The footsteps led to the kitchen. At least, they seemed to. Was someone waiting for her?
Swinging doors, which she’d almost removed a million times because she thought they were so ugly, kept her from being able to see what lay beyond. But she was more familiar with the layout of the house than anyone else. That gave her an advantage.
She did what she could to steel herself for the worst, then quietly pushed through.
The kitchen was darker, and she blinked several times so her eyes could adjust. Then she saw it. A shadow. Outside. Moving fast.
Hoping to catch a glimpse, she rushed to the windows only to realize it was Marley’s cat, who made himself at home in both yards. But just as she sagged in relief, she heard a creak.
Chills rippled down her spine as she whirled, ready to defend herself, but she didn’t get off a single shot before a pair of strong hands wrenched the gun from her grasp.
A child’s voice interrupted Myles’s sleep. Positive that he’d only gotten to bed a few minutes ago, he didn’t want to open his eyes, but when he did he saw a change in the color of night that indicated it’d been hours. He also saw a little boy’s face a few inches above his own.
“You awake yet, Sheriff King?”
He was now, not that he was very happy about it. “What time is it?” he croaked.
“Morning time.”
Looking for something a bit more specific, he rolled over to check his alarm clock, which confirmed his initial suspicion. It was barely five. Damn, when he’d told Vivian he wouldn’t mind if her children woke him early, he hadn’t been referring to predawn hours.
“Jake, buddy, I’m really tired.” He cleared his throat in an effort to speak in his normal voice. “You need to go back to bed, okay?”
No response.
“Okay?” Myles prodded.
The boy slouched onto the edge of the bed. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m afraid it’ll be too late.”
He sounded so dejected that Myles had to ask, “Too late for what?”
“For the fish! They’ll go bad, won’t they?”
“What fish?” he asked. Then the memory of Vivian’s son asking him to gut some trout right before he took Vivian out last night helped him make sense of the boy’s words. He’d put Jake off, said he’d do it first thing in the morning. But he’d never dreamed he’d have to fulfill that promise before the crack of dawn.
“You think another hour’s going to make a difference?” he mumbled, burying his head beneath his pillow.
“I’m afraid it’s already too late. Aren’t you supposed to gut them right away?”
The answer to that question was yes. They would be inedible if it didn’t happen soon. And it was the boy’s first catch. Myles didn’t want to ruin that for him. He also felt a little guilty for procrastinating just because he’d hoped to get lucky with the kid’s mother and didn’t want to smell like fish guts. “That’s true. How many are there?”
“Three,” he said proudly.
“Not bad.” Myles pulled his head out from under the pillow. “And you put them…where, exactly?”
“In Nana’s cooler.”
“Which is…”
“On your back porch.”
Of course. He was all prepared. Myles had to drag his tired ass out of bed. He planned to, but when he didn’t move quickly enough, Jake leaned closer. “I’ll give you one if you help me. You could have it for dinner.”
That was just too damn cute. Myles couldn’t hold out any longer, no matter how reluctant he was to start his day after another short night. “Fine.” He motioned to the jeans he’d tossed over a chair. “Hand me my pants.”
Jake hurried to do as he asked. “How tall are you?” he asked as Myles climbed out of bed.
“Six-two.” He accepted his pants. “You?”
“Dunno,” he replied with a shrug.
“We can measure you when we go downstairs, if you want.”
The boy’s gaze slid around the room, over Myles’s gun, the uniform hanging from the open closet door, the electric razor Myles had left on the dresser, some outdoor magazines that passed the time when Myles got bored with the big-screen TV. Even the wallet and change on the nightstand seemed to interest him.
“I like your bedroom,” he said when he’d surveyed it all.
“You do?” Myles was tempted to laugh but didn’t want to embarrass the kid. He hadn’t really looked at his surroundings since he’d boxed up Amber Rose’s things and carried it all to the attic. She used to take great pride in their home, decorated every room, but he only cared about functional, not beauty. Especially now that she was gone. She’d taken the joy she’d brought to such activities with her. “What does your room look like?”
“It’s got some stupid football stuff painted on the walls.”
Myles felt his eyebrows go up. “Football’s cool, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. I love it. Every guy likes football, right?”
Guy? Myles stifled another laugh. Vivian’s son was something else.
“It’s just that it has bears with helmets, stuff like that,” he explained. “It’s for babies.”
And he definitely didn’t view himself as a baby. “I see. Maybe your mother will let you paint over it. Have you asked her?” He reached for a clean T-shirt. “I could help.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
He seemed hopeful for a few seconds, then his shoulders slumped. “I don’t think she’ll let us. She always tells me not to bother you. She says you’re too busy. Even if you tell her you’re not, I don’t know if she’ll believe you. And she says paint costs money.”
Sidestepping Vivian’s reluctance to include him, he tackled the money issue instead. “It can get expensive with all the rollers and stuff.”
“Yeah, it’s just…I hate those bears.” He edged closer to the dresser. “But I probably wouldn’t care about them if I had a TV like this.”
The kid was nine going on nineteen; he wanted to be a grown man more than any boy Myles had ever known. What was his hurry? Was it that he felt he had to take his father’s place? “Maybe you’ll be able to get one when you’re older,” he said, digging his shoes out from under the bed.
“How tall do you think I’ll be when I’m all grown up?”