HiddenDepths by Angela Claire Page A

Not the few friends she had ever had. Never her mother. The
one time she had even hinted at the truth, her stepfather had beaten her so
badly—
    She shut off the thought.
    “Out, you!”
    For one horrified second, she thought Evan was talking to
her. But he was looking at the doorway to the bedroom, pointing at something
she couldn’t see. She heard a whimper and twisted, trying to make out what he
was looking at.
    “Don’t.” He turned back to her, pressing her gently against
the pillows. “You’ll hurt your stitches turning that way.” Glancing over his
shoulder, she heard quick taps against the hardwood floor and saw big brown
eyes and silky golden fur. She didn’t know much about dogs, but if she had to
guess she’d say it was a golden retriever. Evan got up and spoke to the dog,
pointing at the door again. “I mean it. Out.”
    She smiled as the dog ignored him with a soulful look and
flopped down on the floor by the side of the bed, tail wagging.
    “You have a dog.” She stated the obvious.
    “Yeah. I guess so.”
    She held a tentative hand out toward the thing and it lunged
up to lick her hand, startling her.
    Evan grabbed the dog’s collar as she laughed.
    “He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just a big puppy. But right
now he probably weighs more than you do and I don’t want him to hurt you.”
    She petted the dog’s big sleek head. “He won’t hurt me.
Sit,” she said with more authority than she felt and the dog obeyed.
Pleased—she still had a little of the Andrea Prentiss left in her—she asked,
“What’s his name?”
    Evan sat back beside her on the bed. “You tell me. I haven’t
gotten around to naming him yet.”
    “How long have you had him?”
    “About a month.” At her expression, he added, “I know. I
know. I think his feelings are starting to get hurt.”
    “At least have you built him a doghouse?” She had been
touched by his long-ago story even if she hadn’t shown it at the time.
    “I didn’t have to. I’m an even bigger pushover than my
grandfather ever was. I let him sleep inside from the get-go.”
    She shook her head. “But then I showed up and you kicked him
out of the bedroom.”
    “You’re more fun,” he quipped, giving her a little thrill of
excitement.
    “Not lately.”
    He turned away to pet the dog.
    “How about Bingo?” she asked.
    He hesitated. “Is that a macho enough name? It sounds kind
of lightweight, like an entertainer or something. He’s ostensibly a guard dog.
I don’t want to offend the poor guy’s masculinity.”
    “It can be a macho name.”
    He nodded. “Okay. Bingo it is, then. Although I guess he
didn’t do a very good job on the guard-dog front since he let a little slip of
a thing like you sneak onshore.”
    Well, that was an opening if she had ever heard one. “I’m,
ah, in trouble, Evan. I guess that won’t come as any surprise to you.”
    “No.”
    “And I, ah, well, I guess you won’t swallow ‘I was in the
neighborhood’, will you?”
    He said nothing.
    “I don’t want to burden you with this.”
    “You already have,” he pointed out.
    She smiled slightly. “Yes, I guess I have.”
    He didn’t smile back.
    “But I can’t tell you what it’s all about, Evan. I’m sorry.
I just can’t.”
    He stood up and said coldly, “What do you want, then?”
    She had thought herself long past getting her feelings hurt,
but a need for physical softness wasn’t the only thing she craved apparently.
Her eyelids felt heavy and something around the vicinity of her chest throbbed
painfully, but it wasn’t her knife wound. She shook her head, blinking back the
sudden moisture. “Nothing. I’ll go as soon as you say.”
    He glanced at the darkened windows, then back at her. “You
won’t have something to eat?”
    She closed her eyes as he flicked off the lamp. “No,” she
whispered and felt him slide into bed beside her, tugging her down, into his
arms, spooning against her.
    “Then go to sleep,” he added,