Page 38 of Sharp Lies

I wasn’t going to turn around and hide from the rain while he might be having some sort of attack in there.

Silver and I sprinted across the yard, splashing through puddles and making for the gate he’d put in the fence between our houses, and by the time we got to it, my boots were full of water, and I was having trouble running.

I stripped them off and ran barefoot from there on out.

We got to his porch and vaulted up the steps, and I found his door unlocked. I didn’t bother to knock—if he was on the floor in the basement again, he wouldn’t be able to answer—but did stop when I got inside. I wasn’t just going to go dashing around his house looking for him.

I was a lady. I’d walk.

I put my boots down carefully, looking from left to right and trying to figure out where he might be. It was dark in here, no lights on, so I couldn’t exactly locate him by finding where the lights were in the house. Was he upstairs in bed? Downstairs in the basement? In the bathroom, lying under the sink?

I took a step forward, and the floorboard under my foot groaned out loud, advertising my presence. I froze there, one foot on the loud floorboard and one behind me, and seconds later, the light came on in the upstairs hallway. Gasping, I looked up and saw Warren standing there in boxers and a T-shirt, looking down at me.

Oh. My. Goodness.

“Lily?” he asked, sounding half surprised and half amused. “What the hell are you doing?”

Look, I knew how it looked. I looked like I’d been playing freeze tag and had stopped in the middle of a step. I was soaking wet and creeping around his house in the dark. This was ridiculous.

Silver, however, thought this was a terrific game and tore up the stairs toward him, barking like she hadn’t seen him in years. He laughed and caught her when she jumped at him, then padded down the stairs and came to a stop in front of me, one brow lifted and a soft smile on his lips.

“Are you here to kidnap me?”

“The opposite, actually,” I said. “I’m here to save you. I heard the thunder and saw the lighting and thought...”

Crap. Now that I was saying it out loud, it sounded so stupid. That was a red-blooded, very strong man standing in front of me, and I’d thought he actually needed rescuing, or that a little girl like me could do anything to—

He moved so fast I didn’t see it happening. One moment I was standing there dripping on his floor feeling stupid, and the next he had me in his arms, his mouth sealed over mine and his hands tangled in my hair as he kissed me for all he was worth. I opened my mouth to him and let him pull me close, my skin humming at how warm he was.

And for several long seconds, I lost myself to the feel of him being here and being okay and holding me like he’d been waiting all night for me to show up.

Then the sound of shattering glass tore us apart.

I looked toward my house, where the sound had come from, and panic rose up my throat and tried to choke me. “Mom,” I gasped.

Warren didn’t say anything. He grabbed my hand and dashed for the front door, his mind evidently going to the same place mine had. We ran through the rain like our lives depended on it, our eyes on the house where my mom was lying, defenseless and incapable of walking on her own. Oh my goodness, how could I have been so stupid? How could I have left her there alone like that? I couldn’t stand the thought that I’d run from the house and left her defenseless. I was a horrible daughter. A terrible human being. I was going to have to kill myself if anything had happened to her.

Then we got through the gate into the yard attached to my mom’s house, and I saw my microbus.

The windshield had been smashed, and the ax they’d used to smash it was still sticking out of what glass was left.

The crash hadn’t come from someone attacking my mother. It had come from someone attacking my little bus.

CHAPTER 18

LILY

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I STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE of the driveway and stared. All my hard work. All the years I’d spent taking that little minivan with me everywhere I went. All the good times.

The axe sticking out of the windshield felt like it was directed right at me. Hell, it felt like it was currently sticking out of my own heart! I was horrified and heartbroken. I mean sure, it was just a windshield, but whoever had done it had gone right after something that was a piece of me—not to mention a sign of my independence and ability to get away.

Ability to get away.

Well, I had to admit that this wasn’t a ‘whoever had done this’ sort of thing. Because I knew exactly who was responsible, and part of it was probably so that I didn’t feel like I could get away. In the past, he’d used smaller things like hiding my keys or holding on to my favorite things and threatening them if I said I was going to leave. Now he’d just gone all-out and tried to destroy the thing that would allow me to get out of town.

I felt a hand reach down and take mine and squeeze it gently. “Let’s go inside,” a voice murmured.