Pride Of A Hunter. Sylvie Kurtz
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thought of giving up, of letting the darkness take her along with Cole, but Cole, with his life-lived-to-the-utmost wish, would have disapproved. Then there was Brendan, the tiny seed there in her belly.
Cole hadn’t known. She barely had.
For a while, she’d only gone through the motions, been nothing but a living dead. Dom’s voice, always Dom’s voice, calm and cool, trying to talk her back into the horrid world she’d created.
Her husband was dead. His child grew in her womb. So she did the only thing she could; she ran.
She ran from city to city, looking for something, anything that would connect her to a sense of support. But every time she’d thought she’d found salvation, it crumbled beneath her feet, leaving her weaker than before. She couldn’t outrun the ghosts. They chased her everywhere—her mother’s reproach, her husband’s bloody body, her friend’s hypnotic voice.
Then Brendan was born and she’d had to find a higher level of functioning for his sake. Moving from place to place had made no sense. So she’d come home. The farm and its constant need for toil had saved her.
Living still hurt. But she was holding her little world together and Brendan was growing up into a happy boy with a zest for life as big as his father’s. She would do everything in her power to keep him safe.
A glance at the clock’s red numbers showed her she’d gotten a few hours’ worth of sleep. She tossed off the sweat-dampened sheet and blanket. Four in the morning wasn’t that early. From experience she knew sleep was done for the night. Lying in bed would mean sleeping with ghosts.
Bleary-eyed, she made her way to the bathroom with its sea-colored tiles and crawled under the showerhead, letting warm water wash away the sticky filaments of her nightmare.
She had enough goat’s milk left over to cook up a batch of soap. Might as well get started. She had the pesto, herb logs and vinaigrette she’d made last night to deliver later this morning. Maybe she’d make an outing out of it and take Brendan out for pancakes at The Sugar Barn. Then she had the breeding for Fanny, Faye and Fiona, her dairy goats, to arrange, the green manure to sow in her gardens and the greenhouses to finish setting up. Not to mention the torte she’d promised to bake for Jill’s shindig this afternoon. If she were lucky, she’d be tired enough to sleep again tonight.
Luci buffed her body dry with a towel, left the bathroom and slipped on a sweatshirt and work jeans. Her head pounded in a drum that beat in time to the queasy roll in her stomach. Work would take care of that; it always did.
Before going downstairs, she peeked in on Brendan. Maggie, sleeping at the foot of the bed, lifted her head and banged her tail against the footboard in a way that said, “Guilty as charged. Can I stay?”
Brendan was lying sheets akimbo as if he’d fought off an army of dream monsters. Cole had been like that, too, active even in sleep. With his eyes closed, her son looked like his father—spikes of dark hair, a ready-to-smile mouth, a stubborn square chin that told the world he knew what he wanted and no one was going to get in his way. The only thing Brendan had inherited from her was his green eyes. His looks made forgetting Cole impossible. But none of her guilt would taint her son if she could help it.
Without turning on a light, she made her way down the stairs to the kitchen, where she slipped on her barn clogs and grabbed a flashlight from the windowsill. Outside, September chill wriggled its fingers into the weave of her sweatshirt, raising goose bumps. Soon, the first killing frost would come. She had a lot of work to do before then.
As she stepped into the yard, more than the coolness of the night shivered down her spine. Something or someone had disturbed the equilibrium of her farm’s peaceful atmosphere. She flashed her light around the yard, but could see nothing out of place.
Reverting to old technique, she turned off the light and edged her way to the barn in a toes-to-heel stride that kept her footfalls near silent. The well-oiled barn door slid smoothly on its runners. She knew the location of every shadow, every scent, every movement. Finding the one out of place didn’t take long. She moved in on it, slowly but surely.
Dom.
He slept on a bed of straw in the empty stall near the enclosure the goats shared. Fanny and Faye ignored him, but doeling Fiona seemed intrigued by the hair she couldn’t quite reach through the wooden planks with her tongue. Wrinkles pleated his forehead, as if his sleep wasn’t any more restful than hers. Was Cole haunting him, too?
Was the menacing growl of Dom’s truck what had started her dream? Why was he here? Hadn’t he caused enough trouble for one day?
The sight of Dom there, his big body lax in sleep knocked her back as if someone had pulled a carpet from beneath her feet. Memories seeped through the wall of pain her mind fought to keep up. Dom’s soothing voice. Cole’s bright laugher. The friendly kidding, the easy camaraderie that turned into fierce support when needed. How often had she woken up to find Dom sacked out on the couch, looking just like this?
No one had wanted her on the team, least of all Cole. But Dom had played negotiator from the start and, somehow, the three of them had become the best of friends. Those four years on the team were the best in her life and part of her yearned for that easy companionship.
For that brief reprieve in time, she’d belonged.
She clutched the flashlight more tightly in her hand. Don’t go there, Luci. That’s not the answer.
She flicked the switch on the flashlight and shone its light in Dom’s face. “What are you doing here?”
Dom jolted upright, ready to defend himself, then relaxed when he realized whose voice had roused him from a deep sleep. “I should’ve known you’d find me.”
He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light. “What are you doing up so early?”
Why don’t you sit a spell, Luce, tell me what’s on your mind? How often had Dom said that to her with his molasses drawl? How often had she done exactly that? Sagged into the comfort of his broad chest and cried her eyes out, spilling out her sad secrets while he listened without reproach? I’m trying to outrun nightmares. You should know that by now. But he was the last person she needed to share these dark dreams with. “This is a working farm. I work.”
“Not usually this early.” He rose, brushing straw from his jeans.
She flashed the light back into his eyes. “You’ve been watching me?”
“I had to weigh, Luce,” he said, taking the flashlight from her hand and resting it on top of the stall wall. “I had to figure out which would hurt you less, breaking my promise to you or working around you to try to help your sister.”
That was one thing about Dom, he was a man of his word. After he’d coached her through Brendan’s birth, and while she was still swimming in post-partum hormones, she’d made him promise never to see her again. He’d kept his word these past six years. Even with felons, he went with truth as often as he could. Using people wasn’t his style. He wanted everyone comfortable and happy.
That wasn’t apt to happen this time. Jill was going to get hurt, and nothing would ever quite be the same. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re entertaining my goats with your snores.”
He wiped one hand over his mouth as if reluctant to admit the truth. “Guilt. I let you down. I need to know you’ll be okay.”
Guilt she could understand. She sagged on a bale of straw outside the stall, the wooden wall still between them, and clasped her hands around one knee. “I talked to Renwick last night.”
Picking up the phone had taken much more courage than Luci cared to admit. After her less-than-cozy chat with her old boss, she’d stayed up past midnight, too hyped up on adrenaline and worry to find her way around to sleep.
“That couldn’t have been easy. Especially after the way he treated you.” Renwick had not been amused by Luci’s and Cole’s secret wedding. Rules strictly forbid family from working