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After she typed an abrupt goodbye and slammed her laptop shut, Sarah sat in the dark and held her head. Hershey got up from his pad and came to her bed, wagging a slow tail as he laid his head on her arm and looked at her lovingly. She reached down to stroke his silky head, and her mind raced as she tried to assess the potential damage.
How much trouble am I in?
It seemed, on reflection, that Blake might have no clue who she was. Nothing he’d ever said hinted at it, and she’d been so paranoid about online stalkers that she hadn’t given away any clues. When she’d mentioned “the new guy,” it had been in very general terms. Maybe she was safe, unless he’d added two plus two when he read her user name. They had always conducted business in person, so there was a fairly good chance he’d never checked out the restaurant’s email address.
Anyhow, if he knows I’m CocoLvr, wouldn’t he have said something?
Sarah’s breathing returned to normal, and she stopped trembling. She broke her usual rule and patted the mattress next to her. Hershey jumped onto the bed and rolled onto his back to have his tummy rubbed then stretched his legs up in the air and grinned at her. She found it comforting to have his warm, furry body pressed up against her. He always seemed to know when she was upset. She slid down to put her head on the pillow and snuggled him while she listened to the rain and tried to relax.
So, while Blake’s been trying to have cybersex with a complete stranger online, he’s also been chasing me around in real life? The rat!
Of course, it was pretty much the same thing Sarah had been doing too. But that was different. Sort of. Oh, it was too confusing. She’d been drawn to Blake from the start, both in person and online. Apparently, it had been the same for him. She liked that, a lot, though she was still mad at him for virtually two-timing her. Was it her own fault for being so hard to get? She had made him jump through a lot of hoops. He was a desirable quantity, bachelor-wise, and any sane single woman in her thirties would have leaped at the chance to get close to him.
That raised an important question. Why was he wasting time with CocoLvr online when he could have easily gone out with nearly anyone he wanted, right here in Ashford?
She could understand why he’d checked out the online dating site, just as she had, out of curiosity. She could even understand why he’d initiated conversation with CocoLvr, especially considering the attention-getting profile Paisley had posted. After all, he was a man. But he’d gone further... led her on, made her trust him, and encouraged her to think he was her friend. He’d turned a silly night of experimentation into an actual relationship. Why?
Sarah couldn’t come up with an answer. Or stop being angry with him for tricking her. Not to mention, the fact she’d told him all her darkest secrets and could never, ever face him again if he found out that she was CocoLvr! She sighed, tossing and turning in the bed so often that Hershey gave up on her and went back to his peaceful corner.
She could never forgive Blake for putting her through this embarrassment. Never.
She knew who he was now, but unless she’d guessed wrong, he didn’t know that she was Coco. She had the advantage. She wasn’t sure yet what to do with it, but one thing was certain. She was going to teach Blake Harrison a lesson. If he thought she’d been bitchy before, wait until he saw what was coming next.
Sarah lay in the dark, listening to the rain pour down outside. Her head hurt, her eyes ached, and her nose was stuffy. Maybe she was getting a cold. Or maybe, she thought as she wiped the tears away again, it was a serious case of regret. A condition she couldn’t seem to shake. It had followed her like a shadow through most of her life, and here it was still, a familiar ghost in the night.
Life isn’t a fairy tale, Sarah. Everybody doesn’t get a happy ending.
She heard her father’s discouraging voice in the back of her mind and drifted off into a restless sleep.
* * *
SARAH OPENED HER EYES, surprised to see it was still dark. Hershey was downstairs, barking his head off.
“Mom?” Devon’s voice came closer, shaking as he bounded across the hall and leapt into her arms. “Why’s he barking? Is it raccoons again?”
“Probably, sweetie. Or the neighbors’ cat. Let’s go see.” She pulled on her bathrobe and tied the belt.
They got up and found Miki in the hallway, carrying a big flashlight and a pink can of mace.
“You can’t be too careful,” she said when she saw Sarah read the label. “I got it at my self-defense class. Let’s sneak up on ‘em! Come on, team.”
Miki turned off the flashlight, and the three of them crept down the stairs in the dark, peeking through the bannisters into the kitchen. Hershey stood in the middle of the floor, facing the back door, barking steadily, his ears and tail both up and on alert. Sarah couldn’t see anything outside in the blackness, so she motioned for the others to stay put and sprinted across the floor to flatten herself against the wall next to the light switches. With one quick motion, she flipped all the exterior lights on.
Hershey wagged his tail once and barked again before running toward the door and whining. He looked at Sarah urgently, begging to go out.
Sarah ran her gaze across the deck, the yard, and the back porch. Nada. Then she stepped away from her safe nook and looked out at the driveway and garage. Nothing out there, either.
Devon ran from the stairway and threw his arms around her waist. “Do you see something, Mommy?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “But let’s all go out together and see, okay?”
She figured it was probably raccoons again but knew they’d all sleep better after a thorough investigation. They pulled on jackets from the hooks by the door and slipped their bare feet into the shoes that stood under the coatrack. Then Sarah put Hershey on his leash and opened the door. Miki switched on her flashlight and gripped it tighter, the can of mace ready in her other hand.
For the next twenty minutes or so, the three of them followed Hershey while he sniffed a trail all the way around the foundation of the house, dodging behind bushes and ducking under low-hanging tree limbs. He paused under every first-floor window to wave his tail excitedly and sniff the ground, as though something or someone had been looking inside. Sarah didn’t see any evidence of an attempt to break in, though, and everything was closed up tight. When they circled back to the garage area, Hershey veered off down the driveway toward the street, where a dark-blue car was parked in front of the empty house, exactly where it had been on the rainy night Sarah first noticed it. Now, it appeared empty, but the sight still spooked her, and she stopped, pulling back on the leash.
“That’s enough, boy. I think we’ve seen plenty.”
“Yeah!” Devon patted the dog and hugged him. “You did a good job. Didn’t he, Mom? He checked all the windows for us to make sure they were shut.”
Miki and Sarah exchanged uneasy glances, both of them apparently having interpreted the dog’s behavior in another way. They nodded, silently agreeing to let Devon believe his version.
“Okay, pardner, let’s mosey into my saloon for a drink, on the house!” Sarah draped her arm around his skinny shoulders and propelled him toward the kitchen entrance.
“Yes, ma’am!” he piped and reached for Miki’s hand, drawing her closer too. Sarah could see that he was still nervous. “We hunters got to take a break after all this hard work, tracking the wild raccoons.”
They went inside, and Sarah made hot chocolate while Miki and Devon gathered pillows and blankets from upstairs, then they opened the sofa bed and camped out together in the TV room for the rest of the night. Devon was out cold after the first fifteen minutes of Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo, and after Sarah switched off the television, Miki settled down in the big armchair. Hershey, however, still lay on the kitchen floor, watching the back door with his head resting on his paws, ears perked.
A while later, as Sarah dozed, she heard an engine start. She got up and tiptoed to peer out the window at the front of the house. Sure enough, the blue car was gone now.
She shivered and quickly climbed back into bed with her son, holding him close as she watched him sleep.