by Dani Harper
Riders. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there was a dark band of riders out there in the midst of hell itself.
Without warning, agony detonated in Liam’s head and bright stars burst behind his eyelids. He seemed to hover in that state, suspended for a long, sickening moment before blackness obliterated everything.
It was far from dark when Liam finally woke. He cursed as bright sunlight stabbed his eyeballs, setting off a headache from hell even as his body protested the unyielding mattress. Wait—there was no mattress. He squinted at his surroundings from beneath the shade of his hand. What was he doing on the floor? And in the guest room, no less? He made a move to get up, and his stomach lurched as the room spun. Christ. Slowly, he put a hand to his head and felt carefully along the hairline, hissing as his fingers came in contact with a palm-sized goose egg. There was a wet smear of fresh blood on his hand when he pulled it away.
It seemed to take forever before he could manage to sit up, bracing his back against the bed for support. The effort drenched him in cold sweat, and he had to take a break until the nausea settled and his vision cleared. It was then that he spotted the culprit that had coldcocked him: a heavy crystal vase belonging to Aunt Ruby. How many times had he seen the oversize heirloom piece on the kitchen table, filled with big, showy cut flowers from her garden? How much did the damn thing weigh? Three pounds? Five? It was empty right now . . . and completely unharmed. That seemed more than a little unfair when his skull felt cracked in two. Instinctively his gaze tracked upward, and Liam realized that the vase had been sitting on a bookshelf built along the top of the window, an accident just waiting to happen. Perhaps he should be grateful. The way the storm had shaken the old house, it was a wonder the entire wall hadn’t fallen on him instead of just the vase.
Gotta get up. Liam rose shakily and sat on the bed, waiting for the pattern on the wallpaper to stop moving before he dared stand. A few deep breaths later, he felt steady enough to shuffle his way carefully into the unholy mess that had once been the living room. Inspecting it, however, would have to wait—his top priority was his livestock. The poor animals could be trapped or scattered, terrified or injured, or perhaps even dead. He had to get to them. Sliding his feet into his boots by the door, he gripped the jamb for support as he rode out another wave of dizziness and nausea. Finally he made it outside, shambling onto the porch at a ridiculously slothlike pace. Come to think of it, even a damn sloth would laugh.
Liam didn’t feel much like laughing himself as he looked over the storm’s aftermath.
The morning was calm and bright, as if nothing had happened. Blue sky, faint breeze, heat already beginning to build. Chickens were busily feasting on the worms driven to the surface by last night’s rain—but they were doing it amid downed branches, shapeless lumps of wet hay, and sodden piles of debris. He eased down to sit on the only furniture left on the porch—a heavy bench that Uncle Conall had bolted to the wall so it wouldn’t move under his ample frame when he took his boots off at night. The many chairs and tables, the bright profusion of plant pots and window boxes, and even the porch swing, were nowhere in sight, replaced by unrecognizable garbage and a sad scattering of dead starlings. In the house yard, every one of Aunt Ruby’s elaborate flower beds was shredded. Even sadder were the many broken trees—and worst among them were the matching pair of century-old chestnuts. When Liam was six, those magnificent trees had supported a pirate fort and a rope bridge. Now they lay split from crown to root, and he guessed it must be part of one that had speared the house.
Beyond the yard, the farm looked even worse. There was no doubt in his mind now that a tornado had touched down. A trio of forty-foot metal grain bins lay crumpled on their sides like giant beer cans. It was the nature of tornadoes to be destructive. It was also their nature to be bizarrely capricious as to what they destroyed. Last night’s twister had played hopscotch throughout the farm, razing this building and that building to the ground, flattening some things beyond recognition, sweeping away many heavy farm implements altogether—and yet a few structures had been left standing. The house stood, the milking parlor stood, and so did a scattering of equipment sheds. Even the four walls of the main barn stood, although its entire roof was missing.
One good thing was that the goats appeared to have escaped the barn somehow—a large group of them had crammed themselves into the farthest corner of their corral. He’d have to get out there and inspect them one by one, but at first glance it looked like almost all of his milkers were there. They seemed pretty damn calm considering what they’d been through—but perhaps the poor things were in shock. Liam had shut them in the ill-fated building last night, something he always did to keep them safe from predators like coyotes. He hadn’t expected danger from the sky. Thankfully the monster storm had carried the roof clean away, rafters, ceiling joists, and all, and not brought it crashing down on the heads of his herd. In fact, the entire roof structure was mostly in one piece—about a quarter of a mile away in the midst of his alfalfa field. The alfalfa itself was unrecognizable, and the scent of wet, crushed plants hung heavy in the still-humid air. Even from where he stood it looked like an army had trampled the young crop into the ground, leaving a swath of destruction that was nearly half the width of the field.
An army. Had he really seen riders last night? Or had he dreamed it after he’d been clobbered by Aunt Ruby’s five-pound vase?
He shook himself free of those thoughts and focused on the disaster in front of him. A storm was a normal, natural occurrence, and a tornado, while rare here, wasn’t unheard of. The truly strange thing, however, was that there had been no warning, and that made Liam angry. There hadn’t been the faintest indication of bad weather on the local news, no emergency warning message scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, no annoying sound signal. What the hell happened to the Doppler radar and all that other high-tech shit that meteorologists had at their disposal?
He made his way down the steps—and was compelled to stop and rest on every damn one—then picked his way slowly along the sidewalk stones. Every couple of feet, he had to step over or around something: splintered boards, shapeless blobs of wet insulation, twisted shingles, a pair of Uncle Conall’s ample hip waders, an upside-down lawn mower, a broken shovel, countless lawn ornaments. Liam was sorry now for sometimes wishing Aunt Ruby wasn’t so crazy about gnomes. As far as he could tell, her entire collection, numbering more than a hundred—maybe even two hundred—and lovingly collected over the course of decades, now lay smashed all over the lawn. The many little pointed hats, disembodied faces, and broken limbs made the yard look like a bizarre battlefield.
Liam finally made it all the way to his truck, but his sense of accomplishment was short-lived. A full-length two-by-six had speared the windshield and buried itself in the driver’s seat. Three flat tires underscored that he wasn’t going to town for a while, or even—as he had hoped—around the farmyard and the pastures. Dizzy and still nauseous, Liam leaned against the vehicle for several minutes before he turned and looked back at the house. The two-story Victorian had survived the storm well—if you didn’t count that damn tree stuck in the living room wall. A few bundles of shingles, and some new glass, and the old house would probably be as good as ever. The house was a hell of a lot older than Liam, even older than his aunt and uncle. Perhaps it had weathered similar storms in its long lifetime and had learned how to deal with them.
Mentally Liam shrugged off that odd line of thinking. He’d grown up loving the house and the farm, but they weren’t alive, weren’t sentient, didn’t feel or know anything. The animals needed him. He had to stay focused, dammit, had to get to his livestock and help them.
Glancing past the house, it was plain that the power lines along the road were down for at least a mile. Liam sighed heavily. That meant he had to get the generator hooked up and running, or he’d be milking forty goats by hand. If he still had forty dairy does. And where were all the yearlings? He’d
only seen a couple in the tightly packed herd. As for his cattle, they were nowhere in sight, and they would have to be rounded up from wherever they’d fled to. A sensible horse could pick its way through this mess, but he didn’t have one available to him—Dodge and Chevy had been pastured with the cows. The shed containing his four-wheeler lay in a splintered heap.
Shit. Not only did he have a hell of a lot to do, but he had no choice but to do it on foot. And somehow he had to manage it all without passing out or . . .
Liam leaned over and threw up some bile, narrowly missing his boots. A round of dry heaves followed, nearly taking him to his knees as the top of his skull threatened to tear off. He knew he should probably get the lump on his head checked out, although how he would fit that on the to-do list that was growing by the minute, he didn’t know. Gonna be a long damn day.
He’d made it most of the way to the heavy steel corral that attached to the west side of the barn when he spotted something large and dark crossing the field toward the other side of the big building, the shaded side. An animal, definitely, and limping badly. One of the does? Saanens were pure white, but LaManchas came in every color—and his herd’s best bloodlines resided in four does that were mostly black. Christ, I’d better check her first. Although the ground seemed to move beneath his unsteady feet, he finally made it to the wire fence that provided a token separation between plowed land and dirt farmyard, and he gripped it with both hands like a lifeline.
But the approaching creature wasn’t a goat at all. It was a dog.
Not his dog of course—he’d buried his best friend, Homer, only a few months ago. The big gold shepherd had passed on in his sleep, in his favored spot on the thick sheepskin-hide pillow beside his master’s bed—and Liam hadn’t been too manly to let honest tears fall.
This animal was one he’d never seen before, and it wasn’t a creature that could be easily forgotten. Its dark fur was muddy and bedraggled yet couldn’t hide the handsome lines of its body. Liam immediately thought of an ancient sight hound that might have run alongside a pharaoh’s chariot. Despite its size, the dog’s body was lean like a greyhound’s. The downcast head was elegantly shaped, ending in a delicate pointed muzzle. Long, graceful legs promised cheetahlike speed—or they would have if the poor thing hadn’t been using only three of them. The fourth was held off the ground, and even from a distance, Liam’s practiced eye noted the odd angle of the limb.
The black dog stopped when it saw Liam but didn’t raise its head. Instead, the animal seemed to expect rejection and slowly turned as if to leave.
Liam whistled and the dog hesitated. He whistled again and its ears pricked. The lowered head swung back to look at him. “Come on, that’s the way,” he called gently. “Come over here! Good boy, come here!” Clinging to the fence to steady himself, he made his own way to the open gate as quickly as his battered head would permit. He whistled again as he slipped through, then grabbed the post for support. He’d only meant to get down on one knee, to make himself smaller and less threatening.
He hadn’t expected to slide down the gatepost like a rag doll. The jolt of landing on his ass sent spikes of purest agony through his brain, and he moaned aloud. Goddamn it . . . Liam felt like he was holding his skull together with his hands, and for a long moment he half expected his brain to start leaking out of his ears. Through the haze of pain, however, he saw that the dog was now facing him, head up and alert. And slowly, painfully, it limped over to him.
It was huge. Even seated as he was, Liam was a tall man. Yet the strange dog was looking down at him. “I sure hope you’re not looking for easy prey there, fella,” he joked. As if in answer, the animal pressed its nose to Liam’s knee and lay down—albeit gingerly. Big, intelligent eyes focused their gaze on Liam with unmistakable concern, and the dog’s tail wagged weakly.
“Well, shit.” He had to rub a bit of moisture from his eyes then. The dog was doing exactly what Homer had done when a fourteen-year-old Liam had been thrown from a horse. He was far from the house with a badly busted leg, cold and scared and in pain. Good old Homer—still a pup himself—had stayed right there with him for hours until Uncle Conall had come looking for him.
Liam reached out a hand and rubbed the soft ears, the intelligent forehead. The dog’s tail wagged once more, but it shivered then, and he remembered it was injured too. He struggled to his knees. “Let’s have a look, fella, see what’s wrong here. Maybe I can help.” For a moment he didn’t think the animal would comply. Then slowly it relaxed onto its side and closed its eyes, and Liam felt along its body with gentle hands. The leg was definitely broken—he didn’t need to touch it to know that—but he thought some ribs might be busted up as well. And there was a wide strip of black fur missing from the back of its neck and across its shoulders, the exposed skin blistered as if burned. Was it possible it had been struck by lightning? Liam thought he’d seen a silvery collar when he’d first spotted the big dark creature, but there was nothing around its neck now. Whatever had happened, the dog was probably in a world of hurt, yet it was calm and stoic. “There’s a good fella,” Liam said, stroking its flank. “There’s a good boy.” Suddenly he realized he’d missed something important. “Good girl,” he corrected himself.
Despite the sun’s warmth, the shade of the barn felt downright cold to him. Had the storm brought in a cool front? The dog was shivering again too, and Liam immediately unbuttoned his shirt and covered the creature, wishing he had something warmer to blanket her with. She’s probably thirsty. He struggled to his feet—standing very still for a long moment to make sure he was going to remain on his feet—then shuffled his way to a nearby trough, holding on to the fence wire for support.
A few minutes later, he sank down beside the big dog, holding a cracked and dented bucket at an angle so she could reach the few inches of water in it. She drank every drop. Satisfied, Liam leaned back against the gatepost with a heavy sigh.
“We’re one helluva pair,” he said to her. “You can’t walk far and I can’t carry you. In fact, I don’t think I can go anyplace.” It was true—not only was his brain clearly trying to escape his skull, but that little jaunt to the water trough had exhausted him beyond all reason. “We’re gonna have to call in some help, girl.”
He patted the pocket of his jeans and was relieved to find his phone still there. The screen lit up at his touch, and he was amazed to see he had three whole bars plus half a battery to work with—apparently Murphy’s law hadn’t located him yet! Quickly he flipped through the numbers stored on the device, but he realized there weren’t very damn many to choose from. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Conall had been the only family who lived in this area. He was close to his cousin Tina, but she was in Seattle—she’d drop everything to come and help him, of course, but it was more than a six-hour drive. As for friends, the ones he’d had growing up had moved away, and he hadn’t made any new ones. In fact, hardly anyone could be called an acquaintance either. It was his own stupid fault of course: he hadn’t wanted company, so he hadn’t even tried to be friendly. Way to go, Einstein. How many times had he heard his uncle say, “A farmer can’t get along without his neighbors”? Liam recalled the families who used to own the farms on either side of his, but not the names of the people who lived there now. They were miles away in both directions too, so walking for help sure as hell wasn’t an option.
Although the sensible voice in his head insisted he needed to get checked out by a doctor, Liam was far more concerned about the injured dog. Plus, although he hadn’t had a chance to check on his poor goats yet, they were certain to need medical attention as well. Heaven only knew what condition his cattle and horses were in—if they were still in the county. What I need most is a vet, he decided. The only one he’d ever trusted to treat old Homer was up in Spokane Valley—his cousin’s high school friend, Morgan Edwards. It was definitely out of her way, yet she had cared enough to drive all the way out here twice in those last few months
of Homer’s life. It couldn’t hurt to ask, could it? At the very least, Morgan might know of some other vet who could come on short notice.
Liam tapped the screen where her number was displayed. And hoped.
FIVE
Caris lay on the ground near the man’s feet, grateful for his kind words—how long had it been since she had heard the slightest expression of concern? And he had covered her with his own shirt. The fabric was too thin to provide much heat to her battered body, but her heart was profoundly touched. She hadn’t known many men who would do such a thing for a mere dog, especially one that wasn’t their own. He’d struggled to bring her water as well, even though it was plain that he was injured too—and here she was with no hands to help, and no strength if she had them. He slipped into unconsciousness soon after he’d talked into the palm-sized phone, and blood still oozed freely down the side of his face.
It’s a fine face. When she’d been human, she would surely have sighed over that intelligent brow and determined chin. She’d sigh over his handsome frame, too. The man’s shirtless body was lean and well-built, his arms strong, and well-acquainted with hard work. Light brown hair dusted his chest and she had a shockingly wicked wish to trace his muscles with her fingertips. Unbidden, Caris’s gaze followed the pattern of hair as it lightly encircled his nipples. Below his navel, darker hair formed a vee that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.