Force of the Falcon. Rita Herron

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СКАЧАТЬ incubator where they’d placed her premature newborn. She’d been born six weeks early, and weighed only three pounds. She had struggled for days with her breathing. And then the tests…

      Hours of endless waiting. Days of not knowing. Stan’s denial.

      Then his withdrawal.

      As if only the perfect in society deserved love.

      She’d fought against hating him then. Not for herself but for the infant who needed him. And last night she’d come so close to losing her baby again….

      She had to go home. Tuck Katie into bed, touch her and know that they were both still alive.

      She beeped the nurses’ station and begged the RN to persuade the doctor to release her. Katie needed her tonight, and she needed to be with her in their own house.

      Even though she was beginning to wonder if the house was haunted. Had it had been built on tainted land as rumors in Tin City claimed? Land where evil bled through the ground and rose to leak a sinister danger in the walls.

      Dr. Waverman, a physician she had worked with more than once when she’d worked the ER rotations, stepped into the room. He was midthirties, had sandy brown hair, hazel eyes, and had displayed more than a passing interest in her since she’d accepted a job with Tin City’s only rescue squad unit.

      And although he seemed nice, she hadn’t felt any sexual sparks or interest in return.

      Maybe she had cut herself off from men because she was afraid. Her parents’ marriage had failed. Hers had ended bitterly.

      Everyone she loved deserted her.

      She’d even convinced herself that she was past feeling anything for any man.

      Then why had she felt a connection with Brack Falcon? Why had her skin tingled and her body felt drawn to him?

      Because he saved your life.

      It was only natural.

      “Sonya.” Dr. Waverman looked up from her chart. “I think you need to rest at least twenty-four hours before going home. You lost a lot of blood.”

      “I’m fine, Doctor Waverman. I can’t sleep here, especially since I would have to leave Katie all night.”

      “Sonya, please call me Aaron. And it won’t hurt Katie to spend a night with Margaret.” He paused, giving her a concerned look. “It’s healthy for children and parents to spend time apart. You need, you deserve, to have a life. Even if it is to rest.”

      “But—”

      “You don’t want Katie to suffer from separation anxiety when she starts school, do you?”

      The thought of Katie attending school, of facing the kids who might tease her, sent a shudder through her. Granted, she had enrolled Katie in a small preschool program, but that was different. Only three hours at a time, two days a week.

      Besides, she didn’t need a parenting lecture right now. She would worry about separation anxiety when the time came. When Katie was ready.

      When she was ready.

      Not when some man ordered her to do so.

      No, she’d never allow another male to make her decisions for her.

      “Please, Aaron.” Sonya detested the wobble in her voice, but maybe at home she could stop having nightmares, feel safe, forget the trauma of the past night and day.

      “All right, I’ll prepare the paperwork.” He moved closer, reached up and brushed his hand down her arm. “Just promise me you will rest, that if you need help with Katie, you’ll ask Margaret to watch her.”

      “We’ll be fine,” Sonya said, willing strength into her voice. “I’ve been on my own with my daughter for four years, Aaron. I can manage.”

      A flare of sexual interest sparked in his eyes. “You don’t have to do everything alone,” he said softly.

      Sonya bit down on her lip. She wished she could reciprocate Aaron’s attentions, but anything more than friendship was impossible. She wasn’t ready for a personal entanglement with anyone.

      Not Aaron or the mysterious falconer who’d saved her life. The one who’d heated her blood with his dark, brooding eyes and his gruff exterior.

      She simply wanted to be at home where she and Katie could be together, safe, hidden away from the monsters in the woods.

      And the ones who looked like men—the ones who could hurt her just the same.

      A MURKY GRAY SKY hung heavy with clouds as Brack hiked through the dense woods. Winter echoed in the shrill sound of the wind whistling through the mountain of trees. Animals skittered and scurried, scrounging for food. A vulture soared above, obviously zeroing in on the carcass of a dead animal for his next meal.

      Brack veered to the right, tracking its movements.

      Normally, the forest offered him solace, a place to purge his physical energy and frustration with a run or hike. A place to find inner peace, the strength he needed to sustain his goals, to serve his only friends, the birds of prey, and live as God had intended him to—alone and free in the wild.

      But turmoil tightened his every movement today, his senses honed for dissension in the animal kingdom.

      Had something in the environment poisoned the animals? Maybe the smaller ones that the falcons preyed on? Were some of the birds sick, diseased, carrying an affliction that caused them to attack at random? Or was a human among them, ripping at their flesh and using them as an excuse for his vicious attacks?

      The idea of mutants—half animal, half human—was another possibility he couldn’t ignore, although the idea seemed far-fetched. But the ghost legends and tales of the miners trapped below the city were infamous. And random deaths over the years created suspicions, and had never been explained. Like the death in the woods behind the old farmhouse Sonya had bought.

      He hiked a few more feet, then paused near Vulture’s Point. His stomach churned when he spotted two juvenile hawks slaughtered near the west end of the ridge. The vulture had honed in on them for dinner.

      He’d have to find food from another source tonight. Brack stooped, yanked on gloves, then gathered their remains into boxes he had brought with him in his pack.

      He’d send them to the vet for analysis. The blizzard dwindled into a light snow as he trekked back toward Falcon Ridge, but the roaring wind continued to shake the trees and howl incessantly, biting at his cheeks.

      A half hour later, he packed the boxes in the trunk of his SUV and drove down the mountain to the vet. Dr. Phil Priestly, the town veterinarian, studied the animals with dismay. The vet was in his midforties, intelligent and had done an internship at Cornell University at its Veterinary School of Medicine. He had also been attacked by violent wild dogs once and had a special interest in animal behavior. His assistant, a young guy named Elmsworth, watched him from the lab.

      “I’ll look them over, take some samples and blood, and see what we can find.” He frowned and СКАЧАТЬ