Chapter 105 Gate.

Chapter 105: 105 Gate.

I had three missed calls from Miller on my phone.

I noticed them that morning when I checked the thing, which I rarely did because nothing good had ever come from checking my phone.

The first call was from two days ago.

The second was from yesterday.

The third was from 6 AM today, which told me the man’s patience was starting to wear thin.

I hadn’t picked up because I already knew what the conversation was going to be about, and I wasn’t ready to have it.

Miller had left his card wedged in my gate latch about a week ago with a handwritten note on the back that said "We should talk. Privately."

I’d read it, pocketed it, stuck it in my nightstand drawer, and proceeded to pretend it didn’t exist, because avoidance is a core pillar of my personality.

Just ask Clementine.

The morning routine went the way it usually did.

Lots of "My champion!" and "Arf, Master!" and things of that nature, of course.

I started the breakfast because I was the only person in this house capable of operating a stove without committing a felony against food.

Well, aside from Clementine, but she was often the last one awake.

Elsa came down in a see through nightgown and nothing underneath, claiming my arm and the attention of my peepers before I’d finished plating the eggs.

Ayra showed up wearing only her collar for no discernible reason and immediately volunteered to be punished for sleeping past seven, which I obliged because it’s good to get the day started with a good carpet-soaking.

Juniper dressed normally at least and ate her typical meat-and-egg plate while reading something on the tablet that made the crease between her brows deepen.

When Clementine finally came down, Ayra was Mickey-Mousing it with just a tank top and no pants or panties.

She took one squinty look at that, shrugged, then took over cooking the bacon without being asked and bumped me with her hip to claim the burner.

Her ears were doing that slow, contented rotation they did when she was focused and comfortable, and the flannel she’d stolen from me was open one button past decent.

"You look like you didn’t sleep," she said, not looking at me.

"Elsa’s tattoo was going off like a nightlight again. Hard to sleep next to a glowing elf."

"How can I be expected to have pure dreams when you sleep beside me?!" Elsa huffed from the table, where she was arranging her pancakes into a tower. "I can smell your intoxicating scent all night long."

Clementine sorted. "Is there a word for a female simp?"

I smirked. "Anyway—"

That was as far as I got before the horn started.

It wasn’t a quick honk, and it wasn’t a series of honks.

It was a continuous, obnoxious blast that ripped through the quietude of the morning like someone had leaned on a car horn and then died on top of it.

It came from the direction of the front gate, and it didn’t stop.

It was a damn good thing I didn’t have any neighbors.

Ayra’s ears went flat against her skull and a growl rumbled up from her chest, low and territorial.

Her hand found the handle of her massive hammer where it leaned against the wall, and her tail went rigid.

"Rrrrrrrr. Master, there is an intruder! Arf! Arf arf arf!"

"Such barbarism!" Elsa slammed both tiny palms on the table, rattling the syrup bottle. "Grey! Smite whoever is responsible for this affront! I was in the middle of constructing a pancake tower and there can be no joy in the task with that awful sound ringing in my ears!"

I looked at the snake woman for her reaction and saw that Juniper had gone very still, but it was the calculating kind of still.

Her coils tightened into a compact spiral under the table and her crimson eyes fixed on me.

"I don’t know much about car horns, but that feels like someone is trying to get your attention," she said, setting down her fork. "Who could it be?"

I set down the spatula.

"Everybody stays inside. I mean it. Hats, boots, the whole deal if you have to come to a window. And preferably just don’t do that."

"But Master—"

"Stay, Ayra. Stay! Good girl."

She whined, but she stayed.

Juniper’s tail looped around one of Ayra’s ankles as a secondary restraint, which I appreciated.

"If the intruder harms you, Master, I shall come to your aid and see to it that you live to abuse me another day! Pah-tooey!"

"I’ll be fine, Ayra."

Clementine sighed and tapped her perfect jawline. "I mean, I’d love to abuse you, and I’d do it with my whole heart."

Ayra shook her head sadly. "It’s not the same."

I walked down the driveway alone.

The morning was cold and gray, and the horn kept blaring the entire walk.

By the time I reached the front gate, I wanted to test the limits of my strength and try and flip the car as soon as I saw it.

A county sheriff’s cruiser was parked right up against the gate.

I recognized it before I could even read the plates. Miller.

He was sitting behind the wheel with one hand on the horn and a paper coffee cup in the other.

When he saw me approaching, he lifted his hand off the horn.

The sudden quiet hit me harder than the noise had.

My ears were ringing and the morning felt weirdly naked without the blaring all of a sudden.

He got out of the car and walked up to the gate.

Sheriff Miller looked exactly the way he always looked, which was like a man who’d been ’tired of this shit’ since the Reagan administration.

Late fifties, maybe pushing sixty, with a face that had seen more bullshit than a ranch hand and a uniform that was clean but never pressed, he moved like a man at least a decade younger and appeared to be in shape.

He had a second coffee in his other hand, too.

He held it out through the gate bars.

"Brought you one," he said. "Figured you might not invite me in, so at least we can have a polite chat here."

I took the coffee because turning down free coffee felt immoral, even when it came from the guy who’d been poking around my property line for the last couple of months.

We stood on opposite sides of the gate and stared at each other.

"You’ve been dodging me, Coleman," he said.

"I’ve been busy. Such is life."