Book Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

JULIA FAIRCHILD peered into the inky depths smeared with stars. To have Mac Brantley’s body wrapped around hers gave enormous comfort.

Her fianc8E had kidnapped the clinical psychologist from her office at Pi96on Mesa Hospital and whisked her to the Las Cruces airport, where his Beechcraft Bonanza packed with a double sleeping bag and coolers filled with food and wine had been waiting.

Their destination, a dusty landing strip at Prewitt, New Mexico, two hundred miles to the north where a four-wheel-drive waited to take them into Ojo Redondo Campground in the Zuni Mountains not far from the Continental Divide.

And now after two bottles of wine, a thick, juicy steak, and potatoes baked over the fire, she was lying skin to skin in a sleeping bag with a man she never expected to know, staring through thick pine boughs that touched the sky, a million miles and a lifetime away from her wealthy and highly respected family with homes in Manhattan and on Long Island.

Their coming together after days of separation was intensified by Julia’s desire to assuage her nagging doubts about their future. Would she be able to leave her eastern roots behind to cleave to a family so alien to her own?

All thoughts died when Mac’s lips covered hers and their union took on a power of its own, pushing them to another compelling dimension.
It seemed as if each were trying to disappear into the other and, by doing so, protect themselves against .. . . against what?

The distant call of an owl drifted through the pines, sounding more sad than urgent, and Julia clasped Mac’s hand to tighten his arm around her, needing to feel his warmth and the steady drub of his heartbeat against her back.

She smiled into the darkness. This impromptu trip had turned out to be the perfect remedy to release the threads of doubt so tightly coiled at the bottom of her stomach.

MAC STARED at the fading embers through the red-gold screen of Julia’s curls. The night was so quiet he could hear her soft, drawn breaths as her back caressed his chest then sighed away.

There were no words to describe his new happiness. Finally, he was complete for the first time in his life. And though Julia came from a world away—one filled with old-school ties and yacht clubs—Mac recognized and appreciated the part she played in this now-perfect equation.

He had whisked Julia out of Las Cruces to this remote rendezvous, plied her with wine and food, then taken her to bed. But instead of the long, lazy loving he planned, the moment their lips met the pace accelerated and took on an urgency that thrust them together until each seemed lost in the other’s passion.

Afterward, Julia had clung to him until she fell asleep and now she lay curled inside the protection of his arms, her hand strangling his in a death-grip.
Mac kissed the nape of her neck, relishing the cool slide of her skin beneath his lips, then gathered her closer into his curve as a lazy tickle of desire stirred.

He shut his eyes and silently groaned. Why hadn’t he told Julia about Emaline Pierce when they first met? Explained his broken engagement? Gotten it out of the way? There was no one to blame but himself for his cowardly omission, which now would require a major announcement accompanied by a string of reasons for his failure to mention this woman.

Mac shook the thought away. He was blowing things out of proportion. After all, his relationship with Emaline was finished—part of the distant past.

WHEN HE heard the first low rumbling in half-sleep, a sound as familiar as the rush of the stream outside his bedroom window, Mac scrunched beneath the covers, sure that in the next few minutes he would hear the beginning ping of raindrops against the tin roof above his bed.

A flash and sharp crack followed by the first cold freshet preceding the descending storm brought him to, and he shook Julia awake.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Try to make it to the car. Too many tall trees. Perfect lightning rods.”

Mac pushed his way out of the sleeping bag toward his discarded clothing just as the advance squall-line picked up the camp stools and tumbled them to one side of the clearing. “Hurry. It’s a big one.”

He started to retrieve the stools but realized time was running out.

In the next flash Mac saw Julia dressed and trying to hang on to the wildly flapping sleeping bag.

“No. No time. Head for the car. That way. I’m right behind you.” He was shouting over the roar of the wind and hoped she understood. When he saw her veer toward the narrow cut in the rocks he hurried to follow.

There was still a difficult descent ahead. Even though the four-wheel-drive was less than half a mile away, the drop to the parking area was almost vertical and the path composed of slippery shale. Bad enough to negotiate in dry weather, but treacherous in wet.

Lightning strobed the forest in almost continuous flashes, allowing Mac to monitor Julia, who was several yards ahead. He saw her slip twice, then slide, and was flooded with relief each time she rose and plunged onward.

He fell only once, cracking his left knee against a boulder, but in spite of the excruciating pain he pressed on through the assault of wind-driven pine needles spearing his face and neck.

When he reached the clearing he saw Julia huddled against the car on the lee side of the storm. Keys. He jammed his hands into empty pockets and cursed as the first pelting drops fell. It was too late to go back and much too dangerous. The only thing he could do was try to protect Julia.
Mac hurried to kneel beside her and shouted above the churning winds. “We have to crawl under the car.”

He saw her nod and start to slide under the car when ozone stuffed his nose and the forest exploded around him, sending electricity surging through his body, throwing him backward into unconsciousness.

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