When Lightning Strikes

Then he did the most amazing thing. He kissed her on the temple. His lips lingered against her skin, brushing, touching, while his fingers moved soothingly through her hair.

She let out a small sigh. All her life she'd waited for someone to help her sleep, to tell her bedtime stories and stroke her brow and sing soft lullabies. Everything she imagined a mother would do. She'd waited first as a child, alone and friendless and trapped in the foster care system, then as a young girl living on the cold, hard streets, and finally as a woman, searching for love in dark alleys and blind corners, from men who didn't know the word. Never once had she found even a hint of honest caring. Until now, until she met an impossible man from an impossible place and time.

Until Killian. He could say whatever he wanted. He could rant and rave and tell her he was no good for her, but she knew the truth. Deep down, where it mattered, he was a decent, honorable man. And if she let herself, she could fall in love with him.

He slid one arm beneath her neck and gently turned her, drawing her against his body. His other arm circled her waist and held her tightly. His breath rustled the back of her hair.

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The world spiraled down to the two of them, locked together in a small tent in the center of a huge, darkened desert. The rain hammered on, wind nudged the canvas walls, but inside they were warm and cozy and dry.

And safe.

For the first time in her life, sleep came easily.

The shadows twisted in on themselves and rolled forward, menacing, ugly shapes that rumbled with laughter and lowered voices.

"No." The plea slipped from her mouth. With some part of her mind, she heard herself speak, but it sounded far away, so far away. "Please ... don't ..."

An impenetrable, suffocating blackness descended on her. She gasped and tried to breathe. The sharp smell of ammonia exploded in her nostrils, made her gag and sputter. Cold, clammy sweat crawled across her forehead.

Leather straps spiraled through the darkness, slid toward her with a snapping, familiar sound. She writhed to get away from them and brought her hands up to cover her face. Hands pushed her down, pinned her until she couldn't move. Voices clattered around her in unintelligible monosyllables.

Footsteps pounded through the darkness, got fainter and fainter.

"No!" she screamed. "Don't go!"

Something or someone nudged her side. "Lainie, wake up. Lainie."

She snapped upright. Panting, gasping, she looked around, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She was sitting in light, pale, golden-green light that seemed to come from all around her. Walls wavered, pressed in on her.

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Panic swelled in her chest. Where was she? Oh, Jesus, where was she?

"Lainie?" The voice came at her from the light, warm and comforting and familiar.

Relief washed through her in a shudder. Killian. She twisted around to see him. He was sitting beside her, the sleeping bag bunched around his hips. He was looking at her with concern, his silver-gray hair glinting in the strands of sunlight that pulsed through the tent's green canvas walls.

"Killian." Without thinking, she threw herself in his arms.

His arms curled around her, gave her shelter from the horror of the dream. "It's okay, Lainie," he murmured, stroking her sweat-dampened hair.

A shuddering, desperate breath escaped her. She squeezed her eyes shut, reveling in the warmth of his body. Never in her life had she been comforted after the nightmare, and the luxury of it flooded her senses. She curled her arms around him, pressed her cheek to his chest.

"It's okay. You're safe."

At the quiet, comforting words, Lainie burst into tears. She felt a moment's confusion at her reaction, stupid and childlike, and then, almost magically, she forgot herself, lost herself in the comfort of his arms. And suddenly she was crying for all of it, for the lost years that should have been a childhood, for the parents who'd run away and left a little girl alone, for the daughter she missed more than life itself.

She shuddered at the force of her tears and snuggled closer to him. He stroked her hair, whispered soothing, nonsensical words that mattered less than the gentle sound of his voice. It was the touch she'd waited for all

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her life, first from her mother, then from her father, and then from every two-bit hood she'd ever met.

The tears flowed until there were no more tears inside her, until she was depleted and spent and suffering from a pounding headache.

She sniffled and wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. She knew she should feel ashamed of her weakness, that she should pull away and smile up at him and pretend it didn't matter. But for once, she didn't want to apologize for something she'd done, something she was. And she felt better. It was as if those tears had been trapped inside her chest for years, a cold, solid block of ice against her heart.