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time, he had tried to create a retreat as much as a home for himself.
    Still at the window, Creed noticed that the spray of rain had stopped as the wind decreased. He could see the storm clouds rolling away, the bolts of lightning reduced to flickers. The smudge of daybreak glowed orange. Now he could see the main house lights come on, one by one, while his loft remained dark.
    He glanced back at the digital alarm clock, which remained unlit. The good news was that it wasn’t a widespread power outage. The bad news was that the lightning must have zapped the kennels and his loft apartment, again. This was the third time in two months.
    Time to call an electrician.
    Just as Creed reached for his jeans, he noticed headlights at the end of the long driveway. The vehicle had turned in, but slowed down and then stopped. The driveway was almost a quarter of a mile long, but Creed could see the entire length of it from his perch. He’d purposely made it long to keep them as far off the main road as possible. Sometimes people got lost and used it to turn around. Maybe someone had gotten lost in the storm.
    He was about to shrug it off. But the vehicle didn’t move. And then the headlights went out. For some reason the words of Liz Bailey’s father came back to Creed: “Watch your back.”

8
    D URING THE TEN MINUTES that it took Creed to pull on clothes and make it to the main house, the vehicle at the end of the driveway had not moved. He knocked before he opened the back door that led into the kitchen. The scent of cinnamon, baked bread, bacon, and coffee stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t until Hannah looked up and scowled at the shotgun in his hands that he remembered why he had been concerned.
    “You going hunting?” she asked him as she wiped her hands and glided her large frame effortlessly from one task to another. “Otherwise, I don’t appreciate a gun in my kitchen.”
    He glanced around before he remembered her boys were at Hannah’s grandparents’ farm for their annual two-week summer adventure. Finally he told her, “There’s a vehicle stopped at the end of the driveway.”
    “Probably just someone waiting out the storm.”
    “It pulled in after the rain stopped.”
    “So you’re gonna go shoot ’em?” She said it with a straight face, all matter-of-fact, with not a hint of sarcasm or humor. Hannah always had a way of defusing his paranoia and making what he believed was a perfectly reasonable decision sound ridiculous.
    “No, of course not. Maybe scare them a little.”
    He set the shotgun aside and squatted down to pet Lady, a black-and-white border collie. She greeted him with a head-butt to his thigh, making him smile and realize that she redefined the term “lady,” but then so did Hannah, who had chosen the name for her.
    Creed had found the dog along Highway 98. She’d been the victim of a hit-and-run. Her pelvis had been crushed. No tags and no one claimed her. Bright-eyed and scared, she still allowed him to pick her up. She wasn’t the first dog they had mended back together. Lady, however, had failed miserably as a scent dog. She was always more interested in rounding up everyone than searching out any of the surrounding smells. Her natural instinct did make her the perfect companion for Hannah’s two boys, as she watched over them and herded them away from danger.
    And now Creed wondered if perhaps he was simply being overprotective. Had the incident on the boat spooked him into thinking a drug cartel would bother to come after him? Hannah was right. It was ridiculous. If they did send a hit squad, they wouldn’t be so obvious as to park at the end of his driveway.
    When he looked up he noticed Hannah had stopped her morning routine and was staring at him, hands on her hips, those brown eyes inspecting and examining him. He’d never been able to hide anything from her.
    “Something happen yesterday? You didn’t stop at the house last night.”
    He stood and rubbed at his