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Widen my stance …
Take aim …
Breathe …
And pull the trigg—
I woke with a gasp,my heart pounding like thunder in my ears. Covered in sweat, I slid from the bed and perched on the edge of the mattress, disoriented in the dark room.
Where am I?
I caught a whiff of cedar.
The Bed and Breakfast, I reminded myself.Orin. I’m here with Orin.
Orin.
He wasn’t back yet, but I didn’t want him to see me like this …
Broken.
Emotionally fractured.
On the verge of falling apart.
Walking quickly into the small bathroom, I turned on the light and looked at the woman staring back at me. My skin was white, a sheen of sweat still dotting my brow. My eyes were wild, though, the memory of the dream—of thatnightmare—still had its claws in me.
I had shot a man.
I had shot a manin the head.
And now I was a fugitive with the Reaper of the Mac Tíre Clan.
On the run with a man who I was growing more and more attracted to by the day.
Closing the lid of the toilet seat, my head dropped into my hands, and I started to sob. My dreams had been plagued with reliving that moment on the stairs ever since it happened. It was getting to the point where I was terrified to close my eyes anymore.
It was just like after the attack. I hadn’t slept properly for months afterward.
“Fallon?” Orin called.
Blindly, I reached out and tried to close the bathroom door, but then he was there, shoving it back open.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, his voice hard like he was ready to tear down the world for me.
“I just need a minute,” I told him, sniffling and keeping my face turned away from him.
A beat, then a harsh, “Are youcrying?”
“No.”
Then he was crouching down in front of me. Filling the small bathroom so completely that he took up all my field of vision. With his index finger under my chin, he forced me to look at his face. His dark eyes skated between my eyes, then dipped to my trembling mouth.
“Don’t lie to me,” he ground out, his jaw tight. “What’s wrong?”
I pulled away from his intense stare, wiping the tears from my face with the back of my hand. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Is it something I did?” For some reason, he sounded mortified.
