Prey

listening to the rain fall hard on the tent. Then he ate another protein bar and drank a bottle of water. He really, really wanted something hot to eat, but that wasn’t possible just yet. So he drank the water and tried not to think about coffee. He chewed on the bar and tried not to notice how shitty it tasted, how the texture was more like sticky sawdust than real food. Still, with every second that passed, his body eased, welcoming the warmth and dryness.

He’d never felt so alone. Except for the horse in the corral, he hadn’t seen anyone or anything out in this mess, not even a bird. Everyone-man, woman, and beast-was holed up in some kind of shelter, waiting out the big rain.

But animals still had to eat, didn’t they, whether it rained or not? Maybe that meant they’d come out at night. He thought of bears and cougars prowling around outside his tent and nervously he got his rifle and put it within easy reach. God, he was so tired. He couldn’t stay awake another miserable night. He had to get some sleep tonight, or he’d be unable to function tomorrow even if the sun came out and the land miraculously dried up.

But he was afraid to sleep, afraid he’d conk out so completely that a bear would be in the tent chewing on him before he woke. He sat on the mattress, and kind of zoned out, thoughts flitting through his brain but not really stopping for him to examine them.

He wondered if the three horses he’d left tied up under the overhang had managed to shake free or if they were still there, waiting for him to return.

He wondered if the bear had come back to finish eating what was left of Mitchell Davis while he’d been trying, and failing, to make his escape.

He wondered if it was possible that Angie had succeeded where he’d failed, if she’d made it off the mountain today, or at least covered some significant ground. She might’ve found the horses, though that was a long shot.

Maybe she knew a shortcut; maybe she was tougher than he’d thought. She might be at Lattimore’s. Unlikely, but he needed to have a plan for every contingency…

He almost laughed at that one. How could he possibly have planned for a killer bear and the storm of the century?

He had to keep going, though; he was much more afraid of Davis’s associates than he was of the cops. He sure as hell didn’t want to be arrested, but he’d rather take on a bear and the law together than, well, he knew what Davis’s thugs had done to people who crossed him, and he knew that Davis himself had had to answer to someone even higher up the food chain, someone who was likely even more brutal. He had to disappear, and that was that. Even in prison, he wouldn’t be safe.

His best bet for getting out of the country was still his original plan. He couldn’t take the chance of heading in a different direction and trying to rent or steal a vehicle somewhere else. Hell, this was Montana. He might end up in some godforsaken part of the state where days passed without a vehicle being seen… kind of like the part where he was now.

He’d stick to what he thought would work best. He needed the SUV; it was rented in his name, so if he got stopped by some traffic cop for not using his turn signal or some other stupid-ass shit, there wouldn’t be any problem. Besides, he’d waded through shit, literally, and stuck his hand in some disgusting things to get the keys out of Davis’s pocket. He wasn’t going to back down now.

If by some chance Angie had made it there before him, and she had men waiting for him, well, it wasn’t like this was a city, or even a town, so how many of them could there be? He had a rifle and a pistol, and he wasn’t afraid to use either of them. Once he made it off the mountain, he’d be smart and cautious and scout out the situation before he showed himself. If someone else was there, waiting for him, he’d look scared. He’d look helpless. After years of practice, he was good at that. He’d beg for mercy, maybe he’d even cry, tell them it was all a mistake and Davis had been about to kill him, it was self-defense, and he hadn’t really shot at Angie at all, he’d seen the bear and panicked… yeah, that was good. And he was good enough that he could make even Angie doubt herself. And then, when they thought he wasn’t a threat, he’d kill them all. He didn’t have a problem with that. And if anyone thought he would, tough shit for them.

He could feel himself drifting. He was so tired, he knew he was punch drunk. He had to get some sleep, or die.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Fifteen minutes, that was all he needed, just fifteen minutes to recharge his batteries. Not sleep, not really, he couldn’t afford to be entirely out of it, but if he could just close his eyes…

Chapter Twenty-two

As dreams went, this one sucked. Angie was awake just enough to know that she was dreaming, but was unable to pull herself out of it. No good could come of any dream that wouldn’t let go, that kept pulling her down-

She was facedown in the mud. She was suffocating. Mud was in her eyes, up her nose, and every time she tried to take a breath she choked on the vile stuff. She struggled to breathe, to see, but everything was dark. She didn’t know where she was or how she was going to get out of this. Panic pounded through her like drumbeats, she had to get out, get out, get out… She fought, clawing, to move forward, to lift her head out of the stinking muck, but no matter how hard she tried she didn’t gain any ground, couldn’t fight free. Cold mud threatened to swallow her whole, to suck her down into the earth.

Being caught like this made her so angry. She wasn’t afraid of drowning; there were worse things than being stuck in the mud, and if she couldn’t get out of here those worse things would be there any minute. A murderer and a bear were coming for her. She couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them, but she knew they were close. Behind her. Ahead of her. All around. They were coming for her.

And then the mud changed. What had been dark, smelly muck changed to something sweet and white. Straining every muscle in her neck, Angie was able to lift her head. Right in front of her was a yellow rose made of cake icing. Breathing hard, she licked her lips, tasted the white stuff that covered her from head to toe. Not mud: icing. Icing from her wedding cake was in her eyes and her nose and her mouth, between her fingers, between her toes. But why was she barefoot? Where were her boots?

She shuddered. The icing was worse than the mud, because it was wrong, it shouldn’t be there. She tried to shake it away, but the stuff clung, coating her. Cold chills rippled down her spine. Moving in this sea of icing was more difficult than it had been to move in the mud.

She was trapped.

And behind her, an animal growled.

Angie wrenched herself out of the dream and into a sitting position, gasping for breath, and of course banging her damn ankle in the process. A sharp cry escaped before she could stop it, as if her sudden movements alone weren’t enough to wake the man with whom she was sleeping.

Sleeping with Dare Callahan. Now, there were four words she’d never thought she’d string together in a sentence, in any context.

“What’s wrong?” he growled, the sound slow and soothing, unlike the growl in her dream. She needed the calm he offered, she needed the solid warmth of his body close beside her, anchoring her in reality. What a stupid, disturbing dream!

“Just a bad dream.” She tried to shake it off, to forget the images. Gingerly she rubbed at her ankle, trying to soothe the ache.

“What was it about?” He sat up, turned on the lantern.

After almost total darkness, the white light made her squint. Angie eased herself back down. “Nothing much.” She didn’t need to analyze the dream to know what it meant, or why she’d had it. She also didn’t want to explain why she’d had a nightmare about wedding cake. That was so stupid. The mud, the bear, Chad… that would all make sense to him. Wedding cake? Not so much.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe it’ll help to talk about it.”

She glanced at him, and-Oh, holy shit! He wasn’t wearing a shirt. She could have