Page 35 of Dangerous Secrets

Something . . .

He stopped breathing for almost a full minute. The sound of air in his lungs was distracting him.

There was something . . . again! A—a snuffling sound. At two o’clock.

Nick headed for the sound at a run, heavy boots pounding, the echoes loud in the large space. And there she was, curled up behind some gunny sacks. He saw one long, bony white foot attached to a pink slipper.

The animal in her had found the one place she could survive outside her home. In the northeastern corner was a pile offertilizer sacks and empty gunny sacks. She’d nestled in them, and they had saved her life.

Nick lifted a sack. There she was, huddled in on herself, rail-thin and bony. Once beautiful, now ravaged, shaking with cold, lost and forlorn. But for all that, alive.

She turned her head, pale blue eyes blank and rheumy.

“Frank-lin?” She blinked rapidly, mouth trembling. “Franklin, I want to go home. Take me home. I’m cold.”

Nick crouched next to her. She reached out a hand and touched his face. Her hand was thin, long-fingered, the skin crepey and mottled. She was shaking as she laid the flat of her hand against his cheek.

“Franklin,” she sighed, a tear falling down her wrinkled cheek. “Home.”

Nick’s chest felt tight. “Yes, Franklin,” he said softly, sliding his arms out of his coat and wrapping it around her. “I’ve got you now.” He lifted her as easily as if she were a child and strode to the door. “I’ve come to take you home.”

Chapter Ten

Charity would never forget the sight till the end of her days. She’d pulled back the living room curtains and turned on the porch light before setting herself to reassuring Uncle Franklin.

He was aging so fast. His skin hung from his jaws with the weight he’d lost in the week since she’d last seen him and he was paper-white. The bone structure beneath was easily visible. Any more weight loss and his head would resemble a skull. He ran a bony hand over his face and she could hear the rasp of his white beard stubble. “What’s taking him so long?”

Charity took his hand and winced at the tremor. “It’s only been about ten minutes since he’s gone out, Uncle Franklin, even though it feels like more,” she said gently. “Don’t worry. Nick will find her.”

At one level, the words were empty reassurance, but Charity was astounded to find that she meant it. How was that? How on earth could she be sure Nick knew what he was doing? She couldn’t. And yet every instinct she had told her that she could trust him to find her aunt.

He was a businessman who led a soft life, making money in the city. There was nothing about him that suggested he’dgrown up on a farm or hunted in some way. Most hunters, in her experience, tended towards the tedious about their guns. Nick had never once mentioned hunting or safaris or anything of the sort. What could an investment broker possibly know about tracking someone in the snow?

And yet, when he’d told her to stay put, she’d instinctively obeyed, instantly, though it went against common sense. She knew her aunt and the area around the big house, and he didn’t. If she didn’t have a bone-deep sense that if anyone could find Aunt Vera, it was him, she would never have stayed behind.

It had been an instant, a flash of something like steel. She’d met his serious, beautiful eyes, sensed the power he was keeping leashed while trying to convince her to stay put. And the moment she’d let him go out alone it was as if something had lit up inside him, as if she’d freed him somehow. Like a wild animal let out of a cage to do what it did best—hunt.

It was crazy, but it was true. There had been a blast of—something. Something almost frightening. Something potent. Primordial and utterly male. As if Nick had been infused with an otherworldly power and was only now letting it show.

She shook her head. Wow. Massive amounts of sex and lack of sleep were driving her crazy.

Still, she did what he said. A big pot of water was on the stove, almost at boiling point. Two mugs of tea with three teaspoons of sugar apiece were in the microwave, waiting to be nuked. A pile of blankets, a clean nightgown and several towels were on a kitchen chair.

“Sit down, Uncle Franklin,” Charity said gently. She guided her uncle to a chair, putting her hands lightly on his shoulders. He sat abruptly, as if she’d pushed. Or as if his legs wouldn’t carry him any more.

Head bowed, he covered his eyes with his hand, weary and despairing. His voice was a whisper. “Look out the window, honey, and tell me if you see anything.”

More to humor him than anything else, Charity walked to the kitchen window. All the outside lights were on, including the spotlight under the huge oak in the back garden. The snowstorm had left almost a foot of snow on the lawn. It had spent itself in the last hour and was now slowly abating. A few minutes ago she could barely see the oak she’d spent her childhood climbing. Now the stark, bare, black branches stood out in the field of white.

“Well? Can you see something?”

Charity turned to her uncle, pained at the dejection in his voice.Be cheery, she told herself. The last thing he needed was to hear her own desperation.

“No,” she said, injecting false confidence in her voice. “But I’m sure?—”

She broke off, peering out the window. Could it be—oh God,yes!

The lawn sloped sharply down on this side of the house so she saw his head first as he approached.

---