Sam didn’t reply but simply stared at her with no expression.
“You flinch every time I say Honeycomb.” She couldn’t keep the hint of laughter from her voice. He always referred to the cabins as A, B, or C.
“Don’t know why you insist on referring to perfectly good buildings with ridiculous names.”
“We have to call them something for our guests. They aren’t the same as fishing cabins or RVs or the camping areas, Sam. We’re attracting a completely different set of people.” With a very high income. Those cabins brought in revenue all year round. The winter sports—snowboarding, skiing, and snowmobiling—were very popular, and the resort was the gateway to the mountain above them.
“Will you have enough time to fix the unit before our next guests arrive?”
“If not, I can install another one and fix that later.” He stood up. “I don’t like that you’re having these nightmares, Stella. If they keep up, I’ll sleep closer and see if I can help.”
He walked around the Airedale in that silent way he had to stand behind her for just a moment. Then his palm shaped the top of her head, the pads of his fingers settling into her scalp. He ran his fingers in a slow caress from the top of her head to her nape, a barely there whisper of a touch, and yet she felt it like a bolt of lightning sizzling through her body. He didn’t do things like that. His touch sent a frisson of intense awareness down her spine. Every nerve ending lit up. Sam didn’t do casual. He wasn’t a casual man.
“I’m just going to put this out there, Stella. I’ve got certain skills. Swore I’d never use them again, not for any reason, but I’ve been here a little over two years now and I’ve gotten to know you. If you’re in trouble and you need me, you just say so.”
She frowned and craned her neck, turning to look up at him, but he was already walking away without looking back. This time, his walk took on a predatory stalk, or maybe it was her imagination because she was so disturbed by her dreams. What did he mean by certain skills and swearing he’d never use them again for any reason? Sam wasn’t acting like Sam. She had counted on him without realizing it, and now she found she was a little afraid of him.
She looked down at her dog. Sleeping again. Not paying the least bit of attention. “You know, Bailey, you’re supposed to be a protection dog as well as my companion dog. Do you remember me explaining this to you when you were a puppy?” She rubbed the Airedale’s ears. He seemed to be a constant in her life she could count on, like her beloved Sierras.
She needed to stay connected to her world. Everything around her was changing too fast. She felt as if the ground itself was shifting out from under her. The Sierras harbored a killer. She knew it with every breath of cool morning air she drew in. She never had the nightmare unless a serial killer was in the vicinity. If the pattern continued, a body would turn up within a day or two. Usually two. Not always. That was a very narrow window of opportunity to stop a killer.
Drawing up her knees, she rubbed her chin on top of them as she looked out over the lake. The fog had reached the very edge of the shore, creeping like shimmering fingers, still with that reddish glow to it. Stella refused to see it any other way than beautiful. Sam was right. She wasn’t given to flights of fancy. She stuck to realism and that was how she was going to catch the killer. She wasn’t going to turn into a frightened child. Her first order of business was to try to find the spot where the murder was going to take place. That was a huge undertaking, as there were several lakes, not just Sunrise, where many fishermen went out in the early morning hours to fish.
“Okay, Bailey, we’ve got work to do.”
The dog lifted his head, cocked it to one side and looked at her as if asking if she was all right now. She ruffled his fur. “I’m good. Watching the sunrise always resets me. No matter how bad everything is, once that sun comes up it’s all good again. I feel like a new person. We’ve got this. After I have coffee with Shabina and Harlow, I’m going to see if I can sneak in lunch with Zahra.”
Zahra Metcalf was her soul sister. It had never occurred to her that she would ever have someone she’d really connect with the way she did Zahra. She was friends with the other women. Liked them. Shared with them. But they weren’t like Zahra. She was on an entirely different level. If there was one person in the world Stella trusted, it was Zahra.