Gift of Gold

elongating, taking on the shape of a dark tunnel.
    Someone was in that tunnel with her. She couldn’t see him yet, but she knew he was hunting her. Soon he would reach out for her. If he caught her she would never escape.
    Her whole future would be altered if the hunter in the dark corridor found her.
    Verity stood frozen in the center of the room, desperately trying to understand what was happening to her.
    Panic attack,
she thought frantically. The abrupt onset of an irrational fear that triggered the ancient fight-or-flight mechanism in the human body. She’d never had one, but she had heard about them. She knew other women who had experienced them. The attacks struck without warning, leaving the victim shaking with an anxiety that had no known source. Stress was sometimes blamed. Perhaps Jonas was right. Maybe she had been working too hard lately.
    In her mind she turned a corner in the tunnel taking shape and started to run. There was no end to the corridor; no light ahead. But she ran regardless, because anything was safer than staying to confront the hunter who pursued her. Already she could feel him coming closer, hands reaching for her.
    “
Don
’
t run from me. You belong to me. Don
’
t run.
”
    The words echoed in her mind, part command and part plea. She thought she should be able to recognize that voice. It was rough, male, and full of power. And it only made her want to flee faster through the corridor. She had to get out of there.
    Then, without any warning, the curving walls and the sense of being pursued disintegrated. Verity was abruptly, violently aware of Jonas, who stood perfectly still beside her. He was no longer holding one of the pistols. He had returned it to the case. But he was looking at her with his strange golden eyes. There was a raw, unleashed hunger in that gaze. It was both undeniably sexual and much more, indefinable and dangerous and compelling.
    The room around Verity looked exactly as it had a moment ago. Nothing had changed, although she was dazed. Something felt terribly, horribly different. In a way she couldn’t explain, she sensed that her world would never be quite the same again.
    “The gun is genuine,” Jonas said in a voice that sounded unnaturally calm. “As Verity told you, my field is the Renaissance, but I know enough about old weapons to tell you that you’ve got a very valuable set of pistols there. Take care of them, Emerson. They’re worth a great deal of money.”
    “I guess my daughter was right,” Emerson said cheerfully. “Luck follows the virtuous. Now all I have to do is figure out how to turn these pistols into cash. Well, it’s been a long day. What do you say we all hit the sack? I could use a night’s sleep, and Verity here looks a little washed out. What’s the matter, Red? Haven’t you been getting enough sleep lately?”
    “She works too hard and she doesn’t eat properly,” Jonas said. His eyes never left her face. “Come on, Verity, I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”
    She wanted to refuse. The panic attack, or whatever it was, seemed to have vanished with as little warning as that with which it had materialized, but a lingering uneasiness remained.
    Some part of her was almost certain that Jonas Quarrel was the source of her uneasiness. Yet, when he took her hand and led her outside into the night, Verity followed without protest.

 
    Chapter Five
     
    “Are you all right?” Jonas asked quietly. His fingers closed around Verity’s hand as he guided her through the trees along the barely visible path that led to her cabin.
    “Of course,” Verity mumbled, taking deep breaths of the crisp night air. Jonas’s grip felt strong and reassuring. He seemed to be communicating some of his quiet strength to her. Verity tried to drink it into herself without being too obvious about it. “Why shouldn’t I be all right?” She concentrated on the familiar sights and sounds of the night around her.
    Everything was utterly normal here at Sequence Springs. The wind rustled in the trees. Scattered lights gleamed along the shoreline. The glow from her cabin window was warm and welcoming. Now and then the distant sound of an automobile engine rumbled briefly, then faded.
    Everything was normal. She was normal. She was just fine.
    “Your father was right,” Jonas said slowly. “You looked a little washed out back there in the cabin. Sure you’re okay?”
    “I told you, I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. Having Dad