Miracle (Carmichael Series #4)✔️

Time to Prepare

**NEW VERSION - EDITED**

Brock's POV

I jolted upright in my bed as a loud bang woke me. My brows furrowed as I strained my ears to catch any following noises. My heartbeat kicked up the slightest bit as my fight or flight senses started to kick in. Reaching into my nightstand, I pulled my .45 out of the drawer just in case. Checking the chamber, I made sure it was loaded and the safety was on before I crept out into the main hallway. Once out of my bedroom, I could hear more rummaging and quiet whispers.

I made my way to the guest bedroom and peeked in, making sure that Danielle was still asleep and safe. The lump in the bed let me know that the bang hadn't awoken her. Good. Shutting the door, I cradled my gun between both my hands as I inched closer and closer towards the main living area where the sound appeared to be coming from, conscious to avoid the footboards I knew were particularly creaky - I didn't want to alert the intruder. I was almost to the entrance of my kitchen when I heard the sound of someone growling under their breath.

In one quick movement, I lunged into the kitchen and flipped the light on before pointing my gun straight ahead of me at whoever the intruder was. My eyes widened comically as Danielle screamed at the top of her lungs and dropped the wooden spoon in her hand. I released the breath I didn't know I was holding before removing the small magazine from the gun as well as the bullet from the chamber and placing both on the kitchen counter in front of me.

"Christ, you scared the hell out of me," I grumbled before rubbing my tired eyes.

"You were scared? Try being on the other end of the fucking gun! Why do you even have a gun in the first place! And why are you pointing it at me! You told me I had free range to the kitchen!" she shrieked, obviously still high on the adrenaline rush.

"I have a gun so I can protect myself in whatever situation necessary. And I checked your room before coming down here. It looked like there was a lump of a body in the bed, so I didn't think it being you was even a possibility," I explained.

"The lump was from all the pillows. And you can protect yourself without a gun. Those things are dangerous you know. They kill people," she shot back while giving my gun a worried glance.

"People operating the gun kill people," I shot back, "and what pillows? There's only one in that room-" I started to say but grew quiet when I glanced to my left and saw that all of my couches had been stripped completely bare. "Nevermind. And of course guns are fucking dangerous. They're not a toy, Dani. I offered multiple times to take you to a range to teach you how to use them so you could protect yourself, " I grunted, still annoyed all these months later that she'd never taken me up on my offer. I rolled my eyes before finally taking in her appearance.

"Why the hell were you eating yogurt with a wooden cooking spoon?" I asked in bewilderment.

"First of all, yogurt wasn't my first choice but all you still eat is that nasty organic shit, so ice cream was not an option. Secondly, I couldn't find wherever you moved your utensil drawer to and I was starving, so I got too impatient to actually go searching" she replied defensively. I chose to purposely ignore her questioning gaze at the fact that I had, indeed, completely moved my kitchen around. It was something I did days after we'd broken things off. She was the only woman, only fling I kept reminding myself, that had gotten close enough to learn the layout of my kitchen. She knew where everything was. I didn't like it. I'd ripped every drawer out of it's spot and haphazardly shoved it into a new location before throwing my cabinets open and swapping things around there too.

At the time, it made me feel like I was back in control; like I was the only one who had a hold over my heart. Now I just felt fucking stupid, but I didn't elaborate on it.