“Hey! Whoa! Easy!” Micha darted in between them, quick as lightning. With both hands on her shoulders, he held her back. “Just take it easy.”
His tone snapped something inside her. Heart pounding, she realized her nails were drawn—ready to do a whole lot more than scratch a pretty face this time. She wanted to kill.
The irrational anger surged through her veins unabated. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The only logical thought she had left in her head was the knowledge that she was actinginsane.
“What the hell?” Naomi had retreated to the corner of the living room, her eyes narrowed to slits.
Smart girl,something in Loren murmured darkly, relishing the fear in those green eyes.
“What the hell is your problem?”
Loren wanted to know the answer to that as well—what the hellwasher problem? Why couldn’t she even see straight? And why did the thought of Sonia, out there alone with McGoven, make her want to…
“I need air.” She broke away from Micha, turned on her heel, and raced through the kitchen.
She wanted to run outside, fade beneath the trees, and hide until the strange emotions disappeared.
She barely made it past the foyer.
Slam!From the back of her mind, she knew that someone had barged through the front door, rushing straight in her direction. Before she could turn, a solid force dragged her back, spinning her around to pin her body against the side of the staircase.
Familiarity kept her from resisting. She just inhaled, breathing in pine. Just like that, all the anger…
Evaporated.
Though the newfound clarity might have had something to do with the man pressed against her so tightly she couldn’t feel anything else?
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.
He just stood there, with his hands braced against the wall on either side of her head. He wasn’t close enough to completely block her in—not that she would move anyway.
“I leave you alone for five damn minutes…” His mouth was dangerously near her throat. Loren blinked as she remembered that he had been outside, yards from the house only a few seconds earlier.
He didn’t look angry, though. That silver gaze just held her stare, as indecipherable as ever.
“Then, m-maybe you shouldn’t leave me alone?” She didn’t even have the strength left to feel embarrassed. A part of her relished challenging him, even in such a small way.
Until he eased back, enough for her to see Micha and Naomi watching from the living room.
Suddenly, that rebellious inner voice went silent in the face of shame. She turned to the stairs, desperate to hide.
“Wait—” His tone called her back before she could take a step. “We should talk. Get your shoes.” He turned for the door, pausing only to swipe his keys from the hook, and grab a gray jacket and his boots. “I’ll be out in the truck.”
He wasn’t asking.
She sighed, spotting her boots in the corner near the door. Aware of Micha and Naomi, she didn’t even pause to put them on before slipping through the door after him.
She felt a hint of relief that Sonia wasn’t anywhere in sight. Not in the field, not in that black car…andnotin the passenger’s seat of McGoven’s truck.
Though why should I care if she were?she wondered. By the time she made it across the driveway, bare feet crunching over gravel, she hadn’t come up with an answer. With a sense of dread, she opened the passenger-side door and climbed in, keeping her gaze lowered as she slipped her boots on one at a time.
McGoven drove without uttering a word and true to his prediction, fragile snowflakes began to speckle the windshield. Loren watched them fall as a tiny, apprehensive part of her wanted to ask where they were going. She kept her mouth shut, but she wasn’t surprised when he parked in front of a crumbling, two-story ranch house at the end of a deserted block a moment later.
“Are you ready for this?” With a heavy sigh, he watched her from the driver’s seat. Flurries drifted down from overhead, coating the hood of the truck. Eventually, he seemed to take her silence as an answer. “That’s okay. I can—”
“I’m ready.” Loren unsnapped her seatbelt, trying to ignore the fact that her fingers shook. Or the tiny little voice at the back of her mind screaming that shewasn’tready at all.
And that she never would be…