“It’s okay, little girl,” Skye murmured as the puppy whined again.
Skye put the puppy on her feet before picking up a newspaper on the bedside table and spreading the pages across the floors.
“I’ll get you a blanket,” she told the puppy as she bent and ran her fingers down the soft apricot fur as the pug lay down slowly on the floor next to the door.
Dark brown eyes stared up at Skye despondently.
“You’re not the only one he didn’t want,” she told the puppy softly. “Evidently, he didn’t want me either.”
Unfortunately, it seemed she wanted him far too much.
“Get some sleep.” She sighed deeply before moving to the bed and sitting down.
Reaching out, she opened the drawer on the small bedside table and drew out the photo she kept there.
Amy was leaning, her head against Skye’s, her brown eyes filled with laughter.
God, what would she have done without her foster family, her foster sister, in those first years after witnessing her parents’ deaths?
After seeing her nanny and her father’s bodyguard shoot her mother and father in the head before searching the house for her.
Amy had kept her sane.
She had made Skye laugh.
She had made her want to get up in the mornings.
And she had held the younger Skye when brutal nightmares had brought her awake screaming and crying.
A tear landed on the picture.
Wiping it away, Skye bent over with the pain that struck at her stomach, her chest. The agony of the loss had never broken her. She hadn’t had Amy nearly long enough to heal before a killer had taken her away.
“Logan Callahan is a baby doll, Skye,” her sister had sighed. “He’s cute as hell, and so sad. Something’s going on there, and I have to find out what. He and his cousins are good men. They don’t deserve this.”
Amy hadn’t told her what was going on. She hadn’t told Skye she was chasing a killer. But Skye had known, whatever it was, it had darkened Amy’s eyes and left her filled with worry for Logan.
“One day, maybe I can find a good man like Logan,” Skye had said somberly. “Someone who won’t get killed like my daddy and mommy did.”
Amy had smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m much too old for Logan, Skye. Maybe, when you’re a little bit older, we’ll find him again so he can fall all kinds of in love with you. I want you to have someone who will protect you, little sister. Someone who will love you with all his heart and soul.”
That had been their last conversation.
Days later, Amy had gone missing. Two days after that, a hiker had found her body, beaten, broken, horribly molested, and bled out.
“Oh, God!” She hadn’t realized sobs were tearing at her chest as she clenched the picture, or that tears were falling from her eyes.
She’d only been fifteen. Her parents had died five years before and still the nightmares had tormented her, terrified her.
Finding her way in life after witnessing their brutal murder wouldn’t have been possible without Amy. Then, she had been taken from her, too.
A soft whine had her staring down.
The pup sat at her feet, head tilted for a second before moving to lick her ankle as though in consolation. A second later she jumped up, placing her front paws against Skye’s legs, obviously wanting up.
And Skye needed the comfort, she admitted.
She needed Logan. Needed his touch, and needed that something she had seen in the pictures Amy had shown her twelve years before. That spark of laughter that hadn’t been extinguished then. That hint of a smile that had stolen her fifteen-year-old heart.
She needed the man she had claimed when she had been no more than a teenager. And she needed vengeance for the sister stolen from her.
And Skye promised herself, she might not be able to hold on to the man, but she would have the vengeance.
Daylight was beginning to edge through the curtains now. She’d conquered another night. If she didn’t sleep in darkness, then she found the nightmares didn’t visit.
Skye walked through the house to the back bedroom she’d taken.
The house was far too large for one person, just as the one Logan Callahan owned was.
Four large upstairs bedrooms, plus what was more commonly called an in-law suite at the back of the first floor.
That room worked perfectly for Skye.
The small sitting room, bedroom, and roomy bathroom with its garden tub, full-sized shower, and wide vanity cabinet was the size of her apartment in D.C.
The upstairs rooms were nicer but, still, upstairs, and she’d found herself feeling isolated and too damned alone there.
Moving to the bed, she picked up her gown and robe before heading to the shower. Dawn was already edging across the mountains. It was her bedtime. She hadn’t been able to sleep at night for far too many years. She was too aware that often evil used the cover of night to strike.
By the time she had showered and moved back to the bedroom, the sun was peeking through the opened windows and spreading its warming rays across the bed.
The little bundle of fluff was sitting at Skye’s bedroom door, her low, almost-imperceptible whines breaking her heart.
For over a week she’d watched that baby scratch at Logan’s door and sat on her patio and listened to the dog whine.
Closing the curtains securely, Skye left the bedroom to check the house one last time.
The puppy followed her curiously. She whimpered at the front door as Skye checked it, then followed her up the stairs until she picked her up on the fifth step and just carried her with her. The puppy was too small to try to climb those stairs. Holding the pug close to her chest, Skye checked the windows and the balcony door that led to the balcony straight across from Logan Callahan’s.
There was no sign of him in the bedroom. No sign of him outside.
The puppy whined again.
Shaking her head, Skye moved back downstairs. Giving the puppy a drink of water, she set her on the paper and praised her when she did her business. Giving in to a moment of weakness Skye hoped she wouldn’t regret, she placed the pup in the bed next to her. The pug moved to the middle of the bed, the pillow, then to Skye’s side, and finally found a spot she seemed to be able to live with, if not comfortably, at least quietly.
“What is your story, little girl?” Skye asked as she ran her fingers down the apricot fur of the puppy’s back. “What makes you think you belong over there rather than here?”