The door didn’t seem to want to open. Annoyed, I gave the handle a good shake. The key turned in the lock and finally we were able to get in. “Here we go.” I scooped up the baby, set her on my hip, and pushed the back door open.
I felt it the moment my foot hit the threshold. Something was wrong. Instinctively, I froze in my tracks, pulled the baby closer, and blocked Willow from entering the cottage.
“Mama?” Willow said.
“Just a minute, honey.” I held up a hand, urging her to wait on the back porch as I stood in the doorway surveying the kitchen and living room.
The kitchen had been trashed. The refrigerator door stood wide open. Both chairs were knocked over and all the staples in the canisters had been dumped on the floor. I could see, as I looked across to the living room, that the cushions had been flung about as well.
Not sure if I’d walked in on the middle of a burglary, I eased back out the door and shut it quietly. “Willow.” I herded her back and off the porch. “Can you reach the phone in the outside pocket of my purse?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Willows voice was uncertain. “What’s wrong Mama?” She pulled it free.
“Baby, call Julian for me.” I said it softly, hitching Isabel higher on my hip. “Do you remember how?”
“I know how.” Willow pushed the home button, catching her tongue between her teeth. “Call Julian,” she said into my phone and it automatically began to dial.
I scooped up Willow with my other arm, kicked my heels into the grass, and hauled both the girls away from the cottage as fast as I could. “Hang on, honey,” I told Willow, as she tightened her arms around my neck.
“Mama! Are we playing a game?” Willow wanted to know. She began to laugh into the phone. “Hi Julian!”
“Julian,” I pitched my voice so he would hear me. “Y’all need to come to the cottage right now. It’s been broken into.”
I heard his startled reply but kept moving.
Julian met us at the halfway point between the cottage and the mansion, and he wasn’t alone. Wyatt Hastings was with him. “Magnolia!” Julian called to me and both men were running full out.
If I wouldn’t have been out of breath from jogging while carrying two children, I would have reassured them that we were alright. As it was, I was struggling to catch my breath and hold onto a giggling four-year-old and a squirming, unhappy Isabel.
We met at the stone bench. The same one where I’d seen Julian and Holly…I snapped my mind away from that, focusing on the here and now. “We’re okay,” I panted, as Willow had almost cut off my air.
Julian scooped Willow up in one arm and Wyatt reached out to steady me. “Did you walk in on a burglary?”
“I don’t know.” I huffed.
“Wyatt,” Julian said, passing Willow over to him. “Take the girls back to the main house and call the police.”
“What are you gonna do?” I demanded.
“I’m going to go see if the intruder is still there.”
Before I could argue, Julian was off like a shot and moving towards the cottage.
“Is he crazy?” I asked Wyatt. “What if someone is still in the cottage? What if they have a gun?”
Wyatt smiled. “Julian can more than take care of himself.”
“With what? That great wardrobe isn’t going to protect him.”
Wyatt held out an arm for me and began to usher us toward the main house. “Trust me. He’s got an ace up his sleeve a criminal would never see coming.”
“What do you mean?” I cut myself off, it was pointless arguing. I hustled back to the main house and called the police.
***
The police arrived and took over the cottage. I’d half expected Lexie to show up, but she wasn’t one of the responding officers. When they asked me to come back and let them know if anything was missing, I left Willow and Isabel with Thomas, who insisted he was more than up to the task of watching the girls, and walked to the cottage with Wyatt and Julian as my escorts.
Once they let me inside the cottage and I could look around, I was stunned to see that the bedrooms had also been trashed. The good news was I hadn’t left any cash in the cottage and nothing had been stolen. They’d ignored the television and my laptop.
The bad news was that all of the dresser drawers had been dumped, and the contents rifled through. The kitchen had taken the worst of it. Flour and sugar had been thrown around, ketchup and mustard was dripping from the walls, and a jar of pickles had been smashed on the floor.
My jewelry box had been dumped, but as far as I could tell nothing had been taken. The costume jewelry was piled in a tangled mess, but still there. The only real items I had of value were my sapphire ring, and Grandma Taylor’s pearls…It hit me hard suddenly that it was a damn good thing I’d followed my intuition and worn the necklace after all, otherwise they’d have probably been stolen.
The front door had been the point of entry. When Julian asked if I’d set the alarm code, I told him no. I’d never even used it since we’d moved in. When I admitted that, it made me feel pretty foolish. If I would’ve set the stinking alarm, none of this would have probably happened.
The police asked if I had
