When Lightning Strikes. Aimee Thurlo
he being taken for a ride?
“Watch yourself, Lightning.”
“Always.”
Daniel hung up the phone and went to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat. The refrigerator was nearly empty. Good thing he’d bought some supplies for them at the trading post. He went out to the SUV, brought back some canned goods, dog food and the loaf of bread he’d bought, then began to prepare some food.
The sound of shattering glass in the bedroom suddenly broke the silence and he ran down the hall, his adrenaline flowing. As he entered the room, he found Hannah with tears rolling down her face, standing on one foot and balancing herself by holding on to Wolf.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I had a nightmare,” she managed to say. “I woke up scared and somehow knocked over the lamp and broke it. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”
“It’s all right,” he said, breathing normally again.
As he looked down he saw that she was barefoot, and one foot was bleeding. “You must have stepped on some glass. Sit back down on the bed and let me get some bandages.”
Putting Wolf at stay so he wouldn’t cut himself as well, Daniel hurried to the bathroom, then came back with a small first aid kit and a dampened washcloth. Picking up Hannah’s injured foot carefully, he saw that the cut wasn’t deep and there was no glass in the wound. “You’ll be all right. It’s not very bad.” He cleaned the cut and bandaged it expertly.
As Daniel looked up from his work, he saw her expression soften. The gentleness in that gaze tore at his determination to close himself off from her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Let me get the broken glass picked up, then you can give your bandaged foot a test drive,” he said, teasing.
After the glass fragments had been discarded, he released Wolf from the “stay” command and watched Hannah take a few steps around the room.
“Good as new,” she said with a grateful smile. “Thanks.” She touched his upper arm and gave it a squeeze.
Desire, sudden and fierce, swept over him again. He nodded absently, and pretended to be only interested in her injured foot.
Her toenails were painted a pale peach color. Somehow that little detail had escaped him until now. The knowledge he’d overlooked something, even if it was insignificant, disturbed him. “Tell me about your nightmare,” he said, moving away from her to sit on the easy chair.
Hannah went back to her seat on the edge of the bed, facing him. “It was just a jumble of images and there was this bright red haze that covered everything,” she said, suppressing a shudder. “People were there but they were nothing more than bloody shapes.” Her voice broke but no more tears fell down her cheeks.
More than anything else, he wanted to wrap his arms around Hannah, but if he touched her now, he’d want to do a lot more than comfort her.
“Did you recognize anyone?” he asked.
“I didn’t see the people clearly enough for that.”
“Do you think this dream has something to do with what happened at the church?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Think back. Did anything look familiar?”
She shook her head. “It was an awful nightmare. Those bloody shapes…” She took an unsteady breath. “And there were voices and sounds that seemed to rip through me, like peals of thunder.” She held her hands against the sides of her head as if trying to push the memory back inside.
“Did the voices say anything you can recall?” He saw her shake her head, but he continued to press her. “You have to fight to get your memory back, Hannah. Do you understand? When you get dreams like these, hold them, force yourself to look at them squarely,” he said gruffly. “They might hold a clue.”
“That’s easy for you to say. But that dream was terrifying. I don’t want to hold on to it—not for anybody.”
“I’m trying to protect you. If that means forcing you to face your fears, then that’s the way it has to be.”
He saw the confusion and the pain in her eyes, and almost regretted his words. Then he remembered his conversation with Silentman. He had to stay focused. Hannah could be a one-way ticket to a hell he’d never even imagined.
She stood up slowly, gingerly putting her weight on her injured foot. “I’ll do my part,” she said, with that quiet dignity of hers that was either pure class or a great act. “You don’t have to remind me of my situation. I’m very aware of what I have to do.”
He nodded once. “Come on. It’s six-thirty and we haven’t eaten. Let’s have some food. Afterwards, we’ll try to come up with a plan of action.” Daniel walked with her to the kitchen, nuked a plate of pork and beans in the microwave, then set the dish before her along with two pieces of toast. “It’s not fancy, but it’ll have to do,” he said, getting a plate for himself.
“This is fine,” she said, munching on the toast.
After seeing her pick at the beans for a while, he realized that they were far from her favorite food.
“What other foods can’t you stand?” he asked with a grin.
She chuckled softly. “Eggplant, Brussels sprouts, and chile that’s too hot. It sets my mouth on fire.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said, offering her a can of soup to replace the beans. “When the chile kills the taste of the food, and you need a fire extinguisher, it’s too much.”
Smiling, she looked up at him, and the impact of those guileless eyes slammed through him once more. Swearing that he was going as loco as she was rumored to be, he looked down at his plate and took another forkful of beans.
“I have an idea that might give us some answers,” Hannah proposed, opening the soup and pouring it into a microwave-safe bowl. “But it’s risky.”
Daniel shrugged. “At this point, everything we do will entail risk. What’s your plan?”
“I want to go to my office at the church. I did some of their bookkeeping, mostly balancing the modest funds in their operating budget, but maybe something there will trigger my memory.”
Daniel nodded slowly. “Yeah, that thought occurred to me too, but we can’t just walk in there. You’ll be recognized. The only way we can go is if I can come up with a really good disguise for both of us. Fortunately, I have some background in that. One of my summer jobs when I was in college was working for a film company that had come to New Mexico to shoot on location. With Silentman’s help, we can get the supplies we need together, and then get going.”
“What kind of disguise do you have in mind?” she asked, setting the control on the microwave to heat her soup.
He reached past her to set the machine on, then turned her to face him. “Let me surprise you.”
IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER TEN the next day when they approached the church on foot, leaving Wolf in the SUV. “Stoop more,” he said quietly.
She did as he asked, knowing it would enhance the role they were playing—that of an elderly couple. “You put so much talcum powder in my hair to make it gray that if anyone sneezes, a cloud will lift into the air,” she muttered.
“Good. A cloud is good. Think of it as a smoke screen.”
Her loose skirt was so baggy it would have fallen to her ankles if it hadn’t been for the cloth belt she’d fashioned from the curtain tie-backs. “I feel guilty about having taken this skirt from someone’s clothesline.”
“Don’t. I left a hundred-dollar bill clipped to the line. They’ll be thrilled.”
“Those