Page 13 of Stolen By the Billionaire
He looked down, his hands clasped behind his back at parade rest. “I guess not, but I still don’t partake. Thank you, ma’am.” He almost pronounced it mum. “I’ll go now.”
He walked toward the back door.
As Sarah could see more of him, his broad shoulders narrowed to a smaller waist. His posture was as straight as a rifle as he prowled away from the table.
Muffintop, who was usually a good judge of people, rubbed the guy’s leg as he walked.
“I—um—thank you for your service?” Sarah said, feeling gangly as she stood beside the open drawer full of ladles and whisks.
The guy’s eyebrows twitched, and he reached for the doorknob. “And thank you for your support.”
His voice was flat as if he’d said that by rote.
She said, “You know, it’s funny. When I saw you in all that camo and grease paint, I thought the cornfields were coming in to murder me for a minute.”
“I think you’re safe.” The man unlocked the door and walked out.
His dark hair was only a few inches from the top of the frame as he passed through. Dang, he was tall.
The door banged closed behind him.
Sarah clutched the counter behind herself, her heart still fluttering.
An unknown guy had just shoved an (unloaded) gun to her head, pressed an (admittedly dull) knife to her throat, and threatened to kill her.
She should call the police.
And tell them what?
The man had never said his name.
Had Aunt Mary said his name? Sarah was too rattled to remember.
Camouflage paint had obscured the guy’s features.
Sarah didn’t think she could pick the guy out of a lineup, other than maybe if she could see his striking blue eyes and his jacked forearm and spidery tattoo, and maybe because he moved like a military man and yet smoothly like he was in control of all that muscle.
But he’d left.
Through her door. The one right there.
Maybe his car was out there and she could see his license plate.
Sarah bolted out of the house and into the summer sunshine.
The road was empty, stretching miles through the high corn in both directions, with neither a car nor disturbed dust marring the clear air.
Like he’d disappeared.
Creepy.
Oh, maybe she was having a nightmare.
Sarah had tried lucid dreaming when she was in high school, and it hadn’t worked.
The way to tell if you’re in a dream is to read something like a sign or a book, look away, and then reread it. In dreams, the words changed unless your nightmare caught on that you were trying to trick it and fed it back to you exactly the same.
Sarah went inside and grabbed her family Bible from the living room drawer. Her dad had only ever read the King James version, insisting it was the only one worth reading.
