Page 44 of The Desperate Warrior

The next second, she was running.

Ignoring the pain, she pumped her legs faster, but the man was on her heels. His footfalls were echoes in an empty chamber—impossibly loud. Thunderous even.

"Jules!"

The screech of her name ripped through the air, cutting through the chaos.

“Oh, no. Oh, no!” For a second, Jules thought she was the one repeating the phrase, but it was someone else.

She bolted upright in bed with a scream, gasping for breath.

For a moment, she couldn’t orient herself. Darkness pressed in from all sides. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs, a sticky sweat drenching her skin.

“Oh, no.” Nikki was standing at the foot of the bed. Her hands went over her mouth.

It pinged through Jules’s mind that Nikki’s panicked words had penetrated her dream. She looked around in a daze, trying to figure out what was happening. Then, she saw the jagged edge of a tree limb piercing through the window of her bedroom. Theblinds were a tangled mess of slats and strings with rain blowing in.

Jules pressed a trembling hand to her chest, willing her heart to slow down. It was just a dream.

But the terror—the smell of smoke—the flash of metal—the memories clung to her, refusing to fade. For a second, she was thrust back into the car, and the man was coming towards her.

Wait.

The man.

He had a gun.

She searched her brain. There was something she was supposed to remember about his feet or the way he walked. What was it?

A rapid succession of footfalls sounded before Brock came bursting in with Luke close on his heels.

“What happened?” Brock glanced around as if ready to act. Then he saw the tree. He looked from Nikki to Jules. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Jules sighed, still trying to control the trembling in her body. “We’re okay.”

Urgency coated Brock’s voice. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Numbly, Jules scrambled out of bed.

“The power’s out,” Nikki exclaimed in dismay.

A little while later—after she and Nikki had gotten situated in the living room with candles lit to stave off the darkness—Jules turned to Brock, who was sitting next to her on the couch.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Her heart quickened as scenes from the nightmare flashed through her mind.

He shifted towards her, waiting. The only indicator of his readiness for her to spill the news was the slight twitch of his jaw muscle. His masculine features were sharper than normal in the flickering light from the candles. Being here with him like this was surreal.

“Something came back to me in a dream.” She hugged her arms, wishing she could go back to before—before Lisa Randall died after surgery. Before Brock broke her heart. Before her body was injured and hurting. Before terror was eating away at her and threatening to be her undoing. “The hit-and-run wasn’t random,” she said hoarsely. “It was Steve Randall, and he wants to kill me.”

Chapter 11

The next day dawned bright and sunny, a massive relief after the harrowing night before. Jules had never been so grateful to see sunlight pierce through the clouds.

She and Brock had started out on opposite sides of the couch, with Nikki and Luke making pallets on the floor. Brock had offered to also sleep on the floor, but Jules felt bad for ousting him from his place on the couch. She suggested that they both sleep in lounging positions with their legs and feet resting on the coffee table instead of lying flat. Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, Jules must have shifted in her sleep. When she woke up, she was tucked securely in Brock’s arms.

Mortification swept over her. She scrambled to pull away, only to realize she had drool running down the side of her mouth. Hastily, she wiped it off and moved a respectable distance away from him, trying not to dwell on how wonderful it had been to be held in his strong, capable arms. When Brock was holding her, she could almost believe that everything would be okay.

Mom called first thing to make sure they were all okay. When Jules told her about the tree coming through her bedroom window, Mom let out a gasp. This incident was only going tomake her even more terrified of storms. Mom insisted that she and Dad come over at once, especially when she learned that the power was still out, but Jules assured her that they had the situation under control. Err … Brock and Luke had it under control.

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