Page 184 of Beat of Love
Rafferty thundered down the stairs and out the door, racing after the coyote. “Stop! Don’t take her!” he called, repeatedly.
There! It was in the pasture.
His legs churned faster. But the coyote stayed just ahead of him.
Not again. Not again.
“Not losing Sinead. Not again,” he muttered.
The coyote turned. “You can’t stop me!” it taunted.
But it wasn’t a baby in the animal’s arms.
It was a young child with dark wispy hair.
The coyote cackled and threw the child into the air.
“Nadie!” he screamed, running toward the small form tumbling about in the air. But he lost sight of her.
One moment she was there, plummeting to the ground.
And then just gone.
“No!”
The coyote appeared before him, blocking his path to find her. He reached out and took hold of the beast.
“Where is she? Where’s Nadie? What did you do to her?” he shouted.
The animal’s head came off in their struggle.
He stared at the mask dangling in from his hand, dumbfounded.
Someone laughed. A nasty, nasty laugh.
He looked up.
Straight into cold hard eyes.
Kamila.
“She’s mine now,” the woman sneered.
Rafferty’s eyes snapped open. Darkness pressed in around him. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Kamila had Sinead—
No.
A dream.
Just a dream.
A fucking dream.
Nadie!
He flung the sheet aside and surged from the bed. Shaking the vestiges of the nightmare from his mind, he crossed the hallway from the bedroom he now occupied to be near the kids into Nadie’s, his eyes zeroing in on the little form under the duvet.
