AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sidled an infinitesimal amount to the right.
She crossed her arms, tapped her foot impatiently. "Very funny."
He shrugged. "That's all the room there is."
Lainie peeled out of her boots?and knew instantly that she wouldn't get her swollen feet back into them without a crowbar. Forcing a smile, she crawled down alongside him and wiggled into the narrow, sheepskin-lined bag.
They lay there, side by side, without moving. She could feel his presence beside her, warming her. His breathing, slow and regular, filled and emptied the air between them, a heartthrob of sound in the desolation.
She stared up at the diamond-strewn velvet sky. It seemed so huge, this endless night sky. And suddenly she felt very small, very alone, even though she was pressed closely to Killian. The sky seemed to push down on her, the night to close around her. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Take me back, God. Please, let me get back....
The wind laughed at her feeble prayer.
And the truth came at her like a blow to the heart. She knew then what she'd been afraid of, what formless terror had caused the quickening of her heart.
She never slept well, and never on command. She'd been an insomniac since childhood. She worked and worked and worked until, finally, depleted, she fell into an almost coma-deep sleep. Otherwise, the nightmares came, preyed upon her sleeping mind and drew her into a terrifying world of thunder and shadows and evil.
She wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. She knew it suddenly with a bone-chilling certainty. It would be like all the other restless nights in her life; nights when she lay awake in her bed, her eyes wide and gritty and aching, her thoughts drawn into a quagmire of hopelessness and despair.
She wouldn't be able to sleep. There would be no escape from the dream.
And she needed it, needed both the respite from the dream and the oblivion of sleep. Sweet Jesus, she needed it....
She pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin and thumped her head back onto the cold ground. She stared up at the blanket of stars and thought of her bedroom at home, so cozy and welcoming and warm.
For the first time since the ordeal began, she cried.
Chapter Six
f
Killian woke with a start.
He tensed, concentrated on the sounds of the desert. Behind him, the little creek gurgled a quiet, sloshing melody as it moved over the rocks and branches in its path. A breeze, cool and sharp and crisp, whistled through the cottonwood trees, jostling their leaves. From far away came the keening cry of a hawk; its shadow glided against a sheer, rust and brown cliff. Everything was as it should be here, quiet and peaceful.
Then he remembered the woman. He could feel her beside him, feel the warm heat of her leg pressed against his, the bony knob of her shoulder wedged alongside his forearm.
A memory filtered through his mind, as soft as a sigh, a whisper. He frowned. Crying. He'd heard it last night as she'd lain beside him, her slim shoulders jerking with each shuddering, indrawn breath. She cried unlike any woman he'd ever heard. No sobbing theatrics, no hiccuping coughs, just soundless tears, somehow all the more heartbreaking for the silence of them. For an incredible moment, he'd found himself almost responding to her, almost turning on his side to say something.
The memory irritated him. A heavy frown ribbed his forehead.
70
71
Beside him, she lay as still as stone, but her breathing was quick and uneven. It was not the sound of sleep.
Reluctantly he glanced sideways at her.
He didn't know exactly what he expected to see, but it wasn't this. She lay stiff as a board, her arms crossed across her body, corpselike and cold. Her eyes were lifeless and dull, an almost muddy green against the pallor of her skin. She looked as if she hadn't slept in a lifetime.
"You didn't sleep," he said, wondering how he'd known that, and why he'd bothered to say it.
"No." There was a wealth of pain in the simple word.
Killian didn't know what to say. She looked so ... vulnerable right now, beaten.
