Chapter Three
Honor
The blaringalarm jolted me from the sweet dream I’d been having. Eyes scrunched tight; I patted my hand across the bedside table until I located the target.
Smack.
Blessed silence followed.
Blackout curtains and extra window tint kept any sunlight from entering the room. Judging by the darkness, it could easily be midnight outside.
Although it wasn’t.
It was only six p.m. I had an hour to get ready to have dinner with my sisters. That was plenty of time to make some coffee and get my day started. My mornings were other people’s typical evening hours. I didn’t sleep after six if I could help it. When I did, I’d end up running smack-dab into danger. The kind of danger that meant losing my freedom.
It was better this way. He stayed out of my life, and I stayed out of his, and neither of us would ever get hurt or feel the pain I knew would follow.
I grabbed my phone on the bedside table and opened my messages. I had three from my sisters.
“Honor, don’t be late.”
“We’ll track you down if you are.”
Yada, yada, yada.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my sisters. Most of the time.
I slid out of the bed, showered, and got ready for the rehearsal dinner. There would be no reason to run tonight. No threats of not getting enough sleep and chancing a run-in with the mysterious man that haunted my dreams. Nope. No chance at all.
A half-hour later, I’d gotten a text from the bride-to-be saying dinner was canceled because of the weather. Faith had asked us all to stay home and be safe instead of trying to travel on the roads.
I peered out the window down the long dirt driveway. Standing water waved in the wind and was rising steadily with the downpour.
Living in the woods had its perks. Most of the time.
Except for when it came to drainage and other upkeep. Then we were like the red-headed stepchildren of the community. It was times like these that the broken tree limbs, which were a month away from getting cleared, would cause problems depending on how long it rained.
Last time it rained, I’d had to wade through water that reached up to my calves.
Still, the perks outweighed my concerns.
There were no neighbors to deal with. My sisters had to go a bit more out of their way to visit, and I just liked the sheer quietness of it all.
The moon was hidden behind angry rain clouds, making it darker than normal as rain pelted down, saturating everything it touched.
I stepped away from the window and walked into the kitchen to start coffee. I was in for a long relaxing night of reading and drinking coffee in front of a cozy fire thanks to Mother Nature.
Just as I settled in with a cup of coffee, a blanket for my lap, and a book in front of the fire, a knock sounded on the door, making my heart stutter.
Tossing the cover off, I walked to the door. “Whichever sister is at my door better have a good reason for…” I yanked the door open.
A man fell into my arms. I staggered under his weight and lost my fight to stay upright. We landed in a heap on the foyer floor.
“Help me.” His words were whispered and laced with pain. His familiar face made my heart race. The one man I’d been running from had me pinned to the floor. I struggled harder to shove him off me, his eyes rolled back into his head and his body went limp.
“Hey,” I said, shaking him. “Wake up.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t even moan. He wasn’t going to be any help getting me out of this predicament.
