Angels Fall

her pocket, realizing she couldn't hear the dog barking anv longer, or any rumble from cars driving on the main road of town. Just the breeze moving through the trees like a quiet surf, and that hissing bubble and plop from the stream.
    "Maybe I should live in a forest. Find myself a little isolated cabin, grow some vegetables. I could be a vegetarian." she considered as she-took a running leap across the narrow stream. "Okay, probably not. I could probably learn to fish. I'd buy a pickup and go into town once a month for supplies."
    She began to imagine it, painting the image in her head. Not too far from the water, not too deep in the mountains. Lots and lots of windows so it would be almost like living outside.
    "I could start my own business. Little cottage industry. Cook all day, sell the products. Do it all over the Internet, maybe. Never leave the house. And end up adding agoraphobia to my list.
    No, she'd live in the forest—that part was good—but she'd work in town. It could even be here, and she'd keep working for Joanie.
    "Give it a few weeks, that's the best thing. See how it goes. Get out of that hotel, that's for damn sure. That's not going to work for very long. Where else though, that's a problem. Maybe I'll see about—"
    She let out a yelp, stumbled back and neatly landed on her ass.
    It was one thing to run into a mule deer and another entirely to come across a man lying in a hammock with a paperback splayed over his chest.
    He'd heard her coming—hard not to, he thought, when she was holding a verbal debate with herself. He'd assumed she'd turn off toward the lake, but instead she veered straight toward his hammock, eyes on the toes of her barely scuffed hiking boots. So he set his book down to watch her.
    Urban female picking her way through the wilderness, he mused. L.L. Bean backpack and boots, Levi's that at least showed some wear, water bottle.
    Was that her cell phone sticking out of her pocket? Who the hell was she going to call?
    She'd scooped her hair back, looping the tail of it through the back opening in the black cap she wore. Her face was pale, the eyes huge and startled, and a deep, rich Spanish brown.
    "Lost?"
    "No. Yes. No." She looked around as if she'd just dropped in from another planet. "I was just taking a walk. I didn't realize. I must be trespassing."
    "You must be. You want to wait here a minute, while I go get my gun?"
    "Not really. Um. That's your cabin, I guess."
    "That gives you two for two."
    "It's nice." She studied it for a moment, the simple log structure, the long sweep of the covered porch with its single chair, single table. It was a lovely thing, she decided. A single chair, a single table.
    "Private," she added. "I'm sorry."
    "I'm not. I like it private."
    "I meant… well, you know what I meant." She took a deep breath, twisting and untwisting the cap on her bottle of water. It was easier for her with strangers. It had come to be the pitying, the concerned glances of those she knew she'd been unable to bear.
    "You're doing it again. Staring at me. It's rude."
    He lifted an eyebrow. She'd always admired people who could do that, as if that single brow had an independent set of muscles. Then he reached down, unerringly hooked a bottle of beer. "Who decides that kind of thing? What's rude in any given culture?"
    "The PRS."
    It only took him a moment. "The Prevention of Rudeness Society? I thought they disbanded."
    "No, they continue their good work, in secret locations."
    "My great-grandfather was a member of the PRS, but we don't talk about it much seeing as he was a complete asshole."
    "Well, you'll have this in any family or group. I'll let you get back to your reading."
    She took a step back, and he debated whether to ask her if she wanted a beer. Since it would have been an almost unprecedented gesture, he'd already decided against it when a sharp sound blasted the air.
    She hit the dirt, throwing her arms up to cover her head like a soldier in a trench.
    His first reaction was amusement. City girl . But he saw; when she neither moved nor made a sound, it was more than that. He swung his legs off the hammock, then crouched down.
    "Backfire," he said easily. "Carl Sampson's truck. It's a wreck on wheels.
    "Backfire."
    He could hear her murmur it over and over as she trembled.
    "Yeah, that's right." He put a hand on her arm to steady her, and she tightened up.
    "Don't. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't. I just need a minute.
    "Okay." He got up to