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  Fingers crossed, she turned the ignition key. “Okay, Houston, all systems are go,” she chirped happily at hearing the engine roar to life. The Bronco was less than perfect in the reliability department.

  After shifting into reverse, Jessica slowly backed out of her parking space, ignoring the noxious, gray smoke spewing from the tail pipe. Once clear of the parking area, she made the turn onto Route 219.

  Jessica knew that she’d eventually have to fork out the money for an auto mechanic: the Bronco was in desperate need of a tune-up. As well as a new starter. And though money woes were a regular obsession, she didn’t mind living hand to mouth. Tucked away in the back of her mind was the memory of the alternative. So while she was currently strapped for cash, at least she was forging her own life. Footloose and fancy free. Or at least she would be once her divorce was finalized.

  “Holy crackers! Where did that come from?” Flipping on the windshield wipers, Jessica glanced at the dark clouds suddenly storm-trooping across the western sky, a doozy of a storm that had just rolled over the mountains with no advance warning.

  When, in the next instant, the engine suddenly stalled, she let the Bronco coast to the side of the road as she berated herself again for not having bought a new car battery when she’d had the extra money. Fortunately, she didn’t have too far to walk because the Bronco had petered out only a hundred yards from the turnoff to the house. From there, she only had to traverse half a mile to reach dry clothing, freshly brewed coffee, and a warm meal.

  With a resigned sigh, Jessica pulled the keys out of the ignition, depositing them in the pocket of her khaki shorts. After tucking her ponytail into her baseball cap, she stepped out of the vehicle. The moment she did, a logging truck, heading in the opposite direction, splashed a sheet of water across the front of her body.

  “Just what I need,” she muttered, the misery index instantly compounded.

  Long minutes later, catching sight of her house through the grove of sugar maple and oak that timbered the hillside, Jessica’s shoulders sagged with relief. Barely able to put one foot in front of the other, she had a whole new appreciation of why her hilltop residence was called Highland House.

  Six months ago, she would never have guessed that she’d be living in a two-hundred-year-old house that actually came with its own name. And it was all hers—lock, stock, and barrel—bought at auction on the Greenbrier County courthouse steps for the sum of $125,000. Paid for in cash. Although there was no getting around the fact that the ramshackle, two-story, red brick house was in desperate need of some TLC. Which, loosely translated, meant another $125,000 would be needed for essential repairs. It would take at least three times that amount to bring Highland House back to its former glory.

  Feeling an ache in the back of her calves, Jessica slowed her pace. As she did, she glimpsed a lightning strike in the near vicinity, the stentorian crackle followed by a stereophonic boom. Then, as though it was hurled by Zeus himself, another bolt plunged from the sky. Stunned, she watched it make contact with an ancient maple tree, a heavy limb crashing to the ground, fissured by nature’s most merciless slayer.

  Terrified of being struck by lightning, Jessica tucked her head and sprinted in the direction of the house.

  She was almost to the front porch when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of motion in the trees. In the next instant, she heard a spine-tingling, lion-like roar. Curiosity getting the better of her, Jessica came to halt and stared at the stand of maples. Unnerved, she had the distinct impression that some sort of otherworldly creature with glowing red eyes was peering at her through the foliage. Which was a totally preposterous notion. Given the large deer population in the area, it was probably a doe or a buck.

  But could a doe or a buck have made that bone-jarring roar?

  Since she didn’t think it likely, Jessica wondered if it wasn’t a bear. Or perhaps a—

  Suddenly, without warning, a burst of orange flames jettisoned across the wooded grove. The fiery blaze lasted for several seconds, as if it had been shot from a gigantic flame torch.

  “Oh my God!” she screamed, petrified.

  Worried that this was fast turning into a storm of biblical proportions, she rushed toward the porch, making a beeline for the front door. Yanking it open, she lunged inside the dimly lit foyer. After bolting the door, she fumbled for the light switch.

  “Could things get any worse?” she muttered, disheartened to discover that there was no electrical power. Since it would soon be nightfall, there was no time to wallow in self-pity. She needed to locate a flashlight and some basic emergency provisions before it turned pitch dark.

  Several minutes later, flashlight and candles in hand, she decided to set up camp in the library. It had more furniture than any other room in the house and boasted a beautiful set of French doors that would provide ample daylight if she was still without power come morning. It also happened to be her favorite room in the house.

  With the toe of her wet sneaker, Jessica pushed open the library door. The flashlight cast a golden beam that illuminated the room’s peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster ceiling. Buster, her recently adopted Maine Coon cat, lazily stretched his orange and white body along the back of the sofa.

  “Hello, big guy. Hope you don’t mind the company.”

  After setting the flashlight on top of the mantel, Jessica placed several candles in strategic places out of Buster’s reach. The constellation of flickering lights created a soft, romantic ambiance. She only needed Mister Darcy to walk through the door to complete the fantasy.

  Oh, be still my heart.

  Just then, Buster lurched from his cozy perch and Jessica was surprised to see that the fur on the back of his neck was standing on end.

  “Hey, what’s the matter, fella?” When her question met with a feline growl, she smiled and said, “Surely, a mighty hunter like you isn’t afraid of an old thunder—”

  Jessica’s breath caught in her throat when she suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of the porch floorboards creaking and groaning under a heavy weight. When she next heard a loud, rattling sound, her heart forcefully pounded against her breastbone.

  Someone is trying to open the front door!

  Terror-stricken, she rushed over to the mantel and grabbed the flashlight, clutching her pitiful weapon to her chest. Long seconds passed as she stood rooted in place, the rattling sound eventually ceasing.

  On the verge of giving the “all clear,” Jessica instead shrieked as the French doors suddenly swung open. The swoosh of cool, moist air caused the candles to erratically sputter. In the next instant, a tall, soaking wet man stepped into the library.

  Seized with a burst of unadulterated fear, Jessica let the flashlight slip through her fingers, and it shot frenetic beams of light onto the baseboards as it rolled across the floor.

  Deciding to make a run for it, Jessica spun on her heel.

  Only to pull up short when she saw that the intruder had a gun in his hand. And it was pointed directly at her.

  Chapter 3

  Terrified, Jessica opened her mouth to scream, but the shriek was so firmly lodged in her throat that she barely produced a tinny squeak. The fact that the gunman’s face was obscured by a wide-brimmed hat and thick, overgrown beard amplified her fear, inducing a full-body paralysis.

  “What are you doing in this house?” the intruder demanded as he lowered his revolver and shoved it into the holster belted around his waist.

  He wants to know what I’m doing in my own home?

  Quite frankly, she didn’t know how to reply. Particularly since the fiend could rape and murder her, in her own home, and it would be days before she would be missed by anyone.

  Because the intruder had the advantage of size, standing several inches over six feet, her only hope was to land a perfectly executed kick to his testicles.

  About to launch her attack, she was thrown off-kilter when her assailant unexpectedly staggered toward her. Doing a fair impersonation of
a Weeble, he wobbled to and fro before crash-landing on the sofa with a heavy thud. He rolled his head as he made one of those uniquely male sounds, midway between a groan and a grunt. After that, he went eerily silent.

  In a state of total shock, Jessica hurriedly retrieved her flashlight from the floor and shined it over the intruder’s prone body. At seeing the Confederate uniform jacket, she exhaled a gusty sigh of relief.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she huffed. Not only was he one of those Civil War reenactors that she’d seen earlier in the day, he was also stinking drunk. Why else would he have passed out on the couch like that? Given that the house had been vacant and abandoned for several years, her Confederate intruder probably thought that Highland House would be a good place to wait out the storm.

  As she inched closer to the sofa, Jessica closely scrutinized the drunken man. “Kinda difficult to guess your age, let alone your species, with all of that facial hair,” she muttered, suspecting he wore a fake beard that he’d pasted on for the reenactment. In the real world, men didn’t grow beards like that unless they were Amish or they spent their days pushing a shopping cart and begging for quarters.

  Curious, Jessica impulsively reached down and tugged on the reenactor’s beard. “Oh, Lordy! It’s real.”

  In the next instant, a bolt of lightning discharged nearby, brightly illuminating the library. The man jerked slightly. Then, to Jessica’s horror, his eyes opened.

  “My beloved,” he whispered hoarsely, before his eyes again closed.

  Yep. Drunk as a skunk.

  Annoyed that the inebriated man had picked her sofa to pass out on, Jessica strode over to the French doors and closed them, noticing for the first time a leather saddlebag in the corner of the room. Hoping there wasn’t a horse hitched to the front porch, she tucked the flashlight under one arm as she crouched beside it. She needed to find some ID to contact the man’s family, so she unbuckled the clasp and unceremoniously dumped the saddlebag’s entire contents onto the floor.

  She was surprised by the odd assortment of items she found as she rummaged through an old-fashioned toothbrush with prickly bristles, a sterling silver cigar case, several half-burnt wax candles, a wooden comb, an ivory-handled knife and fork, a worn-out pack of playing cards, and a pair of wool socks that looked like they’d seen better days. She next unfolded a newspaper clipping from The Richmond Times dated September 20, 1864. A fake, obviously. Earlier in the day, she’d seen plenty of “authentic” nineteenth-century wares for sale at the reenactment.

  “Okay, so where’s your wallet?” she muttered.

  Discovering a pair of leather packets that looked promising, Jessica opened one of them. Rather than the man’s ID, it instead contained a wad of phony Confederate paper money and several gold coins. To her dismay, the other leather purse only contained bullets and gun cartridges.

  Her frustration fast mounting, she plucked a soiled envelope out of the pile. Shining the flashlight on it, she could see that it was addressed to a Colonel Gideon MacAllister.

  “Finally, a name. Sometimes snail mail really is the best way to go,” Jessica opined, as she stuffed all of the items back into the saddlebag.

  At hearing Gideon’s ragged breathing, Jessica rose to her feet and tiptoed over to the sofa. For several seconds, she stared at the man who was sprawled across it. “A little gamey smelling, aren’t you?” she said to her drunken guest, able to detect the scents of gunpowder, campfire smoke, and pine needles.

  Noticing the way that Gideon’s legs were shoved against the side of the coffee table, Jessica put down the flashlight so that she could grasp his booted feet by the ankles, enabling her to swing his legs into a less contorted position. Then, telling herself that she was simply being a Good Samaritan, she grabbed a throw pillow. Removing Gideon’s rain-dampened hat, she gently placed the pillow behind his head. When she did so, she experienced a strange tingling sensation in her fingertips. As though she’d been hit with a low-voltage burst of electricity.

  Chalking it up to some kind of weird electrical discharge caused by the raging thunderstorm, she immediately withdrew her hand.

  Deciding to leave the room, Jessica’s gaze fell upon the gun holster and sheathed sword belted around Gideon’s waist. Inwardly groaning, she knew both items had to be removed. Even though the revolver was undoubtedly loaded with blanks—per reenactment regulations—she didn’t want him accidentally setting it off, or ripping a hole in her couch with his sword.

  After she unhooked the metal buckle at his waist, she grasped hold of Gideon’s upper shoulder and rolled him toward her, no easy feat given his size. Then she yanked the belt out from under him because she simply wanted to get the unpleasant task over and done with. She then eased Gideon onto his back, relieved that he was three sheets to the wind and therefore blissfully unaware of what was happening to him.

  Setting the menacing-looking weapons on top of the coffee table, Jessica took one last gander at her unwelcome houseguest. There was something hauntingly familiar about him, although she felt certain they had never previously met.

  Flashlight in hand, Jessica headed for the door. “Pleasant dreams, Gideon MacAllister.”

  * * *

  Certain that he’d just heard a woman’s voice, Gideon vainly struggled to open his eyes. What is she doing here? The house had been empty since the fire. Perhaps she was fleeing from the Federal troops and had sought refuge there. If so, he must tell her that there was no refuge to be had at Highland House. As he knew all too well, the only refuge was in death.

  Now, with the end close at hand, Gideon felt a profound sense of relief. He had been waiting for death, longing for it even. So many deaths on his hands. His beloved’s death on his hands.

  Feeling a heavy, oppressive weight on his chest, he tried to pull some air into his weakened lungs. His efforts were to no avail; each breath was more shallow than the one before it. Perhaps he was already dead. That would certainly explain the demoniacal, red-eyed beast that he’d glimpsed as he’d approached the house, the winged serpent looking as though it’d been spawned in the fiery abyss. He had expected Charon to ferry him across the River Styx. But Satan’s dragon could perform the task just as well, he supposed.

  Enveloped in a still silence, Gideon wondered what had become of the auburn-haired woman with the steadfast gaze. It doesn’t matter, he told himself. Nothing in this world was of any consequence. Soon enough, he would arrive at Hell’s gate.

  Punishment for a life that could have been better lived.

  * * *

  Still navigating by flashlight, Jessica wearily headed upstairs, irked that the telephone book had no listing for a Gideon MacAllister. Although she wouldn’t have been able to call anyway because the land line was dead, and she’d left her cell phone in the Bronco to keep it from getting wet.

  Entering her bedroom, her gaze was immediately drawn to Buster. The furry imp had already settled in for the night, curled on the pillow next to hers.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t invite him,” Jessica said in response to Buster’s inquisitive stare.

  Normally, she’d be scared to death at having a stranger asleep on the sofa. But because this particular stranger was out like a light, she wasn’t as worried as she might have been. In fact, she suspected that come daybreak, her “guest” would cut bait and run—a killer hangover and shamefaced embarrassment dogging him all the way home.

  “I should probably have left some Alka-Seltzer on the coffee table,” she said with an amused chuckle.

  In a hurry to get out of her damp clothing, Jessica strode over to the armoire. Opening it, she set the flashlight on one of the shelves. She then kicked off her tennis shoes, too tired to bend over and untie them. Next, she yanked off the T-shirt, unsnapped her bra, wiggled out of the khaki shorts, and removed her panties, carelessly flinging all four items into the nearby laundry basket. Having brought a towel with her, she quickly dried off before she donned clean panties and a ribbed tank top.
/>   No sooner had she pulled the tank top over her head than the flashlight went dead, throwing the room into complete darkness.

  “That’s just great,” Jessica muttered disagreeably when the flashlight failed to magically turn back on after she gave it the time-honored whack.

  Unable to see a thing, she carefully maneuvered over to the four-poster bed, managing to bang her knee in the process. The day’s events had taken their toll. She plunked down on the edge of the mattress. The last hour had unraveled like a bad Fellini film, except in this instance truth really was stranger than fiction.

  As if sensing her distress, the big Maine Coon positioned himself on her lap, gently kneading Jessica’s thighs with his paws before curling into a fluffy ball. The soothing sound of Buster’s purr worked its magic, and Jessica happily reciprocated by stroking her cat under his chin.

  Just feed ’em, give ’em shelter and affection, and in return they give you unconditional love. Why can’t all relationships be like that? Why couldn’t my marriage have been like that?

  It had been six months since she’d walked out on her husband. Her legal separation from Richard Bragg incited a brouhaha, and his reputation had been sliced and diced by a public eager to yank the right-wing poster boy—who’d always been quick to lambaste the lack of morals in Washington—off his self-righteous high horse. Not that Jessica cared. To her mind, Richard had dug his own grave, although she suspected that he blamed her entirely for his fall from grace.

  She also suspected that Richard was none too pleased about the $150,000 that she’d taken from his desk drawer, but he’d made no mention of the money in the deposition that he’d given as part of the divorce proceedings. Well and good since she’d already spent the cash, having used most of the money to buy her house. Granted, Highland House wasn’t much of a residence, not yet anyway. But it was hers, and she would never give it up.

  “What’s your take on all of this, kitty?” She gently rubbed Buster behind his ears. “Is love nothing but a dirty, four-letter word?” Her query was met with one of those disinterested, leisurely yawns that felines seem to have perfected over the ages.