Rachel Lee - Conard County - Bibliography

Excerpt p95-98

“Fear is a survival instinct,” Micah said slowly. “Everyone feels it. That’s why most people don’t stick their hands into the flame on the stove.”

He made it sound so simple, so natural, yet she knew that the fears she felt were not natural.

“The circumstances that threaten us determine our fears,” he continued just as slowly, his voice flowing like a lazy summer river. “When our circumstances change, gradually our fears change, too.” He turned his head and met her gaze squarely. “Yours are changing already, Faith.”

Prologue

In the shadowed room, a man lay unconscious on the blue sheets of a hospital bet. An IV catheter ran into his right arm. A suction tub ran up into the bandages that covered his face, then disappeared into a hole where a nostril must be. Both his legs were elevated and splinted from hip to toe with stainless steel bars, and bandaged on thigh and shin. His left arm showed scars from the recent surgery, paper thin and red.

He had already been through a number of operations, and there were more to come.

The only light in the room came from a baseboard nightlight, which provided just enough illumination to guide a nurse’s steps to the bed. In the corner, farthest from the light there was a darker shadow, a shadow with substance. If the man in the bed awakened with clear senses, he might, just might, notice the watcher in the shadows. But he would not awaken. Not yet.

It would be easy to kill him right now. So easy. A little potassium solution injected into the IV tub would bring a quick cardiac arrest. Or it would be pitifully easy to smother him with a pillow. Chances were, after all the man in the bed had been through, everyone would assume he had merely been too weak to withstand the rigors of surgery. He had, after all, been through a lot. The thought was pleasing. Yes, he’d been through a lot. Four god-awful, endless years of hell. Why was he still alive?

But killing him now would be too swift, too easy. He needed to suffer. He needed to know it was coming. He had to twist and turn like an insect trying to escape the spider’s web.

SHE COULDN'T KEEP RUNNING

Not when she had finally found a place to call home. So this time, when her past reared its ugly head, Anna Fleming dared to seek shelter in the last place she had ever thought possible ...the arms of a man.