Read Darkness Bound for Free Online

room. “Amateur hunters,” Niles said as if that explained everything. “Looks like they starched their duds. Any wildlife should have a good laugh at that bunch.”
    Leigh nodded and sipped her coffee, but she was too distracted by thoughts of Blue to concentrate on what Niles was saying. “That dog was massive—biggest dog I’ve ever seen. But he was gentle enough. I hope he’s got someone taking care of him.”
    “Sure he does. He wouldn’t keep all that muscle and meat on him if he wasn’t being fed.”
    Niles’s tone was light, but when Leigh looked at him she saw his gaze was locked on the hunters, his eyes slightly narrowed. Leigh decided he looked Slavic, all angles and upward-slashing brows. Handsome—whatever that meant—and she had long ago decided that a positive reaction to male looks was more about the vibes you got from them than anything else.
    Gabriel stood behind the bar while Cliff went to take the hunters’ orders. Obviously the staff was lean and everyone doubled up.
    Niles touched her hand. “Hey, don’t talk about Blue to anyone else, okay? I’m always afraid some yahoo will get pie-eyed and pick him off when it’s getting dark one evening. They’d probably say they thought he was a bear or something. I keep an eye out for him.”
    “Pick him off?” Leigh’s tummy made a sickening roll. “Shoot him, you mean?”
    “Keep your voice down,” Niles said. “It’s not a big deal. I just wouldn’t want to see something happen to him is all.”
    “Um,” Leigh looked for the right words. “He is safe to have around, isn’t he? He wouldn’t do something… to my dog or anything?”
    Niles laughed and tipped his head back. “No! Geez, no. If I thought otherwise I’d tell you right off, but, no. So forget that. If anything, Blue would look after your guy.” Taking a drink of his coffee, Niles stared at Leigh, all humor in his expression gone. “What time did you get in this morning?” he asked.
    “Around seven or so.” She hadn’t forgotten Gabriel’s anxiousness about her driving around alone when things were really quiet.
    “Dark then,” Niles commented.
    “My car does have headlights,” she said with a smile. But his frown was back and she had the feeling he was stopping himself from saying more.
    “It’s a good idea to lock your doors as soon as you’re in the car,” Niles finally said. “And make sure they’re locked when it’s parked.”
    “Right.” There was no mistaking the menace in all these warnings, or her own queasy reaction.
    They fell silent. Leigh looked at Gabriel and saw how closely he watched the three men at their corner table.
    “Gabriel told us you worked for Microsoft,” Niles said, his voice returning to a lighter note. “What did you do?”
    “Games,” Leigh told him, her attention still on Gabriel’s watchfulness over some of his customers. “Developer.”
    “But you just gave it up?”
    “I felt like a new challenge.” And if she didn’t push herself to change, she could spend her forever between an office and an apartment in Seattle where she didn’t know or speak to a soul.
    “You’ll settle here,” he commented. “You’ll make friends.”
    Leigh began to wonder if her thoughts were written on her forehead. “I’m sure I will.”
    “If you organize Gabriel, you’ll be doing me a service.”
    “You?”
    “I worry about him. He gives the farm away. Never learned how to haggle over prices with his suppliers so he pays top dollar. And he’s got a long list of people who come in here every day to drink his booze and run a tab that rarely gets paid. Change some of that and you’ll be making a bunch of us real happy.”
    Before she could mask her reaction, Leigh realized she’d set her jaw and was giving one of the glares she was told turned people off.
    This time Niles’s smile was soft. “I take it that look means you aren’t pleased?”
    “My trouble is I want to cure everything yesterday. I’ve got to go a