A Time for Home: A Snowberry Creek Novel (15 page)

“I don’t have my wallet. No protection.”

Callie gave him a considering look before holding her hand out to him. “It’s okay. I’m protected.”

She accompanied the good news by tossing her shirt over to join Nick’s. Then she shimmied out of her shorts, leaving him momentarily stunned by the beautiful picture she made. Then she drew him down to her, the time for teasing and tantalizing over and done.

When their bodies came together, the fit was perfect, even if their movements were awkward at first. Then they found their rhythm as Callie urged him on with frantic whispers. He wanted this perfection to last forever, but the sensations were too powerful to be resisted for long. They came together in a heated flurry, faster and faster until she keened out her release, taking him flying over the edge with her.

And then the world went to hell around them.

M
ooch had been blissfully absent since the second Nick had kissed Callie. Hell, he wouldn’t have given the dog credit for knowing to make himself scarce when a buddy hooked up with a beautiful woman. He had no idea where the mutt had been, but right now he was back and pitching a fit.

Nick hated—
hated
—having to withdraw from Callie’s embrace so abruptly, but Mooch wouldn’t be sounding the alarm for no reason. Surging to his feet, Nick paused only long enough to toss Callie her clothes and yank on his own shorts. The rest would have to wait.

“What’s wrong, Nick?”

“I’m not sure. Lock yourself in the house while I see what’s got Mooch upset.”

He waited until she pulled on her shirt and shorts and ran up the steps. “Keep the outside lights off, Callie. It screws with my night vision.”

“Should I call the police?”

“Not yet. Let me check it out first. It could be just a raccoon raiding the trash.”

Although he didn’t think so. He cocked his head to the side to try to triangulate the dog’s location. There. Near the start of the path toward Spence’s house. Mooch ran out of the trees. As soon as he spotted Nick, he retreated back the way he’d come, his barking fading into a deep growl.

The intruder was back. His gut said that was the only logical explanation for Mooch’s agitation. The sound of breaking glass sent Nick charging back to Callie’s. She saw him coming and opened the door.

“Call the cops. Tell them someone is breaking into the house next door. Warn them Mooch and I will be around. Leif, too.”

Hopefully they’d give him a chance to identify himself before any shooting started. Without waiting for Callie to respond, he wheeled around and headed right back toward the path. He wished like hell he had his Beretta with him or, better yet, his rifle. Even unarmed, he couldn’t wait for the police to show up, not with Leif alone and asleep in the house. The painkillers would hamper his ability to react to any kind of threat.

Nick followed his four-legged scout across the yard, dividing his attention between studying the house and watching Mooch for clues as to where the threat originated. The dog ranged out ahead of Nick, nose to the air. Old habits had them both keeping to the darkest shadows.

Mooch made it all the way to the front porch before suddenly veering off to circle around the end of the house toward the backyard. Nick followed him, going slowly, trying to hear past the approaching sirens.

Mooch yipped softly and stared up at the back porch. The window in the door was broken, the hole round as if shattered by a fist-sized rock. Nick crept up the steps, ignoring the shimmer of broken glass scattered on the porch even though he was barefoot. Luckily for him, most of the pieces had gone inside, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have stomped across an acre of jagged shards to get to Leif.

He reached the door, which was unlocked and ajar. Had the prowler gone in or had he been scared off by Mooch’s barking? Nick pushed the door farther open, moving slowly as he listened for the sound of someone moving around. Nothing. All was quiet. Outside, flickers of red and blue lights warned him the police had arrived.

Stepping around the rock lying on the kitchen floor, Nick grimaced. The corporal would not be happy to find out that he’d slept right through a direct attack on the house. There wasn’t much that could be done about that. Nick flipped on the kitchen lights and headed for the den to wake him up before the cops came pouring in.

Where the hell was he? When Nick finally spotted Leif, his heart nearly stopped. His friend was sprawled on the floor next to a pillow, his face covered with a dark splash of blood. A swirl of blackness swirled through Nick’s brain as the room around him disappeared.

He staggered back two steps, holding his arm, trying to stop the bleeding while he assessed the damage. Who else had been caught by the explosion? Too much blood. It was everywhere, soaking into the dirt, sprayed on the clay walls. Even the shredded metal that used to be his armored vehicle was tinged red in his mind. Spence! Where was Spence! Please, God, let Wheels be there.

Fuck no! That wasn’t right. Nick wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore. His arm was scarred, not bleeding. Spence was dead; Leif wasn’t. Although he might be if Nick didn’t get his head back in the game.

He knelt down and gently shook the unconscious man’s shoulder until his friend moaned. Good. He was already coming around. Nick stripped the cover off a bed pillow lying on the floor next to Leif and used it to wipe the blood off his cheek. Damning himself for not turning the overhead light on, Nick leaned closer to assess the damage.

The bruised area looked to be the size of a fist, with a single shallow cut in the center. Best guess was that Leif had been hit once—but hard. There was a limit to how much damage the intruder could do with a single punch. If he’d used the rock, the blow could have been fatal. Nick eased back slightly as Leif’s eyes fluttered open, knowing a wounded man’s reactions were often unpredictable.

“Leif, come on, buddy. Wake up. The cops are here.”

He made a second, more successful attempt to get Leif moving as the pounding on the front door started.

Leif blinked sleepily. “What the hell happened? I remember glass breaking.”

He frowned. “Then I yelled to ask if you were getting clumsy in your old age. Nothing after that.”

Nick lifted the injured man up into a sitting position. “Someone broke the window in the kitchen to get inside. You must have startled him, and he knocked you out. Callie called the cops. Stay here while I go let them in. We’ll put in a call for the medics.”

His story had some gaping holes in it, but now wasn’t the time for lengthy explanations. With luck, Leif would be thickheaded enough not to ask many questions about where Nick had been while the intruder had been knocking the hell out of him.

“Stay still. I’ll be right back.”

He flipped on lights as he went to give the police a clear view of him. They might not know him personally, but they’d at least know that a thief wouldn’t be the one lighting up the house.

He hadn’t expected it to be the chief of police himself standing on the porch. Gage had his sidearm in his hand, his stance relaxing only marginally when he spotted Nick through the window.

Nick turned on the porch light and opened the door. “Sorry to drag you all the way out here, Gage. Whoever tossed the rock was long gone by the time I got back here. The window in the back door is broken, but I haven’t seen any other damage to the house itself. But whoever the bastard was, he hurt my friend. Can you call the medics for me?”

Gage pulled out his phone and punched a number on speed dial.

“Send the EMTs out to the Lang place.”

As he spoke, he gave Nick a long look, clearly taking note of his missing shirt and shoes. Damn, it might have been smarter to delay opening the door long enough to grab at least a shirt out of Leif’s duffel.

For the moment, Gage made no comment other than to send his two deputies around to scout the backyard and the woods beyond. Nick was about to step back out of the way to let Gage inside when a movement on the far side of the yard had all three lawmen reaching for weapons.

Callie stepped out of the trees. They immediately relaxed, but Nick wanted to throttle her for taking such a foolish risk. He would’ve gone and told her what had happened as soon as the dust settled. If Gage’s men were in the least bit trigger happy, she could be dead right now.

“Mooch, protect Callie!”

The dog shot past the two men on the porch straight for his friend. Contrary to his usual behavior, he remained alert and watchful as the two of them continued on toward the house. It wasn’t until she started up the steps that Mooch finally dropped his guard and demanded to be petted.

Callie patted him on the head before coming all the way up to where Nick stood glaring at her. She didn’t seem the least bit cowed by his expression, probably thinking the intruder was the cause of his bad mood.

Gage saved him having to straighten her out on that. His voice was little better than a growl when he said, “It would have been better for you to wait next door, Callie. What if the guy who tossed a rock through the back window is still out there in the woods somewhere?”

“I didn’t think—”

Nick joined in. “No, you didn’t. I would’ve come back for you when it was safe.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulder, offering her comfort even as he made it clear that he was siding with Gage on this one. “Leif’s hurt. I need to get back to him.”

She shivered despite wearing his shirt over her own. At least she’d taken the time to put on shoes and brought him his flip-flops. Hopefully she’d also gathered up any other clothes the two of them had left scattered on the grass. The last thing he wanted was for the two deputies to stumble across his boxers or her bra if they did a sweep across her yard as well.

Stubborn bastard that he was, Leif had managed to stand up on his own and came limping out of the den. Gage might not have anything to say about Nick’s shirtless condition, but Leif might not be as tactful once he realized that Nick had been next door when the vandalism happened. They would deal with that fallout once the medics had a chance to give Leif the once-over.

Until then, he needed to get the man to a chair before he toppled over. Callie took Leif’s other side and the two of them maneuvered him into the kitchen and sat him down at the table.

“Can you stay with him for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

When she nodded, he took the steps two at a time to his room upstairs and grabbed a clean shirt. When he returned to the kitchen, Callie had washed the blood from Leif’s face, but that didn’t do anything to disguise the darkening bruise. Nick clenched his fists, wishing like hell he had a handy target for his fury.

Of course, if he’d stayed with Leif, this wouldn’t have happened. Even if he hadn’t been able to resist the compulsion to make sure Callie was safe, he should’ve come right back. He’d known the painkillers had left Leif sluggish and unable to defend himself. He’d also suspected all along that someone had been snooping around the house and had even been inside long enough to steal things.

And instead of protecting Spence’s home from invasion and Leif from attack, Nick had failed them both. Again. Son of a bitch, could he be any more worthless?

Leif looked more alert now. “I think I asked you this already, but what the hell happened here?”

Nick swallowed his guilt long enough to answer. He pointed toward the glass scattered on the floor. “Someone broke in. When you first woke up, you said you heard something, because you hollered something about me getting clumsy. I figure you started for the kitchen to see what was going on and startled the intruder. That’s when he coldcocked you.”

Callie handed Leif a plastic bag full of ice wrapped in a dish towel. “Hold that on your cheek, big guy. There’ll be plenty of time for explanations after the EMTs are done with you.”

Leif winced at the cold but did as she said. Meanwhile, Gage and one of his men entered the room. “No sign of anyone out in the yard or in the woods now. We’ll take another look around in the daylight to see if we can learn more.”

Then Gage cocked his head to the side as if he’d heard something. “I think the med techs are here. I’ll send them in. Meanwhile, Nick, if you’ve got a minute.”

There was nothing to do but follow Gage outside. The man obviously had questions, ones he was either reluctant or too tactful to ask in front of Callie and Leif.

The medics were just coming up on the porch. The woman took the lead. “Chief.”

Gage nodded. “Angela, Jace, this is Nick Jenkins. The injured man is in the kitchen. He took a blow to the head.”

Nick stopped them. “Just so you know, Leif took some heavy-caliber pain pills about an hour ago. The bottle should be on the table by his bed in the den.”

The pair nodded in Nick’s direction but headed straight inside. They had their priorities straight. Blood took precedence over chitchat.

When they were out of hearing, Gage turned his lawman’s gaze in Nick’s direction. “Okay, start at the beginning and tell me what happened. Don’t gloss over anything. I’m no gossip, and if certain, um, details aren’t pertinent to the case, they won’t go in my official report.”

Nick nodded, grateful for even that much. “My buddy Leif arrived earlier today. He flew out from D.C. to help me do some work around here.”

Gage’s eyebrows shot up. Obviously he’d done his own assessment of Leif’s condition. No harm in confirming it for him.

“Leif got hurt in the same attack that killed Spence. When I asked him if he’d like to help me do a few things around the place for Callie, he hopped a plane and flew out here.” Nick forced a small smile. “I suspect he exaggerated how much help he’ll actually be.”

Gage’s laugh was short but heartfelt. “There’s no convincing a good soldier that it takes time for a wound to heal properly. Let’s hope all of this excitement won’t set him back too much.”

Nick ran his hand through his hair, wishing like hell all of this would just go away. “I’ll hog-tie him and haul his ass up to the military hospital if that’s what it takes to make him rest. For sure, if he’s going to be here for long, we’ll have to look into rehab for him.”