In Sight Of The Enemy

“Not unless someone got to the main road and cut the fence, came up a quarter mile or so from here and circled around back.” The likelihood of that scenario was remote. But then, the whole scene Hawk had warned her of had a vaguely surreal aspect to it.

“Grab a bag and throw a few things together,” Shane said. “You’re staying with me until we get this figured out.” As he spoke he moved to the door, locked it. She stared at him, swaying a bit on her feet as his figure moved into and out of focus. His words seemed to come from a distance and there was an all too familiar sense of velocity, as though she was being catapulted through space. Her pulse galloped as her vision dimmed, rainbows arrayed beneath her eyelids. The cell phone slipped from her hand, clattered unnoticed to the floor. And then it was as if a giant curtain was slung aside, bits of mental images whirling and colliding before forming yet another scene.

Shane was striding across the room in front of the window. There was the sound of a shot, and the glass shattered, spraying across the room.

“Cass!”

She blinked rapidly, noting the insistence in the word, if not the meaning. Her vision cleared, leaving her feeling weak and limp. She was seated, although she didn’t remember sitting down, and Shane was kneeling in front of her, his hands over hers, his face concerned.

“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 the door handle, watched it twist slowly, first one way, then the other. Setting the flashlight down, she reached for her gun.

Shane grabbed his as well, and as if one, they walked silently to the kitchen, to the side door that led into the mudroom. They waited for long tension-filled moments, before hearing the sound of that door being tried.

Then swiftly, Shane brought the rifle to his shoulder, aimed and fired through the curtained window beside the door. They heard a muttered curse, footsteps running down the steps.

Cassie couldn’t prevent a tiny grin. “Sounds like you gave them something to think about.”

“For now, at least.” Shane crossed to her side and they went back to the kitchen. “But they’ve got all night, and we can’t be positive it’s just the two of them. We can’t watch all four sides of the house indefinitely.” If the couple out there wanted in badly enough, he was afraid they just might succeed. There were any number of windows that would provide access. And there was the outside chance that, if pressed, they’d try something even more daring.

“We could make a run for your car. With each of us providing cover for the other, we could probably make it, especially now that it’s dark.”

“They’ve probably already made sure the car is useless to us.” It was what he would do. Slit the tires or remove a distributor cap. “And if we leave here for a vehicle that’s been taken out of commission, we just put ourselves at their mercy.”

“Okay. We can probably hold them off until daylight. Jim and the other hands are usually here by six-thirty. That’s only nine hours or so.”

He knew they didn’t have that long. He looked at her, barely able to make out her features in the darkness. “If they’re as desperate as Hawk seemed to believe, they’re going to find a way in before then. We need to think of something else.”

She was silent long enough to have him watching her closely. The urgency of their situation would be enough to send most women into hysterics, and Cassie had looked on the verge of collapse just a few minutes earlier. But her voice, when she finally spoke, sounded remarkably steady.

“All right, then. I think our best chance is to make a run for it.”

Chapter 4

“What are you planning?” Shane couldn’t suppress a flicker of admiration. Not many women would be able to calmly map out escape routes with at least two armed intruders right outside. But in contrast to her earlier shaky moments, Cassie was composed.

“When we were kids, Hawk and I used to sneak out when the moon was full, to go for rides while our parents were sleeping. I think I can get us to the barn undetected.”

Shane considered the idea. “Are the pickups in there?” It was doubtful the couple outside hadn’t already rendered them undrivable, but it was worth a shot.

“Jim has one. The other should be parked nearby. It probably has been tampered with,” she added, as if reading his thoughts. “I think our best way out of here is by horseback.”

He was already shaking his head. “There’s no way we could get all the way back to town without having to take the road, eventually. We’d be walking right into their arms.”

“I’m not trying to get us to town. I’m thinking of heading for the forest.”

He started to dismiss the idea, before realizing it had merit. If they could get a good head start, or, better yet, give the kidnappers the slip completely, they could vanish into the wilderness, and to safety.

The plan wasn’t without risk, however. With the full moon, visibility would be better than usual. If they were spotted, they’d be sitting ducks. And the horses couldn’t outpace a vehicle, at least until they got to rougher terrain. He had no idea how many miles of open country they had to pass through to get to the forest bordering the area.

“There’s a cabin in the forest that my family used to camp in. We can hide there.” She paused, but when he still said nothing, a hint of impatience crept into her tone. “Well? What do you think?”

He was thinking that the risks were unacceptable. There was no way in hell he was willing to thrust Cassie and the baby into that kind of danger. But the situation was perilous, regardless. And he’d learned in Afghanistan that sometimes decisions had to be made when neither choice was entirely acceptable.

Hopefully, living with the consequences of this choice would prove easier than the one he’d made there.

“Let’s do it.” With the words came a sense of, if not peace, at least resolution. There were few in the state who could match Cassie’s riding ability, and she was familiar with the forest in a way the kidnappers couldn’t be. If something happened to him, she’d still have a good chance of getting away on her own. And those were probably the best odds they were going to get in this situation.

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