Morning Light (4 page)

His jet-black hair needed a cut, lying in lazy waves over his forehead and caressing the collar of his shirt under the brim of his hat. His features, burnished to teak by exposure to the sun, might have been chiseled from granite, the blade-sharp bridge of his nose jutting out from between thick black eyebrows, high cheekbones underscoring his intense brown eyes. His square jawline, roped with muscle, angled to a deeply cleft chin.

What was it about cowboys that so many women found sexy? For the life of her, Loni couldn't figure it out. Born and raised in the greater Seattle area, she preferred men in dress shirts, khaki slacks, and slip-on loafers. But she had to admit, if only to herself, that no man in the city had ever made her feel the way she did now. Everything about Clint Harrigan screamed “masculine,” and everything feminine within her responded.

His truck was as rugged-looking as he was, a big, high-clearance vehicle with huge knobby tires, a long wheelbase, and a grill guard and winch attached to the front bumper. Inside the four-door cab, a gun rack hung over the rear window, a lethal-looking rifle cradled in one set of brackets. What kind of man kept a weapon in his pickup? In Washington some private citizens had permits to carry concealed, but Loni couldn't recall a single instance when she'd actually seen a gun, unless it was holstered at the hip of a policeman or security guard.

Unaware that he was being watched, Harrigan opened the rear door on the driver's side of the truck, deposited his beer and frozen dinners on the seat, and then paused to slip a small, round can from the back pocket of his jeans. Loni stared in bewildered wonder as he cupped the can in the half circle of his thumb and forefinger, then sharply flicked his wrist to tap the lid. Chewing tobacco. Just the
thought
made her want to gag. He tucked a pinch inside his lower lip.
Nasty.
Didn't he know that stuff caused mouth cancer? He wouldn't be so handsome with half of his lower jaw surgically removed.

He glanced in her direction just then.
Oh, God.
Loni dropped lower on the seat, hoping he couldn't see her. Why, she didn't know. She had as much right to be in the parking lot as he did. She felt like a silly adolescent girl spying on a boy. His dark eyes swept past her Suburban and then swung back. He nudged up the brim of the Stetson and seemed to stare directly at her for a second. Then he frowned, tugged the hat back down, and swung up into the truck with the ease of a man who'd mounted a horse thousands of times.

Loni's heart was pounding like a kettledrum. She shrank even lower on the seat as his diesel truck rumbled by. Her dream cowboy. He was
real.
Though she'd always known that, deep down, it still came as a shock to actually see him in the flesh.

After he drove away Loni sat there for a long while, trying to regain her composure and right her senses. When she finally felt safe to drive, she headed straight home. Once locked inside the small house, she collapsed on the russet sofa, so exhausted she could barely move. Clint Harrigan. His image was still so vivid in her mind that she could see the crow's-feet that fanned out from the corners of his eyes and the deep creases that bracketed his mouth.

Two months ago, when she'd first envisioned him here in this house, her only thought had been to avoid meeting him. Now she had a far more complicated problem: how to let him know his son was in mortal danger without jeopardizing the new life she was trying to create for herself in Crystal Falls. If she spoke to him on the phone, he might have caller ID. She could try the blocking code that the phone company had sent her, but what if it didn't work? Besides, how likely was he to believe a crazy psychic who telephoned him out of the blue? No. A face-to-face conversation would be better, only then he'd see her face. The consequences of that could be disastrous.

Worrying about it was giving Loni a headache, so she decided to let the problem ride for a few minutes. Sometimes she did her best thinking when she let go and thought about something else.

She pushed up from the sofa, kicked off her pumps, and walked barefoot to the kitchen. After putting the teapot on to boil, she let Hannah in from the backyard. Loose jowls wet with drool, the golden mastiff sniffed Loni's slacks like a jealous wife searching for the scent of strange perfume.

“No, I haven't been petting any other dogs,” Loni said with a tremulous laugh that brought her perilously close to tears.

It wasn't easy to watch two people die. A part of Loni wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. Only what kind of person could witness a tragedy and then push it from her mind? Loni's mother and grandmother had tried to teach her how to distance herself from what she saw during visions, but so far Loni hadn't mastered the techniques.
Pretend it's something on television
, her mother, Annabel, lectured.
Hold part of yourself back
, her grandmother Aislinn advised. Only Loni couldn't do it. When she touched certain things the visions slammed into her mind with stunning force and without any warning. She never had time to brace herself or distance herself emotionally.

Part of the problem—in fact,
most
of the problem—was the extraordinary power of Loni's gift. The strawberry marks on her mother's and grandmother's napes were pale pink, while hers was a deep crimson. The mark suggested Loni's psychic abilities were multifaceted and much stronger than theirs. During their visions they saw everything in black and white, and they couldn't often pick up on many details. Loni's visions were in living color, blindingly bright and brutally real. She didn't only
see
; she
felt
people's pain and terror.

Today in the grocery store, she'd felt the shock of the ice-cold water when little Trevor had plunged into the river, then his panic as he'd fought his way to the surface. Then she'd felt the awful numbness in his limbs as the frigid rapids pummeled him, driving the chill deep into his bones. How could she distance herself from that?

Even worse, how could she stop thinking about it?

Trevor's clothing would be wet now, and soon night would close in. If he was somewhere in central Oregon, and Loni felt certain he was, the temperatures would abruptly drop when the sun went down, possibly to below freezing before daylight tomorrow. How would the little guy survive?

Desperate to chase the frightening possibilities from her mind, Loni crouched down to touch noses with Hannah. Everyone in the MacEwen family had argued against Loni's purchasing a Fila Brasileiro mastiff. The breed was renowned for being fiercely loyal, protective of their masters, and sometimes vicious. Hannah had proved everyone right on the first two counts; even at only thirteen months she was suspicious of strangers and diligently guarded Loni's safety. But vicious? Hannah had a sweet, loving nature and would never hurt anyone without good reason.

“You're a dear heart, aren't you?” Loni murmured as she ruffled the dog's floppy ears and folded her loose jowls up over her nose. “Just look how wonderful you are with Deirdre's little boys, and all the neighbor kids as well. You aren't mean. No, you aren't. You're Mama's precious girl. Yes, you are.”

Loni sat back on her heels and grinned. In addition to the fact that Hannah made her feel safe when nightmares of Cheryl Blain brought her screaming awake, the mastiff had also become one of her best friends. Hannah never criticized or passed judgment. Her love was strong, steadfast, and without condition.

“We're a team,” Loni whispered to her dog. “It's just you and me, baby.”

As Loni looped her arms around the mastiff's thick neck, a brilliant white light flared before her eyes, and the next instant she was no longer in the kitchen but in rocky terrain peppered with pine trees. For a moment she felt confused and disoriented, but then her senses sharpened and she saw little Trevor huddled near a large boulder, the faithful Nana sitting beside him.

“You're my best friend,” the child said to the dog. “We'll take care of each other. Huh, Nana?”

Loni felt the ache of cold in Trevor's feet, the icy stiffness of his soaked clothing. The smell of wet dog filled her nostrils. All around her, it was dark—oh, so very dark. Only the sliver of a waning quarter moon lit the landscape.

“I need Boo,” Trevor whimpered.

Boo was the child's stuffed bear with tattered ears and a snub tail that he'd teethed on as a toddler. At home Trevor always needed his night-light on, with Boo and Nana cuddled close before he could go to sleep. Loni wasn't sure how she knew that. Her gift had always been strong, but never before had she seen and felt things quite this intensely.

Small body shuddering, the child whispered, “I'm cold, Nana. I'm so cold.”

Still damp from the river, the Saint Bernard whined and licked the child's face.

“I want my mom and dad,” Trevor cried as he hugged the huge dog's neck. “I had on my life jacket. How come you didn't save them instead of me?”

Loni's heart caught at the sound of the child's sobs. She wanted to catch him up in her arms and hold him tight, only she couldn't. Then the scene changed, and other images of the boy and dog flashed and swirled through her mind like the changing patterns of a kaleidoscope, all glazed with red. Loni knew what that meant. Blood. Soon it would come, lots and lots of blood.

The shrill whistle of the teapot jerked Loni back to the present. Running her hand along the wall to stay steady on her feet, she hurried to the stove to lift the pot from the burner. The unexpected lightness of the vessel startled her. The water had boiled nearly dry. How long had she been lost in another reality? Several minutes, at least, possibly as much as a quarter hour.

She became filled with alarm. In the past she'd zoned out long enough for people around her to notice, but never for several minutes on end. More important, she'd touched nothing to bring on the episode.

This wasn't right; it wasn't right at all.

Hannah whined up at her. Loni was shaking almost as violently as little Trevor had been. “I'm okay,” she assured the dog. “It's okay.”

Only it
wasn't
okay. She might have had a skillet of food on a burner and started a fire. Always before, her waking visions had come to her only when she'd made physical contact with a person or a possession imbued with an individual's essence.

Frightened by the implications, Loni called her mother. The moment Annabel heard Loni's story, she asked, “Is this the only time it's happened?”

“Yes. I, um…” Shoving a hand into her hair and making a hard fist, Loni tried to think. “No,” she amended. “The day I rented the house I had a waking vision of Clint Harrigan in the living room. At the time I wasn't worried about not touching anything to bring it on. I was more concerned that the vision might mean I was about to meet him, and I didn't want that.”

“This isn't right,” her mom said, echoing Loni's thoughts. “I've never in my life had a vision without something to cue me. What if you'd been driving?”

That possibility had already occurred to Loni. “What am I going to do, Mom?”

Annabel fell quiet. Then she said, “Let me call Gram. She's much more knowledgeable about all this stuff than I am.”

A few minutes after Loni ended the conversation, the phone rang. She picked up on the first ring, knowing it was her grandmother.

Aislinn MacDuff said, “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish. How many times have you had visions without touching anything to bring them on?”

“Once this evening, and once a couple of months ago. I'm worried, Gram. It's never happened like this before. Suddenly my gift is more out of control than usual. How can I protect myself if the visions start coming to me willy-nilly?”

“I'm worried, too. When I have a vision, this reality is eclipsed by what I'm seeing in my mind. I'm unaware of anything happening around me until it's over.”

Loni nodded. “I normally zone out for only a few seconds. This time the teapot almost boiled dry. I'm guessing fifteen minutes, give or take, and the only thing I'd touched was Hannah.”

“This is very serious, Loni. Until it stops, you shouldn't go out.”

“I can't do that, Gram. They just finished remodeling my shop this week, and I'm right in the middle of moving in. I'd like to get open for business as fast as possible.”

“You have the proceeds from the sale of your house to cover you financially until you get the shop opened. A couple more weeks won't send you into bankruptcy.”

“True, but needlessly squandering my capital doesn't make good business sense.”

“It's dead you'll be if you're behind the wheel of a car when a
sicht veesion
blinds you!”

Aislinn MacDuff had lived in the States for most of her adult life and had lost nearly all her Scottish accent. She backslid only when she grew extremely upset or angry. The fact that she'd used the phrase
sicht vession
, a Scottish term for vision, suggested just how agitated she was.

Loni sank onto a chair. “Maybe I'm overreacting and it won't happen again.”