outside, the dogs barely sniffed the air before putting their heads down and investigating scents along the path to the barn, obviously at ease. Tess set the box on top of an old rabbit hutch and then rolled the heavy barn door open. It squeaked and protested until she had it wide enough to give light to her project.
The barn had electricity, but the lightbulbs were all burned out or broken, so Tess simply left the door open as she worked. She didn’t really want to be closed up in the barn, peaceful as it was with the old farming implements stored along one wall and dim light filtering in through the dusty windows. She felt vulnerable closed up in a place where she couldn’t lock the doors. Besides, she enjoyed the sight of the mountains rising up behind the small town on the other side of her largest field.
Tess opened the cardboard box and took out the package of dust masks. She broke open the plastic, snapped on a mask and adjusted the plastic string. She felt a bit like Darth Vader and the stiff cellulose put pressure on the tender part of her injury, but it beat sucking in sawdust.
Mac and Blossom settled outside the door in the grass, Blossom rolling over onto her back and letting her tongue loll out, looking nothing like the lethal weapon she was supposed to be. Tess picked up a piece of sandpaper, rolling it around the pencil in order to get into the nooks and crannies of the scroll work on the legs of the table.
She’d finished sanding the top and sides of the table yesterday, having eventually worked her way through four coats of different colored enamels—white, red, green and then white again—before she’d hit the gorgeous oak below.
Tess was in no hurry because once she finished, she had little to do except sketch. Sketching had been her escape since her teen years when she’d lain in her bed—shutting out the sounds of Eddie and her mother sniping at each other, or her stepbrother’s overly loud music—and created beautiful people wearing beautiful clothing.
But one could only sketch so much, and Tess planned on tackling more pieces once she finished her table. In addition to the table, she’d found three grimy oak chairs and a bureau. The bureau was, quite frankly, gross, since many generations of mice had taken up residence in it, but the chairs were salvageable. They reminded her of chairs her grandmother had treasured. Chairs she’d inherited from her own mother. Jared, Tess’s jerk of a stepbrother and Eddie’s oldest son, had sold them after her grandmother died to settle a debt.
If only that’d been the only thing he’d done to her. It wasn’t. When Tess had moved back in with her mother and Eddie after her grandmother’s death, Jared had subtly terrorized her, making sexual innuendos, brushing up against her whenever they were alone. Tess had had a buffer while Mikey, her younger stepbrother, had lived there, but after he’d left home, at the ripe old age of fifteen, Tess had been on her own.
She was still amazed she’d escaped without being sexually assaulted. But it had been a narrow escape—no thanks to her mother, who was too caught up in her drug use to notice or care.
Tess pushed the bitter thought out of her head, focused again on the rhythm of the sanding, which was oddly calming.
Eventually she would have to come up with some other way to spend her time—preferably something that allowed her to earn a living at home. She had a decent nest egg, since she’d chosen to save her money rather than party it away. No matter how steadily she worked, Tess had never ever been able to believe her modeling career would last for longer than the next contracted job, because nothing else in her life, other than her grandmother’s steadfast love, had ever lasted.
How wise she’d been.
Decent as it was, though, what was left of her nest egg after leasing the ranch wouldn’t last for the rest of her life.
* * *
IT WAS PAST two o’clock when Tess finally finished the first table leg and sat back on the grass to admire her handiwork. Why on earth had someone stuck such a gorgeous table in a barn?
Because someone else had painted it white, then green, then red, then white and it had been pretty ugly, that’s why.
The dog closest to her sneezed, an open plea for attention and Tess reached out to ruffle Mac’s ears. He lazily rolled over on his back, giving her access to his itchy belly. She patted him a few times and he sneezed again.
“Come on, guys,” she said as she got to her feet. “I need to hit the shower.”
She rolled the barn door shut and headed to the house, wondering if talking to her dogs as if they were people made her the canine equivalent of a crazy cat lady. Somehow crazy dog lady just didn’t have the same ring.
Tess had never had a dog of her own, but had once shared a house with Demon, her grandmother’s sausage-shaped Chihuahua. Demon had put her off dogs, but after the attack she’d changed her mind and told William she wanted to find a guard dog—or four—to live with her. Lethal killing machines if possible. She was a scared woman who needed protection.
William had lined up the deal for her, finding not lethal killing machines, but two retired personal protection dogs in need of a home. Tess hadn’t been certain that, despite their fearsome appearance, two older dogs would fit the bill, but she’d since changed her mind. Blossom and Mac knew their jobs. They stuck to her like glue, alerted her when anything new appeared on the scene and followed her commands instantly. Plus she’d seen them attack a guy in a padded suit when she and William went to pick them up. Close enough to lethal for her.
“Who wants a snack?” she asked after locking the back door. Two canine butts instantly hit the floor. Tess gave each dog a giant rawhide chew toy and then double-checked the lock on the front door before heading toward the bathroom, pulling off her dusty clothing as she went.
She’d barely gotten into the shower when the dogs went into a barking frenzy, making her jerk so hard she hit her elbow on the faucet. And it wasn’t the UPS-man-is-here-again barking. It was the this-is-something-we-aren’t-familiar-with barking.
Not again...
Tess cranked off the shower and got out, heart pounding. She wrapped a towel around herself and stood for a moment on the bath rug, her hair dripping, listening.
The dogs were at the back door, not the front. Growling now instead of barking.
Crap. That wasn’t good. Tess let the towel drop and yanked her robe off the hook next to the shower. She struggled into the robe and stood still again, heart hammering. And then she heard it.
Laughter.
Happy kid laughter.
The blood that had been pounding in her temples drained away, leaving her feeling oddly light-headed. Just kids.
What were kids doing on her property?
Tess tried to swallow, but it was impossible because her mouth was dry. She moved cautiously to the window. There, not fifty feet from her house, three girls walked along the path next to the overgrown creek, pushing bicycles and talking.
Tess stepped away from the window as the tallest girl, who pushed the smallest bike, looked over at the house.
Did they know they were trespassing?
Tess tightened the belt around her waist and headed for the kitchen, where the dogs scratched at the door, anxious to get out and deal with this threat.
“Nee. Af,” Tess said and
