Imminent Thunder

by Rachel Lee

  “A little. Maybe 12:20.”

  “When did you know someone was in the house?”

  She explained about the wind slamming her car door closed with her keys and purse inside, and how she’d been thinking about the loose window latch and torn screen when she had the sudden feeling that someone was watching her from that very window. And then how she had heard the thump, as if something had fallen.

  “Since I couldn’t drive away, I came running over here to ask Mr. McLaren for help.”

  Lambert turned his attention to Ian, who stood leaning against the counter, one powerful arm crossed over his waist while he sipped coffee.

  “You’re Ian McLaren, the man who called us, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Occupation?”

  “U.S. Army, retired. I sometimes work on the air base as a consultant.”

  “What kind of consultant?”

  Ian set his cup down and folded his arms. “I advise the Rangers and other special-operations groups on operational tactics and survival skills.” The air base included a huge reservation of federal land set aside for training purposes. Not only did bombers practice actual bombing, but all the services practiced jungle-style combat tactics and survival skills back in there, as well. Among them were the army Rangers and the Special Forces, as well as certain elite marine units.

  “So Ms. Nightingale came over here for help, and you called us?”

  Ian shook his head, never taking his catlike eyes from the cop. “I went over there first. I found the window by the back door open and the screen torn. The back door was wide open, flapping in the wind. I imagine the intruder fled as soon as he realized Ms. Nightingale had become aware of him.”

  The young policeman nodded, satisfied. “You’ll have to come back over there with us now, Ms. Nightingale. We need you to tell us if anything is missing, and what damage was done, if any.”

  That was when Honor got the strangest feeling. She wasn’t a fanciful person by nature, not at all given to odd feelings and psychic impressions. She was a woman of cheerful, optimistic outlook and a very simple faith in God that made her feel safe in the darkest of nights. But suddenly, unexpectedly, she shivered. Almost helplessly, she raised her eyes to Ian McLaren’s.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said abruptly. “I want to take a look at that window and see if I can’t make the house safer for you.”

  She could have kissed him for that. Had he somehow understood her sudden uneasiness? Had it been that plain on her face?

  She started to leave the blanket on the chair, but he picked it back up and wrapped it around her shoulders again. “You’ve had a shock,” he said. “Better stay warm.”

  “Thank you.”

  First, much to her relief, one of the policemen retrieved a tool from his cruiser and unlocked her car for her so that she could recover her keys and purse. Then they climbed the creaky steps to the open back door.

  “This house really needs a lot of work,” Honor heard herself say. She wondered if anyone else could hear the nervous note in her voice. “I’ve been meaning to call all kinds of repairmen ever since I moved in, but I’ve been so busy…”

  Ian gripped her elbow reassuringly, and she fell silent. There was, she reminded herself, no reason to be nervous. Not now. Not with two policemen and a former army Ranger beside her.

  The policemen warned her not to touch anything and even went so far as to turn on the kitchen light with the tip of a key so that no fingerprints would be disturbed. A crime-scene unit would come out, one of them said, to see if they could find any fingerprints around the window or the door. She absolutely mustn’t touch anything until the team had come through.

  “How long might that be?” she asked politely, wondering wildly if she was expected to leave her house untouched for the next week or so.

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be here soon, ma’am,” said the shorter of the two officers.

  So she wasn’t going to get any sleep, either. “Wonderful. I’d be willing to bet the man who broke in here is already tucked into his soft little bed for the night. How many hours or days does it take for this team to complete their work?”

  “That’ll depend on whether you find anything else missing or disturbed.”

  That could almost be taken as a threat, Honor thought tiredly. By chance her gaze met Ian’s, and she saw a surprising amount of understanding in those cat-green eyes of his. She had the eerie feeling that he was reading her mind. Disturbed by the sensation, she turned quickly away.

  Room by room she walked through the house, with the two officers hard on her heels. The survey tour served one purpose, she thought as she led the way upstairs. By the time she and the police had poked their noses into every closet, she could be sure there was no one else in the house. The intruder, whoever he had been, was definitely gone. Only as they returned to the kitchen did Honor realize how relieved she felt to know that for certain.

  Ian McLaren, she noticed, had not intruded on her privacy. He had waited in the kitchen and was talking with the freshly arrived crime-scene team as they dusted for prints around the door and window.

  “Nothing else has been disturbed,” said one of the policemen to the new arrivals. He glanced at Honor. “That means they’ll be out of here as soon as they finish what they’re doing now, Ms. Nightingale. But if you happen to notice anything after we leave, don’t touch it. Leave it alone and give us a call. Someone will come right out.”

  A short while later, having received some needless advice about better locks, Honor found herself alone with Ian. He had snapped his jeans, she noticed irrelevantly. Or maybe not so irrelevantly. The wind gusted sharply, making the whole house creak before its force, and thunder marched closer, a hollow drumbeat. The fresh smell of ozone spiced the air.

  “Well,” she said briskly, trying to sound like her usual fearless, capable self, all the while knowing that it was going to be some time before she felt fearless again. “I certainly can’t thank you enough for all your help, Mr. McLaren.” As she looked up at him, she wondered if she had ever before met anyone so expressionless. His face betrayed nothing, absolutely nothing. His walls, she realized, were all invisible, and utterly inviolable.

  The man, she thought, was totally unique. Totally self-contained. Totally impervious to whatever the rest of humanity might think. He was a law unto himself, and he didn’t care one whit whether she was grateful or not. He had done only what he believed to be right and necessary, and her feelings in the matter didn’t come into consideration. He had acted purely out of principle.

  He would be aware of her feelings, of anyone’s feelings, she thought, but they wouldn’t affect him. Not at all. Whatever decisions he made, he made to satisfy himself, and he judged them according to his own internal measuring stick.

  Suddenly she sank onto one of her kitchen chairs and wondered if she was losing her mind. She couldn’t possibly know these things about this man from a few words, a few actions, the lack of expression on his face. She couldn’t know these things from a few glances of his cat-green eyes. No, she was overtired, overwrought and inexcusably fanciful.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing why she was apologizing. Maybe it was for dragging him out of his isolation and into her problems. “I need to sleep,” she added suddenly. “And I don’t think I’m going to be able to.” Now why had she told him that? Why? “I’m sorry,” she said again, pressing her palms to her eyes. She was losing it, she realized vaguely. She was going to sit here in front of this man with the expressionless eyes and the frozen feelings and go blubberingly, embarrassingly hysterical.

  A heavy hand settled on her shoulder, and she jumped, startled. Looking up, she found him watching her.

  “You go up to bed,” he said quietly. “I’ll be down here. Nobody’s going to bother you tonight.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” he said, interrupting her, “there’s no way you’re going to feel safe tonight, and that’s normal. And I don’t
see anyone else around here to watch out for you. Is there somebody you can call?”

  Reluctantly she shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from his. “I just moved here.”

  “Exactly. And I’m not going to sleep over there, wondering if that creep might come back. So do me a favor and let me hang around over here so I don’t have to worry.”

  At that precise moment something thudded in the living room. Honor gasped and froze, but by the time the sound had died away, Ian was already moving toward the living room. Somehow the knife had once again materialized in his hand, even though Honor would have sworn he hadn’t brought it with him.

  She wasn’t built to handle this, she thought wildly as she waited. Her heart was hammering as if she had just run a marathon, and she was breathing in huge gulps that never quite dragged in enough air. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t stand this. Her knuckles had turned white from the strength of her grip on the blanket, and she wished she could hide, just hide. Like a child, she felt that if only she pulled the blanket over her head and closed her eyes tightly enough, if only she didn’t move and didn’t breathe and didn’t make a sound, whatever it was would go away.

  In the emergency room, she knew what to do. Instinct and knowledge guided her surely in the worst situations. Her choices might not always work, but she wasn’t helpless. And there was nothing quite like feeling helpless, she thought now. Nothing quite as undermining or terrifying. She had been fearless all along only because she hadn’t come up against something she couldn’t deal with. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she was supposed to deal with this. What if that man came back?

  Ian returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, knife once again hidden wherever he hid it. “The wind must have blown something against the house,” he said. “Everything’s okay. There’s no one here.”

  “Oh.” Even that sound was a triumph of self-control. She was shaking now, shaking steadily, uncontrollably. I think…I think I want to go to a motel,” she said between chattering teeth.

  “What good will that do?” he asked flatly. “Will you feel safe here tomorrow night?”

  That was the crux of the matter, Honor realized. She wasn’t going to feel safe again for a long time. Slowly she lifted her frightened, moist eyes and looked at him.

  She was unaware of all that was written on her soft, young face and revealed by her damp blue eyes. The man who wore a mask of iron was aware, however. He read it all in a glance, and something in him shifted infinitesimally, like heavy stone dragging over stone.

  Thunder boomed hollowly, and lightning flickered brightly enough to be noticeable. The wind whipped around a corner of the house and moaned gently. The live oaks whispered restlessly, and the cicadas were suddenly silent.

  “You can stay at my place tonight,” Ian said, his voice sounding as rusty as an unoiled hinge. “I’ve got a guest room that’s all made up, and you’re welcome.”

  He had a guest room? This isolated man had a guest room? “I couldn’t impose—”

  He shook his head. “Look, neither one of us is going to sleep tonight at this rate. Just come over to my place and try out the sheets on the guest bed. In the morning we’ll see about making this place trespasserproof, okay?”

  He somehow managed to make her feel as if she would be obliging him by accepting his offer, that she would be inconveniencing him if she didn’t. “Thank you, Mr. McLaren.”

  Something in him shifted just a little more. “Call me Ian. Let’s go up and get whatever you need for the night.”

  He stood in the hallway just outside her bedroom as she hastily stuffed the necessary items into an overnight bag. Her hands still trembled, but her terror was subsiding as she realized that tonight, at least, she didn’t have to face this alone.

  The man who waited outside for her was remarkable, she found herself thinking. He had only just met her, yet he was putting himself out in a way very few people would. Most people would have backed out of this situation just as soon as the police arrived.

  If anyone had told her that a man’s protectiveness could feel like a warm sable coat wrapped around her, she would have chuckled at the absurdity of it. Women, she had always believed, were perfectly capable of doing anything and everything men could do, if only they were willing to put forth the effort. She never would have imagined that she could want, could need, a man to stand between her and anything. Thank God nobody had told Ian McLaren he shouldn’t!

  “I’m ready.” Stepping out into the hallway, she switched off the light behind her and let him lead the way down the stairs. That was protective, too, she realized. He was a very protective man. She wondered what he was like when he cared.

  Wind whipped the leaves around, ghostly shadows in the night. The last of the moonlight had been swallowed by the storm clouds, and the lightning blinded more than it helped. Ian seemed to have preternaturally acute vision, however, and he guided her around the hedge toward his house as effortlessly as if it were broad daylight. For once in her life she didn’t mind someone taking her elbow and guiding her. Somehow, this evening, she had lost a little of her newfound independence.

  Once inside his kitchen, he locked the door behind them, and the storm was silenced. “I’m going to turn on the air-conditioning tonight,” he said, filling the sudden, obvious quiet. “That way all the windows and doors will be locked and you won’t be uneasy.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. His gaze scraped over her. “Maybe I should explain that I don’t do anything I don’t choose to. So save your breath. I’m doing what I feel is necessary.”

  She hadn’t misread him, then. Well, she thought as she followed him down his hallway to the foyer, and from there up the stairs to the second story, it certainly made it easier on her not to have to worry about it. It appeared that Ian McLaren was a little like a force of nature. Like that storm outside. And it seemed she was now just along for the ride, like tumbleweed caught up in a cyclone. He would do things his way. If that meant sheltering her and turning on the air-conditioning, then that was what he would do. She wondered if he would consult her about anything at all.

  His guest room was a bare-bones affair, not too different from a cell. There was a small four-drawer dresser, a metal cot, a straight-backed chair, and nothing else. That he had this room meant he sometimes had guests. That it was decorated this way made her wonder just what kind of guests they were.

  “The bathroom is down the hall,” he said abruptly. “Take a shower if you like—the towels are fresh. My room is straight across the hall. If you get nervous or need anything, holler, and don’t worry about disturbing me. I seldom sleep at night.”

  With that enigmatic and totally intriguing statement, he exited the room and closed the door gently behind him.

  Sighing, Honor dropped her overnight bag on the chair and looked around once again.

  It really did look like a cell. And it occurred to her that she had just become a prisoner of fear.

  Across the hall, Ian McLaren stood at the closed window of his bedroom and stared out at the wild, stormy night. As a rule, he needed very little sleep, and what little he needed usually eluded him at night. That didn’t prevent him from attempting to be normal, though. Every night he came up here, stripped and climbed into that narrow bed. And every night he eventually rose, dressed and pursued other activities. He had been trying to sleep when Honor’s pounding at the door summoned him, and he was glad now to have an excuse to quit trying, at least for tonight.

  A natural inclination toward insomnia had hardened into something nearly pathological as a result of his military experience. He had been little more than a boy when he learned that the night hours were favored for surreptitious attacks, and that night was not a safe time to trust others to remain alert. For him it was easy to stay awake and alert, but it hadn’t been for his comrades. When Ian had understood that, he had taken it upon himself to keep the night watches. Now, nearly a quarter century lat
er, he was generally able to sleep only in the daylight.

  Some people might have seen that as a problem, but since Ian had little regard for other people and preferred his solitude, it was no problem at all. When he needed to advise at the base, he usually did so at unconventional hours anyway, and when he needed to do a regular nine-to-five, a quick lunchtime nap was all he required to keep him going.

  From his window he had an unobstructed view of Honor’s house and garage. He had noticed her occasionally in the month since she moved in, had recognized at some point or other that she worked a rotating shift, and knew she didn’t pursue a social life. He knew these things because survival depended on knowing your surroundings, and while he was no longer in that kind of danger, old habits didn’t die.

  So he knew a little about Honor Nightingale, more than she suspected. It was nothing she would object to him knowing, but she would probably feel uneasy if she knew that he’d paid that much attention to her. Once or twice he had considered picking up the phone to request a background investigation—a BI on her, then had dismissed the idea. He was retired, damn it. He no longer needed to know everything about everyone around him.

  And now she needed him. Thinking about what she had come home to, he felt a familiar stirring of anger. Anger was about the only feeling he allowed himself, and then only when someone or something violated his sense of rightness. The crud might only have been planning to rob her, but Ian doubted it. No, the intruder had had more despicable things in mind. The question was whether he had happened on her by accident or whether he had planned this. Whether he wanted Honor in particular.

  Disturbed, Ian turned from the window. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had attracted the obsessive attentions of a sicko. Well, only time would settle that issue.

  Deciding he wanted a cup of coffee, he stepped out of his room and began to make his silent way toward the stairs. A gust of wind rattled the window at the top of the staircase, and a sharp clatter announced the first few raindrops. Lightning flared brightly, momentarily blinding him, and he gave up, turning on the hall light. The eye’s adaptation to darkness vanished in an instant before flashes that bright.