His dark ears were pricked forward, his nose in the air, his eyes seeming to lock with hers.
Oh. God.
Go away! Just go away!
Jesus Christ, she was surrounded!
Willow’s heart leapt to her throat.
The shepherd began to whine louder, advancing slowly, tail low.
Her insides turned to water.
She couldn’t outrun him, even if her ankle wasn’t throbbing, her bruised shin on fire. And where would she flee to? Backward to whatever danger was lurking beyond the trees?
Please, dog, just let me be!
She tried to pull back, duck away.
Too late!
The dog bolted.
Growling and snarling, he came, running straight at her.
No! No! No!
Willow braced herself.
A piercing whistle cut through the night.
Then the sharp command, “Ralph! Come!”
She waited, shivering, rooted to the spot.
“Leave the damned squirrels, would ya?” James ordered.
The dog whined but didn’t round the shed.
“Come!” This time louder. More authoritative.
Oh, please . . .
She waited.
Nothing.
Swallowing hard, she took a quick glance around the edge of the shed.
James was on the porch, his long frame silhouetted in the faint light from a single bulb. “That’s it. You come on, now. It’s freezing out here.”
Willow pulled back.
The dog whined plaintively.
“Leave it!” James ordered, his voice firm.
Willow’s heart was beating so fast she thought it might fly out of her chest. A nervous sweat chilled her face. What would she do if James decided to investigate why his dog was behaving oddly? What if, at this moment, he was walking this way and she’d have to explain herself? Could she say that she’d just come by to check on things after she and Sophia had put the house together? Would he buy that she left rather than bother him? She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and heard the sound of keys jangling, then the creak of a door opening.
Then, more softly, over the frustrated whine of the shepherd, James said, “That’s a good boy. Come on in, now. What’s the matter with you?”
With a soft thud, the door was closed.
Oh, thank God.
Willow sank against the rough boards of the shed.
Her pulse pounded in her temple, and she let her breath out slowly, but she couldn’t stay here another second. It was too damned dangerous. She sent a nervous glance back to the row of trees, saw nothing, and dared to look at the house again. James was turning on the lights, settling in. Patches of warm illumination from the windows reflected on the snow.
Go!
Screwing up her courage, she took off, running brokenly across the parking area to the lane. She ducked through the hedgerow of firs, then scrambled over a fence, her leg throbbing. On the far side, she took off, hobbling along the icy lane that paralleled James’s driveway, the twin ruts that led from the county road to the shop where the tiny houses were built. She’d parked her car on the far side of the inn. If she could just get there . . . She cast a glance over her shoulder, just to be certain she wasn’t being followed.
The snowy landscape was empty, almost eerily so.
Willow was alone—as she had been most of her life.
She limped along the lane, and finally the hotel and café came into view, Christmas lights sparkling, customers still searching for that perfect tree even in mid-December. Man, oh, man, she thought, crossing the parking area in front of the hotel, if she had a husband and family, she would clean up the last dish from Thanksgiving, then drive to the nearest lot, buy a tree, and decorate it immediately, to stretch out the holiday season.
Not if, Willow.When. Remember that. When you and James are married and have children . . .
She spied her car where she’d left it and felt a rush of relief.
She’d gotten away with it!
Despite the phantom voyeur and the nervous dog.
No one would ever know.
She almost smiled.
She’d go home, have a hot bath, maybe a glass of wine, and pretend she had never been inside all by herself, never lain on his sheets in his bed in his room, had never taken his gun and . . .
The gun!
Why didn’t she feel its weight in her hoodie?
Oh, no, no, no . . . She reached into her pocket, found the key to James’s house and her phone, but the pistol . . . ?
Her anxiety cranked up three notches.
Forcing herself, she double-checked every pocket.
Nothing.
The Glock was definitely missing.
She went cold inside.
Hadn’t she picked it up? Or had she dropped it when she missed the last step on the stairs?
Let it go. Just get out of here. It’s his gun anyway.
Hurrying to her car, she told herself that James might just think he’d misplaced it and she and Sophia had found it and left it. She’d explain to Sophia that she’d run back in and put it . . .
Are you nuts? That nasty, nagging voice in her head cut into her thoughts. The police searched for the gun, too. And now it has your prints all over it. How’re you going to explain that one?
She couldn’t.
She slid behind the wheel and glanced in her rearview mirror.
Round haunted eyes stared back at her.
As she started the car, the voice in her head wouldn’t shut up.
“Face it, Willow,” it taunted. “You’re screwed.”
CHAPTER 33
Sophia snapped her hair into a quick bun and glowered at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
James was slipping away.
She didn’t understand it.
But she sensed it. Like sand sifting beneath her feet in an outgoing tide, James Cahill was leaving her.
Angrily, she turned on the shower. She’d thought, stupidly, that his interest in her had begun to wane when Megan went missing, that some sense of guilt was drawing him away, but that wasn’t quite right. Nope. That wasn’t it. The real shift in his feelings had come when Rebecca had come sailing back into his life.
To find her sister.
Oh, right.
Like she even cared about Megan.
What a joke!
Wasn’t it bad enough that she had to deal
