So why was he edgy and restless? What was it to him that he couldn’t reach her? They’d gone days without speaking before, even, upon occasion, a week. Though not lately. In the past few months, they had been in contact nearly daily. Or nightly. And he wasn’t complaining.
He reminded himself that up here cell phone service was notoriously lousy, and that getting the NO SIGNAL message was nothing new. Even Brady Long, Santana’s pain-in-the-ass employer, heir to a copper fortune and not afraid to throw his money around, couldn’t get a cell tower built anywhere nearby. Which was usually just fine by Santana. A loner by nature, he didn’t have a lot of interest or faith in technology.
Except for this morning.
So what if you can’t get in touch with her? You know she’s got to be up to her eyeballs in police business. The damned Star-Crossed Killer is still on the loose and there has to be emergency after emergency in this blizzard, homes without electricity, cars sliding off the road, people freezing to death. She’s busy. That’s all. Don’t push the panic button.
Still, he felt it. That little premonition of dread that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to bristle and stomach acid to crawl up his throat whenever trouble was brewing. Not that he hadn’t caused his own share of heartache and misery, but nonetheless, he sensed bad things coming; had since he was a kid.
“It’s that damned native blood in ya,” his father had always muttered under his breath when Nate had mentioned the feeling. “On your mother’s side. Her great grandfather—or was it great-great?—was some kind of Indian shaman or some such crap. Could heal people with his touch. Cursed ’em, too. Well, according to yer mother. He was an Arapaho, I think, or was it Cheyenne? Don’t matter. He seen him a rattler or somethin’ in a dream once and that did it. He became the medicine man. Prob’ly had the same damned tingling sensation you do, boy.”
After these tarnished bits of insight, his old man had usually bitten at a plug of tobacco and chewed with great satisfaction, only to spit and wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “All horseshit, in my book.”
Not that Santana had ever thought for a second his gut instincts had anything to do with his ancestry. But tonight he sensed something outside. Something dark and intimately evil. Something threatening. To Regan.
Clenching his jaw, he told himself to ignore it. He didn’t like the premonitions and didn’t admit to them, wasn’t going to take the kind of ridicule leveled at Ivor Hicks for his supposed alien abduction or Grace Perchant, a woman who bred wolf dogs and confessed to speaking with the dead, or Henry Johansen, a farmer who had fallen off his tractor fifteen years earlier, hit his head, and claimed he could “hear” other people’s thoughts. Nope, Santana would keep his mouth shut about his sensations rather than suffer the ridicule of the townspeople.
As for Regan, he’d catch up with her later, one way or another. He always did. Besides, it wasn’t as if they were married or even an item; that’s the way they both wanted it.
He walked to the indoor arena where Lucifer, still glaring at him, pawed the soft dirt. A big black colt with a crooked blaze and one white stocking, he had a nasty streak that some would call independence; others referred to it as just being ornery. Nate figured it was one and the same. Now the rangy colt’s nostrils were flared, his eyes white around the rims, a nervous sweat and flecks of lather visible on his sleek hide.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, when he knew deep in his gut it wasn’t. And the horse knew it, too. That was Santana’s talent, or “gift,” as it were. He understood animals, especially horses and dogs. He respected them for the animals they were, didn’t put any human traits on them and, from years of observation and experience, learned to work with them.
Some people called him “weird”; others compared him to a snake charmer or blamed it on his mixed heritage when the truth of the matter was he used common sense, determination, and kindness. He just knew how to work with them. Maybe it was part of the Arapaho in him, but probably not.
He grabbed the coil of rope from a hook on the wall, slipped through the gate of the arena, then walked slowly toward the beast as the gate clicked behind him. Another blast of wind shrieked through the canyons, rattling the windowpanes and causing a twitch to come alive in the big colt’s shoulder.
“Shh.” Santana kept coming. Steady. Calm. Even though deep inside he felt the same tension that the horse was exuding, a fear akin to the panic visible in Lucifer’s wild eyes. At any second the colt would bolt.
Thud!
The door to the stables banged open.
Santana froze.
And Lucifer took off like a shot. Zero to thirty in three short strides, hooves flashing and thundering, kicking up dirt as he galloped close enough to Santana that he could hear the colt’s breath, feel his heat as a gust of frigid Montana wind whistled and swirled into the room.
His dog, a large Siberian husky, sent up a howl loud enough to wake the dead in the next county, and all the horses in the stable snorted and neighed, fidgeting restlessly.
“Nakita, hush!” Santana commanded and the big dog reluctantly lay down, blue eyes still focused on Santana.
Lucifer, tail up, eyes rimmed in white, ran back and forth along the penned area. If he could have, the big colt would have jumped the top rail of the enclosure and galloped as far and fast as his strong legs would carry him, clear through the door and across Brady Long’s two thousand acres.
“Great,” Santana muttered, knowing whatever confidence he’d gained with the anxious colt had been shattered. “Just…damned great.”
He turned his attention to the open doorway, searching for whoever had been foolish enough to let the door slam. “Hey!” he called out as he climbed over the fence separating the exercise ring from the rest of the stable, vaulting the top rail and landing lightly on his booted feet.
No idiot stomping off snow and shaking away the cold appeared in the doorway. Only Nakita whining and staring outside to the dark night.
Frost-laden air screamed inside, but no one appeared.
Nate yanked the door closed, double-checked the latch as a drip of ominous worry slithered down his spine. The door had been closed tight, the latch secure. He was certain. He’d pulled it shut himself.
Or had he been so distracted by his missing woman that he had been careless and a stiff gust of wind had pushed the old door open? The latch had always been dicey. He’d been meaning to fix it; it just hadn’t been high on his priority list.
Again, he had the uncanny sensation that someone was with him; that he wasn’t alone. But all he heard was the sound of restless hooves in the surrounding stalls and the snorts of horses disturbed from their normal routines. He trained his eyes on the boxes, noting that the roan mare and bay gelding in abutting stalls were staring at the corner near the feed bins. Lucifer had stopped galloping wildly, but held his head high, his nostrils flared. As he slowed, his dark coat quivered and his gaze was centered dead-on Santana.
Nate grabbed a pitchfork from its hook on the wall and took two steps toward the shadowy corner near the oat bin.
Brrriiing!
The stable phone shrieked.
He nearly jumped from his
