“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She tried to summon a smile, doubted she pulled it off. Rising, she prayed her knees would hold her. “I’ll get a bag. You’ll need to lock the other two doors.”
Shane got to his feet, still watching her strangely. “I already did.”
Although she had no memory of it at all, she nodded. “I’ll just be a minute.” She took several steps before hesitating, flashes of that last mental image appearing again in her mind. “Come with me.”
He did, driven out of an anxiety he didn’t voice. She was still white, still shaky, and he didn’t trust her to not collapse before making it to her room. But she moved at record speed, dragging a small bag out of her closet and throwing in a change of clothes, then crossing to the adjoining bath to pack some toiletries. He went to the window in her room and looked out, the lengthening shadows making it difficult to see anything. It’d be fully dark in another fifteen minutes. Night never used to hold any particular fears for him. Not until he discovered firsthand how many black-hearted thieves and murderers prowled beneath its mantle. The knowledge was enough to keep his instincts razor sharp.
He looked up as Cassie reentered the room, noted that she’d regained a bit of color. “Let’s go,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her out the door. “We can contact Hawk again once we get to town.”
“I could call him now from my cell.”
“It’s going to take someone with a better hand at electronics than me to put your cell phone back together, if it can be salvaged at all.” At her blank look, he added, “You dropped it. Remember?”
But when she got to the living room and saw the pieces of what had been her phone heaped on the end table, she bit her lip. The truth was, she didn’t remember. Not the moments leading up to the vision, not those immediately following it.
A feeling of unease stabbed through her. The episodes had never before occurred so closely together. She needed to get the ingredients for the tea from the kitchen and pack it for her trip to town. In addition to their increasing frequency, the experiences were also getting stronger.
She was crossing to the kitchen when something made her turn. Her blood froze as she saw Shane close the curtain beside one window, approach the next to do the same thing.
“Stay away from the window!”
Her voice was sharp as she started toward him. He turned his head, frowned, but never broke his stride. “Get the rest of your things, Cass. I’ll feel better once I have you back in town.”
His words were lost on her. Racing across the room, she dove at him, hitting him square in the back and knocking him to the floor. As if on cue, the window above them exploded, tiny shards of glass raining down on them as they lay, panting for breath, on the floor.
She’d landed on top of him when she fell, but the impact had driven the air from her lungs. As she hauled in oxygen, she heard him mutter, “What the hell? Are you all right?”
“Someone…shot at you.” Gulping for air, she raised her head and pointed. He followed the direction with his gaze, stilled when he saw the splintered hole in the side of the entertainment center, which had been directly to his left.
“You saw someone out there?” He grasped her elbows, raised her to her feet, none too gently. “And you still raced over here putting yourself in line of the bullet?” He gave her a shake, his face harsh. “You try something like that again, and pregnant or not, I’ll paddle your ass.”
Her lungs had returned to normal, as had her temper. “You could try, anyway.” Yanking herself from his grasp, she moved cautiously until she was out of the line of vision from any of the windows. Only then did she rise. When she did, she found Shane right beside her. She didn’t remember him being able to move that fast before. Or that silently.
“You don’t want to push me, Cass.” There was a thread of meanness to his voice that was as unfamiliar as the bleakness in his eyes. “I’m not the same man you knew a few months ago.”
Her stomach hollowed out, and the danger surrounding them abruptly receded in the face of the truth in his words. She’d already recognized that, hadn’t she, the moment she’d opened the door and seen him again? There was a far more subtle difference than the scar tracing down his throat. And whatever had caused the difference, she was achingly aware he’d suffered profoundly for it. “Who are you, then?” she whispered, not expecting an answer.
He stared at her for a long moment, before stepping back and turning away. His voice sounded raw when he responded. “Damned if I know.”
Struggling to make sense of his words, she watched as he went to the gun cabinet on the wall. Her jaw dropped open as he opened it and took out a rifle. The sight of Dr. Shane Farhold with a gun in his hands, and, she recognized incredulously, handling it with some degree of familiarity, was incomprehensible. He’d never made any secret of his disapproval of gun ownership. He’d lost too many gunshot wound victims on the operating table, he’d once told her, to have any respect for gun advocates’ argument promoting the so-called right to bear arms. She’d understood the source of his distaste, even if she hadn’t agreed with it.
So it was doubly shocking to see him hefting the rifle to his shoulder, sighting it, before lowering it to ask, “Where do you keep the ammunition?”
It took a couple attempts before she could manage an answer. “Top shelf, hallway closet.” As he strode off, she carefully made her way to the wall, wincing as shards of glass crunched beneath her feet. Sidling along the wall to the window, she reached out, pulled the curtain.
A beam of light appeared, as Shane approached her again. “I found flashlights up there, too.”
“Hawk believes in being prepared.” And so did she. Without a word, she reached out, took the flash-light from him and went to the gun case. If her brother was right, there were two people outside waiting for them. With both her and Shane armed, the odds evened.
“I don’t get it. According to Hawk, the couple who was here earlier has orders to kidnap me.” The words sounded even more ludicrous for being spoken out loud. “So why would they be shooting?”
“The shot wasn’t meant for you. If your brother is right, they’ll want you alive. Right now I’m the only person standing between you and them.” His voice was matter of fact in the near darkness. “By eliminating me, they’ll be a heck of a lot closer to their goal.”
“Like hell,” Cassie muttered. She had no idea what Hawk was involved in, or how it affected her. But she knew intuitively that if the couple outside ever succeeded in their mission, she’d never return to the ranch alive.
Memory flickered, of the dream that had haunted her all her life. The stranger on her doorstep wasn’t the murderer from her nightmares. The two men had different coloring and physical builds. But that didn’t mean that her kidnapping wouldn’t start a sequence of events that would result in the final enactment of the dream.
She may have to accept the finality of her own end, but she’d never accept that for her unborn child.
“Shine that light over here so I can load.”
Obediently, she swung the beam of light toward the direction of Shane’s voice. Although his movements weren’t as rapid and automatic as her own would be, there was no doubt he’d done this before. When he’d finished, without a word she took his gun and handed him hers to load.
“What about your cell? If we called the sheriff, he could be out here in twenty minutes.”
Shane’s mouth flattened. “I didn’t bring it.” There was a sound then that had them both going silent, straining to listen.
Someone was on the front porch.
Cassie’s gaze went to