Kit Wilkinson - Lancaster County Target

“Looks like the power is out.” She headed across the dark space to a small hutch. She tried to turn on a small lamp. Nothing. “Yep, it must be the power. I have a flashlight in the bottom drawer here. Once we get to the kitchen, I can check the electrical panel. Just a second.”

Abby rummaged through the drawers of the hutch. “I know that flashlight is—”

Blake’s hand came down on her shoulder, giving her a chill.

“Shh,” he whispered. “There’s someone else in the house.”

Abby swallowed hard as her hands finally landed around the flashlight she’d been looking for. Turning it on, she pointed it down the hallway in time to see a dark shadow flash across the entrance to her kitchen. Blake’s hand swiftly eased the light from her hand.

“Stay here,” he said before taking off toward the dark figure.

Abby wasn’t about to stand there in the dark. She followed right behind him, feeling a cold blast of night air blow over her as she entered the kitchen. Blake flashed the light in every direction. The back door was wide open. Whoever the intruder had been, he’d escaped without a sound.

FOUR

Abby rushed for the open door, but Blake grabbed her arm and pulled her back. After the day they’d had, he wasn’t too sure running out into the darkness after the unknown was a good idea. Better to fix whatever had been done to the electricity. It would be much easier to spot the intruder with the floodlights on.

“I thought I told you to stay put.”

“I didn’t want to stay back there in the dark by myself.”

Blake couldn’t argue with her reasoning, even though he was pretty certain he’d never met anyone as hardheaded as Abby Miller. In any case, he’d spotted her circuit-breaker panel a few feet from the door. The door to the panel had been opened as if someone had been making adjustments.

“Maybe the power wasn’t off after all. Looks like someone’s been messing with your breakers. Here, take this.” He handed the flashlight to her. “Shine the light this way.”

Blake opened the metal panel. As he’d suspected, the main breaker had been turned off. He flipped it back to the “on” position. Abby was right beside him, turning on both the inside and outside lights. The backyard lit up. Together they scanned the area from the back stoop. Blake saw open fields, a run-in shed and a horse grazing in a large paddock. No intruder.

“I guess we surprised whoever it was and he left.”

“I hope so,” Blake said. “But let’s check the rest of the house anyway.”

Room by room, Blake followed Abby through the house. Nothing looked out of order. When they reached the foyer again, Blake noticed an interior door that in the darkness he hadn’t seen behind the front entrance. The sign on the door read Abigail Miller, R.N. and Certified Midwife, Consultation, Mondays and Wednesdays 12–4. “Impressive.”

“Thanks. I went all-out when I designed the clinic. I wanted to bring the best to Willow Trace.” She walked past him. “And this door was locked when I left for the hospital this morning. I’m certain of that.”

Blake followed her into the clinic and saw that Abigail had built a state-of-the-art facility inside the old cottage. It had been thoughtfully and tastefully done and unlike the rest of the house, which had been so simple and plain, everything here spoke of modern medicine and technology. In its usual state, it was unquestionably very impressive. Right now, it looked like a disaster area. Abby gasped as she staggered forward. Broken glass crunched under her feet. The examining area had been trashed. Boxes of supplies had been strewn across the space. All the shelves had been stripped and their contents spilled all over the table, counters and flooring.

Tears streamed down her face. He could tell she was trying to wipe them away before he could see, but they wouldn’t stop. “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. And this is so unbelievable.... Two weeks ago, I decide that my calling is nursing, that I don’t want to give it up. I told my family. My father. He’s so upset with me. I had such a peace about it...but now? My wonderful clinic that I created just a few years ago has been ruined and I...don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

Blake knew she wasn’t really talking to him, just venting aloud her frustration and fatigue. His heart felt heavy for her. He felt as if the very center of his life had been destroyed, too, when his parents died in that plane crash. He and Abby definitely had something in common—they were both struggling with their direction and their families.

He looked at her standing there sobbing. He had to do something. He couldn’t just go on as if she were fine. She was a patient, after all. If a patient were crying, he would give them a hug, right?

Slowly, Blake put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. To his great astonishment, Abby turned into his chest and wept against his shoulder. Blake didn’t know what to do. Keep hugging her? Push her back? He didn’t move. But he couldn’t help but catch the soft floral fragrance of her hair and her skin. After a moment, he unfroze himself, slid his hands to her shoulders and pushed her back.

Abigail’s embarrassment was evident in her flushed cheeks and splotchy neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart on you. I’m not usually this...this...”

“You have every right to fall apart.” He grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I just thought we should call the police. Again.”

He pulled out his cell phone and the card that Chief McClendon had passed to him only a few hours earlier. He dialed the number while trying to give Abby a reassuring smile. “Maybe later I can help you clean it up. It’s not so bad. Right?”

Abby broke into a watery smile and chuckled. “Right. Not so bad.”

As the phone line began to ring, Blake swallowed hard. Abby was like no one he’d ever met—such an odd mixture of independence and vulnerability, of determination and quick wits. He was going to have to be on his guard about more than this person who was after them, because if there was one thing in his life he did not need or have time for, it was romance.

* * *

“Abby, I can’t believe you didn’t send Chief McClendon here to tell me what happened to you today.” Her big brother, Eli, paced his kitchen, pulling on his suspenders and shaking his head of thick blond hair as he walked.

“I was coming straight here.” She could hardly speak from exhaustion. She couldn’t stop shaking and her head throbbed terribly. “Blake was nice enough to swing by my house so that I could pick up some clothes and feed the animals, and that’s when we walked in on whoever that was. Anyway, there was no point in telling you sooner. What could you do? There’s nothing to do except try to get away from it all and wait for the police to catch the man responsible. And that’s why I’m here.”

Even though she still felt like a sitting duck. She’d thought being at her brother’s would make her feel safe, but instead, she now worried that she and Blake had just brought danger with them.

“I don’t know. There’s got to be something we can do,” Eli said. “Chief McClendon told you to lie low?”

“Not in those exact words.” Blake spoke from the corner of the kitchen. Abby blushed at the sound of his voice. She’d hardly been able to look at him after she’d fallen apart at the clinic. Practically jumping into his arms. She wished he’d dropped her off and gone straight back to the bed-and-breakfast. But once Hannah heard they’d had nothing to eat, she wouldn’t allow Blake to escape.

“Is McClendon still at your house?” Eli asked.

“I imagine so.” Blake’s brown eyes were soft again. Not hard and shocked like after the scene at the clinic. “There was an entire crew there, taking pictures and samples.”