Passion to Protect by Colleen Thompson

Author:Colleen Thompson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781459245082
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-10-16T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Two nights after the funeral, the sounds of a soft rain awakened Liane, pulling her from the slipstream of a bittersweet dream where she’d been arguing with her father. Something about Jake, she thought, grasping at the fast-receding edges of the memory, about how the two of them had already wasted too much time.

Her face burned as she remembered how hard she’d tried to convince him to send Jake packing once she moved back home. How hard her dad had argued that he couldn’t possibly turn out a friend still recovering from such a severe injury.

As often as her dad had denied it, she’d always suspected he was scheming for more grandkids—this time hers and Jake’s. As she lay there with her children snuggled beside her, the thought was a painful reminder that her father hadn’t been the only one with secrets. But this late at night, she didn’t dwell on it, her mind already circling back to the kiss she’d shared with Jake, to the reawakening hunger she had thought was forever extinguished.

With the memory, pain twisted low in her abdomen, along with the knowledge that she could never give him what he craved. She pushed the thought from her mind and pulled Cody and Kenzie closer, kissing each sleep-warmed face in turn. She knew it was past time to move them back to their own beds, time to start them on the path to normal, but ever since their return from the hospital they’d been creeping into her room at night, cuddling against her. Needing her the way she needed to be close to them, to help keep the worst nightmares at bay.

Misty, too, was keeping close, her singed fur a reminder of the horrors she’d shared with them. In the dim light cast by the clock radio, Liane saw the shepherd stand, rising from her dog bed and moving toward the closed bedroom door.

At a scraping sound from somewhere outside, Misty growled, and Liane jerked upright in bed.

It’s only the rain, she assured herself, comforted by the tapping of a branch and the plinking of fat drops against the window—the thunderstorms the weather forecasters predicted would finally quench the smoldering coals threatening to reignite the backcountry. But the thought of the fires set off an avalanche of memory, with worry hot on its heels.

Giving up on a return to sleep, she had just gotten up to get a drink of water when she heard another sound—a thump this time. Was that a clay pot toppling over on the back deck? Shivering in her robe, she catalogued the many occasions when a curious raccoon, marauding coyote or some other animal had disturbed her sleep.

It’s no animal this time. It’s him. As hard as she had worked to barricade her mind against it, the thought kicked her heartbeat into overdrive. Mac had finally come back to finish her forever. And maybe both our kids, too. Unless I do something.

Trembling, she told Misty, “Stay,” and quietly crept out the door, closing it behind her.

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