When Lightning Strikes

The words surprised her so much that for a moment she forgot her fear. She turned to him. She wanted to say something, but she couldn't think of a thing. So she just stared at him, waiting.

"And then there was that year I spent in the opium dens in San Francisco." He turned and gave her a crooked grin. "Of course, it could have been two weeks."

She almost smiled. A strange sensation moved through her, loosened her tensed muscles and made her relax. Tentatively she wiggled backward and sat beside him, her lower back pressed against the creaking log. Suddenly she felt the whiskey, felt it as a liberating heat in her blood. "I know that feeling," she said with a hic-cuping snort.

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"But it doesn't matter. Some things you can't forget," he whispered, and there was a sorrow in his voice, a pain that touched something deep inside her, something that hadn't been touched in years.

She looked at him, unable to help herself. He sat slumped, his head bowed. He was staring at his own hands, curled on the green fabric of the bag. She knew instinctively that he was seeing something else entirely, something that hurt.

She wanted to touch him, to brush the silver strands of hair from his face. The reaction scared her, made her pull back.

But he turned to her, held her close with the honesty in his eyes.

"Wh-What do you want from me?" she said, unable to make her voice anything but a whisper.

"Nothing," he said quickly, too quickly. Then he gave her a brittle smile. "I guess right now I want you to sleep."

Confusing emotions hurtled through her. She tried to focus on them, tried to figure out what she felt right now and what she was afraid of. But the more she tried to understand, the sleepier she felt.

A small, fluttering sigh escaped her lips; her body melted into the warm sleeping bag. The whiskey was a soothing warmth in her blood, a slight buzzing in her ears.

He leaned down toward her, so close she could feel the soft flannel of his shirtsleeve against her cheek. She thought for a terrifying moment that he was going to touch her. She flinched and tried to twist away, but she couldn't move. Or maybe she didn't really want to. Her heart started pounding in her chest.

"Good night, Lainie," he said quietly, then rolled onto his back.

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She lay tense and unmoving, staring up at the night sky, battling an irritating sense of disappointment. "Good night, Killian."

They lay there, side by side, without touching. It was a long, long time before either one of them slept.

Chapter Nineteen

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Someone screamed.

Killian jerked awake, instinctively reaching for the gun beside him. His fingers dug through the dirt, found the metal grip, and closed around it as he snapped to a sit.

Disoriented, he blinked and looked around, searching for the source of the danger. Darkness pressed in on him, a million stars glittered in the night sky. It was quiet now; no hint of the scream lingered in the cold, breezeless air.

He frowned. Had he imagined it? He let out his breath in a slow, steady stream and slumped forward. Setting the gun down, he closed his eyes and massaged his temples. The beginning strains of a headache pulsed behind his eyes.

A sound drifted to his ears, soft at first, like the whining whimper of a newborn kitten.

Lainie. Of course.

Turning, he glanced down at her. She lay on her back, asleep. Her fac

e was twisted into a grimace, her eyes were squeezed too tightly shut. Her hands were pale, fingers clutched talonlike around the green fabric of the sleeping bag. She writhed from side to side, emitting a low, throaty moan with every motion. "No . . . no ..."

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He leaned down toward her. "Lainie, you're dreaming." "Get away from me." She hissed the words and tried to say something else, but all she managed was a hoarse cry and then a broken, sobbing sound. "Lainie . . . you're dreaming. Wake up." Suddenly she screamed and sat up so fast, she knocked him off balance. Wild-eyed, she looked around, blinking, and he didn't know if she was awake or still gripped by the horrors of sleep. "Lainie?"