“He’s what you need,” Chase told her.
“Chase—”
“Let’s get back in. You need a big old dog like King.”
“I love dogs. But I travel too much. And, please, come on, Chase, this is getting ridiculous! No one is going to come after me here. I mean, why would they? As far as anyone knows, I’m filling in for my dad. It’s just a show, a show—”
“Unlike any other,” he said. “Damn, Sky, if I know what you’re up to, someone else may suspect that you’re looking for them, too. Move.”
“Right. And not you?”
“Jake wasn’t my dad,” he said quietly. “I loved him, but others loved him, too. Come on. Let’s get back in the house.”
“But seriously, I have the gate, you have to buzz to get in—”
“Or jump the wall.”
“King is out there,” Sky reminded him.
“All night?” he demanded. She wasn’t going to lie. She shook her head.
“But still—”
“I’m not leaving.”
“What?”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I’m not inviting you to stay!”
“You don’t even have your own dog.”
“I’ll get one tomorrow,” Sky promised.
King suddenly started barking again. Chase couldn’t leave her. Whether she liked it or not, he couldn’t leave her. And it would be hell all night, knowing that she was upstairs, that they were close, that years had dripped away as if they’d never been apart, and he couldn’t leave her.
“You have a lovely sofa,” he said.
“That’s not... I mean, the house has four bedrooms upstairs. Chase, you know that’s not the point.”
“Hey, we’ll put on a good show.”
What the hell did he have to do? Tell her the truth about what he now did for a living, the truth about who he worked for...
“Sky, I am worried for your life. Because someone besides me suspects that you’re not just singing with the band for old times’ sake, for your dad.”
King barked and stopped again.
“I would appreciate a pillow and a blanket,” he told her, prodding her through the entry to the parlor.
“Really? If you’re insisting, there are guest rooms—”
“No, I’ll be down here. Where I’ll know if someone is fooling around with the house.”
“Super hearing? After being a drummer?”
“Cushioning earplugs. Hank told me too many of his friends have gone deaf. You need someone else here. Sky, what the hell. This is real. Someone could break in. With a gun. You need protection. Tonight, I’m it.”
“And what are you going to do if someone breaks in with a gun?” she asked.
“Shoot him,” he said flatly.
CHASE WAS DOWNSTAIRS. Sky had provided him with two pillows and a blanket. The furniture in the large living area that consumed the center of the house was old—dating back to the 1800s—and she doubted that there was any way anyone could sleep comfortably on the one sofa that sat with a group of upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace.
But he was there.
Of course, she couldn’t quite figure how she hadn’t realized that he was armed. But she didn’t know anything about guns. She’d never wanted to know anything about them, even when crime rates had gotten higher in many of the country’s major cities.
And yet now...
She’d asked him, of course. With a shrug he’d explained it was all part of the classes he’d been taking in criminology, right along with blood spatter and fingerprints.
She’d provided him with the little he had asked for and he’d escaped.
But she knew he was there. And it was hell.
And then again, it wasn’t.
