“She’d kill us,” Gwen said with a little more excitement in her voice than expected.
“That’s an understatement. We might lose her for good,” Mercy countered, trying to predict the worst possible outcome.
“Either way, only one of two things is going to happen. She’s going to quit running and face it head-on or run faster and hope her luck holds out. We both know how well that worked for the rest of us,” Gwen said.
Mercy nodded, turned, and used her crutches to hobble toward the church door. “I think we need to even the playing field and steal her running shoes.”
“I’m game,” Gwen said, yanking the church door open. “Now, we just have to convince the others to play.”
“We don’t want to upset Honor before the wedding. She’ll be a no-show, and then Faith will blame us,” Mercy said.
“So, we’ll wait until after the wedding and then make our move,” Gwen said with a grin.
Chapter Three
Honor
The blaring alarm jolted me from the sweet dream I’d been having. Eyes scrunched tight; I patted my hand across the bedside table until I located the target.
Smack.
Blessed silence followed.
Blackout curtains and extra window tint kept any sunlight from entering the room. Judging by the darkness, it could easily be midnight outside.
Although it wasn’t.
It was only six p.m. I had an hour to get ready to have dinner with my sisters. That was plenty of time to make some coffee and get my day started. My mornings were other people’s typical evening hours. I didn’t sleep after six if I could help it. When I did, I’d end up running smack-dab into danger. The kind of danger that meant losing my freedom.
It was better this way. He stayed out of my life, and I stayed out of his, and neither of us would ever get hurt or feel the pain I knew would follow.
I grabbed my phone on the bedside table and opened my messages. I had three from my sisters.
“Honor, don’t be late.”
“We’ll track you down if you are.”
Yada, yada, yada.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my sisters. Most of the time.
I slid out of the bed, showered, and got ready for the rehearsal dinner. There would be no reason to run tonight. No threats of not getting enough sleep and chancing a run-in with the mysterious man that haunted my dreams. Nope. No chance at all.
A half-hour later, I’d gotten a text from the bride-to-be saying dinner was canceled because of the weather. Faith had asked us all to stay home and be safe instead of trying to travel on the roads.
I peered out the window down the long dirt driveway. Standing water waved in the wind and was rising steadily with the downpour.
Living in the woods had its perks. Most of the time.
Except for when it came to drainage and other upkeep. Then we were like the red-headed stepchildren of the community. It was times like these that the broken tree limbs, which were a month away from getting cleared, would cause problems depending on how long it rained.
Last time it rained, I’d had to wade through water that reached up to my calves.
Still, the perks outweighed my concerns.
There were no neighbors to deal with. My sisters had to go a bit more out of their way to visit, and I just liked the sheer quietness of it all.
The moon was hidden behind angry rain clouds, making it darker than normal as rain pelted down, saturating everything it touched.
I stepped away from the window and walked into the kitchen to start coffee. I was in for a long relaxing night of reading and drinking coffee in front of a cozy fire thanks to Mother Nature.
Just as I settled in with a cup of coffee, a blanket for my lap, and a book in front of the fire, a knock sounded on the door, making my heart stutter.
Tossing the cover off, I walked to the door. “Whichever sister is at my door better have a good reason for…” I yanked the door open.
A man fell into my arms. I staggered under his weight and lost my fight to stay upright. We landed in a heap on the foyer floor.
“Help me.” His words were whispered and laced with pain. His familiar face made my heart race. The one man I’d been running from had me pinned to the floor. I struggled harder to shove him off me, his eyes rolled back into his head and his body went limp.
“Hey,” I said, shaking him. “Wake up.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t even moan. He wasn’t going to be any help getting me out of this predicament.
With a mighty heave at his shoulders, I finally managed to dislodge him, putting my hand under his head to keep it banging on the floor.
Grabbing him from beneath the arms, I dragged him across the floor, having to stop several times to catch my breath.
“You’re taller and more muscular in person,” I grunted as I heaved him the rest of the distance to the couch and rested his upper half on the cushions before picking up his big feet and resting those over the arm of the couch. His tall frame didn’t fit.
His shirt was torn and caked with what looked like mud. Only the trail of blood I’d just left on my hardwood floor told me I had a worse problem than dirt.
“Crap,” I whispered and leaped to shut the door to keep my house warm. I hurried back to the couch and tore at his shirt to get a better look at his wound. There were two frightening holes on his shoulder. One at the back, an exit point I was sure, and the other in front where the bullet had entered. His chest was covered in hypnotic tattoos. I’d run my fingers over of the design before I even realized what I was doing.
“Focus,” I growled at myself, pushing away from the stranger. Patch him up and get him gone. That was my plan. Ignoring the countless intimate dreams, I’ve had of this stranger, he wasn’t sticking around. Not if I could help it. I raced into my bathroom and rummaged through all of my stuff, looking for something to pack the wound and stop the bleeding.
On my knees back beside his inert body, I ripped one of my T-shirts to use as a makeshift bandage. I wadded a fistful of gauze against the wound and tied the torn strips of my favorite T-shirt tight, to hold the packing in place.
Grabbing my phone, I dialed 9-1… I didn’t get to the last one because I lifted my gaze to find the man pointing a gun at me.
“Throw the phone in the fire,” he demanded and gestured with the gun toward the fireplace. His voice was deeper in person. Everything about him and what I’d witnessed in my dreams was just a tad off.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I answered, taking a step back. “You’re hurt. I need to call an ambulance.” And the police. I opened my mind to read his with my telepathy and was met with a strong brick wall that made me pause.
My telepathy had never failed me.
Until now.
“You can’t. They’ll kill me,” he said, and just as if the energy had drained from his body, his hand went limp again.
I grabbed the gun and held it as I dialed the last 1 and hit Enter.
I pressed the phone against my ear just in time to hear the all-lines-are-busy sound. I glanced at the screen. Only one bar wasn’t going to get my call through.
I grabbed the cordless in the kitchen and tried again, only to find there wasn’t a dial tone at all. Had the stranger cut my phone line?