When Lightning Strikes

He walked slowly toward her.

Fear and fury exploded in her chest. She surged to her feet and hurled herself at him, trying to wrench her arms free so she could scratch his eyes out. "Goddamn you," she hissed.

He grabbed her and shook her hard. "Lainie. Stop it."

She twisted and fought and threw herself backward.

"Damn it, Lainie," he yelled, throwing his arms around her until she couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

She felt his arms around her, clamping and hard and unforgiving. Nothing like the embrace of before. This was the truth, she thought desperately. That moment of caring had been the lie... .

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And suddenly it overwhelmed her. She thought of Kelly?her beautiful baby girl?and she was lost.

It was over. She had failed, and God knew she wouldn't get another chance. Not by sunset on Sunday.

She should have felt betrayed and furious. But she didn't; she felt hollow and beaten. Everything seeped out of her, melted into the dusty ground at her feet. The fear she'd been holding at bay surged up and swamped her, moved through her blood in a dizzying wave. She went limp in his arms.

He seemed to feel the change. His hold loosened.

She sagged downward, crumpled at his feet. Her head bowed forward. She didn't have the strength anymore to hold it up.

There was no courage left inside her, no well of strength to draw from. Not this time.

She was too tired to do anything, too defeated and drained and beaten to beg or plead. Tears swelled in her chest, a hot, pounding ache that wouldn't release itself. She was too broken for tears. Her sorrow was too deep.

She had failed.

Chapter Eighteen

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She sat slumped forward, the rope pulled taut around her upper arms, digging into the rough yarn of her sweater. Her head was bowed, her hair dusty and dampened by perspiration. She'd drawn her hands into her lap, where they lay limply atop her thighs. Behind her, the gun lay where it had fallen, the silver barrel cocked against a gray rock.

She looked frightened and vulnerable and beaten.

The anger drained out of Killian, left him with nothing, not even fear. He stood there like a statue, stiff and immobile, staring down at her. He remembered suddenly what she'd told him about her past. He felt mean and low ... so goddamn low....

Was this how Emily had looked the night they came for her? A vulnerable, frightened woman, on her knees, praying for mercy from men who had none to give....

He winced at the image. Shame settled in the pit of his stomach, mingled with a sinking, sickening sensation of regret. When had he become the kind of man he'd always despised? Had he really sunk so low that he would hurt a woman easily, that he'd bind her and wrench her through the night because it suited his own purposes? And when he knew some hint of what she'd been through in the past ...

"Jesus," he whispered, knowing the answer, hating it 237

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with every fiber in his being. Wishing he could make it untrue.

He dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Lainie." He said her name softly, not knowing what else to say, not expecting her to respond.

She lifted her head, met his gaze with eyes that were liquid and shimmering with tears. She looked utterly, devastatingly defeated. "Please . . ." she said, then fell silent again, as if she didn't know what to ask for, or wouldn't ask it of him.

Jesus, it hurt just to look at her.