but Roan had come prepared. She doused the hinges with WD40. The hasp was so old that it snapped under pressure from the bolt cutters.
So far, so good.
She pulled the heavy doors open, using both hands. Then she took a deep breath and got ready to descend the steep stone steps into the basement. She wasn't afraid, not exactly—but it had never been her favorite place, not since her mother died and the shelves full of canned goods and the old washtub and drying racks and trunks full of clothes and linens had been cleared out. After that, it was just a sad, empty, echoing chamber of memories, strung with cobwebs and little else, and Roan had avoided it. Mimi refused to even set foot in it, insisting that her father build her a laundry room on the top floor.
As Roan descended the steps, playing the beam of her flashlight on the empty space in front of her, she wondered how many people had even been down here since the fire. A few insurance adjusters, the firefighters. The rodents who'd decided to make it their home.
Once down the steps, the room seemed smaller than she remembered. The shelves were dusty, but empty. The pipes sagged; paint flaked from the walls. The floor and walls were poured concrete, so there was no point searching for Grandpa's treasure down here.
Roan put her hand on the banister leading up to the first floor. The steps were still remarkably sound; the door at the top of the stairs was standing open, just as it had been when she visited two nights ago. In fact, it was close to that door that Calvin Dixon had first confronted her...
No. She wasn't going to think about Cal. The nagging sense of guilt—for lying to him, for leaving him stranded in her apartment when she bolted...for kissing him, that most of all—would have to wait for another time. Tonight was all about avoiding him, not fixating on him.
Never mind that she could still almost taste his kiss, that one of the main reasons she couldn't sleep was because she'd been imagining his arms around her, the way he pulled her into his lap with seemingly no effort at all. The effect he had on her was all wrong—it was rough and tender, and demanding and soft, all rolled into one.
Which didn't change the fact that he was days away from becoming a cop, and he could turn her life upside down with very little effort.
Or the fact that Roan didn't date—not seriously, anyway—because love had lost its appeal for her after her mother died and her father brought Mimi home— and her parents' perfect fairy-tale marriage was revealed to be nothing but a handful of ashes. If Earl and Elaine Brackens couldn't manage a lasting love, then no one could, and Roan wasn't going to be made a fool of for trying.
She tread softly, even though there was no one there to hear. She had made it almost to the top when she heard a shuffling behind her.
She whirled around in time to face a glaring spotlight trained directly in her eyes.
"Don't go any further," an unfamiliar voice commanded. "I've got a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."
#
" Wake up, man," someone was saying urgently. Cal blinked a couple of times in the darkness before the light was abruptly switched on and his room was filled with jarring bright light.
He moaned, rolling into a sitting position on his bed. Jimmy was standing in the door with his hand on the doorknob. "I'm very sorry to wake you," he said.
Cal took a deep breath and tried to clear the dream from his mind. In it, Roan Brackens had been—for some unknown dream reason—riding a bicycle with no hands, waving prettily at him while her long hair streamed past her. And she'd been naked , which was something that Cal would have liked to enjoy for as long as possible, even if it wasn't real.
Jimmy stood formally, averting his eyes. He was the most polite of Cal's
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