Page 56 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

The crack that may or may not be a gun.

Rocco’s blood.

My pulse quickens. I breathe until it returns to something close to normal. The images belong to the vision. The fear belongs partly to me and partly to whatever I touched through the cash box. I cannot separate every strand yet, but I find the edges of myself again.

I am Loralee Tilsby.

I am standing in a quiet cabin in the Colorado mountains.

My hands are clean.

Rocco is alive.

When I open my eyes, sunlight falls through the window across the scarred wooden floor. Dust moves inside the beam. Outside, wind passes through the pines with a hush that sounds nothing like a crowd running in panic.

I remain still until the quiet no longer feels empty.

Forty minutes have passed when I text Rocco.

You may return to your own cabin.

His answer appears immediately.

Are you feeling better?

Yes

Certain?

Mostly

That answer doesn't match yes

It's the only one you’re getting

Chapter 10

Loralee

The door opens less than five minutes later. Rocco carries a paper bag in one hand and a cardboard tray with two covered cups in the other. His gaze finds me sitting at the kitchen table, and the tension in his shoulders eases by a degree.

“I thought you were downhill.”

“I walk quickly.”

“You brought food.”

“I bought dinner for myself. The second sandwich is available if you want it.”

I look inside the bag. “You bought the one with roasted vegetables.”

“It was listed first.”

“And no onions.”

“They overwhelm everything else.”

I take out the sandwich. “You remembered.”