Running blindly through the darkness, Lola didn’t see the tree limb until it struck her in the face. It clawed at her cheek, digging into a spot under her right eye as she flung it away with her arm. She had to stifle the cry of pain that rose in her throat for fear she would be heard. As she ran, she felt warm blood run down to the corner of her lips. The taste of it mingled with the salt of her tears, but she didn’t slow, couldn’t. She could hear them behind her.
She pushed harder, knowing that, being men, they had the advantage, especially the way she was dressed. Her long skirt caught on something. She heard the fabric rend, not for the first time. She felt as if it was her heart being ripped out with it.
Her only choice was to escape. But at what price? She’d been forced to leave behind the one person who mattered most. Her thundering heart ached at the thought, but she knew that this was the only way. If she could get help...
“She’s over here!” came a cry from behind her. “This way!”
She wiped away the warm blood as she crashed through the brush and trees. Her legs ached and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep going. Fatigue was draining her. If they caught her this time...
She tripped on a tree root, stumbled and almost plunged headlong down the mountainside. Her shoulder slammed into a tree trunk. She veered off it like a pinball, but she kept pushing herself forward because the alternative was worse than death.
They were closer now. She could feel one of them breathing down her neck. She didn’t dare look back. To look back would be to admit defeat. If she could just reach the road before they caught up to her...
Suddenly the trees opened up. She burst out of the darkness of the pines onto the blacktop of a narrow two-lane highway. The glare of headlights blinded her an instant before the shriek of rubber on the dark pavement filled the night air.
Major Colt McCloud felt the big bird shake as he brought the helicopter low over the bleak landscape. He was back in Afghanistan behind the controls of a UH-60 Black Hawk. The throb of the rotating blades was drowned out by the sound of mortar fire. It grew louder and louder, taking on a consistent pounding that warned him something was very wrong.
He dragged himself awake, but the dream followed him. Blinking in the darkness, he didn’t know where he was for a moment. Everything looked alien and surreal. As the dream began to fade, he recognized his bedroom at the ranch.
He’d left behind the sound of the chopper and the mortar fire, but the pounding had intensified. With a start, he realized what he was hearing.
Someone was at the door.
He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was after three in the morning. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he grabbed his jeans, pulling them on as he fought to put the dream behind him and hurry to the door.
A half dozen possibilities flashed in his mind as he moved quickly through the house. It still felt strange to be back here after years of traveling the world as an Army helicopter pilot. After his fiancée dumped him, he’d planned to make a career out of the military, but then his father had died, leaving him a working ranch that either had to be run or sold.
He’d taken a hundred-and-twenty-day leave in between assignments so he could come home to take care of the ranch. His father had been the one who’d loved ranching, not Colt. That’s why there was a for-sale sign out on the road into the ranch.
Colt reached the front door and, frowning at the incessant knocking at this hour of the morning, threw it open.
He blinked at the disheveled woman standing there before she turned to motion to the driver of the car idling nearby. The engine roared and a car full of what appeared to be partying teenagers took off in a cloud of dust.
Colt flipped on the porch light as the woman turned back to him and he got his first good look at her and her scratched, blood-streaked face. For a moment he didn’t recognize her, and then it all came back in a rush. Standing there was a woman he’d never thought he’d see again.
“Lola?” He couldn’t even be sure that was her real name. But somehow it fit her, so maybe at least that part of her story had been true. “What happened to you?”
“I had nowhere else to go.” Her words came out in a rush. “I was so worried that you wouldn’t be here.” She burst into tears and slumped as if physically exhausted.
He caught her, swung her up into his arms and carried her into the house, kicking the door closed behind him. His mind raced as he tried to imagine what could have happened to bring her to his door in Gilt Edge, Montana, in the middle of the night and in this condition.
“Sit here,” he said as he carried her in and set her down in a kitchen chair before going for the first-aid kit. When he returned, he was momentarily taken aback by the memory of this woman the first time he’d met her. She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense. But she was striking, from her wide violet eyes fringed with pale lashes to the silk of her long blond hair. She had looked like an angel, especially in the long white dress she’d been wearing that night.
That was over a year ago and he hadn’t seen her since. Nor had he expected to since they’d met initially several hundred miles from the ranch. But whatever had struck him about her hadn’t faded. There was something flawless about her—even as scraped up and bruised as she was. It made him furious at whoever was responsible for this.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked as he began to clean the cuts.
“I... I...” Her throat seemed to close on a sob.
“It’s okay, don’t try to talk.” He felt her trembling and could see that she was fighting tears. “This cut under your eye is deep.”
She said nothing, looking as if it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. He took in her torn and filthy dress. It was long, like the white one he’d first seen her in, but faded. It reminded him of something his grandmother might have worn to do housework in. She was also thinner than he remembered.
As he gently cleaned her wounds, he could see dark circles under her eyes, and her long braided hair was in disarray with bits of twigs and leaves stuck in it.
The night he’d met her, her plaited hair had been pinned up at the nape of her neck—until he’d released it, the blond silk dropping to the center of her back.
He finished his doctoring, put away the first-aid kit, and wondered how far she’d come to find him and what she had been through to get here. When he returned to the kitchen, he found her standing at the back window, staring out. As she