AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My phone doesn’t work.”
“Aw.” She pouted like an A. “If you want to call someone I guess you’ll just have to come back to the ranch and do it yourself.”
The confused expression returned. “Why are you being difficult?”
Gina turned away, messing with Lady Belle’s saddle even though she’d already tightened everything that needed tightening and checked everything that needed checking. “I don’t want you to be gone, too,” she whispered.
He didn’t respond; she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. The activity all around them—the saddling of horses, chewing on granola bars, slugging water, talking—was loud and distracting. Even though Gina was totally focused on Teo, she didn’t hear him approach, only knew that he was near when the scent of oranges arrived an instant before he did.
He slid his hands over hers where they rested on the saddle, set his lips to her hair, and murmured, “I won’t be.”
She couldn’t help it; she turned her hands in his, tangling their fingers together and holding on tight. “No one saw what took them. A whoosh, a howl, the darkness. What is that?”
“Mass hysteria,” he said. “You don’t really think they were taken by the night.”
“I don’t?”
He chuckled, his breath puffing against her cheek. “That’s impossible.”
She knew that in her head, in the light of day, but in her gut, in the middle of the night …
“What did take them?”
“The wolves.” Teo shrugged, sliding his front all over her back. She leaned into him, enjoying the flex of his muscles against her skin, despite the layers of clothing in between.
“Wolves are fast, but I doubt they’re faster than the speed of sight.”
He squeezed her fingers, like a hug with hands, the movement making his biceps bulge against hers. “People see things when they’re frightened, Gina. Or, in this case, they don’t see things.”
He sounded so sure, so rational; her crazy suspicions wavered.
Gina turned, and Teo stepped back but not too far. “You need to spell it out for me.”
“A wolf snatched Ashleigh and dragged her off. Amberleigh’s mind was so horrified by what she saw, it shut down and refused to remember anything but darkness.”
“And Melda?”
“Power of suggestion. Once she’d heard Amberleigh’s tale, when the same situation occurred she saw what Amberleigh saw—or rather she didn’t see it.”
Strangely, that made sense.
Of course, when compared to a whooshing darkness stealing, then killing people, pretty much anything would.
Perhaps Teo’s explanations could be applied to what she’d heard and felt as well. Tricks of the mind. Post-traumatic stress. Anything was preferable to what she had imagined.
“I’ll be fine, Gina.” Teo brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know.” She stepped out of his reach. When he touched her she couldn’t breathe, let alone think. “Because you’re coming back to the ranch with us if I have to hog-tie you and have Jase toss you over Spike’s back.”
“But—”
“You think we have superfast, supersmart, superhungry, vicious wolves on the prowl. I’m not leaving you anywhere near them.”
Teo’s expression of surprise morphed into one of annoyance as he realized his own explanation had doomed him. “I’m an idiot,” he muttered.
Gina shrugged. “Saddle your horse.”
She let out a long, silent sigh of relief when he did.
