Lover Beware 03 - After Midnight

crouched at the bottom of the stairs, and shadowed Jane to the kitchen, whining for assur-ance, keeping so close, Jane kept tripping over her.
    Jane dropped a consoling pat on her head. "Me, too, girl."
    She collected a second torch from the pantry, because the last one was outside on the lawn somewhere, and she was almost certain she'd left it turned on, so the batteries would be flat.
    The trip to the barn was unnerving. The dawn was gray and murky, the wind still strong enough that it sounded like surf pounding through the trees, and the rain drove in ghostly After Midnight
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    sheets across the yard, instantly soaking her as she crossed the open area of lawn in front of the house.
    It wasn't until she stepped onto the graveled area in front of the barn that she remembered that her feet were bare, but the sharp stones hardly registered as she picked her way across to the barn, set the torch down, and heaved at the crossbar that anchored the door closed. When she finally got the bar clear and wrenched one of the doors wide, the barn yawned, cav-ernously dark and creepy. Inside, the sound of the wind and rain was amplified, because acoustically, the barn resembled nothing so much as a steel drum.
    Jess stuck to her like glue as she navigated the piles of hay, rubbing at her legs and shivering as Jane uncoiled a length of light rope from a nail on the wall. For good measure, she grabbed a coil of baling twine as well. This much rope was overkill, but what the heck? Sooner was dangerous. It was better that he was half suffocated by rope than that he got free.
    By the time she made it back to the kitchen, her clothes were plastered to her skin and her hair trailed wetly over her cheeks and dripped down her spine. She slammed the kitchen door against the wind, the cessation of noise almost eerily abrupt. Jess shook herself, sending a flurry of droplets across the floor, while Jane selected a sharp knife from the knife block for slicing the rope. Gripping the torch more firmly, she climbed the stairs. Her pace slowed as she approached her bedroom door, apprehension knotting her belly, because it occurred to her that while she was in the barn, Sooner might have come around. Her heart thumped hard in her chest at the thought of Rider hurt or incapacitated. As a precautionary measure, she held the knife at her side so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious, although the knife would be close to useless when stacked up against a gun.
    When she paused at the open door, for a moment the tableau of Rider holding the unconscious Sooner in a neck lock on the floor was abruptly disorienting. She hadn't known what to expect, but the whole time she'd been out, searching for the rope, Rider hadn't moved. He'd kept his hold on Sooner with a tenacious, rocklike patience that sent relief pouring through her.In stark contrast to the still tableau of Rider and Sooner, her room looked like it had been the centre of a bomb blast, 230
    FIONA BRAND
    and the sheer, numbing violence of what had happened hit her all over again. Her bedroom was wrecked. Her dressing table listed to one side, the chair smashed. Broken glass, shards of porcelain, and bedclothes were strewn over the floor. One of her matching bedside lamps was on the floor—the base was whole, but the shade was crumpled beyond repair. The drapes at one window had been torn down, and the metal curtain rod was bent at a drunken angle. It was odd, but she had no memory of anything happening to the drapes.
    Rider took the rope and began cinching Sooner’s wrists and ankles up tight.
    Jane studied the unconscious man's face. He was in his forties, not unhandsome, his shoulders bulky, as if he worked out. One eye was swollen, and his lip was cut. Other than that, he simply appeared to be unconscious. "Is he all right?"
    Rider rose to his feet, and she noticed the reddened patches
    -on his torso where he'd been hit. "I pressed on his carotid and restricted the flow of blood to his brain. He's not hurt, just unconscious."
    His gaze slid over her as if he had to reassure himself that she was okay, then he pulled her into his arms. "You're wet.
    What are you trying to do to me?"
    She touched the split on his cheekbone, then used the wet sleeve of her shirt to dab at the blood. "In case you haven't noticed, we're still in the middle of a storm."
    "I had my mind on other things."
    "Uh-huh, and now the bedroom's wrecked."
    "There's a bed at my place. Once we get rid of this turkey, will you